Drowning prompts call for more care in state adoptions

Drowning prompts call for more care in state adoptions

By Susan Gilmore, Anne Koch

Seattle Times staff reporters

In a report triggered by the drowning of a 10-year-old boy in October, an independent review committee says the state needs to do a better job in deciding how children in state care are placed for adoption.

In a critical report, the committee said financial questions and complaints lodged with Child Protective Services (CPS) should have prompted a more thorough investigation of the people who adopted Andy Mohler.

Even top officials with the state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) concede that better safeguards should have been in place when Andy was adopted by a Thurston County couple who had twice declared bankruptcy and had been the subject of domestic-violence allegations.

Specifically, said Dee Wilson, a regional administrator with DSHS, the state should have investigated a referral by the agency's CPS division involving the couple, John and Melanie Lowrance, who adopted Andy and changed his name to Shawn.

"Had the department known about the allegation of domestic violence in the Lowrance home, it would have raised a red flag," Wilson said. "But I can't be 100 percent certain it would have changed the placement."

Shawn Lowrance died Oct. 9 while on a fishing trip with his father and a 10-year-old friend at Brown's Creek near Shelton, Mason County.

At first, the drowning was considered a tragedy for the boy and the family that had just adopted him. It was ruled an accident when authorities determined the boy likely slipped, hit his head on a rock and drowned. The case was closed.

But the investigation was reopened a few weeks later when Farmer's Insurance, one of two firms that held large life-insurance policies on the boy, raised what police called "red flags" about the death.

The Lowrances had taken out an unusual $650,000 in life insurance through the two companies, Farmers and Mutual of Omaha, between October 1998, when they adopted the boy, and last October, when the adoption became final.

The investigation became public in January when police descended on the Lowrances' home in Lacey, armed with a search warrant, and left with the family truck, a computer and other potential evidence.

No charges have been filed against the Lowrances, but Mason County Sheriff Steve Whybark said last night that detectives are actively investigating the case and hope at some point to forward their case and charging recommendation to prosecutors.

"I think we owe it to the victim in this case to see the investigation through," Whybark said.

The Lowrances, through their attorneys, have declined to comment on the case.

Because adoption records are kept secret by state law, DSHS will not reveal the circumstances surrounding Shawn's adoption, except to say the family had to undergo a rigorous investigation before the child was placed in the home.

Now the state concedes it may not have been rigorous enough.

In two reports issued yesterday by DSHS - one by the agency itself and one by the independent review team - the state is criticized for failing on several levels.

When a child dies in the state's care, or has been in its care within the past year, the state conducts a child-fatality review.

In Shawn's case, the state should have done more in-depth criminal-history checks, the independent review found, and provided more staff training and better clarification of adoption policies.

Even DSHS' own review found unclear policies when children move from one county to another, as the Lowrances did. Further, Wilson said, the state needs to look at whether it should require that adoptive parents provide counseling for emotionally disturbed children who are placed for adoption.

He added that the state should do a better job in doing home studies of prospective parents, including looking at criminal and financial histories.

"I don't know what it would cost, but it's hard to think of a good reason not to do it," said Wilson.

According to the independent study, Shawn's history of behavioral difficulties before his adoption, coupled with the lack of counseling services provided to the child after he was placed in the Lowrance home, increased the risk.

"The family may not have fully appreciated the child's behavioral problems," the report found. "The family chose to deal with issues in their own way and without consultation from professionals at DSHS, school or in therapy."

The investigation found there were two CPS referrals involving the Lowrances. Both were initially logged in with DSHS but were "screened out," meaning they weren't investigated.

The first complaint involved an 8-year-old girl who was placed with the Lowrances for adoption before they adopted Shawn. The child was not adopted and left the home in 1997. She later reported that the Lowrances had sexual conversations with her while she was placed in the home. By the time she made her report, Shawn was already in the home, and he later became one of about 1,000 children adopted through DSHS last year.

This complaint, considered a 3 on the agency's 1-to-5 risk scale, was not investigated but should have been, said both the independent-review panel and Wilson.

"This is one of the screw-ups," he said. ". . . It didn't get to the desk of the adoption social worker."

The second complaint was made by the principal at Shawn's school, who said that the boy was wetting his pants and that he had told the principal his mother threatened to make him wear diapers to school. When contacted by the school, Melanie Lowrance became angry and denied that she intended to embarrass him, the report found.

That complaint also was screened out - a decision that Wilson agrees with - but the independent committee said it should have been investigated.

The Lowrances had twice filed for bankruptcy, most recently in 1997, a year before the boy was placed in their home. Six years earlier, they also filed for bankruptcy. Kathy Spears, DSHS spokeswoman, said that in adoption applications, the state asks for income-tax information and job histories but does not ask about nor check for bankruptcies.

The state also didn't know about a 1993 complaint alleging domestic violence in the home. Spears said the state would find out about domestic-violence cases only if there were a conviction.

As regional administrator for Southwest Washington, Wilson said he has already taken steps to improve the way the state handles adoptions in his district.

He said the agency is working out clearer "transfer policies" for when families move from one jurisdiction to another.

And he said his office has started a review of 50 adoption home-study cases to look at ways of improving standards.

DSHS is also reviewing its background-check system throughout the entire department. The state does about 100,000 background checks a year on people who work with children.