Part one of NCCPR’s news and commentary year in review for 2025
Part two looks
at some of 2025’s finest journalism exploring wrongful removal and other harms
to children caused by our current system of family policing.
America’s massive child
welfare surveillance state was built on horror stories. Stories
about children murdered or tortured in their own homes stampeded us into
building a gigantic system that destroys children in the name of saving them.
This approach has torn apart millions of families needlessly. It’s also so
overloaded the system that workers have no time to find the few children in
real danger.
A system that attempts
to make policy-by-horror-story makes all children less safe. That’s why
we’ve long extended an offer to the fearmongers in the child welfare
establishment: a mutual moratorium on using horror stories to "prove” anything.
We can do that because
we have actual evidence that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, family
preservation is not only more humane than foster care or massive
surveillance, it’s also safer. But
the fearmongers will never give up their horror stories because horror stories
are all they’ve got.
That’s why we’ve taken
to reminding people that the horror stories go in all directions. And
when it comes to the high rate of abuse in foster homes, group homes, and
institutions, the horror stories are backed up by study after study showing the rates of abuse in those settings are
appalling.
So now, some examples
from 2025:
ROTTEN
BARRELS: THE HORRORS OF RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS
● I’ve never before seen a foster-care story get a “push notice”
from The New York Times. But this one did. That’s what happens when a county
agrees to pay four billion dollars to more than 6,800 children sexually abused
while in the custody of its foster care and/or juvenile justice systems. As I note in this blog post, in every one of the cases in which
the children were thrown into foster care, it was done in the name of “child
safety.”
● San Diego County is smaller. As The San Diego Union-Tribune reports, it might wind up paying a mere $100 million or
so.
But San Diego County wants you to
know that, as the story explains:
“We prioritize the safety of all children and youth in our care,” the county said in a statement. “The county has comprehensive training, rules, procedures, and additional oversight to ensure the safety of youth.”
Don’t you feel better already?
● And apparently, $100
million may be only the start. Because the lawsuits by survivors keep on
coming. The Union Tribune reports that:
More than 100 new lawsuits have been filed against San Diego County in recent weeks by adults who claim they were taken to the Polinsky Children’s Center as minors to escape unstable homes only to be sexually assaulted by social workers who were supposed to protect them.
The complaints are wrenching by any measure – boys and girls as young as 8 who claim they were targeted, molested and otherwise abused by county Health and Human Services Agency workers.
And no, the issue isn’t
just cases from long ago. The Union Tribune reports on recent
allegations against the very same institution.
● From the Sacramento Bee:
More than a dozen former foster youths have sued Sacramento County, alleging employees “did nothing” to prevent drinking, drug use, violence, underage sex and sex trafficking at several facilities in which the county placed them earlier this decade. …
According to the
lawsuit:
A teenage boy was forced to participate in “cage fights” that adults paid to watch, the suit alleged. He also alleged a county employee texted pictures of his genitals to another foster youth. When he reported the employee, the employee physically assaulted him, according to the lawsuit.
▪ A county employee sexually assaulted a teenage boy, the lawsuit alleged.
▪ A county employee sexually assaulted a teenage girl, the lawsuit alleged.
▪ Eight teenage girls were routinely sex trafficked, “and abused by pimps operating openly outside and within the facilities,” the lawsuit alleged
But, of course, it’s not
just California:
● Remember the exposes
of horrible conditions in residential treatment in Arizona and Kentucky and Tennessee and Indiana and Utah and Iowa and Oklahoma and Rhode Island and Washington
State and Arkansas and New York and Connecticut, and Idaho?
Now,
thanks to excellent reporting from The Marshall Project –
Cleveland, add
Ohio. In the follow-up story, in which various officials shoveling
children into the institution tell us how shocked – shocked! -- they are, a
spokesperson for metropolitan Cleveland says that now, after all the abuse has
been exposed, and they need to find someplace to put all those children,
“reunification also is a priority.”
● Once you’ve dumped
children into group homes and institutions, how do you keep them docile for the
overwhelmed strangers who oversee them? Dope the kids up on potent, sometimes
dangerous psychiatric meds. The Imprint published a multi-part series documenting how
For decades, advocates, public health experts and foster youth … have expressed alarm about the child welfare system’s heavy, haphazard reliance on psychotropic medications for traumatized children.
