11-18-2005, 08:09 AM
Little Progress In Investigation Into Home For Disabled Adults
NOTE BY STELLA: This is a very major story, so I have posted two back stories below this one so everyone can see the full horror of events as they have unfolded
November 17, 2005
By Tracy Vedder
BREMERTON - It's been months since two young women died at a state-run home for disabled adults, and there's been little progress in the investigations of their deaths.
KOMO 4 News looked into the Frances Haddon Morgan Center, revealing a trail of death and assault at the home. Now neither a police investigation nor the state's investigation seems any closer to finding out what happened.
We'd like to say that at a meeting of advocates for the Developmentally Disabled community Thursday, we heard from people concerned about the deaths of two young women at this state-run home. We'd like to say that, but the fact is, we don't know.
Regional Administrator Anita Delight wouldn't let the KOMO 4 reporter and photographer into the meeting. P> "I'm not prepared to have the media here," she said.
Last summer, Krissy Shannon and Jenny Jessup died. Both lived at the Frances Haddon Morgan Center, which specializes in autism. Krissy died of a drug overdose, Jenny of a perforated bowel.
Our investigation into the deaths and other problems at the Morgan Center topped the meeting's agenda. That's why patient and parent lobbyist Dave Wood wanted KOMO there. That, and to tell us the state's review is going nowhere.
"I don't think they're seriously concerned enough," says Wood. "I mean nobody has been fired, nobody's even been reprimanded."
It's four months since Krissy died; more than two months since Jenny's death.
The state hired an outside investigator in September but to date no results; no word of what happened. Police investigations are also unfinished.
Carol Kirk manages the Morgan Center. She says their investigator is still waiting for tissue samples from the Kitsap County Coroner. P> "The best I can tell you is that when the independent review is done," says Kirk, "they say that it will be approximately four weeks once they get all the materials that they need, which they don't have yet."
So two families, torn by these untimely deaths, must continue to wait for answers.
The Federal Government is also investigating the Morgan Center for allegations of patient abuse.
*************************************************************
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Public protection, private abuse: Mentally disabled preyed upon in state care
By RUTH TEICHROEB
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER
Louis couldn't tell the detective his address or phone number. But the mildly retarded young man knew what had been done to him was wrong.
Listen to an interview with a Seattle mother who fought to get her son out of the Community Protection Program after he was molested by a housemate.
Chat:
Investigator reporter Ruth Teichroeb answered readers' questions and comments about this special report on Thursday, Nov. 17. Read the full transcript.
Haltingly, he told the story: How his paid caregiver sent him to the garage in his Bremerton home to get food from the freezer. How the man followed and molested him by the workbench. How he did it again and again.
Louis wanted it to stop.
State officials had put him under 24-hour supervision with a for-profit residential care company a few months earlier to keep him safe from sexual predators -- and to protect the community in case Louis' abuse turned him into an offender.
Louis had never been in trouble with the law. He'd never threatened the safety of others.
Yet the state placed him in the $42 million annual Community Protection Program -- the closest thing Washington has to a prison without walls.
The publicly funded program pays for-profit companies an average of $93,000 a year per client to guard developmentally disabled people who are deemed to be dangerous. Clients pay their own rent and living expenses. For the companies, the lucrative, low-risk state contracts have few downsides. Since the program began in 1998, the state has ousted only one contractor for providing poor care.
Most of the clients are sex offenders, according to state officials. Some are physically violent or set fires.
Although he didn't fit those labels, Louis found himself under constant staff surveillance. He could no longer walk to the store alone or make a phone call without scrutiny. He lost touch with old friends. If he quit the "voluntary" program, the state would cut off the help he needed to live on his own.
Castleberry
That made him easy prey for Harold Dwane Castleberry, who sexually assaulted Louis and two of his housemates during the summer of 2001. Castleberry admitted to at least 30 assaults.
"It hurts me what Harold did to me," Louis later told his counselor. "It hurts my feelings."
Castleberry's employer, Kitsap Tenant Support Services, didn't know their popular new employee had a criminal record in Missouri. The state doesn't require out-of-state background checks if someone has lived here for three years.
Across the state, 381 vulnerable adults, including 78 in King County, have signed away their freedom in exchange for the intensive monitoring the Department of Social and Health Services believes they need to stay out of trouble. They live in apartments with alarmed doors and windows, submit to room searches and are not supposed to be out of sight of staff.
For those with the most violent histories, even this level of supervision is not enough. Others, like Louis, don't seem to belong there at all.
The state considers its program to be a resounding success at protecting the public. A carefully worded statement on the program's Web site says that no client has been arrested for "crimes against neighbors or members of the community."
What state officials don't talk about is the alarming amount of violence vulnerable adults in this program are enduring at the hands of housemates and paid caregivers.
Meryl Schenker / P-I
Job coach Cheri Bull tries to talk to Howard, 27, while they wait at a bus stop. Howard was one of the first graduates of the state's Community Protection Program for high-risk developmentally disabled adults. His mother fought to get him out after he was molested by a housemate.
