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Akron child-abuse case puzzles experts
05/06/03
Karen Farkas
Plain Dealer Reporter
Akron- The five boys were severely malnourished, forced to live off meals of dry cereal or half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, police say.
Their sister, police say, was better fed, received toys as gifts and was not punished like her brothers, who were often locked in a closet by their mother, Mary Rowles, and her partner, Alice Jenkins. "They said she was a good child - that she was perfect," said Akron police Detective Crystal Bowen Carter.
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Bowen Carter and experts on child abuse say they might never know why Rowles and Jenkins would treat the children differently. The women are each charged with five counts of child endangering. Jenkins, called "Dad" by the children, is also charged with two counts of felonious assault, accused of hitting two children with hammers and kicking another child in the groin, Bowen Carter said.
Rowles, 30, and Jenkins, 27, were arrested Friday. Jenkins provided the $1,000 each needed for bond.
Neither woman has a criminal record, and they have received death threats as a result of intense media scrutiny, said their court-appointed lawyers.
"She is scared, frightened and shell-shocked in some respects," said Kirk Migdal, who represents Rowles.
Akron Municipal Judge Elinore Marsh Stormer agreed that the women, partners for seven years, did not have to return to their Florida Avenue house because of the threats. They do have to report daily to the court.
Police said three of the boys, ages 8, 10 and 14, escaped from a closet the morning of April 28, left the house via a second-floor window and were found wandering barefoot in their Kenmore neighborhood.
The two youngest said they had been kept in the closet, with a dresser against the door, since mid-February, said Bowen Carter.
They and the two other boys, ages 6 and 13, told officers they were not allowed to sleep on the beds in their room, she said.
"They were scared of both of them, but terrified of Alice," Bowen Carter said.
When Summit County authorities took custody of the boys, they were shockingly underweight - the 14-year-old was 75 pounds, the 13-year-old 60 pounds, the 10-year-old 40 pounds, the 8-year-old 28 pounds and the 6-year-old 29 pounds, Bowen Carter said.
The girl, 12, was thin but not malnourished, Bowen Carter said.
In cases of battered-child syndrome, there is a pattern where one child is abused and another is spared, said Jill Korbin, a professor of anthropology at Case Western Reserve University and co-director of the Schubert Center for Child Development.
"Why that occurs is very complicated and can be due to the parental perceptions of the different children or the characteristics of the kids," she said.
Perhaps being female and well-behaved gave the girl an edge, Korbin said.
But even if a child is not abused, seeing abuse occur in the home can be just as destructive, she said.
Zoe Breen Wood, an instructor in social work at CWRU's Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, said the treatment of children can be based on many factors, including birth order and the relationship of the parents.
The six children are in foster homes. Officials at the county's Children Services Board are conducting internal investigations into how it responded to phone calls about the children's care, some made years ago.
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