TROUBLED FAMILY ANGERED BY BABY’S DEATH

 

Grandmother, mother struggle with grief, remorse.

 

http://www.chieftain.com/articles/2009/07/05/news/local/doc4a517e7abe0c6600601586.txt

By NICK BONHAM

THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

At 9 months old, Iyana Perez’s mouth was beginning to show teeth.

The tyke was learning how to crawl, too, according to family.

“She was a very happy baby. She was a breath of fresh air,” the child’s mother, Selena Olson, said Sunday.

Sadly, Iyana will never learn to walk or flash a full set of pearly whites.

The baby was found dead in a Dumpster behind a grocery store Friday. Police arrested 22-year-old Kevin Neal Buehler, a family relative, on a warrant for child abuse resulting in her death.

“I just can’t believe (Buehler) would do this . . . He’s just a sick person.”

Said Snowie Buehler, the victim’s grandmother and step-grandmother to the suspect: “My mind can’t comprehend someone killing an innocent child. I never thought Kevin would harm (Iyana). I don’t know how she died. I know she was found wrapped in plastic bags and thrown in a Dumpster like a piece of trash. We miss her. We miss her bad. It’s not fair.”

In an interview at Pueblo County jail, where Olson was being detained on charges unrelated to Iyana’s death, the grieving mother expressed anger toward the suspect and the Department of Social Services.

Snowie Buehler shared her daughter’s anger and disbelief, but also blamed herself.

About a month ago, Iyana was reportedly kidnapped by her father, Ted Perez. She was missing for about eight days and was found by police staying with members of Perez’s family.

The Department of Social Services intervened and allowed Iyana to stay with Snowie

Buehler, who also has full custody of one of Olson’s two older children.

“This could’ve been avoided. It was (DSS’s) job to keep (Iyana) safe. My mom blames herself . . . But I blame DSS. Had she been with me, this would never have happened,” Olson said.

Snowie Buehler said she left Iyana with her 19-year-old son, Daniel Buehler, on Thursday night. She said her regular baby sitter was sick but trusted Daniel Buehler with Iyana while she went to work a night shift at a nearby restaurant.

She said Daniel Buehler is married with a 2-year-old daughter and that Kevin Buehler was living with them in their trailer in the 3000 block of North Elizabeth Street.

On Friday morning, Snowie Buehler’s son called her at work. Iyana was missing, he told her. By the afternoon, police found Iyana’s body in a trash bin behind a grocery store about a block from the trailer home.

“I got to the trailer, my son is hysterical, his wife is hysterical, but Kevin looked concerned,” Snowie Buehler said. “I asked Kevin, “What the (expletive) did you do to my granddaughter?’ I told the cops ‘I believe he did something to my granddaughter. I have a bad feeling about Kevin. This doesn’t feel right.’ “

Kevin Buehler’s violent past is known in the family and documented in district court. In 2007, he was arrested for trying to choke his sister and is still on probation for that crime today.

“No, I don’t blame DSS. I blame myself because I thought this was a safe home,” Snowie Buehler said. “I’ve seen Kevin holding the children and playing with the children. I’ve never seen anything but love with him toward (Iyana) . . . Right now Kevin is nothing to me.”

Pueblo police said Kevin Buehler admitted to having a role in Iyana’s death. An autopsy is scheduled today to determine how the child died.

No other arrests have been made in the investigation. Olson and Perez are not considered suspects by police because Olson had checked herself into drug rehab on Friday and Perez was in jail on unrelated charges.

Police have also interviewed the occupants of the trailer home.

Also on Friday, DSS regained custody of Olson’s older children, who had been staying with Snowie Buehler, along with Daniel Buehler’s 2-year-old daughter.

Snowie Buehler said she’ll try and regain custody today of her grandchildren.

Selena Olson, who is on suicide watch at county jail, said she’s working with her mother to be released from jail in the coming days.

Snowie Buehler is a former drug addict and her daughter, Olson, is struggling with her addiction. Despite her narcotic cravings, Olson said she was a good mother and could’ve spared her daughters life.