Staff members have slapped, dragged, punched, bruised and broken bones of men and women with the mental age of elementary school children. Caregivers have shown porno movies and foisted drugs on clients, molested them and stolen their money. Housemates have bitten, pummeled, raped and terrorized other clients and staff.
Police responded more than 500 times to such incidents, resulting in more than 200 arrests of clients and seven staff between 2000 and 2004, according to state records.
"This containment comes at the expense of those who are being abused in the program," said Jim Haaven, a national expert who ran Oregon's program for developmentally disabled sex offenders. "It's easier to contain them because who's going to say anything? This population has no voice."
No law governs who is put in the program and no court reviews the decisions -- prompting questions from advocates about civil-rights violations. Case managers in the Division of Developmental Disabilities consult with state-contracted therapists, then decide a client's fate.
They wield a heavy hammer: Enroll or lose the lifeline of state-funded support services, such as in-home care and job aid. There is no appeal.
MERYL SCHENKER / P-I
"Our biggest concern is that DSHS is placing people who shouldn't be there in this program," says David Girard, an attorney with the federally funded Washington Protection and Advocacy System in Seattle.
"Our biggest concern is that DSHS is placing people who shouldn't be there in this program," said David Girard, an attorney with the Washington Protection and Advocacy System in Seattle, a federally funded watchdog group for people with developmental disabilities.
State officials disagree: "Every single one of these people has a history that sets off alarms that they present a danger to other people," said Linda Rolfe, director of DSHS' Division of Developmental Disabilities.
Only five clients have been allowed to graduate from the program, which continues to expand. Legislators know the public is willing to pay. About 25 percent are registered sex offenders who everyone agrees need close supervision.
Family members are so exhausted and desperate that they either don't realize the risks or ignore them. Faced with this or getting no help from the state, the choice isn't hard.
*************************************************************
KOMO 4 News Investigation: Death And Denial
November 4, 2005
By Tracy Vedder
Video : KOMO 4 NEWS
Four deaths and a rape have occurred in the past seven years at a state-run facility for children with special needs, but what is being done about them?
BREMERTON - There is, in Bremerton, a home to care for some of the most vulnerable among us: young adults with autism. The state-run facility is supposed to be a safe place; a place to live and get treatment.
But a KOMO 4 News exclusive investigation found that, for the first time in its history, four residents at the Frances Haddon Morgan Center have died, and another was raped. This is their story.
Priceless photographs show the faces of children who are loved and adored. They are children with special needs; autistic, developmentally delayed.
Their families turned to the state for help. Through tears, one mother explains the grief of giving her son into the state's care, "And when I let him go, I let him go because I loved him."
The parents found a special place, the Frances Haddon Morgan Center in Bremerton. It's a home-like institution specializing in autism. But for each of these children we looked at, their time at the Morgan Center ended in tragedy.
6 a.m. Saturday, July 2, 2005: Krissy Shannon collapses in the common room at a Morgan Center duplex. Paramedics and Krissy's family believe the 29 year-old had a heart attack or seizure.
Her father Denny Shannon recalls, "special star that's been dimmed, except in my heart."
'We Had No Idea She Was Sick'
6:30 .a.m. Sunday, Sept. 4, 2005: 27-year-old Jenny Jessup collapses in a bathroom at the Center. She dies of septic shock from a perforated bowel.
"We had no idea that she was even sick," says Jenny's sister and guardian Marjorie Aust. "And it was so sudden."
Both families thought their children died natural deaths. But, six weeks after Krissy Shannon's death, Pathologist Dr. Emmanuel Lacsina ruled Krissy died of acute drug intoxication.
Dr. Lacsina was Pierce County's Chief Medical Examiner for 13 years and now performs all of Kitsap County's autopsies. He says the drug in Krissy's blood stream is a common, over the counter allergy medication: Chlortrimeton.
"I looked at it and it was high," says Dr. Lacsina referring to the level of Chlortrimeton in Krissy's toxicology report. "I looked at it again - it was high."
Dr. Lacsina says he's certain, the allergy drug killed Krissy. "Yes, I am."
But, at the Morgan Center, all drugs are supposed to be locked up. Krissy's dad Denny Shannon fights tears and anger: "I'm just so angry. If the drug intoxication was done intentionally, we need to find out who it is, if it was accidental and somebody left the drugs out unsupervised, we need to find out what the story is here."
Anita Delight oversees the Morgan Center for the state's Division of Developmental Disabilities. When asked if the report raises questions in her mind about where Krissy got the drugs she responds, "We have reservations about the interpretation of the information."
In other words, the state is challenging the pathologist's report. Shannon's response? "I think the state's having to cover their rear end."
'You Don't Ignore Abdominal Pain'
What about Jenny Jessup? The night before she died, Jenny complained of a stomachache and began vomiting.
Dr. Lacsina says, "to me, abdominal pain is a very serious symptom because many things can happen when somebody has abdominal pain."
The pathologist reviewed the Morgan Center's nursing notes. He says less than 12 hours after Jenny started feeling sick, she died of a perforated bowel.
