Alert teachers, DCFS workers save a child's life

Alert teachers, DCFS workers save a child's life

April 8, 2004

Amy Joi Bryson

Deseret Morning News

For many months last year, police say, this was the life of a Roy 7-year-old:

After school every day, he went to his "room" and entertained himself.

The room was the concrete landing at the bottom of some stairs that led to an unfinished basement.

It was winter. There was no heat, no blanket, no pillow.

He could leave, but only to go to the bathroom.

At dinner time, he was not allowed at the table with the rest of the family. When the second-grader took his lunch to school, teachers found that the food rotting and putrid.

There were bruises and scrapes. Something about being pushed.

If he was "bad" at home, he was stripped naked and sent outside to what he calls the "spider house" to spend hours in the dark and the cold.

When a state Division of Child and Family Services caseworker came to the home, an adult said they just didn't like the adopted child very much.

In the car, on the way to the shelter, the little boy asked caseworker Curtis Tesch if he had to go home the next day. Tesch told him adamantly, "No."

The little boy's face lit up.

"I'm hungry," he said.

When Tesch asked him what he likes, there was a pause.

"I used to like hamburgers."

His adoptive parents, Scott and Catherine Kanani Nelson, each have been charged with second-degree felony child abuse in Ogden's 2nd District Court. A preliminary hearing is set for April 29.

Authorities say alert schoolteachers, quick action by Tesch and thorough follow-through by Roy police saved the boy's life.

"I've seen worse cases of child abuse, but they resulted in the death of the child," Roy Police Chief Greg Whinham said. The child is not being identified because of his young age.

The child, who authorities described as malnourished, suffered from frostbite and several other injuries police say were evidence of repeat abuse.

"The abuse is consistent with systematic approach to cause a child not to thrive through not feeding, excessive isolation and discipline," Whinham said.

At the time investigators discovered the child last winter, the boy was in his "room" on the concrete landing without anything for warmth.

He would not even look at the DCFS caseworker.

"It's probably one of the most significant cases of child abuse I have ever investigated," said detective Shawn O'Malley.

Authorities were notified by the boy's school, where teachers noticed a decline in his demeanor over the course of just a few months.

There were marks on his body, and his home lunches consisted of "food that was putrefied and spoiled, heinous kinds of things," Whinham said.

It is one of those cases, authorities say, that merited quick action because of the circumstances.

Critics of DCFS, however, lobbied against such a response during the 2004 legislative session, asserting the agency exercises too much power in certain circumstances, especially where there is not "imminent" danger to the child.

In this case, had some of their proposals passed, it would have likely had to wait on the case had the parents not consented to the boy's removal.

They also would have been unable to remove his 3-year-old sibling, who was deemed at risk for similar treatment.

The two remain in shelter care.

The children, adopted through a U.S. agency but brought from overseas, had been in the Roy neighborhood only since about March of last year before the alleged abuse was discovered in the fall.

While neighbors may or may not have noticed anything awry, teachers picked up on the changes in the 7-year-old boy.

Much of that has to do with training offered by DCFS to school administrators, counselors and nurses.

A couple of days before the school year starts, DCFS holds sessions and also provides in-service training throughout the year.

Teachers, says division director Richard Anderson, are told not to "investigate," but if they suspect abuse or neglect, to simply report it.

That policy, he says, removes teachers from the awkward position of having to second-guess what may or may not be happening at the home.

Rather than make that judgment call, teachers and administrators can leave the investigating to DCFS, but still act on a relationship that easily lends itself to being a front line detection for abuse or neglect.

"Other than the school system, who sees the child more than the family?" Anderson said.

That relationship is especially vital in elementary schools, where the same teacher is often with the child day after day, says Bob Wood, Weber School District's director of student services.

"What the teachers do well is stay vigilant."

E-mail: amyjoi@desnews.com