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   Eleven Children Found Caged in Ohio HOme

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Topic: Eleven Children Found Caged in Ohio HOme (Read 315 times)

luci
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Eleven Children Found Caged in Ohio HOme
« on: Sep 13^th, 2005, 9:53am »

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By Associated Press
6 hours ago

WAKEMAN, Ohio - Sheriff's deputies removed 11 children from a home where they were locked in cages less than 3 1/2 feet high, authorities said.

The children's adoptive and foster parents, Mike and Sharen Gravelle, denied that they'd abused or neglected the children during a custody hearing Monday in Huron County. No charges had been filed as of Monday night.

"The impression that we got was that they felt it was OK," said Lt. Randy Sommers of the Huron County Sheriff's Office.

The Gravelles said a psychiatrist recommended they make the children _ ages 1 to 14, with conditions that included autism and fetal alcohol syndrome _ sleep in the cages at night. The cages were stacked in bedrooms on the second floor of their house, said prosecutor Russell Leffler, who was reviewing the case.

The children were found by a children's services investigator on Friday when he stopped by the Gravelles' home outside Wakeman, about 50 miles west of Cleveland. Deputies returned to the house that evening.

Some of the cages were rigged with alarms, Sommers said; others had heavy furniture blocking their doors. The children didn't have blankets or pillows.

One of the boys said he'd slept in the cage for three years, Sommers said.

The children were placed with four foster families Monday.

A woman who identified herself as Sharen Gravelle's mother but refused to give her name said the children were happy and loved. "This year they have played and had fun and laughed like no other children have, which they have never been able to do," she said.

The Gravelles do not have a listed telephone number.

Sommers said there were no apparent signs the children had been malnourished or beaten, but they were sent to a hospital for examination. Their conditions were not available Monday.

In March, a couple who had recently moved from Ohio to Florida was charged with neglect when their adopted teenager was discovered malnourished in a crib-like cage. The then-17-year-old weighed 49 pounds, investigators said.

The twin-bed-sized crib had been prescribed when the boy was much younger and lived in Ohio. It had been fitted with a lid, chains and a padlock, investigators said.

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Rhune
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Re: Eleven Children Found Caged in Ohio HOme
« Reply #1 on: Sep 13^th, 2005, 12:49pm »

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Rhune
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Re: Eleven Children Found Caged in Ohio HOme
« Reply #2 on: Sep 13^th, 2005, 12:59pm »

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Admittedly, I have known of a couple legitimate caese where young children in foster care did need to be locked into their rooms at night, but we're talking the whole bedroom and not a small cage with no bedding, etc. In both cases that I am aware of, it was because the children involved had been majorly sexually abused and if not locked into their rooms at night they leave their room and reenact what happened to them on another child in the house. In both cases it was recommended by a therapist to protect the other children in the house while that child received therapy/treatment. Once the child reached a certain level of recovery, it was no longer a problem and the locks were removed. Now, I have to wonder, if these children were not neglected in any other way, and this was recommended to them as they claim, perhaps a therapist at one point recommended that one or more of the children be locked in their room at night and the foster parents in this case are idiots and took it the wrong way or took it too far, etc. Obviously they haven't kept their wards in therapy, or the kids would have ratted this out and a stop put to it sooner.

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Re: Eleven Children Found Caged in Ohio HOme
« Reply #3 on: Sep 25^th, 2005, 2:39pm »

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Siblings accuse parents in caged kids case

Saturday, September 24, 2005; Posted: 9:11 p.m. EDT (01:11 GMT)

CLEVELAND, Ohio (AP) -- When Jesse and Jenna Gravelle heard the stories about a couple forcing their 11 adopted children to sleep in cages, they weren't surprised to hear their father and stepmother's names.

What shocked them, Jesse Gravelle said, was that adoption agencies would place children in Michael and Sheron Gravelle's custody.

"My dad and stepmother were pretty much cruel and neglectful," Jesse Gravelle, now 32, said Friday.

"There were no cages," his sister Jenna Gravelle, 31, said in a separate interview, but "both my brother and I felt like prisoners. We had to fend for ourselves."

The siblings described teenage years spent working long hours to pay for food and rent at their father's home, and said Jenna as a sixth-grader was temporarily removed from the home by social services over allegations that their father inappropriately touched her.

Officials are now investigating Michael and Sheron Gravelle over their treatment of 11 special needs children they adopted. Two weeks ago, authorities said they discovered some of the children, ages 1-14, had been locked in homemade cages at night and occasionally during the day as punishment.

No charges have been filed, and the Gravelles have denied harming the children, all of whom have been placed in foster care.

The adopted children have conditions such as autism, fetal alcohol syndrome, HIV and eating disorders. The Gravelles' attorney has said the "enclosures" built around their bunk beds were to stop them from doing such things as setting fires, eating batteries and cutting themselves.

Jesse Gravelle, who is estranged from his father, said that when he last tried to reconcile with his father in the mid-'90s the Gravelles didn't have any adopted children.

Lt. Randy Sommers of the Huron County Sheriff's Department took statements from Jenna and Jesse Gravelle last week and said they seemed credible. Both say they will testify if called.

Michael Gravelle's attorney, David Sherman, told The Plain Dealer newspaper last week that Jenna made up the abuse allegations against her father because she was upset with him for remarrying after her mother's death.

"Mr. Gravelle was never charged with any crime, and for good reasons," Sherman said. "There were significant problems with her."

Jenna Gravelle left her father's house at 16 and lived with friends, family and in group homes. She now has a degree in psychology and an 8-year-old son.

Jesse Gravelle finished high school but said he got into drugs and became homeless. He spent nearly a year in prison for drug trafficking.

He now lives in Farmington, New Mexico, and works in a microbrewery. He is divorced, with a daughter and stepdaughter.

The idea that an adoption agency would put children with his father and stepmother "blows my mind," he said. "I hope they don't get these kids back. Because I know they're going to try to get them back. Just like my dad went to court and got my sister back."

The Gravelles received government assistance to care for the children, but it's unclear how much. Cleveland's county-run agency paid the family at least $500 a month to care for one boy born with HIV.

The father "may have believed that he was trying to help those kids," Jesse Gravelle said. "But there's no way he was."

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

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