“It was nothing extreme,” Olson said of her drug use. “I still took care of my children. (Iyana) was healthy and happy, but (DSS) didn’t need to take her away from me . . . and now she’s gone,” Olson said.

Said Snowie Buehler: “Selena has given DSS no choice but to take the children from her. I love my daughter. I love my daughter with all my heart. But my daughter needs help.”

The family has not planned funeral arrangements, but Olson hopes she’s released from jail in time for the service.

“(Iyana) was a very happy, loving baby, and she deserved better than this,” Olson said. “She was too precious.”

nickb@chieftain.com

WOMAN PLEADS GUILTY TO CHILD’S DEATH

 

http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/virginia/070609_glover_pleads_guilty_to_childs_death

Updated: Monday, 06 Jul 2009, 12:54 PM EDT

Published : Monday, 06 Jul 2009, 11:45 AM EDT

MANASSAS, Va. – A Manassas woman has pleaded guilty to killing her 13-year-old adopted daughter.

Alfreedia Gregg-Glover pleaded guilty Monday in Prince William County Circuit Court to felony murder, felony child abuse and filing a false police report.

Police say Gregg-Glover lied when she told them her daughter Alexis “Lexie” Agyepong-Glover had run away in January. A massive search ensued, and two days later the girl’s body was found in a Woodbridge creek.

The county’s social services agency fired one senior social worker and disciplined two others for mishandling the case. An internal review found that several employees did not follow proper procedures in response to abuse and neglect reports about the child.

Gregg-Glover’s sentencing is set for Oct. 2.

CHILD WHO DIED AFTER BEING SUBMERGED IN BATHTUB IS IDENTIFIED

 

St. Paul police Sgt. Paul Schnell said Brianna Rose Jackson, 18 months, was declared dead on Thursday after the near-drowning Wednesday in a foster home

 

http://www.startribune.com/local/49980917.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUr

Last update: July 5, 2009 – 11:05 PM

St. Paul police on Sunday released the name of a toddler who died last week after she was found submerged in a bathtub in a St. Paul foster home.

St. Paul police Sgt. Paul Schnell said Brianna Rose Jackson, 18 months, was declared dead on Thursday after the near-drowning Wednesday in a foster home in the 1600 block of Darlene Street. Police continue to investigate the circumstances around her death.

Brianna was being cared for by foster parents David and Barbara Wright, 50 and 46, respectively. The Wrights, who began taking in foster children in 2002, were licensed to provide care for up to five children younger than 18.

Schnell refused to identify Brianna’s biological parents, saying their identities are part of a child protection-related matter unrelated to her death.

Brianna’s 3-year-old sibling, who was in the bathtub with her, has been removed from the Wrights’ care. The children apparently were left alone for a few minutes, during which Brianna slipped beneath the water, police have said.

Records show that police have been called to the Wrights’ residence 14 times in the past five years for instances described as disturbances or domestics.

KARLEE WEINMANN

FAMILY REACTS TO POLICE DEPARTMENT WOES

 

http://www.fayobserver.com/Articles/2009/07/06/914717

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

By Gilbert Baez

SPRING LAKE (WTVD) — The grandfather of a 3-year-old girl, who died and sparked an investigation into the department, is speaking out.

Jerome Gattis says he hopes there will be changes in Spring Lake so no one will have go through what he had to.

In March 2006, Gattis’ granddaughter Anijah Burr died in her Spring Lake apartment. Investigators say it happened at the hands of her mother’s abusive boyfriend Dominic Best.

“When they found her she was face down,” Gattis said. “Dominic was standing over her and she had blood stains on her lower part of the body.”

Her death is one of the main reasons the Spring Lake Police Department is no longer allowed to investigate felony crimes.

Gattis says he told police that Best had molested his 13-year-old daughter a month before Burr died.

“I carried her to the hospital, I asked her what was wrong and she said Dominic had gave her a glass of water, what she thought was water, but it had alcohol in it,” He said. “She says it was him and another guy that molested her.”

Not only that, the 13-year-old told social workers at the hospital that Best was mistreating her and the 3-year-old.

