Alabama police investigating Spurgeons, Cape abuse suspects
MICHAEL BRAUN | MBRAUN@NEWS-PRESS.COM
Police in Florence, Alabama, say they have opened an investigation into a family that is the focus of a sexual and physical child abuse case in Cape Coral.
Police in the town located in the northwestern corner of the state said they are in touch with Lee County law enforcement and looking into if similar abuse involving the foster or adoptive children of Daniel and Jenise Spurgeon occurred when the family lived there.
Daniel Spurgeon, 47, faces 15 counts, including sexual assault and lewd and lascivious behavior on a child between ages 12 and 18 as well as several counts of aggravated child abuse.
On Friday, Daniel Spurgeon, who remains in Lee County jail, pleaded not guilty to his charges and waived a formal reading of his charges. He has retained Fort Myers attorney Aaron O'Brien.
His 52-year-old wife, Jenise Spurgeon, was released on $300,000 bond for her 10 counts of aggravated child abuse. She has entered a plea of not guilty and has retained Fort Myers attorney Peter Ringsmith.
Both will be arraigned on Aug. 22.
One of the Spurgeons' foster daughters, now 19, who had moved out to live on her own, told Cape Coral detectives that she had been sexually abused from age 12 to 16, which would place those activities while the family lived in Alabama.
Det. Keith Johnson, a member of the Florence Police Force, said that was the focus for the Florence investigation.
"It's just at the beginning," said Johnson.
The investigation started when three teenage girls were reported to officers as being extremely intoxicated at a Cape Coral KFC. They told officers they lived with their adoptive/foster parents and seven other adopted/foster children and that Daniel Spurgeon had given them the alcohol, according to the narrative. They went on to detail being sexually and physically abused by Daniel Spurgeon.
The report from Cape Coral police said the couple have five adopted daughters ages 11-16, three foster daughters ages 10-13, two foster sons, ages 8 and 9 and three biological children, two sons and a daughter, ages 10-15.
Beyond the mental trauma, officers found that the children hadn't been to a doctor or a dentist in years and that most of them had scabies.
A neighbor of the Spurgeons' in Florence, Barbara Wilson, said she was shocked when news of the their arrest on child sexual and physical abuse charges filtered down to Florence.
"I was just sick," the 71-year-old Florence woman said. "I knew Daniel and Jenise. I talked to some of the children."
Wilson lived near the Spurgeons in the 40,000-resident community before they moved to Florida in 2015. The Spurgeons still own the 1,482-square-foot, $178,000 home in Florence as well as their 2,915-square-foot, $325,000 Cape Coral home.
"The kids used to play," she said. "We have two acres of woods that they would tromp around in."
Wilson said she never saw any indication of anything suspicious between the Spurgeons and the children they were fostering or adopting.
"I know some of the children came from horrible family situations," she said, adding however "they seemed like typical kids."
She said that one of the neighbors is a police officer and didn't see any problems.
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