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Boy details injuries, calls parents ‘bad’

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By Jack Moran

A 9-year-old boy hospitalized for more than a month with burns and other severe injuries allegedly inflicted by his adoptive parents told police he was beaten, thrown into a creek, fed formula to keep off weight and often made to sleep without a blanket on a porch at the family’s Blachly home, a court document states.

Alona and Rodger Hartwig’s adopted son reluctantly told investigators during interviews on May 14 and May 20 that his mother was responsible for most of the alleged abuse that led to the couple’s arrest on felony assault and criminal mistreatment charges last Friday, according to a probable cause affidavit filed by Lane County sheriff’s Detective Carl Wilkerson.

The boy “said he did not want to talk about Alona and Rodger,” the document states.

He said “Alona and Rodger are bad, and Rodger is bad because he is on Alona’s side, and not on the kid’s side.”

The boy said his adoptive mother hit him and threw him in a creek “a lot because he would get in trouble. (He) said it was cold out when he was thrown in the creek. (He) also said Alona hit him with a spatula (and) fed him ‘barely,’ ” Wilkerson wrote.

The boy “was fed formula because he was ‘fat’ and Alona wanted ‘to get the weight off.’ (He) said he was thrown in the creek (and) in a seven-foot hole when he did not eat. (The boy) said he ‘hates’ Alona,’ ” the affidavit states.

The boy said his mother pushed him down several times, and would yank him out of the family’s Chevy Suburban by his arm “a lot” and “he would fall to the ground and cry,” according to the affidavit.

Also, the boy “said he was required to sleep on the porch floor because he wet the bed. (The boy) explained he only got a blanket when he was good and earned a blanket, and he only had a blanket on one occasion,” Wilkerson wrote.

Burn cause a mystery

The boy told investigators that he did not remember how he suffered a third-degree burn on the top of his left foot that burned through his skin tissue and reached his muscle tissue, according to the affidavit.

While Alona Hartwig told detectives that the boy burned his foot in a bathtub at the family’s Horton Road home, a doctor who treated the youngster at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland determined that could not have been the case, Wilkerson’s affidavit states.

The doctor told investigators that the injury “was a contact burn caused by a hot object being pressed against (the boy’s) skin and not from a liquid,” according to the affidavit.

“Alona Hartwig said she did not know anything about the burn other than he (burned) it in the bathtub,” Wilkerson wrote.

The boy had a severe case of sepsis because the burn was left untreated, the affidavit states.

The doctor found a second burn on the boy’s chest and back, injuries “consistent with loop marks or belt marks,” according to the document.

Several broken bones

Wilkerson wrote that the Portland doctor said the boy “had previous fractures to three of his fingers, three of his vertebrae, fractures to 20 ribs and fractures to his pelvic bone.”

The doctor told investigators that the boy’s broken pelvis was consistent with an injury suffered by someone “involved in a 40-mph car crash or from falling from a third-story window,” the document states.

Alona Hartwig said she had no idea how her son sustained those injuries, Wilkerson wrote.

Rodger Hartwig, meanwhile, told sheriff’s investigators that he spanked and hit the 9-year-old boy with a wooden spoon but “does not spank with his hands because hands ‘are for loving,’ ” Wilkerson’s affidavit states.

As for the boy’s foot burn, “Rodger Hartwig said he blamed himself for not taking (his adopted son) to the doctor sooner” but that he had been treating the burn with hydrogen peroxide, an antiseptic and an over-the-counter ointment, Wilkerson’s affidavit states.

“When asked who he thought may have caused the injuries to (the boy), Rodger said he did not want to think Alona would have caused the injuries but said she is alone with (the boy) most of the time,” Wilkerson wrote.

Before his arrest, Rodger Hartwig worked at Rosboro Lumber Co. in Springfield. Company officials did not return a phone call Wednesday.

Couple remains jailed

The affidavit also includes summaries of interviews with the Hartwigs’ other children.

Six youngsters between the ages of 9 and 13 lived with Alona and Rodger Hartwig. Two of them are the couple’s biological children while the other four, including the injured boy, were adopted. All four of the adopted children initially came to the Hartwigs’ home as foster children, officials said.

All six children are now living with new foster families as the Hartwigs await the conclusion of their criminal cases.

The children told investigators that while their parents disciplined them to varying degrees, their 9-year-old brother typically bore the brunt of the punishment, according to the affidavit.

The boy’s sister told investigators that “Alona and Rodger treated (her brother) differently than the other kids and said they were meaner to (him).”

The girl said Rodger Hartwig threw her 9-year-old brother into the creek for lying, and that their adoptive mother “would push (the boy) down, backward, after yelling at him. (The girl) said (her brother) was normal when they first moved in with the Hartwigs, but the Hartwigs have said (the boy) has been bad since he moved in.”

The Hartwigs took the boy to Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend in Springfield on March 26 to seek treatment for injuries that medical staff found suspicious.

Sheriff’s detectives and state Department of Human Services officials began investigating the case as soon as they learned of it. The aim of the state probe is to determine if child welfare officials responded properly to the suspected abuse; if workers who previously dealt with the family followed department policies; and if the case indicates any problems specific to state child welfare services in Lane County.

Alona and Rodger Hartwig are being held in the Lane County Jail.

2010 Jun 3