Adopt Newt's Orphaned Idea, Re: Newark, NJ, Children locked in Basement

In the light of the most recent disclosures concerning the state Division of Youth and Family Services, let me pose the following question. Which of the following is the nuttier idea?

Leave children with parents or guardians who may have a tendency to abuse alcohol and/or drugs, or remove those children to places where they would be clothed, fed and educated?

The disturbing past of woman in Newark abuse case

DYFS reports from years ago show pattern of trouble for last known caretaker of 3 boys

Sunday, February 09, 2003

BY MARY JO PATTERSON
Star-Ledger Staff

One month after the decomposed body of 7-year-old Faheem Williams was found stashed in a Newark basement and his starving brothers freed from a squalid den nearby, no one has been charged directly in his death, and authorities do not seem close.

Child welfare officials say they have narrowed to three the search for a specialized foster home for the other boys -- the surviving twin, Raheem, an energetic little boy who interprets for his younger brother, Tyrone Hill, 4, whose speech is largely unintelligible. They remain at University Hospital, physically healthy except for a case of chickenpox.

New information, meanwhile, has come to light about Sherry Murphy, 41, the children's last-known caretaker and one of three people charged in the case. Murphy, a mother of five, is a cousin of the boys' mother, Melinda Williams.

In 1987, long before Faheem's remains surfaced in her basement, Murphy told a caseworker from the state Division of Youth and Family Services she was afraid she might hurt her own children.

Murphy also was investigated for possible neglect around the same time. A close friend informed on her, telling authorities Murphy had abandoned her 2-year-old son near a pizza parlor.

Those reports and other disturbing information about Sherry Murphy were recorded in DYFS files years ago.

But the DYFS caseworker watching over Faheem Williams and his brothers in 2001 either did not locate the files or did not find them troubling. And, while she knew Sherry Murphy was a surrogate parent, she did not list her as a caretaker -- or even part of the household -- when she closed out the case.

The caseworker also failed to discover that Murphy had a criminal record for embezzlement. The caseworker was suspended last month in the scandal growing out of Faheem's death.

A recent and confidential summary of the old DYFS files, obtained by The Star-Ledger, relates a period of her life more than 10 years ago when she was a young welfare mother with young children. On one occasion late in 1987, Murphy, pregnant with her third child and abandoned by her boyfriend, told DYFS she was overwhelmed with problems and feared she might harm her children.

At the time, DYFS described Murphy, who was unemployed and living in a Newark housing project, as someone who lacked "parenting skills" and had "difficulty maintaining a budget." She had quit school after ninth grade.

The agency found her using candles to light her home because her power had been shut off, and gave her money to pay the electric bill. The agency also paid a "foster grandparent" to help her care for her children and teach her how to budget. DYFS also sent Murphy to a mental health clinic in Newark.

Her worker also documented an unorthodox lifestyle in which Murphy shared a boyfriend with her best friend. Murphy and the friend each had three children with the man, identified in the files as Wesley Thomas. All six children were in the same age range, the files noted.

The case files do not make it clear whether the agency was able to substantiate the seriousness of her statement that she might harm her children. People familiar with similar cases note that savvy clients sometimes say such things in order to receive services. A skeptical caseworker might also record such a comment to help expedite aid. As for the report that Murphy abandoned her son, it appears that the caseworker was uncertain whether it happened.

DYFS actually stumbled on to the Murphy household while investigating a different woman for child abuse. Murphy and the woman were living together.

Most of the furor ignited by the ordeal of Faheem Williams and his brothers has resulted from the child-protection agency's admission that it failed to follow up on an Oct. 3, 2001, report that Melinda Williams had beaten and burned her children. Earlier reports had substantiated instances of neglect and abuse.

Murphy and Williams were living together at that time.

Still unclear is the approximate date of Faheem's death.

In press reports, Murphy has been described as dancer who worked in seedy go-go bars. But the confidential records of the Essex County Department of Economic Development, Training and Employment show that she also made a living off welfare.

Between January 2000 and January 2003, when police made their gruesome discovery in the basement of her apartment at 188 Parker St., she collected roughly $900 month in grants and food stamps for herself and her five children, although not all of them lived with her .

