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Sunday, October 26, 1997

Neighbors of 9-year-old had reported suspicions

AUSTIN (AP) -- Two women who say they suspected child abuse at the home where a 9-year-old girl was recently found living in squalor want to know what happened to the complaints they registered with local authorities.

Gail Posey said that over the past few years she called everyone she could think of -- Child Protective Services, the Austin school district, police -- asking them to investigate the home.

Jessica Scheick said she too has made calls about the home after hearing what she called "blood-curdling screams" in the middle of the night.

Now, years after they first complained to the state, caseworkers have removed the girl from the West Austin house because of suspected neglect.

According to what state officials have discovered so far, the girl never saw a doctor or set foot in a school, and she had limited -- if any -- contact with the world beyond her front porch.

Posey, a lawyer, told the Austin American-Statesman that she kept a log of more than a dozen calls she placed from 1993 to 1995.

When she called the school district, she was told the child was being home-schooled by her grandmother. Child Protective Services said it had assigned a caseworker.

"I do not have complaints about them," Posey said, referring to the individuals she talked to.

"I do have complaints about the system."

Child Protective Services now is investigating why its workers -- who twice in 1995 investigated complaints of possible abuse or neglect at the girl's home -- opted to leave the girl in her home.

Linda Edwards, spokeswoman for the Department of Protective and Regulatory Services, said the department plans to reveal soon what it has discovered about those past investigations.

"I don't want to defend our actions in the past if we find they shouldn't be defended," she said.

Because of confidentiality laws, Edwards said, they can tell people who report suspected abuse or neglect whether the department made contact with the family, whether the evidence was sufficient to open a case and the results of the case, but nothing else.

Scheick said she called the state's child abuse hot line to report her suspicions that something wasn't right.

"They said that they'd investigate it," she said.

Scheick said that in follow-up calls she reported a hole in the home's roof, rats hanging from the curtains, and shouting and other strange noises.

She said the department told her not to be worried about it.

"I think they said they'd been out and talked to the mother and everything seemed OK," Scheick said. "I never heard anything back from them."

Posey, who worked with Child Protective Services workers when she was a court-appointed lawyer representing children removed from their homes, said she doesn't blame caseworkers.

"I think they're wonderful, caring people, compassionate and overworked," Posey said. "They can only plug holes in the dam. It goes much further, to us as a people, and our willingness and our legislators' willingness to put money into these services."

As for the Austin Police Department, records list two calls to the house -- one when the girl's grandfather died in 1995, and a second to assist caseworkers in removing the child on Monday.

And the school district has no authority to interfere with families who say they are home-schooling their children.

Dr. Kathy Synatschk, administrative supervisor for counseling, said parents need only state in writing that they are home-schooling.

"It does highlight one of the concerns that we always have about home-schooling," she said. "...there's that small minority that you're concerned that it's a great cover-up for abuse and neglect."

The 9-year-old girl is in an Austin shelter, where staff members say she has shown improvement and is being assessed by professionals.