“They’re just not allowed to have a bad day,” said Cassandra Simmel, a social work professor at Rutgers University whose research has involved interviewing foster youth across the country about consent, mental health and medication. “‘We have a bad day, that means we get put on medication.’ Those kinds of stories I’ve been hearing for 30 years.”
And this gives an
excellent sense of just how lackadaisical states are when it comes to
protecting children from this kind of abuse:
Kansas Department for Children and Families spokesperson Erin La Row said her agency “does not have specific policies for the use of psychotropic medication with children in foster care.” But she pointed to other protections, such as the state Medicaid agency’s “prior-authorization” rules that apply to all pediatric patients and best-practice guidance manuals for doctors treating foster youth.
La Row added that “it’s possible” additional oversight is conducted by private foster care providers contracted by the state that “may have their own policies.”
Teresa Woody, litigation director for the nonprofit Kansas Appleseed and co-counsel on the 2018 lawsuit, reacted to the state’s response: “What does that tell you? In other words, ‘We have no idea what our contractors are doing on this issue’ — right?”
● A stunning expose from the Arizona Republic: A group home
operator gave $400,000 in campaign contributions to the governor. Shortly
thereafter, that operator got a 30% rate increase. The state family police
agency says the two are entirely unrelated. But the agency’s
explanation is nearly as bad. I have a blog post about it.
● From Arizona Public Media:
The San Carlos Apache Tribe wrote to Governor Katie Hobbs, the state Legislature, and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, calling for an investigation into the death of 14-year-old Emily Pike. Pike was found in multiple garbage bags on a forest road northeast of Globe after missing from her group home in Mesa starting in late January. Investigating authorities have yet to arrest or name a suspect in her case.
According to the Tribe, over three years, about 30 children have run away from Sacred Journey, the group home where Pike stayed. “What happened to these other children?” Chairman Terry Rambler said. …
● And there’s this from KPNX-TV, Phoenix:
Mesa PD records show over the past three years, police have been called at least 89 times to the group home where Emily Pike lived before she was murdered.
● When you take away
children at a rate more than 40% above the national average, you have to start
begging for beds, and beggars can’t be choosers. So over and over and over, you
turn a blind eye to what’s really happening in the places where you put all
those children. The Boston Globe exposes
some of the terrible consequences.
As the year ended the Globe followed up with a story including more
revelations.
● In between, the Globe looked at the big picture,
exposing the horrors of
Massachusetts group homes. It described how hundreds of young people run from
them, often because they think they’ll be safer in the streets. One runaway
recalls being told by a caseworker: “We have nowhere else for you to go,
Alexia. You have to go. Get in the car.”
As long as Massachusetts
tears apart families at a rate more than 40% above the national average,
runaways are going to keep hearing that from caseworkers.
● Next door, here’s what happens in a state that tears children from
their families at a rate well over double the national average and finds itself
with no place to put them: For starters, as this story from the Concord (N.H.) Monitor makes
clear, you
make sure to turn a blind eye to rampant abuse in the places where you’ve now
forced the children to live.
● From the Texas Tribune:
The state has shut down a residential treatment center in northeast Texas, three months after one of its charges — an 11-year-old boy — died in an incident that foster care officials and local law enforcement are investigating.
● But they should have done
it much sooner. From WFAA-TV:
State knew of history of abuse at facility where 11-year-old foster child died
Records show that despite documenting years of violence and abuse, the state allowed the operators to open two other facilities. …
● And Texas Public Radio reports:
An 11-year-old girl living in a hotel under the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) care as part of its Children Without Placement (CWOP) program was abducted and nearly trafficked by a 42-year-old man on Valentine’s Day, according to a police report. …
Police reported a possible sexual offense occurred, a weapon was used and that the child suffered minor injuries. Police collected video footage, images and DNA evidence. The child said she escaped the man after hours and returned to the hotel. It was not clear if CPS workers knew she was gone. …
● Two from the Santa Fe New Mexican. One about a
place now closed …
A worker was allowed to sexually abuse a teenage boy in 2018 at a long-shuttered Albuquerque-based residential treatment center for youth, according to a new lawsuit.
