Middlefield couple accused of abusing adopted children, police said
Middlefield couple accused of abusing adopted children, police said
Published: Saturday, October 06, 2012; Last Updated: Friday, October 5, 2012 5:53 PM EDT
By LAUREN SIEVERT
lsievert@middletownpress.com
MIDDLEFIELD >> A Middlefield couple was arrested for allegedly abusing three adopted children, including making them write religious phrases more than 2,000 times while locked in a room, according to police.
Tamara Gable, 48, and Peter Gable, 49, both of 41 Louis Road, are each charged with three counts of risk of injury to a child and three counts of third-degree assault in connection with allegations that date back to September 2007. Each has been released on $75,000 bail and are due in Middlesex Superior Court on Oct. 23.
According to police reports, state troopers were assigned to investigate a claim of suspected child abuse on April 24 at their home. The state Department of Children and Families police of a complaint of children suffering from physical abuse and neglect and emotional abuse.
Police said the Gables have nine children, two biological and seven adopted. Currently in the home are four children, one biological and three adopted. The initial report came from the biological child living at home when the parents when on vacation in Barbados and left the child in charge of the other three children.
When police interviewed the children with the DCF worker present, the children started crying and dry-heaving. The children continually asked the DCF worker if they were going to be sent back to the home and allegedly appeared relieved when they were told they would not be.
The children were brought to a church and reunited with older siblings who no longer lived in the home. Of the older children no longer in the home, police said one is on active military duty, two are attending a university in Virginia, one is working as a missionary in Haiti and one is married and lives in Meriden.
The children told police and DCF workers that if they misbehaved, their parents would make them do “writings” where they would be given a religious phrase to write out a minimum of 500 times, and the number required would go up exponentially depending on the parents’ mood. The children said they would be locked in their bedroom to do the writings, and police reported seeing copies of the lists with up to 2,386 lines written. The children said if one of their parents decided they were not writing the lines fast enough, they would be taken to the garage and forced to stand on a bucket with a clipboard and complete the discipline.
Both parents were interviewed by police and allegedly admitted to using the “writings” and bucket discipline on the children.
The children also told police about when they were beaten with a belt up to 40 times for lying or misbehaving. The children reported that the adopted children got the “worst of it,” with the older boys who were out of the home having received the most severe punishments. The children also described incidents where the father threw one of the adopted children on a pile of wood in the garage “really hard, hurting her ribs and chest.” The children also claimed being pushed against walls and down the stairs by the mother on more than one occasion. The mother would also allegedly dig her fingernails into a child’s arm “to inflict pain and punishment.”
“Specific details of the older incidents were not obtained due to the physical and emotional trauma sustained by the four girls,” police noted in the report. “The children were clearly overwhelmed with the disclosure of the abuse and were struggling with comprehending the magnitude of what they had endured.”
The father allegedly also turned the doorknob on the children’s bedroom door so it could only be locked on the outside, allowing the parents to lock the children in the bedroom if they were being disciplined. When police arrived the father told police he had turned the doorknob back around because he felt uncomfortable about it after talking to a DCF worker.
The father also allegedly admitted to putting hot sauce in the children’s food if they used “hateful words or bad language.” Both parents allegedly acknowledged that the biological child still living in the home did not receive the same discipline and the parents said it was due to the fact that that child did not come with the “baggage” that the adopted children had. The mother allegedly said the adopted children “had been exposed to LSD and had learning delays” but could not explain further what she meant by baggage or being exposed to drugs.
DCF reported to police about two past occasions when DCF had investigated claims of abuse, but those cases were closed due to being unsubstantiated.
When police spoke with the older siblings no longer in the home, officers described them as still being terrified of the Gables.
Tamara Gable allegedly told police she and Peter Gable “felt overwhelmed” by the needs of the adopted children. Tamara Gable allegedly said she and her husband took on too much, but that they never reached out to DCF for help or support for dealing with “difficult” adopted children and that they were doing the best they could.
A DCF worker reported that about six months ago Tamara Gable had contacted the office to activate her foster care license to start taking more placements again. When told by the worker that she would have to take a training class and a home visit would be required as standard protocol, Gable allegedly was not willing to comply.
Police report neither Gable has a criminal history. Both arrest warrant applications were filed by police on Sept. 5 and signed by a judge on Sept. 13. They were arrested on Sept. 21.