“She told them how Dominic was molesting them, how he was putting Anijah in a suitcase and putting her in a room, wasn’t feeding her and everything,” Gattis said. “But I reported all of that to Social Services and Spring Lake Police Department.”

And Gattis says Spring Lake Police did nothing.

Best is now awaiting trial in the Cumberland County Detention Center.

Burr’s grandfather says he is awaiting some justice and he may get that in the form of some changes at the Spring Lake Police Department.

 

 

NC Department Stripped of Arrest Powers

 

2 Spring Lake officers arrested

 

http://www.lawofficer.com/news-and-articles/news/2009/05/spring_lake_pd.html

Drew Brooks, Corey G. Johnson

The Fayette Observer

2009 May 5

SPRING LAKE — The Spring Lake Police Department was stripped of its remaining police powers Monday, and two of its officers were arrested.

Sgt. Alfonzo Devone Whittington Jr. and Sgt. Darryl Eugene Coulter Sr. were arrested after being indicted by a special Cumberland County grand jury.

About midafternoon, Sheriff Moose Butler and District Attorney Ed Grannis met with Police Chief A.C. Brown and Town Manager Larry Faison to discuss the action being taken against the Police Department.

They delivered an order from Chief District Court Judge Beth Keever saying that all criminal work within the town, including misdemeanors, would be handled by the Sheriff’s Office.

Grannis also said he plans to dismiss all pending misdemeanor cases filed by Spring Lake officers and will evaluate pending felony cases.

The action, which Grannis later called unprecedented, has in effect stripped Spring Lake police of any remaining powers.

The Sheriff’s Office set up a mobile command unit at the Spring Lake Family Resource Center on Odell Road. Butler said roughly four deputies on rotating shifts will work out of that location.

Starting today, all emergency calls in the town will be forwarded to the Sheriff’s Office. Residents who need assistance should call 323-1500.

Butler could not say how long his officers would handle Spring Lake’s investigations.

“We’re stretched, but we’re going to be here till the issue’s resolved,” he said.

Butler and Grannis met with four members of the county Board of Commissioners behind closed doors following Monday’s arrests.

After the hour-long meeting, board Chairwoman Jeannette Council said the commissioners support Butler providing law enforcement for Spring Lake residents until at least June 3. Council said the county can afford the expense without a special appropriation.

After June 3, the commissioners urged Spring Lake officials to contract with the sheriff to continue the service until town leaders reconstitute the Police Department “as a fully functioning law enforcement agency.”

Late Monday, many Spring Lake officers said they did not know whether they should show up for work today or what the future holds for them.

Town leaders evaded those questions Monday.

“Give us a little time,” Mayor Ethel Clark said before leaving Town Hall. “We’re still formalizing a plan.”

 

Brown remained in his office after Grannis and Butler left and would not answer questions from reporters. He surfaced briefly to check his vehicle and said, “I got a hot one,” before going back inside.

Faison referred all questions to a news release he said he faxed. He then slipped out of Town Hall to avoid reporters waiting at the rear of the building. The Observer did not receive a fax.

2 officers charged

Whittington, who joined the department in October 2005, was charged with 11 crimes, including embezzlement by public officer, obtaining property by false pretenses, larceny and obstruction of justice. The charges stem from $2,900 that was allegedly taken from the department’s evidence room. Whittington, who also served as the department’s evidence custodian and internal affairs investigator, allegedly took the money between September and January, according to the indictment. He then directed officers to alter reports and lie about the handling of the money. His bail was set at $100,000.

Coulter, who has been with the department since July 1999, was charged with 20 crimes, including breaking and entering, second-degree kidnapping and obstruction of justice.

The charges stem from an April 27, 2008, incident at a home on the 400 block of Vass Road.

According to the indictments, Coulter broke into the home, which was occupied by Mark Anthony Jones Jr., Jimmy Jovan Taylor and Samuel Darnell Wallace. He assaulted the men and forcibly removed them from the home while threatening them with a handgun and a shotgun, kidnapped them and then held them against their will by handcuffing the men.

The indictments allege that Coulter, while supervising three officers also involved in the false arrests, had no legal justification for the actions.