Desert Hills of New Mexico, initially operated by Youth and Family Centered Services of New Mexico Inc., faced numerous allegations of abuse and neglect — including sexual assaults — before it was closed by the state in early 2019. …
…another about one that’s still very much open:
The state Department of Public Safety, which handles records request for the New Mexico State Police, has failed to provide documents for nearly five months related to an apparent assault that took place at a state Children, Youth and Families Department office in Albuquerque. …
CYFD has long struggled with having to house children in its offices, in many cases due to challenges finding proper placements for them. The practice has led to instances of abuse, neglect or other harm to children staying there. …
Also from the New Mexican:
A new lawsuit accuses the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department of failing to protect a 10-year-old boy with a history of abuse from an alleged sexual assault in 2022 by a teenager in an agency bathroom.
The suit alleges the agency knew the older child had a history of sexual assault but still failed to prevent the incident.
● And from Searchlight New Mexico:
Sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning, 16-year-old Jaydun Garcia took his own life at a makeshift home for youth who lack foster placements. Jaydun’s family included four brothers and a baby sister. He was very close to his siblings, those who knew him said, and a close friend to many kids in foster care.
“He was always building us up, like helping us all,” said Jacie, a friend of Jaydun’s who lived with him for months in the Albuquerque office building of the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department, where case workers have often housed kids who don’t have foster homes available to them. …
● Have you heard about the
Washington State residential treatment program that used to be on an island
accessible only by boat? KIRO-TV reports that
residents called it “Juvenile Alcatraz”:
Two men who say they were repeatedly abused while living at a group home on Cypress Island decades ago are now suing the facility’s operator, alleging it failed to protect vulnerable children from rampant sexual and physical abuse.
The facility moved to the
mainland; but it’s still a residential treatment center.
● A remarkable story of bravery from The Imprint: Horribly abused in a notorious New
York State institution, she worked up the courage to seek justice – in her 80s.
She’s able to try thanks to the extension of the statute of limitations for
such crimes. (Those are the same laws that have led private agencies to attempt
to pressure states into either making them virtually immune or giving
them taxpayer bailouts. Unfortunately, in California, they got their bailout.)
● From KLAS-TV, Las Vegas:
An investigation by the 8 News Now Investigators has revealed major failures at several juvenile group homes in Las Vegas, including active warrants for two former employees, numerous calls for service to police for runaways and suicide attempts, and a state audit that describes abuse and neglect.
● Here’s what happened
next: when that chain of Nevada group homes came under fire for alleged abuse
of residents, and the state Medicaid office announced it would terminate their
contracts, a county judge rushed into action: The judge issued a temporary
restraining order barring state and county agencies from inspecting and
investigating the group homes! KLAS-TV in Las Vegas reports she has lifted that order. But the lawyer for the
group homes is unhappy:
“It’s the annihilation of my client’s business,” [he] said. “What’s the hardship to the defendant?”
●And now, at long last, after still another revelation from KLAS-TV :
Mom says daughter was forced to fight another child in Las Vegas group home; state revokes licenses
The state of Nevada revoked the licenses of four group homes for children and teens after several reports by the 8 News Now Investigators.
● When one of Connecticut’s so-called STTAR home dumping ground shelters
was engulfed in a scandal over rampant abuse, the Connecticut family police
agency had the perfect answer! Spend more and change the acronym! (What, you
were expecting real solutions?) I have a blog post about it.
● From the Salt Lake Tribune:
Discovery Ranch Academy health care workers physically neglected a 17-year-old boy who died by suicide a year ago at the Utah County teen treatment center, Utah child welfare workers have found.
● From Colorado, KCNC Denver reports on a “residential treatment center” where children
are “desperate to escape.” The fact that Colorado officials, and some
journalists, are in love with institutionalizing children doesn’t help.
● Of course, no matter
how many times journalists expose abuse in group homes and institutions,
someone will always bring up Boys Town. After all, Boys Town is
wonderful, isn’t it? So it must be OK to institutionalize children,
right? So I’m glad I stumbled across this stunning 2023
series from the Des Moines Register about Boys Town that I’d missed at the time.
OTHER HORRORS
● From Honolulu Civil Beat: An
in-depth investigation of rampant abuse in a foster home – abuse no one at the
state family police agency wanted to see, because the system was overloaded and
the foster father would take children no one else would. As we pointed out in
the story, when the system is overwhelmed with children, often taken
needlessly, there is an enormous incentive to see no evil, hear no evil, speak
no evil and write no evil in the case file.
How much evil are we
talking about? From the story:
“Life for a young boy in the Teixeira foster home was a
struggle for survival akin to ‘Lord of the Flies,’” the judge in JR’s lawsuit
wrote in 2024, referring to the classic novel about castaway children creating
a savage society. “The older boys were abusive and Defendant Teixeira, an
abuser himself, failed to protect younger boys from them.”
