Saturday, July 18, 1998

Tragedy that shouldn't have happened

By Bob Greene

The child known as Joe -- a boy about whom we have reported for 31¼2 years -- has been confined involuntarily to a residential facility, where, at the age of 10, he lives among strangers, away from everyone who ever loved him.

To fully understand what has happened to this lost, lonely child -- how his life was destroyed by a court of law that had the power to help him, to save him -- we must go back to the beginning and report in detail. It is the least we owe this tormented boy -- and the only way to try to make sure that what was done to him is never done to another voiceless child.

Joe was born in central Illinois on Nov. 5, 1987, to a woman who didn't want him. She feared a boyfriend would find out another man was the father.

So she gave the baby to a friend and the friend's husband. The couple -- we have referred to them as Ronnie and Teresa Smith -- were well known to law-enforcement officials. Ronnie Smith was a convicted felon, having done jail time for burglary and theft. Stark County Sheriff Lonny Dennison told us, "These are a couple of lowlifes -- real bad people. Unless you wanted a child to grow up around dopers and (obscenities), you'd never want a child to be with them."

Judge Robert J. Cashen apparently agreed. In January of 1989, in the courthouse in Toulon, Ill., he ruled the Smiths should not be permitted to adopt the boy. Judge Cashen asked Lutheran Social Services of Illinois to find Joe a good home.

"We placed (Joe) with Craig and Karyl Findley, in Jacksonville, Ill.," Rev. Donald M. Hallberg, who was president of Lutheran Social Services, told us. "They are the ideal adoptive family -- loving, moral, ethical, compassionate, deeply religious people. (Joe) was on his way to having a wonderful life."

For the next 11 months, Joe lived with the Findleys and their 9-year-old son, Andy. "(Joe) was the happiest, most cheerful, easygoing boy," Karyl Findley said. "When he first came, and he would fall down and cry, we would pick him up and he wouldn't put his arms around us -- it was as if no one had ever comforted him when he cried before.

"But soon enough he knew he had a family. He was so curious and talkative -- he always had a smile on his face." Andy Findley fell in love with his new little brother.

Then it happened. An Illinois Appellate Court panel issued an order, written by James D. Heiple, saying Judge Cashen had not given a good enough reason for not letting Ronnie and Teresa Smith adopt Joe. Whatever the appellate panel's reason for disapproving of Judge Cashen's decision, the panel did not allow Cashen, or any other fact-finding judge, to look into the circumstances of Joe's life.

Remember -- the Smiths were not related to Joe. Teresa Smith was merely a friend of the woman who had given Joe up at birth; Ronnie was a felon. Yet the Heiple panel somehow believed that those people had rights that exceeded Joe's.

"No inquiry was made about what was good for (Joe)," Karyl Findley said. "No one from court spoke to us, or asked how (Joe) was doing. They just said he had to leave."

The Heiple panel ordered that Joe, then 2, was to be packed and taken from his home within 24 hours. When Judge Cashen tried to delay Joe's transfer, the Heiple panel moved to hold contempt proceedings against Cashen.

"I packed (Joe's) clothes and tried to explain it to him," Karyl Findley said. "But how do you explain that to a child?"

On that last day, Craig Findley said, "I raked leaves on our lawn with (Joe) in the morning. Then he went in for his nap. I lay with him as he slept -- I didn't want to be away from him for a minute."

That evening, the Findleys drove Joe to where Ronnie and Teresa Smith waited with their pickup truck.

"I put (Joe) in the pickup truck, and the look in his eyes will haunt me forever," Karyl Findley said. "It was a look of pure terror. They got in the truck and drove away, and the last thing I saw was Joe waving at me."

What might a lower court have learned, had Heiple's panel allowed even a brief hearing?

James D. Owens, the Stark County state's attorney, told us: "If a child I cared about was going to be sent to live with (Ronnie Smith)? I would say a daily prayer for that child."

With good reason.

Chicago Tribune