Now and then, during that period, Murphy failed to obey the rules for collecting welfare and had her grant reduced. Yet it was always restored.

Also, on at least one occasion, she received additional public assistance. Records show Murphy an emergency grant of more than $1,100, to be paid to Public Service Electric & Gas Co.

Williams was also on the welfare rolls. A mother of five, her oldest child had been removed by the state years before. Periodically she gave care of the other four over to various friends and relatives.

It is not known exactly where she was living during the final months of 2002, when it is believed that Faheem died.

However, she told county welfare authorities in September that she was boarding at the Newark home of a Nigerian woman for $100 a month. Two months later, she requested emergency money for shelter, and she was given $372 for one month's stay at the Newark Y. She never appeared.

On the weekend Faheem's body was discovered, Williams was hit by a car in New York.

She has not been charged in Faheem's death.

Ronald Schwartz, her lawyer, said last week that she is in a hospital but will probably be moved soon for additional rehabilitation.

Wesley Thomas, Sherry Murphy's 16-year-old son, is in custody at a juvenile jail in Newark. The charges are aggravated assault and child endangerment.

He was taken into custody Jan. 10 after telling detectives he struck Faheem in the stomach while they were wrestling. According to law enforcement sources, the youth said the blow knocked out the boy. He and his mother, unable to revive him, hid the body, the sources said.

The youth's lawyer, Patricia Weston Rivera, has since filed court papers asking a judge to throw out the statement, which he made without an attorney present. Two DYFS workers, however, were there.

In the papers, she says investigators "berated, coerced and cajoled" him during the interview.

Rivera has also asked Family Judge James G. Troiano to remove Carolyn Wright, an assistant Essex County prosecutor, from the case. As the main interrogator, Wright "exerted extreme psychological pressures" on her client, the lawyer maintained.

"Wesley did not admit to me that he hit his cousin," Rivera said last week. "Words were put in his mouth."

Prosecutors want the teenager, who has a child, to be tried as an adult. He is scheduled to appear in Family Court in Newark tomorrow.

The third person behind bars is Joseph Reese, 45, another member of Sherry Murphy's household who has been accused of sexual abuse.

In the meantime, question of who killed Faheem? -- is unanswered.

Edward Gordon, chief of the homicide unit in the Essex County Prosecutor's Office, said Friday the case is still under investigation.

"I continue to believe that someone will be charged with homicide in this case," he said.

Staff writers Guy Sterling, Bill Kleinknecht, Sue Livio and Nikita Stewart contributed to this report.

State fighting suit seeking DYFS reform
Sunday, February 16, 2003
By CANDY J. COOPER

Dolores and Anna slept in a box in the woods and brushed their teeth with sticks.

Their mother seemed empty of love. Depressed and emaciated at 70 pounds, she rarely touched or spoke to her children.

Their father beat his wife and injected drugs into his arms.

And if the state of New Jersey had reacted differently to their case, it might not now be facing a crisis at the Division of Youth and Family Services.

DYFS had a history with the family. Before the two little girls were born, the state took three older children away from their parents. One had been found blue and nearly frozen in a crib, urine-soaked, lethargic, and failing to thrive. He'd been routinely fed popcorn and hot peppers. Another was born addicted to cocaine.

But despite the suffering of their older siblings, a child welfare worker visited the Burlington County home just once before closing the file on Dolores and Anna, records show.

By the time authorities returned, the two girls were covered in dirt and feces, most of Dolores' teeth had rotted and Anna's head had flattened from lying on her back for so long.

The case of Dolores and Anna G. and the equally horrifying cases of 14 other children harmed under the state's watch were outlined in a class-action lawsuit filed against New Jersey authorities nearly four years ago - long before 7-year-old Faheem Williams was found dead in a basement closet in Newark last month.

The lawsuit demanded wholesale changes to DYFS, including lower caseloads, better supervision of children, and an overhaul of the foster care system. But the state instead hired private attorneys to fight the case.

Now, some are asking whether the state blundered. Other states, when faced with similar suits, have chosen reform over a court battle. Had New Jersey taken that path four years ago, reforms could have long since been in place to ensure case workers were closely supervising the care of vulnerable children like Faheem.