● I have a blog post about lessons from the story. And check out this Civil beat story documenting how the state is still trying
to cover up the horrors.
● Also from Hawaii, from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser
A lawsuit has been filed on behalf of the estate of Geanna Bradley against four adults living in the Wahiawa house where the 10-year-old girl was found dead from years of abuse and starvation, and against the state of Hawaii, including the Department of Human Services and its employees.
● In 2003, Dewey Sloan,
then the chief juvenile prosecutor in an Iowa county where Native American
children were in foster care at a rate seven times higher than the rate for
white children, told
the Des Moines Register,
"I don't think there's anything in any of these cases that points to
something positive about Indian culture, except the culture of drugs and the
culture of poverty and the culture of abuse."
Five years later, the Iowa Capital Dispatch reports, Sloan’s office got a judge to terminate the rights of
a family of Native American children to live with their mother. Here’s what
happened next, according to a lawsuit filed by one of the children, now an
adult:
In 2009, when [Mikalla Starr] Winkel was 4 years old, she and two of her siblings were placed in the foster home of Norman and Cammie Winkel of Sioux City – a couple who had no connection to the Santee Sioux Nation or any other Native American community.
According to the lawsuit, at the time of the foster-home placement Norman Winkel was a former prison inmate who “had an extensive drug-related criminal history with five drug convictions, including a felony for which he received a 25-year prison sentence.”
In 2010, Winkel was legally adopted by the couple. The lawsuit alleges that while Mikalla lived in the home, Norman Winkel “began to exhibit grooming behaviors toward Mikalla,” and then, as she matured, the “grooming escalated to sexual assault, including fondling, mutual touching, and sexual assault in the foster home.” The alleged sexual abuse “continued for multiple years,” according to the lawsuit.
● Also in Iowa, (which
tears apart families at a rate more than double the national average), months apart in 2016 and 2017, in two separate
homes, two children were, in effect, adopted to death. Both died of starvation
in their adoptive homes. Their adoptive parents are in jail.
As part of a legal
settlement with the surviving sisters of one of the victims, the state agreed
to set up a task force to look into how to improve the foster care system. Many
states do that without being forced into it – so that, at a minimum, they can
appear to care when children die in foster or adoptive homes.
But, in a story that
brought one of the anchors to tears, KCCI-TV reports that Iowa couldn’t be bothered to do even that
much. The task force met only three times, most recently nearly two years ago.
No further meetings are scheduled. In addition, “Task force members say there
are no minutes or major documents from the state or them.”
No responsible state
official would talk to KCCI either. But the family police agency said in a
statement that caseworkers now are trained to recognize malnutrition.
● KSDK-TV has a story about a case in Illinois, in which a foster mother and a foster grandmother
have been charged in the murder of one of their foster children, Mackenzi
Felmlee. The story begins with this headline: “Foster mom laughed while teen
lay dying at bottom of stairs, court evidence reveals.” And there were other
videos:
Another piece of evidence showed Felmlee standing in front of a wall, forced to repeat phrases. One phrase was, "I am a doof, I hate myself," as [the foster mother] recorded and yelled at Felmlee while hitting her with an object.
Other videos showed Felmlee begging for food and water.
More videos and pictures showed Felmlee's injuries and bruises from her face to her arm.
Other disturbing videos and pictures showed Felmlee forced to wear a soiled diaper on her face. …
Other foster children
also said they were abused:
A child who resided in the home from 2013-2015 also reported [the foster mother] and said they were getting hit and threatened.
They said, "He'd rather die in the cold than live there."
The family of Felmlee’s
birth mother issued a statement. Here are some excerpts:
Mackenzi’s mother fought for her.
She begged the courts for a second chance. She got sober. She got stable. She did the work. She tried to reunite with her children. But her voice wasn’t heard. The system didn’t want to look back at a woman’s redemption it only saw her past. So instead of being returned to her mother, Mackenzi was placed in a home with multiple prior abuse complaints all ignored by Illinois DCFS. …
Mackenzi should be alive.
Her mother should have been given the chance to be her mother again.
Now, all we have is truth and we will not let it be buried by lies.
The foster mother and
foster grandmother deny the charges. Their defense attorney pointed out that
the Illinois “child welfare” agency determined that all of the abuse
allegations against them were unfounded.
