Father Rapes His Infant Daughter

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Reginald Davis, 18, of Forrest City, AR, has been accused of raping his 8-day-old baby daughter. Police also charged him with second-degree battery, because the baby also suffered a fractured skull in the attack, which occurred on Labor Day, Sept. 1, 2008. He was sent to St. Francis County Jail. At his first court appearance, the following Wednesday, the judge, citing the severity of the crime, raised his bail from $50,000 to $100,000.

According to police Davis was visiting with the 15-year-old mother of his daughter. The mother went into the bathroom to take a shower before going to bed. When she came out she found blood on her newborn baby. The girl and her family, accompanied by Davis, took the baby to Forrest City Medical Center where she was treated for rape and a fractured skull. The hospital also notified the police. It turned out that the little girl's injuries were so bad she was transferred to the Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock. The police arrested Davis.

Investigators say that at the time of the attack, there were other people in the house. The case is still under investigation and it is unknown if any other arrests will be made. Reginald Davis, according to the police, has had no criminal record since turning 18. They could not comment on whether he had a juvenile record because that information could not be released under Arkansas state law.

Reginald Davis' mother said in a telephone interview that "he suffers from mental health issues." According to Dr. Allen Battle, a psychologist with the UT Medical group:

"Seeking a baby is extremely rare." He says "so many of the patience have been exposed to this behavior themselves. When they were kids in their formative stages."

According to the Children's Advocacy Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, recent reports of child sexual abuse is staggering:

• 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 5 boys have been abused, with the average age being 3-years-old


• 96% of the abusers are someone the child knows, loves and trusts
  


• 75 cases were reported in 2000, 471 cases were reported in 2007

Davis is being held on a $100,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in circuit court on September 17.

5-Year-Old Boy Tortured and Abused

Starkeisha Brown's 5-year-old son, who suffered "unbearable psychological and physical abuse" demonstrates the strength of the human spirit in the face of adversity. His will to live after enduring the  horrible torture at the hands of his own mother and her live-in girlfriend, Krystal Matthews, 21, is truly amazing. His name has not been released.

"I've never seen anyone with these kinds of injuries who has lived," Assistant Police Chief James McDonnell told reporters last week. "This kid must have a tremendous will to live, to be able to still hang on despite what he's been through."

In his 5 short years:

• He was hung by his hands and wrists from a door jamb and beaten
  


• He was routinely denied food and water.
  


• He was burned with cigarettes all over his body, including his genitals.
  


• He was left to sit in his own urine and feces.
  


• His hands were held to a hot stove that may leave them permanently disfigured.

The boy's physical appearance was also striking. He had a pot belly suggestive of severe malnutrition, burns across his body in various stages of healing, old scars, bruises, and badly damaged and burned hands, he also had a broken tooth with the nerve end exposed. Lt. Vincent Neglia of the LAPD's Abused Child Unit, said the abuse was obviously continuous and prolonged.

"This wasn't just one big beating," Neglia said. "You can tell by the different stages of injuries that this was prolonged."

The boy remains in hospital, after suffering kidney failure due to malnutrition. Authorities describe him as withdrawn and shy but plays with people he trusts. He has a healthy appetite and began walking over the weekend with a slight limp. His burnt hand is healing well and regaining its range of motion.

The mother, Starkeisha Brown, 24, and Krystal Matthews, 21, who lived together at a South Los Angeles apartment near 110th and Figueroa streets, were charged with one count each of torture, child abuse, corporal injury to a child, dissuading a witness, and two counts each of conspiracy. A district attorney's office statement identified Matthews as the live-in girlfriend of Brown. A baby sitter, La Tanya Monikue Jones, 26, was added to the case. Prosecutors charged her with child abuse, corporal injury to a child, conspiracy and conspiracy to dissuade a witness. Jones allegedly burned the 5-year-old's hand over a stove at one point while baby-sitting, according to prosecutors.