"It's chilling, absolutely chilling," said Eric Thompson, senior staff attorney for Children's Rights Inc., the child advocacy group that brought the federal suit. "We've been screaming about this case for four years and nobody listened. They fought us at every step. Then we have Williams and the governor says the system stinks. It's such a disgrace."

Now, under unrelenting scrutiny since Faheem's body was found, state officials agreed Friday to meet with a mediator to settle the case, though pretrial preparations continute.

"If we both want to keep children safe, and transform DYFS into an agency that truly does that, there's a lot to talk about," said Kevin Ryan, deputy chief of operations for Governor McGreevey.

The governor has promised to scrap DYFS and create a new family services agency. On Thursday, state Human Services Commissioner Gwendolyn Harris promised to transform the system with the hiring of 112 new supervisors and caseworkers along with 127 new support staff. Social workers investigating allegations of abuse will be accompanied by armed police guards. Thousands of new computers and cellphones will arrive by July, she said.

The story of how welfare workers failed to protect Dolores and Anna G. is eerily similar to the Williams case. As different as the families were - black and urban in the Williams case, vs. the white, rural surroundings of Dolores and Anna - they faced similar treatment from DYFS: Parental rights had been terminated on older children, but that did not trigger vigilance with the younger siblings. And, despite numerous complaints, the case was closed after a single visit over the course of several years.

"The Williams case is Dolores and Anna all over again," Thompson said.

It could have been different, child welfare experts say. New Jersey could have followed the lead of numerous other jurisdictions - including New York City, Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri, Connecticut, Kansas, and others - and made the Children's Rights lawsuit a basis for reform.

Among the most recent to choose reform after being sued is Tennessee. Two years ago, that state's then-commissioner of child welfare, George Hattaway, decided settling the Children's Rights lawsuit and overhauling the system was the only moral choice.

"It was the right thing to do for the kids," said Hattaway, now working with the Florida Child Welfare League. "We knew we had a serious problem and we had to have the confidence to say, 'We really screwed up.' If we both sat down, we could agree on what was best for the kids."

That decision led to the hiring of nearly 500 new child welfare workers, as well as measures to preserve families, decrease stays in foster care, and reduce disparities in services to minority children.

When New York City faced a Children's Rights lawsuit after 6-year-old Elisa Iqzquierdo was beaten to death by her mother in 1995, child welfare officials also chose reform. Improvements included a shrinking of the foster care population, and an increase in staff, training, and salaries.

Alabama enacted what some child welfare experts called model reforms when targeted by a suit. It has been most successful in small counties, where the number of children taken from their families has been reduced and those who remained at home are half as likely to be abused again.

"As a result of the way we settled and the goodwill of the parties, it has helped transform the Alabama system," said Paul Vincent, former director of child welfare in Alabama, who now works as a policy expert

"I think litigation is a last resort," he said. "However, if there's no other way to make states responsible to kids and families, it can work."

In contrast, New Jersey has spent $810,000 to date to battle the suit, filed in 1999. "Real change has to come from within the government's public process - from the governor's office, the Legislature, and appointed officials," said one of the experts hired by the state to challenge the case, Robert McKeagney, a vice president at the Child Welfare League of America.

He called such lawsuits "not only unfortunate diversions of resources, but also huge distractions."

And reforms don't always work, he said, noting deaths and injuries occur even in states with major improvements. Tennessee, for example, recently called for an accounting of all its foster children when some were not found at their known addresses.

Joe Delmar, human services spokesman for New Jersey, has said repeatedly that the state would not settle.

"Children's Rights has created a business for itself by suing state child welfare systems," he said. "We would settle tomorrow if it didn't involve providing legal fees to them. We would prefer to spend that money, which in other states has ranged up to $10 million, on services for children and families."

Thompson, of Children's Rights, called the $10 million figure "totally bogus," saying fees are determined by the court.

"What should be questioned is the state's decision to litigate this case for the past four years - at enormous expense to all parties when fundamental flaws to the system have been obvious from the beginning," he said.