● Capitol News Illinois also
reported on the case:
Three years after DCFS took custody of the former honor roll student, Mackenzi was diagnosed with multiple mental illnesses, including post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder and depression. She reportedly was under psychiatric care. She was also incontinent; Williams made her wear diapers tied with plastic bags to her legs to keep the waste from leaking, prosecutors said.
● Capitol News Illinois
also reported that
A caseworker assigned to monitor Illinois foster child Mackenzi Felmlee — who later died in May 2024 — had a troubling past, including an arrest for a violent crime and orders of protection filed against her by eight women for alleged threats, harassment and abuse, court documents show.
● In Baltimore, a family
was desperate to get help for their teenager’s mental health problems. Instead
of providing Wraparound services so the teen could remain safely at home, the
state threw her into foster care and wound up placing her in a hotel. WMAR-TV reports on what happened next. As Prof. Shanta Trivedi of the University
of Baltimore pointed out in this earlier WMAR story:
… the money spent on hotel stays and one-on-one services, would be better spent helping to reunite family including providing wraparound services.
“Most of the cases that we see are neglect, not abuse, and a lot of those cases are based on poverty,” she said. “We take their children and then pay foster parents to take care of the children when we could take that same money and pay the parents to help them find stable housing and reduce the trauma on everyone and not for nothing, reduce the burden on the court system, on all these attorneys and case workers that are part of the system”
● In The Imprint, Jessica Castillo writes this about her experience
in foster care:
I was placed in foster care right after turning 12. I was in five foster homes, adopted at 16, and kicked out at 17, resulting in a brief period of homelessness. During my time in foster care, I experienced abuse in all of my placements, the third being the worst. … I remember her telling me and my foster sisters, “You think your social workers will believe you? I’ve been a foster parent for over 20 years, and I’m very good friends with the supervisors at DCFS. If you have a problem with me, they’ll just move you somewhere else, and good riddance.” … There wasn’t a single day in foster care where I felt peace and safety.
● Also in The Imprint another former foster youth, Martha Bul,
writes:
When I was with my dad, I went to school and became number one in my first-grade class. After my dad found out that I was number one in class, he put me in a private Catholic school.
When I went to foster care, a foster care worker falsely labeled me as some kid who was mentally disabled and sent me to be locked up in a mental facility. While in the mental institution, I was not allowed to go to school or question anything. If I asked why I was in a mental facility when I did not have a mental illness, and why I was not allowed to be in school, they would throw me on the ground, restrain me, and stick me with needles that had drugs in them to sedate me. This is inhumane. This type of treatment is slavery. One can tell that these are exactly some of the ways that our ancestors were treated in the historical slavery days….
● From the Seattle Times:
The state will pay $9 million to a Portland woman who said she was abused for years as a child in Washington’s foster care system, adding to the growing number of payouts related to sexual assault in foster care and juvenile detention.
Ashley Miller, 34, alleges she was raped and abused from the ages of 5 and 12 years old by her foster parent’s live-in boyfriend in Pierce County. Miller sued the department in 2023, alleging the Department of Social and Health Services — the state’s child welfare agency at the time — knew the man was a convicted felon and was negligent in not properly monitoring the conditions in the foster home. …
● From Law and Crime, a story with the headline: “'Careful not to leave
a mark': Florida family of 4 abused 'illiterate' foster and adopted children
who don't even know their own birthdays, police say”
A Florida family of four is behind bars after subjecting their adopted and foster children to myriad forms of abuse, law enforcement in the Sunshine State allege.
● In New Mexico, scene
of America’s worst foster-care panic in 2023, and where the Governor has just
further ratcheted up that panic, all in the name of child safety, of
course, Searchlight New Mexico reports that this happened.
● In Pennsylvania, Statecollege.com reports:
A former Centre County resident was arrested Tuesday on charges that he repeatedly raped a foster child in his care over a period of more than two years in the State College area.
● From The Boston Globe:
A New Hampshire woman who sued her adoptive parents for abuse she suffered as a child was granted $29.6 million in damages by a New Hampshire Superior Court judge on Tuesday, an award her attorney called one of the largest ever in New Hampshire. …
● According to this story from WAGA-TV no
one can explain how in the world the adoptive parents who nearly tortured a
Georgia child to death ever could have been allowed to adopt the child and four
siblings. But here are a couple of possibilities:
--Under the so-called Adoption and Safe Families Act, states collect a bounty of $4,000 to $10,000 for
every adoption of a child over a baseline number. If things turn out as they
did in this case, states don’t have to give the money back. So ignoring
flashing red warning signs may have been worth up to $50,000 for the Georgia
family police agency.