Coulter also was indicted for his alleged actions during an investigation at the Sleep Inn Motel. According to the indictment, Coulter lied when he said he smelled marijuana in a room from which officers seized $2,900. That’s the same money that Whittington is accused of later taking from the evidence room. His bail was set at $250,000.

Both officers appeared before Senior Resident Superior Court Judge E. Lynn Johnson about 4:30 p.m. They were escorted into the courtroom by agents with the State Bureau of Investigation. Johnson read the charges against them and told them the maximum penalty they face for each.

According to Johnson, Whittington could face 24 years, two months in prison if convicted on all charges. Coulter could face 32 years, four months in prison.

Whittington said he planned to hire his own lawyer. Coulter asked for a court-appointed lawyer, which the judge said would have to come from outside the county’s public defender’s office.

String of problems

Monday’s arrests are the latest in a string of problems for the Police Department.

In a letter to the county’s two top judges Monday, Grannis said he first realized the department had troubles in December 2006. It was at that time, the District Attorney’s Office learned Spring Lake officers mishandled child abuse allegations and the subsequent death investigation of 3-year-old Anijah Burr.

He later asked that all homicides be investigated by the Sheriff’s Office and then expanded that request to include all felonies.

In mid-2007, Grannis said he asked the SBI to conduct a criminal inquiry into the department’s narcotics division.

An independent assessment of the department, done at the request of the town Board of Aldermen in late 2007, found a number of problems, including a lack of training for officers, a lack of written directives and the leadership of Brown.

Originally, Grannis said he was concerned that the department lacked trained manpower and expertise. Now, he said, he has a much deeper concern.

Grannis wrote that the department still was under investigation by state agents.

He said the SBI’s report made him “genuinely disheartened” and that many of the questions raised in the report came from officers within the department.

“Within our democratic society, we entrust law enforcement with significant authority and responsibility in carrying out our criminal laws,” he wrote. “… This report raises genuine questions concerning the entrusting of such significant responsibilities to the Spring Lake Police Department.”

Staff writer Drew Brooks can be reached at brooksd@fayobserver.com or 486-3567. Staff writer Corey G. Johnson can be reached at johnsonc@fayobserver.com or 323-4848, ext. 487.

 

Officials say Spring Lake police department bungled duty

 

http://www.news-record.com/content/2009/05/05/article/officials_say_spring_lake_police_department_bungled_duty

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

By Estes Thompson

Associated Press

 

RALEIGH (AP) — Three years ago, authorities went to the town of Spring Lake to check into claims local police weren’t doing enough to investigate the beating death of a little girl.

A year later, the county district attorney started asking questions about drug investigations and started a criminal probe of the department. Then, authorities say about $3,000 disappeared from evidence last year after police raided a motel room where they’d claimed to smell marijuana smoke.

Now, the 20-member police department in the community about 60 miles south of Raleigh has been neutered after the district attorney said he wouldn’t prosecute most of its cases. Two officers are in jail on charges revealed in indictments made public Tuesday. And officials are painting the picture of a department that cared little for some of its citizens.

“If you can’t trust law enforcement you’ve got a real problem,” Cumberland County Sheriff Earl “Moose” Butler said Tuesday.

A day earlier, as district attorney Ed Grannis announced he won’t prosecute most cases sent to him from the department, police Sgt. Darryl Eugene Coulter Sr. was charged with 20 counts, including three each of second-degree kidnapping, simple assault and assault with a deadly weapon.

Sgt. Alphonzo Devonne Whittington Jr. was charged with 11 counts, including three counts of felony larceny and one count of felony embezzlement.

The officers remained in jail Tuesday, Coulter under $250,000 bond and Whittington under $100,000 bond. It wasn’t clear whether they’d retained lawyers, though the sheriff said he didn’t believe they had. Calls to their police chief were not immediately returned.

The indictments say Coulter took $2,900 from a man in a motel room and told a junior officer to write in a report that he was drawn by the smell of marijuana. Whittington, in charge of the police evidence room, was charged with embezzling the money.

An apparently unrelated set of charges against Coulter involve allegations he broke into a house, roughed up three men there and handcuffed them before leaving.

