Eleven kids found in cages in home

[sws4420]

Couple denies abusing or neglecting children

WAKEMAN, Ohio - Sheriff’s deputies found 11 children locked in cages less than 3½ feet high inside a home, but a couple denied they had abused or neglected the children.

A judge on Monday put the children — who range in age from 1 to 14 and who have various disabilities, including autism — in foster homes.

The children were found in nine cages built into the walls of the house near this small city in northern Ohio, according to the Huron County Sheriff’s Office. They had no blankets or pillows, and the cages were rigged with alarms that sounded if opened, Lt. Randy Sommers said.

The children told authorities they slept in the cages — 40 inches high and 40 inches deep — at night. Doors to some of the cages were blocked with heavy furniture.

Sharen and Mike Gravelle are adoptive or foster parents for all 11 children, officials said. Prosecutors were reviewing the case, but no charges had been filed as of Monday night.

A children’s services investigator saw one of the children in a cage Friday, Sommers said. The sheriff’s office obtained a warrant and returned to the house that evening and removed the children.

The Gravelles do not have a listed telephone number.

A woman who identified herself as Sharen Gravelle’s mother but would not give her name said the children were happy in their new home.

“This year they have played and had fun and laughed like no other children have, which they have never been able to do,” she said.

At a hearing, the judge placed the children in the custody of the Department of Job and Family Services, and officials placed them in four foster homes, said county Juvenile Court Administrator Chris Mushett.

Appearing with a lawyer at the hearing, the Gravelles denied they had abused or neglected the children.

County Prosecutor Russell Leffler said the Gravelles claimed a psychiatrist recommended they place the children in cages.

The couple were reserved when deputies arrived at the house to remove the children, Sommers said.

“The impression that we got was that they felt it was OK,” he said.

Investigators believe nine of the children slept in the cages that were stacked two-high on the house’s second story. Two mattresses on a bedroom floor also showed signs of recent use, Sommers said.

One of the boys said he’d slept in the cage for three years, Sommers said.

Wakeman, with a population of about 1,000, is some 50 miles west of Cleveland.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9319446/

[Venus]

What sick foster parents. Don't they go and check on these households on a regular basis. The just punishment for those parents is to place them in a cage FOREVER, with no food and water, to DIE.

[sws4420]

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/050915/050915_CAGED_CHILDREN_hmed_9p.hmedium.jpg

CLEVELAND - The parents under investigation for having some of their 11 adopted children sleep in cages defended their actions, saying the homemade “enclosures” were meant to protect youngsters who set fires and injured each other.

Michael and Sharen Gravelle of Wakeman, Ohio, have denied abusing or neglecting the children, who are ages 1 to 14 and have conditions that include autism and fetal alcohol syndrome. No charges have been filed, and the children, whose situation was discovered last week, now are in foster care.

The couple authorized their attorney to issue a statement Wednesday evening explaining their actions.

“The children have been out of control and have caused serious harm to themselves and each other,” said attorney David Sherman, adding that Michael Gravelle built the enclosures to provide the children with a secure space while their parents slept at night.

“The Gravelles love and miss their children and are devastated and brokenhearted with worry, since their children have been ripped away from them,” Sherman said.

“Their motives and intentions were good. They would never harm a child.”

‘Glowing reports’ from child services
The Gravelles received “glowing reports” from private agencies that reviewed them for the adoption of one of the children, said Jim McCafferty, director of the Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services, which placed the boy with the couple.

Erich Dumbeck, director of the Huron County Department of Job and Family Services, said there are no limits to how many children may be placed in a home but that his agency makes the child’s welfare a key factor. The Gravelle adoptions were arranged outside the county.

Ohio doesn’t require home visits after an adoption. Dumbeck said his agency did not have contact with the family before Friday’s court-ordered search, which resulted from a complaint that he wouldn’t discuss.

