Posted on 01/18/2005 5:52:24 AM PST by BellStar
Since her death, he's volunteered at women's center
Padilla family photo
Linda Padilla was 2 when she was sexually assaulted and beaten to death in August 2003. Life for Dr. Thomas Flowers has changed since he helped stabilize battered 2-year-old Linda Padilla before she eventually died from injuries at the hands of her father.
Flowers, an emergency-room doctor at Christus St. John Hospital in Nassau Bay, was set to testify against Frank Padilla in his capital murder trial before the League City man pleaded guilty to capital murder and two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child.
Since the tragic evening of Aug. 8, 2003, Flowers has dedicated himself to volunteering with the Bay Area Turning Point, a local women's shelter, and encouraging more men to volunteer.
Flowers says he wants women to know the shelter is available. Had Magdalena Padilla, the girl's mother, known about the shelter, she could have sought refuge there for her daughter, he said.
"One of the things I always imagined was what if the mom had gone over there on Thursday, then this wouldn't have happened on Friday," said Flowers, whose eyes still fill with tears when talking about the Padilla case.
The death of Linda Padilla highlighted an ineffective state child-abuse hot line system. A pizza deliveryman called the hot line two months before Linda died to report that the child had a black eye. Frank Padilla, according to the pizza deliveryman, was shielding the girl from the door when he delivered the pizza.
Brett Coomer/Chronicle Dr. Thomas Flowers is still moved when he talks about Linda Padilla. Flowers had been on the phone talking to his son that Friday evening when a nurse summoned him with, "Dr. Flowers, I need you now."
The moment Flowers saw the little girl lying on the hospital bed, he knew she was a victim of child abuse.
Flowers led a team of about 10 medical personnel who tended to the child before she was transferred by helicopter to the pediatric intensive care unit at Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston. St. John doesn't have a pediatric intensive care unit.
As the child was being loaded onto the helicopter, Flowers said, he did not think she would survive. Then, the girl's mother arrived after being summoned from her job at a Wal-Mart in Kemah.
"We had a stress debriefing afterward," Flowers, 59, said of the medical team that worked on the girl. "It still bothers everyone to this day. I've taken care of all kinds of things" but nothing compared with the Padilla case.
Flowers said he briefly interviewed Frank Padilla.
"He was trying to tell me she fell off a sink and hit her head," recalled Flowers, who has worked at the Nassau Bay hospital about 3 1/2 years. "I stayed in that room about 30 seconds. I just got up and walked out. I said, 'Send the police in there. They need to talk to this guy.' "
Padilla repeated his story to police that the child had fallen but then recanted and confessed to beating the girl because she had wet her pants.
Linda died Aug. 13, 2003, after being taken off life support. An autopsy showed she suffered a broken pelvis, broken ribs, a fractured skull and bruises all over her body. She also was sexually assaulted.
Flowers attended the girl's funeral.
"It just became evident to me that I had to do something. I didn't know what to do. ... The only place I knew of that seemed to address this sort of thing around here was the Bay Area Turning Point.
"I called them up, and they suggested I go to a support group of Friends of Bay Area Turning Point," he said.
Flowers has been a diligent volunteer since and now serves on the board of directors.
Diane Savage, executive director of the women's shelter, said Flowers has spoken to various groups about his experience.
"I think people in general are used to hearing women speak about the issues of family violence, child abuse, rape and spousal abuse," Savage said. "I think we need more men speaking so that they hear men speaking and know men's concerns about these issues because it impacts all of us."
With Flowers' help, the women's shelter is starting a men's advisory council to deal with projects and fund raising. The shelter is facing stiff funding cuts from state and federal grants.
"I think that men may feel that women are handling it. We definitely need to get men involved because it's not a women's issue," Savage said. "It's a societal issue, a family issue, and it's going to take all of us working together to curtail the incidents."
The women's shelter, which houses 55 women and children, has been operating since 1991.
Flowers had planned to testify in Padilla's trial. But Padilla, 46, was given three life sentences as part of a plea agreement that avoided a lengthy trial in which he faced the death penalty if convicted. He likely will have to serve 70 years in prison before being released.
Magdalena Padilla, 34, is charged with felony injury to a child. She is free on bail. A trial date has not been set in her case.
The hot line caseworker who took the call from the pizza deliveryman and dismissed the claim eventually was fired.
A Chronicle investigation into the hot line resulted in workers being hired, installation of an upgraded computer system and other efforts to speed the answering of calls.
The Chronicle found that callers to the hot line were being put on hold for hours because there wasn't enough staff to answer the phones.
Flowers learned of Frank Padilla's plea bargain in the Chronicle.
"If he had gotten the death penalty, I would have been proud to testify against him," he said. "I can live with the fact that he'll never walk as a free man ...
"A year ago I would have been real angry."
Flowers finds solace in knowing that even though Linda Padilla was a victim "of this incredible brutality, she was also the recipient of an incredible outpouring of love that came through me and everybody that tried to save her."
Brett Coomer/Chronicle
ruth.rendon@chron.com
All child abusers should be executed immediately upon conviction; no reprieves or appeals.
Regardless of what we may do to this man through prison, I firmly believe that God has a special place in Hell for those that do bad things to children.
At least this child is now in the warm, loving hands of GOD.
I agree, put them in there alive.
6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.(Matt 18:6 NKJ)
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