Brown and Matthews appeared in Superior Court in Compton but their arraignment was postponed to June 25. Brown was held on $1.1 million bail. Matthews was remanded to custody without bail because of a probation violation. Both face up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted. Jones is being held on $180,000 bail. She faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

The boy was finally rescued from his abusers after an anonymous tip from a stranger. On June 4th a woman called the abuse hotline saying that the little boy told her at a train station that his mother had burned his hand on top of a hot stove. That call prompted the Department of Children and Family Services to set up an appointment with Starkeisha Brown and Krystal Matthews on Monday, June 9th, to discuss the allegation.

Knowing that she could not attend the meeting with her son, who showed obvious signs of abuse, Brown concocted a scheme to fool the authorities. She "borrowed" the healthy 4-year-old son of La Tanya Monikue Jones and his 6-year-old sister. She planned to pass off the 4-year-old as her own son. Brown and her girlfriend then asked a complete stranger to watch her 5-year-old son while they went to the meeting.

While the women were being interviewed, the stranger who had been asked to watch the boy started asking people in the neighborhood what he should do with the 5-year-old, who looked sickly and injured. Eventually someone called authorities. Officials got word of the boy's condition as they were interviewing Brown and Matthews and began asking more pointed questions and challenging the pair's story. Halfway through the interview the two women sprinted from the office, abandoning the 4-year-old and his sister at the office, police said. The children are now in the care of the authorities.

"They realize that no one is buying their ruse," said Lt. Vincent Neglia of the LAPD's Abused Child Unit, and "they bug out."

Capt. Fabian Lizarraga said it was fortunate that the stranger sought help. He "had the sense that something was not right, that the situation he had been placed in was not right," the captain said.

Authorities launched a hunt for Brown and Matthews while authorities took the 5-year-old child to a hospital. Matthews was arrested Friday and Brown turned herself in to police on Saturday. Both women have accounts on the popular MySpace website. See Starkreisha Brown here and Krystal Matthews' is here. Both women also have criminal records.

Brown is a known gang member who as a minor served time in the California Youth Authority for battery. She also served a total of two and a half years in prison for two separate convictions: one for felony robbery of an elderly woman in 2003 and later for petty theft, when she and another woman stole a bracelet and other items from a Macy's department store.

Most recently, Brown was incarcerated from March 2006 to January 2007. During that period, the boy was in the custody of his grandmother, authorities said. Brown regained custody of her son when she left prison in January 2007. But that March, a judge issued an arrest warrant for her in connection with parole violations. It is unclear why officials could not locate her.

Matthews also has a criminal history, including convictions for assault with a deadly weapon and forgery. In May, Matthews got into a fight with her younger brother, slashing him in the face with a box-cutter. She was arrested and eventually pleaded guilty. She was sentenced to 3 years probation.

Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) is investigating why no one followed up an initial case review after a tip in November 2005 that the boy was neglected and at risk while in the care of his grandmother, who took the boy in after his mother was arrested for shoplifting.

An array of other agencies missed their chance to intervene, said Gloria Molina, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, including the state Department of Corrections and the county's Department of Probation, Department of Mental Health and foster care agencies that had case files for Brown and the two other women charged in the case. Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky blamed a "silo" mentality of agencies that do not reflexively alert one another to potential risks posed by cases.

"Why was there no intervention? It shouldn't have to be from the hotline," Molina said.

Friends and family say they suspected that Starkeisha Brown beat her 5-year-old son but nobody called authorities. Such problems are particularly present in neighborhoods like the one where the Browns lived, where distrust of police and child-protection workers is high and residents worry that calling authorities could make problems worse.

"I don't think it is that they are colluding with the abuser," said Carole Shauffer, executive director of the Youth Law Center, a San Francisco-based public interest law firm. "For the most part, it's fear of what's going to happen, fear of nothing happening, fear of collateral consequences, and denial, that 'it's none of my business, and it can't be as bad as it seems to me.' "

The boy's great-grandmother, Barbara Moreno, said she noticed cuts, scratches and bumps on him, but dropped the subject when he told her the injuries were caused by a fall and a dog attack.