Grannis on Monday released a letter he’d written to the county’s chief judges, saying he will not prosecute “the majority of criminal cases” from the department. He said he plans to dismiss current misdemeanors from Spring Lake and is reviewing its felony charges.

The letter references a still-sealed state report on the department, saying it shows “a willingness by senior officers of the Spring Lake Police Department to intentionally violate the criminal laws of this state. We see a willingness to lie and direct junior officers to fabricate the facts in basic police reports.”

In the letter, Grannis said the March 2006 death of 3-year-old Anijah Burr was pivotal in bringing increased scrutiny to the department.

“It was clear that the department had not handled the homicide investigation in a professional manner,” Grannis wrote.

He didn’t offer other details. But Butler said Tuesday that sheriffs arrested a suspect, who is still in custody. He said the local police did not seem to want to investigate.

“We just had to start from scratch when we got it,” he said. “Not to take the initiative to investigate a child’s death is inexecusable.”

RECORDS SOUGHT IN SPRING LAKE CHILD’S DEATH

 

http://www.fayobserver.com/Articles/2009/07/06/914717

By Corey G. Johnson

Staff writer

 

SPRING LAKE – Public defenders want the Town Manager’s Office and the state Division of Social Services to turn over records about the 2006 death of 3-year-old Anijah Burr, court documents show.

In May, Spring Lake’s town manager, Larry Faison, received a subpoena from Cumberland County Public Defender Ronald McSwain requesting an uncensored copy of a consultant’s report that documented mistakes made by police in the handling of Anijah’s death investigation.

The town Board of Aldermen accepted Faison’s resignation last month, largely because of how he handled the embattled Police Department.

McSwain’s office is representing Dominic Best, who was indicted on murder charges in Anijah’s case.

A subpoena also was sent to the Division of Social Services in Raleigh for a copy of a review of Anijah’s death done in 2007 by members of the state’s child fatality review team, court documents show.

Both agencies were given a May 15 deadline to produce the documents.

Lawyer John Jackson, on behalf of Faison and Spring Lake, filed paperwork asking that the subpoena be denied, arguing that a full release of the report would jeopardize the police’s need to protect its sources and methods. Jackson was on vacation and could not be reached last week.

Alderman James O’Garra said Jackson’s request may need to be dropped in light of the current controversy surrounding the Police Department. Town leaders debated whether to disband the police force after the May arrests of two police supervisors and the resignation of Police Chief A.C. Brown. A judge’s order has in effect stripped the Police Department of its law enforcement powers, and state agents are still investigating.

Despite its potential for heaping additional embarrassment on the police force, O’Garra said he favored full disclosure of the report’s findings.

“We need to get them out in the open, so we can begin to move forward,” O’Garra said. “If we are to eventually get our Police Department up and running again, people need to be able to know that we aren’t covering up anything.”

The police’s alleged mishandling of Anijah’s death investigation outraged District Attorney Ed Grannis and triggered extra scrutiny from the county’s top prosecutor. That scrutiny led to a 2007 order from Chief District Court Judge Beth Keever, which took felony arrests powers from Spring Lake officers and turned the responsibilities for that work over to the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office.

Last week, the Sheriff’s Office reduced the level of protection it was offering after Spring Lake leaders refused to pay for the services.

Town leaders have said they are considering taking legal action.

Staff writer Corey G. Johnson can be reached at johnsonc@fayobserver.com or 486-3511

9-MONTH-OLD FOUND DEAD IN PUEBLO TRASH CAN

 

http://www.examiner.com/x-2849-Denver-Foster-Parenting-Examiner~y2009m7d5-9monthold-found-dead-in-Pueblo-trash-can

By: Sally McComb

A 9-month-old baby girl was found dead in a trash bin behind a Pueblo Safeway on Friday evening. Her name has not been released. The baby was in the legal custody of Pueblo County Department of Social Services and in the physical care of her grandmother.

Kevin Beuhler, 22, was arrested and jailed on suspicion of first-degree murder by a person in a position of trust. Beuhler is a cousin of the dead girl, who had been reported missing Friday morning. The girl’s parents, Selena Olson and Ted Perez, are not suspects.

