File Shows Earlier Abuse of Starved Child

By JAMES DAO

Three years before he died of malnutrition in his adoptive parents' Long Island home, 7-year-old Weyland Brown Mitchell appeared to have a wide range of behavior problems that are often linked to child abuse or neglect, a doctor who reviewed his case file said yesterday.

Evidence gathered by specialists at the Rose F. Kennedy Center in the Bronx in 1989 and 1990 showed that the boy had been neglected or abused before he was placed with Robert E. and Carmencita Mitchell, said Dr. Herbert Cohen, director of children's evaluation and rehabilitation at the center for developmental problems. The records do not show whether abuse continued after he was placed in the Mitchells' care.

The Mitchells have been charged with starving Weyland to death. Officials have not released the name of the child's biological parents, but the Mitchells' lawyer said yesterday that the boy's mother is dead.

In Nassau County Court yesterday, the Mitchells, who now live in Manhattan, pleaded not guilty to manslaughter charges and were held in $200,000 bail each at the Nassau County Jail in East Meadow, L.I.

The proceedings were halted briefly when Mrs. Mitchell appeared to become faint and had to be assisted into a chair.

During the arraignment, Geraldine Pickett, a lawyer representing the Mitchells, said the child had a history of serious illnesses and had been abused before he was placed with the Mitchells as a foster child the age of 18 months in 1986. Files Closed After Adoption

As a result of the evaluations at the Rose F. Kennedy Center, specialists prescribed a treatment program for the child, but it was not clear yesterday whether that program was carried out. Shortly after their final visit to the Kennedy center, the Mitchells moved from the Bronx to Wantagh, L.I., where Weyland died.

Once the family had moved to Long Island, the Kennedy center closed its file on the boy. And, as is typical after an adoption is finalized, the city and the nonprofit agency in Manhattan that arranged the adoption, McMahon Services for Children, stopped monitoring the Mitchells after January 1991, when the boy became their legal child, law-enforcement officials said.

Daniel Cotter, an assistant Nassau County district attorney, said the Mitchells never took the boy to a doctor after his adoption became legal, even as the child starved. The boy, who weighed more than 40 pounds in 1990, weighed 24 pounds when he died.

Because Weyland was mildly retarded, the Mitchells received free medical care from the state and a larger-than-average subsidy of $800 a month for his care, Mr. Cotter said. In addition, the Mitchells received more than $400 a month for a 3-year-old foster child who had been placed in their home in 1989.

The 3-year-old, who the police said was in good condition, was removed from the Mitchells' home by Nassau County Department of Social Services after Weyland's death. The Mitchell's three daughters, ages 15, 19 and 22, were staying with relatives, law enforcement officials said. Symptoms of Neglect

Dr. Cohen said Mrs. Mitchell brought the boy to the Rose F. Kennedy Center in April 1989 at the recommendation of McMahon Services, which is contracted by the city to arrange foster care and adoption. At the time, the boy showed the types of problems often seen in children of drug abusers. He was overactive and exhibited hyperphagia, or excessive eating, Dr. Cohen said.

He added that the child's behavior problems were serious enough "to have caused a great deal of stress for whoever was caring for him."

He said that the boy's height and weight were below normal in April 1989. But he said the boy's weight, 34 pounds at the time, was "not significantly abnormal" given his small size.

Mary Ellen McLaughlin, executive director for McMahon Services for Children, said she could not comment on the case yesterday, citing confidentiality laws. But she said that, in general, caseworkers visit foster parents at least once a month until adoption takes place and the case is closed.

After the boy died, the Mitchells moved from the three-bedroom house they were renting in Wantagh to the public housing project on Manhattan's Upper East Side where Mrs. Mitchell had grown up. In both places, neighbors told police they had never seen Weyland Mitchell and did not know the family had an adopted son.

They said they never would have suspected the Mitchells of any wrongdoing and were shocked by the charges against them.

"They always had smiles on their faces," Christine Johnson, who lived in the same building at 1539 Lexington Avenue, said of the couple. "They are the kind of people you look at and say: 'Don't they have problems?' "

Colleagues of Robert Mitchell, a city bus driver who was stationed at the 100th Street Depot, across the street from where he lived, described him as a jovial man who moonlighted as a school bus driver.

Last year, he made $15,500 in overtime in addition to his $36,000 salary, the Transit Authority said. Mr. Mitchell's co-workers said they believed he was trying to save enough money to buy the house in Wantagh.

"He was the kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back," said Robenson Jean, a bus driver. "We're all very broken up about this."