"Sometimes you turn your head," said Vivian Daniels, a family friend who about a month ago finally asked Brown about the bruises and scratches on her son's body. She said she didn't call police or the Department of Children and Family Services because she feared it would make things worse for the boy and perhaps even for her and her children.

"It's tit-for-tat," Daniels said. "In South-Central, we don't do that. I'm just telling you how it is."

"We have seen time and time again that people say, 'I've seen child abuse, I've heard it, I've heard screams, but I do nothing,' " said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, president of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable. "People are so reluctant to speak out on it."

Hutchinson and others said suspicion and fear of authorities runs deep in parts of South L.A. and that extends beyond the police to social service agencies and other public providers. They said some people are afraid that calling authorities could end up making the family situation worse -- particularly if the child is taken into foster care. Others fear authorities might end up checking on them.

In response to the case, community activists on Friday canvassed the neighborhood around 110th and Figueroa streets, where Brown recently lived with the boy, with fliers that read: "Break the Silence on Child Abuse in South L.A.! Help Make Sure a Starkeisha Brown Torture Case Never Happens Again."

The Wounds of Elisabeth Fritzl and Family

Elisabeth Fritzl's mental, physical and emotional wounds will require a network of case managers. So says Jeff Dolgan, senior psychologist at Denver Children's Hospital, adding that he had never heard of a case this horrific.

"It's beyond creepy," he said. "This takes the cake. Trauma is like throwing a big rock into a pond. The waves go out and we are all sadly traumatized. She will need a system of care, not just one person but an adult psychiatrist who will coordinate the rehabilitation. Her world has been this basement. It's like our waking up 500 years from now. This is all she's known."

Elisabeth Fritzl was incarcerated in a basement cellar for 24 years by her own father. She was repeatedly raped by him and bore him 7 children, one of which died shortly after birth and was incinerated in a furnace to get rid of the body. Elisabeth and her children were freed from their prison after a police investigation, prompted by the hospitalization of her eldest daughter Kirsten, 19, discovered their dungeon. Read the entire story here.

Physical Exam

After living for so long in the cramped, low-ceiling dungeon, called home for 24 years, Elisabeth and her kids have developed some serious physical problems. In her first medical exam after she was found, Austrian doctors said Elisabeth's teeth were horrifically decayed. She and her three children have a myriad of medical problems, including vitamin D deficiency, anemia and bad posture.

Vitamin D deficiency can cause rickets, a disease of malnutrition caused by lack of sun exposure that is rarely seen today. Her bones are weakened and deformed. Because of the cramped space, low ceilings and little opportunity to exercise, Elisabeth may also have problems with movement. She looks haggard, hunched over, lined and gray. The 42 year-old looks more like the sister of her 67-year-old mother than her daughter. Because of the scarce oxygen supply in the cramped quarters, Elisabeth and her kids had to spend long spells sitting or lying down. Kerstin, her 19-year-old daughter, is in an induced coma after collapsing. She is still in a critical condition and fighting for her life.

According to Dr. Stuart Goldman, a psychiatrist at Harvard University's Children's Hospital in Boston, "This case is so unique, we can only look for approximations."

"If you don't use muscles and stretch them out, your motion is limited," said Goldman. Muscles can be retrained, but senses like vision and hearing could be permanently impaired. He continued "All our senses are trophic. You have to use nerves for nerves to develop. If you patch an eye, you eventually go blind, even if the eye is mechanically normal."

Mental and Emotional Problems

Aside from the physical challenges facing the family, also of concern is the mental and emotional damage their incarceration may have caused. Although the Austrian doctors are worried about the three children, Elisabeth may have suffered the worst.