The New Jersey lawsuit outlines many DYFS failures. Besides Dolores and her sister, the suit includes the story of Barry M., who moved through numerous foster and detention placements during his 16 years under DYFS and ended up homeless and in prison. Charlie and Nadine H., were beaten with a broomstick, bucket, and curtain rod by their foster mother. And even though an auxiliary police officer presented evidence of their abuse, DYFS continued with its plan for the foster mother to adopt them.

"The toilet regularly overflowed and feces ran through the ceiling and into the kitchen, where bags of groceries with fresh meat sat and rotted on the floor," said Sgt. John Grooms of the Trenton Auxiliary Police. "[The foster mother] couldn't climb the stairs, so she used a five-gallon plastic pail to go to the bathroom. When the kids' toilet didn't work, they went in the pail, too. Then she'd empty it into the back yard, where they played."
The lawsuit calls DYFS overburdened, poorly managed, and underfunded.
Since Faheem's body was found in a plastic storage bin in Newark on Jan. 5, the state itself has described the system in similar terms.

Richard Gelles, acting dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert representing Children's Rights in their lawsuit, is among a team of researchers reviewing 500 files from the roughly 9,000 cases DYFS was managing last year.

"If Governor McGreevey spent some time reading the case files we're reading, he'd settle in a few days," Gelles said.

The state, meanwhile, refuses to discuss Dolores and Anna G.'s case, citing confidentiality. But DYFS records show that when Dolores was born in February 1995, an anonymous caller tipped DYFS to her arrival and reminded the state they'd taken away three other children.

DYFS called the hospital where she was born and took no further action for three years, state records show.

In 1998, another anonymous caller told DYFS the home was "disgusting," littered with animal feces and trash. The caller said there was a new baby, Anna. A visit to the home by a DYFS worker that day found no cause for concern, the report said.

Four months later, an anonymous caller reported the family was living in squalor, without water, electricity, or food, the report said.

In response to that tip, in August 1998, the state police met DYFS at the home. Dolores was found covered with dirt, her eyes red and sunken, the report noted. Anna, malnourished, was covered with feces.

"It's something you can describe, but experiencing it and smelling it is something totally different," said Sgt. Don Steadman, then a state trooper who went to the house that day. "The dogs were in very good condition, well-fed and clean. The children definitely were not."

Steadman found trash strewn throughout the home and food rotting in the refrigerator. Insects infested the house. A bathtub was being used as a toilet. There was no food "fit for human consumption," the report noted.

Eighteen of Dolores' 20 teeth were "completely decayed," she was without needed eyeglasses and had limited speech, according to the lawsuit.

She told authorities her mother used to punish her by throwing her in a nearby lake, the lawsuit says. She has also said she and her sister lived not in the house but in the woods surrounding it, that she slept in a slimy cardboard box, and helped her father prepare his drugs, Thompson said.

Baby Anna, at 7 months, was diagnosed as "failing to thrive." Her skull had flattened from having been left on her back for prolonged periods. Her neck muscles were so weak she was unable to lift her head.

The girls were taken away. It took five days of repeated bathings to remove the accumulated dirt.

Despite these wretched conditions and the parents' arrest on child abuse charges, DYFS concluded the girls could be successfully reunited with their parents. The parents pled to a lesser charge and were sentenced to two years of probation and a $50 fine, according to the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office.

The plan to reunite the family continued. It was only after the Children's Rights lawsuit was filed that state officials decided the two should be adopted instead.

Today, Dolores and Anna live with their adoptive parents, Tim and Denise, who guard their last names and their daughters' privacy. Dolores, now 8, has achieved the developmental level of her peers, and Anna, 5, appears very bright, Thompson said.

"It is nothing more than a miracle that we have what we have," Denise said. "They're beautiful little girls."
Candy Cooper's e-mail address is cooper@northjersey.com
6342222

Years without family leave scar on young life

Sunday, February 16, 2003
By CANDY J. COOPER

"I was lost because I had nobody. I do feel angry, but ain't nothing I can do about it." Brian Mayes, 20, on the time he spent as a child in the care of DYFS.