--Getting those adoption numbers
up also is the only time a family police agency is guaranteed good press, via
those annual “Adoption Day” stories.
The state will pay $3 million to settle a lawsuit filed on behalf of two children who were sexually abused while in foster care after caseworkers placed a teenage boy with a documented history of sexual misconduct into the home, according to a negotiated agreement.
● The Post-Tribune in Indiana has an update on the story of a little boy taken
from relatives because they refused to say “how high” when the family police
agency said “jump” – only to die in foster care.
A Lincoln County woman is facing multiple charges after police said she assaulted and abandoned a teenage girl for whom she was supposed to be caring. …
[The foster mother] collects exotic animals,[Lincoln County Prosecutor Mike] Wood said, and they're investigating allegations that she traded the girl in exchange for a monkey.
● NBC6 South Florida reports that
A man has been sentenced to two life sentences in a Miami-Dade human trafficking case involving a child who was in foster care and an adult, prosecutors said.
● This horror
ended in West Virginia, but the blame rests primarily with Minnesota,
where, this Associated Press story reports, the children were first adopted. (If
the story sounds eerily familiar, it’s because it’s so similar to another
adoption horror out of Minnesota (among other states), the one described in
Roxanna Asgarian’s book, We Were Once a Family.)
● From KTUL-TV, Tulsa:
A woman who started a foundation to help foster kids aging out of the system was arrested on charges of child endangerment, child abuse, and neglect.
● I’m thinking the headline on this Wichita Eagle story is enough:
‘Please do not make us get in the boxes’: Court doc details death of adopted girl buried in Rose Hill.
● From the Topeka Capital-Journal:
Police in a Wichita-area town have arrested the adoptive parents of a girl whose body was found buried in a backyard five months ago, while officials with the state child welfare agency haven't yet released a summary of its involvement.
The Rose Hill Police Department on Monday arrested the adoptive parents of the girl, whose birth name was Natalie Garcia and adoptive name was Kennedy Schroer. Her adoptive parents are 50-year-old Crystina Elizabeth Schroer and 53-year-old Joseph Shane Schroer.
From WRTV Indianapolis:
A Morgan County couple faces over 100 combined charges for extensive allegations of abuse stemming from their roles as foster parents. In December, prosecutors filed charges against Brian and Sonja Stafford, both aged 60, totaling 121 counts related to child neglect, battery, human trafficking, molestation, and other offenses.
A 155-page probable cause affidavit revealed over 13 years, the couple had mistreated at least 33 children who were in their care through fostering, adopting, or housing foreign exchange students. 11 specific victims have come forward with testimonies detailing severe physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.
● From The Miami Herald:
A children’s book author and her husband abused their three adopted children until one went into multi-organ failure and nearly died, Florida authorities said.
The couple pleaded guilty on Jan. 13 to three counts of aggravated child abuse causing great bodily harm and three counts of child neglect with great bodily harm, Seminole County records show. The 45-year-old wife, accused of being the primary disciplinarian, was sentenced to 12 years in prison, while the 43-year-old husband received a 10-year sentence.
From the Cincinnati Enquirer:
A Batavia Township mother and father, who prosecutors said punished their adopted boys by forcing them to sleep naked overnight on the bare floor of a "dungeon-like" basement room, both admitted in court to abusing the children. Charles Edmonson, 64, pleaded guilty Friday in Clermont County Common Pleas Court to kidnapping, felonious assault and three counts of child endangering. His wife, 50-year-old Matthew Edmonson, pleaded guilty to five counts of child endangering. …
From The News-Review in
Oregon:
A boy who said he was sexually abused by another child while both lived in a Douglas County foster home is suing the state, claiming the parents of the home knew about the alleged abuse yet allowed it to occur. …
J.A., who was born in 2014, lived in the foster home between 2019 and the first half of 2020. During that time, J.A. was sexually assaulted by a female foster child who also lived in the home. The girl reportedly made the boy touch her private area, insert objects into her, and drink her urine, the lawsuit said.
The foster parents in the home reportedly learned of the abuse, but “simply moved Jane to another bedroom,” according to the lawsuit. Further, the foster parents reportedly continued to allow the girl back into the boy’s bed at night. …