The Ohio couple are white and their adoptive children are black, a group that historically has been harder to place. In 2002, the most recent figures available, there were 127,942 children awaiting adoption in the United States, including 54,832 black youngsters, according to the Child Welfare League of America. The organization didn’t tally the number of special needs children.

Keith Alford, a Syracuse University associate professor who has written extensively on adoption, said social workers may be unaware of the demands of caring for disabled children and may be anxious to find them homes.

Neighbors and others said the 11 children were polite, well-behaved, well-dressed and appear to have been well-fed.

The Gravelles have said a psychiatrist recommended they make the children sleep in the cages, Huron County Prosecutor Russell Leffler told the Norwalk Reflector.

8 children slept in cages stacked in bedrooms
Neighbors said they often saw or heard the children playing, and the family yard was littered with toys — plastic cars, tricycles, slides and an overturned skateboard near a wooden ramp. Seven bicycles were piled in a storage shed.

“Those kids were dressed better than some of the kids who live in Cleveland. They behaved like any other kids when they were outside playing,” said Jim Power, who lives across the street.

At night, authorities say, eight of the children were confined in 3½-foot-tall wooden cages stacked in bedrooms on the second floor. The cages were painted in bright, primary colors, with some rigged with alarms that would send a signal to the downstairs when a cage door was opened. One cage had a dresser in front of it, county sheriff’s Lt. Randy Sommers said Tuesday.

“The sheriff and I stood there for a few minutes and just kind of stared at what we were seeing. We were speechless,” Sommers said.

A pig, roosters and other animals shared the yard outside Wakeman, a city of about 1,000 people 50 miles west of Cleveland.

According to the search warrant, the cages had mats and the house smelled of urine. One boy said he slept in a cage for three years, Sommers said. A baby slept in a small bed, and two girls used mattresses

Deputies said they were called to the home last year when a 12-year-old boy was upset and ran away for several hours. He was found not far away.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9319446/

[sws4420]

Dad: Caging Special-Needs Kids Necessary

CLEVELAND (AP) - The father suspected of keeping some of 11 special-needs adopted children in cages says he confined them only to keep them safe and showed off damage to his home he says they caused.

"I felt terrible about it,'' Michael Gravelle told a reporter and photographer for The Plain Dealer during a tour of his home Sunday. "But it's necessary.''

The children were removed from the home last month and sent to foster homes while the adoptions are investigated. The parents have not been charged, and custody hearings are scheduled in the widely publicized case.

The couple previously has not let reporters into their home, about 60 miles southwest of Cleveland near Wakeman. Michael Gravelle said he was tired of his wife, Sharen, being labeled "world's most evil mother.''

The Gravelles say they were adopting children nobody else wanted, who had problems such as fetal alcohol syndrome, autism, HIV and pica, an eating disorder that causes children to eat dirt and rocks.

The enclosures where the children slept are about 6 feet in length. The doors could be opened easily and had no locks on them, but a battery-powered alarm would go off when the doors opened, the newspaper said.

They were used as sleeping quarters to prevent the children from hurting themselves with glass or eating medicines, Michael Gravelle said. Every cupboard and shelf was covered with chicken wire for the same reason, he said.

"If you can call these cages, take me to jail right now,'' Michael Gravelle said. "Right now.''

The couple pointed out holes where they said the children had kicked in the walls and gouges in the drywall from their fingernails. Baseboards were soaked with urine stains, and the walls still show marks where the children had smeared their feces.

"We live with this smell,'' said Sharen Gravelle, who at times broke down in tears. "We love these children.''

Prosecutor Russ Leffler alleges that the Gravelles were adopting the children for financial gain. Records show they received $4,265 monthly in adoption subsidies and disability payments when they had eight children in 2001.

"You could not pay me enough to do the things we had to do,'' Michael Gravelle said. "There is nothing easy about raising these children. We did not abuse them. That's the truth.''

The couple's lawer, David Sherman, was not aware of Sunday's tour, the newspaper said.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-5366148,00.html