In the parole board room of the Albert C. Wagner Youth Correctional Facility in southern New Jersey, the sounds of prison life clatter through the halls. Heavy iron doors bang open and shut. Keys jangle. A whiff of disinfectant hangs in the air.

This is the home, as much as any other, of Brian Mayes, a lanky figure who emerges from behind bars dressed in beige prison wear. He offers a loose handshake, drops into an institutional chair, and begins to relate fragments of his 14 years under the supervision of the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services.

"I was lost because I had nobody," Mayes, 20, says in a resigned manner. He is serving a prison sentence for selling drugs in Camden. "I do feel angry, but ain't nothing I can do about it."

Mayes is part of a class-action suit that demands wholesale changes in the child welfare system to prevent other children from suffering in the state's care.

As described in the lawsuit brought against New Jersey authorities by Children's Rights Inc., Mayes was taken from his drug-abusing, homeless mother and her sexually abusive boyfriend when he was 4.

Under the state's care, the young boy marched from foster homes to orphanages to detention centers to three other states and back again. The lack of any permanent home, enduring family ties, or treatment for the emotional problems he developed left him alienated and lawless.

"His whole life is one big DYFS tragedy," said Eric Thompson, senior staff attorney at Children's Rights, which is demanding the state overhaul its child welfare system. "He was rootless; he had nobody. He was never provided with a stable placement that could meet his needs.

"If they had intervened early and intensively, there might've been a chance for him. Instead, he became a throwaway kid."

Mayes himself has nothing good to say about DYFS. "I don't like them, because they put me in and out of a lot of foster homes," Mayes says. They should have worked harder to keep him with relatives, such as his grandfather, or with a single foster family, he says.

New Jersey officials refused to discuss details of the case, citing confidentiality.

Mayes can't remember all the places he lived. He recalls "five or six" foster families and at least a dozen moves. He lived with his aunt for a time, and also with his grandfather.

All Mayes knows for sure is loss. His father died of a gunshot wound when he was an infant. He was 11 and living in a children's home in Mount Holly when his mother died of AIDS.

"I woke up that morning and I had to go to school," says Mayes, who was not allowed to attend her funeral. "I heard the staff members talking about how my mom had passed away. They were joking about it."

Shortly after his mother's death, his only sibling, his younger sister Natalie, moved out of state with her adoptive family. He has not seen or heard from her since. "I don't even remember how she looked," Mayes says sadly.

His most lasting connection was with Johnnie Sherman, a Camden County foster mother who took in Hayes when he was around age 6. But Thompson said Mayes was removed from the home after DYFS concluded he was being harshly disciplined.

"They said I burned his hands and stuck a cigarette lighter to him," Sherman said. "I didn't do that. I had left him in the car and he took the cigarette lighter and the thing lit loose mail and it caught fire and burned his hands."

She added: "You know how DYFS is. The things they should do, they don't, and the things they shouldn't do, they do."

Whatever the truth, Mayes was removed from the home - and the only loving figure still in his life. He was sent to the children's home in Camden County.

He began to hear voices, and he lost any feeling that what he did mattered. He ran away. He broke into cars seeking refuge. Once he was arrested after he was found asleep in a car he'd pried open with a screwdriver. At age 11, he stole a car. He has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, psychosis, and conduct disorder, the lawsuit says.

"I had nothing else to live for, so I just started getting in trouble," he said.

He spent time in a Pennsylvania treatment facility and in Arkansas with his aunt, and then sat in a New Jersey lockup for months, without psychiatric or other treatment.

On his 18th birthday, he signed himself out of DYFS custody, anxious to flee a system he feels treated him poorly. He had no home, no money, no family, and, with only a sixth-grade education, no skills. He found refuge at a homeless shelter.

In 2001, he was sentenced to three years in prison. Now under the care of the New Jersey Department of Corrections, he sleeps in a dorm and has a job sweeping floors and washing tables.

His grandfather died last year. He has lost track of his aunt. He called Johnnie Sherman recently.

"I always tried to instill in him, 'Don't let go,'" said Sherman, whom Mayes calls "Grandma." "I always told him, 'Somebody cares.'" 6342239

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