Foster mother gets 5 years for child abuse

St. Petersburg Times

By Associated Press

PENSACOLA - A foster mother described as borderline mentally retarded by a psychiatrist has been sentenced to five years in prison for abusing two children placed in her care by the state.

A 19-month-old boy and a 3-year-old girl were found beaten, bruised and undernourished last May in the home of 32-year-old Florence Marie Shipp at Eglin Air Force Base, court records show.

Clumps of their hair had been pulled out, and the little girl's back had been scalded with hot water. The girl spent several days in the hospital.

In a letter to Public Defender Tom Keith, Dr. George Michas, a Fort Walton Beach psychiatrist, wrote that his examination revealed Mrs. Shipp was under enormous stress and was unable to cope with two small children, one of them emotionally disturbed. He concluded she was borderline mentally retarded.

He also said he believed Mrs. Shipp, who suffered from a lifetime of physical and sexual abuse from family members, was being prosecuted to protect those who had approved her as a foster parent and to demonstrate their outrage over what she had done.

''I am amazed ... that anyone would attempt to prosecute this woman other than to cleanse their own conscience and their inadequacy in evaluating the situation and supervising it properly,'' Michas wrote.

Mrs. Shipp, 32, pleaded guilty to two counts of child abuse against the children, who had been placed in her care by the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (HRS).

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson said he gave Mrs. Shipp the maximum five-year sentence Thursday as required under federal law in order for her to receive psychiatric evaluation during her first three months in prison.

Vinson said he may reduce her sentence after the evaluation is completed.

HRS officials they knew nothing about Mrs. Shipp's emotional problems.

The agency's records depict a loving, caring foster mother who had received four glowing recommendations from friends and relatives. Mrs. Shipp told HRS staffers she never had emotional problems and a doctor had declared her emotionally stable, the records show.

When the couple applied as foster parents they said that they had lost one child to sudden infant death syndrome and that Mrs. Shipp, who had five miscarriages, no longer could have babies.

The Shipps' first foster children were 11-year-old twin girls who they had for several months. HRS then gave them the younger children.

When HRS staffer Rosalind McKnight checked on them in January 1987 she found them in excellent physical condition and wrote that the Shipps were ''very loving and attentive parents'' who treated the youngsters as though they were their own children.

In the Tampa Bay area, there have been a number of cases of foster children suffering injuries or dying from abuse and neglect.

In Tampa this week, Rosa Lee Jones was charged with murdering her 5-year-old foster son, Albert Smith, by hitting him in the head with a board. And in 1985, four-month-old Corey Greer was found dead in an overcrowded foster home in Treasure Island. His foster mother was charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.