An autopsy is pending to determine the girl’s cause of death.

SIGNS OF TROUBLE WITH MALLO FAMILY WERE THERE

 

http://wvgazette.com/News/200907030416?page=1&build=cache

By Gary Harki

Staff writer

 

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The Mallo family knew how to work the system.

Someone in the family owned a broken-down truck that would sit on the curb near their house at 1319 Frame St. Police would come and tell them it had to be moved, said Charleston Mayor Danny Jones. They’d push the truck into their yard until the city came and said it violated city codes there. Then they’d move it back out on the street.

When police started investigating the situation on Frame Street after the killing of 82-year-old Phyllis Jean Phares, Charleston Police Chief Brent Webster said he spent some time patrolling the area.

The Mallos were known to the area’s beat officers, but they were seen more as a nuisance than anything, he said.

“I don’t think they were high up on our radar,” Webster said.

But now a 14-year-old member of the family is apparently charged with killing Phares, though police and prosecutors won’t say so because he’s underage. And the 14-year-old’s entire adult family — two brothers, a sister and his parents — are charged with crimes ranging from child neglect to rape to sexually abusing a 7-year-old.

Along with police, the family had daily interactions with the school system, social services and neighbors. Yet no one stepped in to remove the children from the home or to stop the situation from worsening.

“You’d hate to think that it would have to come to all this,” Webster said.

Mandated reporters

Last November, Child Protective Services had Trina Mallo’s 7-year-old son interviewed for signs of sexual abuse.

The interview stemmed from a situation at the children’s elementary school, said Sgt. Steve Cooper, chief of detectives for Charleston police. CPS was called in during that incident by the school and that led to the forensic interview, he said.

“I don’t know what happened after that,” Cooper said.

Trina Mallo’s 7-year-old son had been a student at J.E. Robins Elementary School, a source, speaking anonymously because of child privacy issues, confirmed.

J.E. Robins Principal Henry Nearman said he could not discuss specifics about any child that went to the school, past or present.

“We’re all mandated reporters,” he said of school employees, meaning that they are required by law to report any signs or suspicions of child abuse or neglect.

When police served a search warrant on the Mallo home in early June, along with deplorable living conditions, they came across a witness who said that some of the underage children in the home might have been victims of sexual abuse.

“At that point we contacted Child Protective Services and they removed the children from the home,” Cooper said.

They were taken to CAMC Women’s and Children’s Hospital, where the forensic interviews for such cases take place, Cooper said. It was there that police discovered that Trina Mallo’s two young children had been interviewed in November 2008.

Not reported

Police cite the forensic medical examination conducted in November as the basis for first-degree sexual abuse charges against Alexandrio Michael Mallo in June — seven months later.

According to the complaint, he was charged with first-degree sexual abuse for allegedly striking the boy’s genitals with a ruler, among other things.

CPS workers, as well as any officials at CAMC, are required to report child sex abuse cases to police, said Marsha Dadisman, spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Human Resources.

DHHR officials declined to speak about the case specifically, citing confidentiality laws.

Normally such cases are reported twice, once to local police and once to West Virginia State Police, Dadisman said.

Charleston police and the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Department officials both said the case was not reported to them.

State Police have no record of the November interview being referred to them, said Sgt. Michael Baylous.

“Typically, if we receive information that a crime occurred within the city of Charleston, we refer the complainant to them. I’m not saying that it did or did not happen in this case. We just don’t have any record or recollection of this happening,” he said via e-mail.

CAMC spokeswoman Elizabeth Pellegrin said she couldn’t confirm whether the children had been treated or interviewed at CAMC, citing privacy laws.

“I can’t imagine that police didn’t know about this,” Dadisman said.

Often in such cases, children can be removed temporarily, then are taken back if the situation improves, she said.

If sexual abuse is suspected in any case, it would be routine for a child to have a forensic medical examination and be removed from his or her home until safety issues could be addressed, said DHHR spokesman John Law.

“It really depends on the reaction of the family and how protective they are being of the child,” Dadisman said. “If [CPS] truly doesn’t think the family is going to protect the child, they can go to court over it.”