"She was older when it started happening, but at the same time, she had years and years of deprivation and limited stimulus," said Jay Reeve, associate professor of psychology at Florida State University and executive vice president of the Apalache Center for Mental Health. "It's exactly as if she was held in captivity in jail......She had some period of her life when, presumably, she was able to interact with others and be in school and have some social interchange," said Reeve. "But the rape and sexual abuse that she experienced was a pretty stark betrayal of trust."

Initially, her father Josef Fritzl, reportedly handcuffed Elisabeth to a metal pole and kept her in total darkness, returning only to bring her food or to rape her. She told police she was kept in a single room for the first nine years of her captivity where their children had to watch as her father repeatedly raped her. Often she had to decide whether to have sex or starve. She told officers how she quaked with fear every time she heard the door click as her dad came down for his vile sex sessions. He beat her if she struggled, so she soon stopped putting up a fight.

Police chief Franz Polzer said: "The man is evil beyond words. The misery he has inflicted on his family is unimaginable. It will take (Elisabeth and) the children years to recover."

With the complexity of her trauma, Elisabeth most likely has shut down emotionally as a way to cope with the pain and may need myriad therapies and time "to handle her memories and make sense of how why this happened," said Reeve.

Since being rescued, the family has been living in an isolated room in a psychiatric unit near their home. Doctors have placed a cargo container outside so that Josef Fritzl's captives can retreat there if they feel too traumatized by the daylight and the open space.

"She needs reassurance that she has not lost everything," said psychologist Dolgan.

On the video-sharing website Youtube there is a 5 part documentary on the discovery of the "House of Horrors" that Elisabeth and her children lived in. It is full of details about the experiences that she endured. Below is the first part of this documentary entitled The Josef Fritzl Story. Click here to see the entire series.

Elisabeth Fritzl and Family say "Thanks"

Elisabeth Fritzl was held captive by her father Josef Fritzl for 24 years in a cellar. She bore him 7 children while in captivity. It was only when one of her children Kerstin, 19, became very sick and had to be taken to the hospital, that Elisabeth was found and freed by the police. Josef Fritzl is in jail facing a multitude of charges. Elisabeth and her children have been placed under psychiatric care. To read the entire rescue story click here.

With the backing and encouragement of her doctors, Elisabeth,42, and her kids (Stefan 18, Lisa 16, Monika 14, Alexander 12 and Felix 6) made a huge 'Thank You' poster to express their gratitude for the support and concern from the public. The 8ft x 5ft illustrated poster features a thank you note with the family members' hands surrounding it, each with personal messages written inside. It is on display in a shop window in their hometown of Amstetten. The main message reads:

"We, the whole family, would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your sympathy for our fate.

"Your compassion is really helping us get through this difficult time and shows us that there are good people out there who care for us.

"We hope that the time will soon come when we can find our way back to a normal life."

Each person wrote an emotional individual message containing their wishes for the future. A heart shape marks their sister Kerstin, 19, who is still seriously ill and has been placed in a medically induced coma.

Here is a closer look at some individual messages

Stefan 18, who until his release two weeks ago had never seen the sun, or stood fully upright, wrote: "I like the sun, the fresh air and nature.

Lisa, 16, who was not locked in the dungeon but who lived with Fritzl and his wife upstairs, wishes for "love, happiness, health" and "that everything turns out well again".

Felix, 6, said he is dreaming of going by car again and by sledge, and he wants to play with other children and "run across a meadow". He had his first ride in a car when he was collected by police and officers spoke of his delight at the trip.

The doctors taking care of the family say that they will need time to adjust to the real world. Berthold Kepplinger, who runs the clinic, said it was becoming more apparent how much time the family needed to heal. He said that the Fritzls would "need to remain here for several more months".

He continued: "They all need to be very carefully protected and very slowly reintroduced to the real world, and to each other. In particular, Elizabeth and her two children from the cellar need to have further therapy to help them adjust to the light after years in semidarkness. "They also needed treatment to help them cope with all the extra space that they now have to move about in.

