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Brother says teacher is a 'loving mother'

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Brother says teacher is a 'loving mother'

But Bradenton police describe a violent woman who abused her child

Courtney Cairns Pastor and Timothy O'Hara

March, 10 2001

Sarasota Herald Tribune

In class, Harllee Middle School teacher Wanda Bennett was caring and patient with emotionally handicapped children who sometimes were difficult to control.

But when the last bell rang and she went home, the motherly veneer came off, police say, and her own children experienced a violent side of her that no one else knew.

A violent side that would hospitalize one of her four children for 10 days and lead to her arrest, Bradenton police detectives say.

About two weeks ago, her brother, Bruce Bennett, got a strange midafternoon call from her.

Wanda Bennett sounded down. They swapped "how are yous" and then she said that her 4-year-old son was in the hospital.

"He's going in and out of consciousness," Bruce Bennett recalled his sister saying. "They're worried about sores on his head."

Bruce Bennett knew she loved children, loved them enough to adopt three. Loved them enough to teach special education children. Loved them enough to work as a youth counselor and a foster care counselor.

Now she is at the center of an abuse case, the details of which shocked even seasoned detectives. Police arrested her Thursday at school on charges of aggravated child abuse and child neglect.

She beat her 4-year-old with a bat, burned him with a cigarette and tied him up with socks so he couldn't eat her food, according to the police report. The reported abuse left the boy weighing 35 pounds and healing from six broken bones.

Police are investigating allegations that she also abused her other three boys and plan to file more charges next week.

Bruce Bennett, who lives in Atlanta, had not heard of the arrest until Friday, although he knew she was being investigated. Police brought Wanda Bennett in for questioning on Feb. 20, before making an arrest Thursday. She refused to answer questions.

Bennett doesn't believe his sister is capable of abuse.

"I asked Wanda, at any time does she ever lay hands on those kids for anything that wasn't justified," he said. "At any point, did she see this coming? ... I asked her to be straightforward and honest with me, no matter how hard."

Her response, he said, was that she wanted her children to be more loving and more mindful of each other.

Conversations with her brother, as well as her school personnel file and comments from co-workers, show a calm woman who loved children and animals and had the ability to discipline in a low-key manner.

"We couldn't believe it either at first," Bradenton police Sgt. Tim Christensen said. "That's why we took so long to investigate."

But investigators say the kindness toward children that Bennett displayed at school and as a social worker was a sham.

"It's not a case of a kid continuing to fall down," Christensen said of the battered condition of Bennett's son.

Police have consulted with experts in the field of child abuse. The injuries could have only one cause -- abuse, those doctors told detectives.

Her children corroborated doctors' opinions. So did employees at the day-care center where she took her children. The 4-year-old boy frequently showed up with new wounds -- swollen hands and feet -- but Wanda Bennett always had an explanation.

Bruce Bennett never noticed any harsh discipline in her house on Ninth Avenue West. She often used "timeouts" for punishments. He liked to visit his sister and wanted to stay close to the boys because they had no strong male influence in their family, said Bennett, who last visited his sister and nephews at Christmas. Wanda Bennett is a single mother and lives alone with her four children, neighbors said.

"She is a very loving mother," Bruce Bennett said. "She spends a lot of time with them and plays with them."

And the boys, ages 2, 4, 8 and 10, seemed to get along and play together well, although the 4-year-old acted withdrawn, he said.

Wanda Bennett started adopting children in 1996, when her only son was 6. She wanted him to have a playmate. She took in the 4-year-old in August 1999 and his brother the next year.

"My concern with her -- knowing how she was with pets -- I was hoping she wasn't on a mission to save everyone," Bruce Bennett said.

The youngest and only girl of five children, Wanda Bennett grew up in Atlanta and graduated from Booker T. Washington High there in 1978. Her mother was single, too.

After high school, Bennett enrolled in Morris Brown College in Atlanta, graduating in 1984 with a bachelor's degree in educable mental retardation.

She joined the Navy at Charleston naval base in South Carolina and worked as a mobilization officer and drug and alcohol abuse coordinator. In 1987, she left for Dallas, where she was a police officer for almost eight years.

She left Dallas for a job as a youth counselor at the Eckerd Family Youth Alternative in Blakely, Ga. Although she worked there less than a year, she made an impression on counselor Bruce McCoy.

"She has maintained standards of successful role modeling for youth that reflect enthusiasm, creativity, flexibility and activities that are fun and educational," McCoy wrote in a reference letter to the Manatee County School Board.

She moved to Florida in 1996, and worked for the state Department of Children and Families, starting as a child protection investigator. She resigned in December 2000 to take the teaching job at Harllee.

Harllee Principal Guy Davis sat in her class several times and called her a natural teacher.

Her students spanned grades six through eight and had varying levels of abilities. Bennett followed a textbook style of teaching, disciplining kids without overreacting and talking to them in a calm, low voice.

Davis knew little about her personal life, because Bennett did little socializing with co-workers. But what he saw in the classroom was persuading him to recommend she stay another year in his school. And she seemed pleased with the direction her life was taking.

"She told me rather recently," Davis said, "she finally found what she wanted to do in her life."

She has now been put on leave and is sitting in the Manatee County jail, with bail set at $56,000.

2001 Mar 10