A circuit judge has to make the final decision to permanently remove children from a home, she said.

“It further traumatizes kids if you have to remove them, as opposed to getting the perpetrator out and working on the issues,” she said.

Housing

Charleston building inspectors were also familiar with the Mallo house on Frame Street, said Tony Harmon, the city’s building commissioner.

“My inspectors were surprised that children were living there because we never saw any, never saw them outside,” Harmon said. “We never called CPS on this case. We didn’t see any children.”

Harmon said his building inspectors deferred inspection of the home to the Charleston-Kanawha Housing Authority, as they do with all HUD housing.

The Mallo home received federal Housing and Urban Development funding, but only for three residents — one adult and two children, said Michele Hatfield, public relations coordinator for the Charleston-Kanawha Housing Authority.

The house had been inspected once a year and had been on the HUD program since October 2006, she said.

“If we run into a problem with one of their properties, we call and their inspectors inspect it,” Harmon said. “We called at least once before on that house.”

Harmon said, like many houses, they’d get cited for sanitation issues, high grass, weeds and the place would be cleaned up. Then the mess would just continue.

“The mother and her two kids were the legal tenants,” Mayor Jones said. “Then they brought in the whole gang.”

Neighbors

It’s hard to believe that people who came into contact with the family didn’t know something was wrong, said the Rev. Matthew Watts, pastor of the Grace Bible Church on Charleston’s West Side. Watts has worked with underprivileged and troubled children for more than 20 years as CEO of HOPE Community Development Corp.

“Someone should have been shouting, screaming,” he said. “We have a responsibility to get someone out of that situation. It takes courage, otherwise it is always a postmortem where we’re all very sad.”

The day after Thomas Mallo was arrested, neighbors said the 14-year-old wasn’t capable of killing his 82-year-old neighbor. Many remembered his brother Farris as the neighborhood mechanic, always fixing cars.

But a few days later, the reaction was different. One woman recalled Thomas Mallo the night Phares’ body was found.

“He was so distant, so different,” she said. “He seemed like he either saw what happened or knew something about it.”

Children in terrible family situations become extremely disconnected from society, Watts said.

“Family situations can be so dysfunctional, that they really have not connected in a way that a child needs to grow up healthy and feel secure, valued,” he said. “So what happens is there is this tremendous sense of emptiness and loneliness.”

What starts out as deep hurt and disappointment progresses to anger, Watts said.

“It’s like a powder keg,” he said. “All it takes is an ignition source to explode into rage.”

No one should expect government to work unless people make it work, he said.

“We have a responsibility as a society to protect these children,” Watts said. “It takes aggressive, persistent agitation to make our system work.”

Staff writer Davin White contributed to this report. Reach Gary Harki at gha…@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5163.

 

The Mallo family

A rundown of the Mallo family members who lived in the house at 1319 Frame St.

Carolyn Mallo, 55: She is charged with felony child endangerment because of the conditions in her home.

Alexander Doran (whom police say also uses the last name Mallo), 67: The patriarch of the family, he is charged with felony child endangerment.

Trina Mallo, 27: The daughter of Carolyn Mallo and Doran, she is the mother of a 7-year-old boy and 6-year-old girl who lived in the home. She is also charged with felony child endangerment.

Farris Mallo, 29: The oldest of Carolyn Mallo and Doran’s three sons, he is accused of sexually assaulting his ex-wife three times. He is charged with three counts of first-degree sexual assault and three counts of burglary for allegedly breaking into her house to commit the assaults.

Alexandrio Michael Mallo, 23: The middle son of Carolyn Mallo and Doran, he was arrested in June on a charge of sexually abusing his 7-year-old nephew. He was charged with first-degree sexual abuse for allegedly striking the boy’s genitals with a ruler, among other things.

Thomas Mallo, 14: The youngest son of Carolyn Mallo and Doran. He is apparently the 14-year-old charged with killing Phyllis Jean Phares, though police won’t confirm it because he is a minor. At his arraignment on child endangerment charges, Doran said he had one 14-year-old dependent named Thomas Mallo.