In an appeal to the public to respect the privacy of the family, Berthold Kepplinger also said:

"If the treatment is to work properly, then it is especially important that we get respect for their privacy, the need to this cannot be underestimated."

He added that the family reunion had "gone extremely well". The children were playing and enjoying activities such as painting. They had also been given a computer. However, balancing the needs of each family member was complex, he said. For example, the two cellar children and their mother needed peace and quiet and were being kept inside, whereas the three children that had normal lives until now were suffering from the enforced isolation.

Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian girl abducted as a 10-year-old and held captive in a basement for more than eight years until she escaped in 2007, also offered her help to the family, but questioned the decision to move them from the cellar into psychiatric care.

"Pulling them abruptly out of this situation, without transition, to hold them and isolating them to some extent, it can't be good for them," said Kampusch, now 20, in an interview. "I believe it might have been even better to leave them where they were, but that was probably impossible. This case is not like mine, where that was not my environment. They were born there and I can imagine that there is a strong attachment to that place."

Elisabeth's lawyer, Christoph Herbst said: "Elisabeth is very happy to be rediscovering the world. She is very keen to go outside and feel the rain on her skin. But it is important for them to adjust slowly." He also said that Elisabeth and her children who lived in the cellar have no concept of time and of the future. However, rumors that she has no teeth and cannot talk are not true.

Elisabeth's sister Gabriele Helm, 36, says she is surprised at how well her sister has endured the ordeal of being locked in a cellar with her children for 24 years.

"None of us can believe how normal Elisabeth seems. She is healthy and very chatty and doing very well. Every day she gets a bit stronger. I can't say what the family is going through. It's more than anyone can believe. It has devastated us."

"We are working together to support Elisabeth. She is overjoyed to see her children. She told them they were beautiful and she is spending all the time getting to know them."

Elisabeth tells her family that all she longs for is a normal life - or as normal a life as they can get. That's her only wish. One of her children, Felix, is keeping the family in good spirits says her lawyer: "They are all happy and there is a lot of laughter, which you might not expect. Felix makes everyone laugh. They are teaching him to run because inside the cellar he could not run. Elisabeth is really an impressive person. She is very strong. She's happy now for the first time."

Josef Fritzl,73, who imprisoned and raped his daughter for 24 years claims he is not a monster and blamed both Hitler and his mother for making him the way he is. He said he did not have sex with Elisabeth until she was older than 12, which is when she claims he first abused her. "I am not a man that has sex with little children."

"I knew that Elisabeth did not want it, what I did with her. The pressure to do the forbidden thing was just too big to withstand."

Fritzl would visit Elisabeth every few days, delivering food and repeatedly raping her. "It was an obsession with me," he said. Fritzl also described the amazing planning and secrecy behind his crime, admitting he had thought about it for years. Fritzl claimed he had kidnapped the teenage Elisabeth to "rescue" her from alcohol and bad company. He said he got into a "vicious circle":

"My situation just got more crazy. I was scared of being arrested, and that my family and everybody that knew me would know my crime … I always knew over 24 years what I did was not correct, and that I must be mad."

"I am not a monster," Fritzl said. "I could have killed all of them and no one would have known. No one would have ever found about it."

In a bizarre admission, Fritzl said he had incestuous feelings for his mother, whom he described as the greatest woman in the world. "She taught me discipline."


He went on to complain that the coverage of his daughter's abuse was one-sided. He remains in jail under tight security. His attorney said Fritzl was a "broken man" who belonged in a mental hospital rather than prison.

Reinhard Haller, a leading forensic psychiatrist in Austria, disagreed with claims that Fritzl was insane: "His main motivation was the exercise of power. It is not a sign of mental illness but rather of an extreme personality disorder."

And Fritzl may be in more trouble. The Austrian authorities have revealed that there are more rooms in the underground dungeon that have yet to be examined, which Fritzl is believed to have sealed off years ago. Fritzl has a history of sex crimes including a conviction for rape and attempted rape as well as being investigated for an unrelated murder, and now police fear the extra rooms may contain evidence of further crimes.

Police are set to break down walls in the cellar to get to the hidden rooms this week and plan to investigate the electrics and plumbing to ascertain whether Fritzl - an electrical engineer - could have built the dungeon, or whether he had help. They will also scan the ground surrounding the cellar to check if more rooms exist or if there are any objects buried in the garden. The dogs and radars being used can detect human body parts underground.

Meanwhile, the murky depths of Fritzl's mind are being examined by Austria's leading forensic psychiatrist, Dr Adelheid Kastner. Prosecutors want Dr Kastner, 46, to determine whether he is fit to stand trial.

"I am conducting exploratory conversations to get to know every possible part of the defendant's personality. The court wants me to probe several questions and has given me a deadline. But if I need longer, then the court will have to wait" said Dr Kasner.

It remains a mystery as to how Fritzl managed to smuggle two beds underground unnoticed as well as a large washing machine and supplies for Elisabeth and the children.

Praying Parents Charged in Child's Death

Dale and Leilani Neumann, parents of Madeline Kara Neumann, were charged with second-degree reckless homicide, Marathon County District Attorney Jill Falstad announced. If convicted, the couple could be sentenced to up to 25 years in prison and a $100,000 fine.

Madeline Kara Neumann,11, of Weston, Wisconsin died of diabetic ketoacidosis. Her parents, believed so strongly in the power of prayer, that they refused to seek medical attention for their daughter until it was too late to save her life. Read the entire story here.

A copy of the police investigation into Kara's death is available here

District Attorney Jill Falstad in preparing the charges against the Neumanns looked at the "progression of the illness" and the response of the parents:

"By that Saturday (the day before the girl's death) you had an 11-year-old child who wasn't eating, so she wasn't getting any nourishment, she wasn't taking in any fluids, she wasn't walking, she was struggling to get to the bathroom," Falstad said. "She really was very vulnerable and helpless. And it seemed apparent that everybody knew that. As her illness progressed to the next morning being comatose . . . it just is very, very surprising, shocking that she wasn't allowed medical prevention (attention).

"She had a disease that was treatable and her death could have been prevented," Falstad said.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=hfMsAgNdGno]

The Neumanns are represented by their attorney, Gene Linehan, who declined to comment on the charges. However, it seems as if the Neumanns knew that their daughter was very sick but they were determined to heal her through prayer. Leilani Neumann said in a written statement to police that she never considered taking the girl, who was being home-schooled, to a doctor, even when her husband Dale made such a suggestion:

"We just thought it was a spiritual attack and we prayed for her. My husband Dale was crying and mentioned taking Kara to the doctor and I said, 'The Lord's going to heal her,' and we continued to pray," she wrote.

The Neumanns did reach out to the Unleavened Bread Ministries, founded by David Eells. In an email they requested that Eells pray for their daughter to be healed, which he did. Like the Neumanns, Eells says his church does not believe in medical intervention. Eells also wrote that the Neumanns have posted testimonials on their Web site but are not "'under' our ministry."

Falstad, the district attorney, said the case is likely to be precedent-setting in Wisconsin.

"There has been a great deal of discussion regarding the availability of a 'religious defense' in this case," Falstad said in a prepared statement to announce the charges. "In our nation, we have a constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion. We also give parents leeway in matters of child rearing. However, neither is absolute. In this case, it was necessary to weigh freedom of religion and parenting rights against the state's interests in protecting children."

Wisconsin state law appears to allow an exemption from child abuse charges for parents who engage in treatment by spiritual means through prayer. But the exemption applies only if the use of prayer alone is the basis for charges. Prosecutors say that exemption does not extend to homicide cases.