"All of this what we call 'catastrophic abdominal catastrophe' can occur so you don't ignore abdominal - as far as I'm concerned I will not ignore abdominal pain."
But at the Morgan Center, no one called a doctor or took Jenny to the emergency room or did more than give her Pepto Bismol -- until she collapsed.
"And for it to rupture, that is a painful, painful way to die," says Aust, "and that is how my baby sister died - her intestines blew up."
Delight responds, "What I know so far leads me to believe that the staff responded appropriately and timely." But, two weeks after KOMO 4 News requested Krissy and Jenny's records, the state hired an outside investigator.
Critics insist their deaths are the latest tragedies at a state facility that is disintegrating.
"The center of expertise that the Morgan Center used to be no longer exists," says a state health care professional who knows the operations at the Morgan Center intimately. He asked us to protect his identity because he fears retaliation.
And he believes residents are still at risk.
"There needs to be an administrative change otherwise, unfortunately there will probably be more deaths."
'They Did Not Protect Brandon'
In its first 26 years, no one at the Morgan Center died. That changed in August of 1998 starting with Arvid Arden. Counselors were supposed to watch Arvid constantly -- he had a problem stealing food. But he got away from them, snuck into the kitchen and stuffed so many pancakes in his mouth, he choked to death.
Two years later, Bob Elder also died. Bob choked during a seizure. He had a seizure disorder. Yet in the weeks before his death, Center doctors changed his medication to one that increased his risk of seizures. Both deaths were ruled accidental.
Then there's the case of Brandon Newman. His mother, Linda Carter, compares photos of Brandon at age 11, to one at 12 shortly after the autistic youngster moved into the Morgan Center.
"Something is going on in his face when I look at this," she said.
Carter reported that Brandon had bruises, burns, a black eye and a cauliflower ear to Child Protective Services at least three times. Each time, the state ruled the complaints unfounded.
"A light bulb should have went on in somebody's head; here's another mother, the same mother, calling about the same Frances Haddon Morgan Center," Carter said.
Then, in February 2000, when Brandon was now 16, his caretaker at the center, Bill Wilson, confessed to raping the boy, repeatedly, for a year.
"Sixteen years old, innocent, haven't done nothing, and a grown man is penetrating him?" says Carter. "That eats me up."
Wilson had been taking Brandon to his home and molesting him. No one at the center ever reported Brandon's absences.
And no one said anything about Bill Wilson's record. He'd done three years for armed robbery and burglary.
"They did not protect Brandon," says Carter, "they let a criminal work with him -- a rapist."
"For one thing," explains the state's Anita Delight, "nobody, his background check did not reveal concerns about him as a person of potential risk." At the time Wilson was hired, the state only checked back 10 years. His conviction pre-dated that.
But at least one person, a nurse at the center, knew Wilson's criminal background intimately. KOMO 4 asked Delight about Wilson's wife, a registered nurse who knew her husband's background and worked at the Center and who still works at the Center.
"She might have known that," answers Delight. "I am not aware that at that point in time, management at Morgan Center knew what Bill's background was."
The state health care professional has a different explanation.
"What I'm aware of, even going back to Arvid's death, something happens and it becomes a liability issue and the cover-up begins."
But Delight insists, "I believe that we have more oversight now than what we have had in the past."
Federal Investigation
In the last seven years, there have been four deaths, and a brutal rape at the Morgan Center. The Federal Justice Department is investigating the facility.
In preliminary reports, the feds found evidence of staff abuse and neglect and determined the Center does not fully investigate suspicious injuries. The Justice Department concluded patients continue to be at risk.
Carter believes it's obvious: "The deaths, four deaths? Five deaths? Brandon's rape? Come on. What is the state of Washington doing with all these deaths in one spot, right at the Morgan Center?"
But again, Delight is confident in the program: "I think that the Morgan Center provides an extraordinary level of care to the residents who live here."
But, the parents believe their children deserve something more.
"They're our special babies," says Krissy's dad. It's too late for his daughter, but he wants to speak out for the other people still living at the facility. "They are our special babies and somebody needs to watch out for them."
And Linda Carter vows, "I'll fight for Brandon 'til the end, 'til the end."
The state disagrees with the Department of Justice report and, in response, gave KOMO 4 News reports it commissioned. Those reports both found minor problems at the Morgan Center but, in general they concluded the level of care was within accepted standards.
But all those reports were written before Krissy Shannon and Jenny Jessup died. We are still waiting for the results of investigations into those deaths.
NOTE BY STELLA: This is a very major story, so I have posted two back stories below this one so everyone can see the full horror of events as they have unfolded
November 17, 2005
By Tracy Vedder
BREMERTON - It's been months since two young women died at a state-run home for disabled adults, and there's been little progress in the investigations of their deaths.
KOMO 4 News looked into the Frances Haddon Morgan Center, revealing a trail of death and assault at the home. Now neither a police investigation nor the state's investigation seems any closer to finding out what happened.
We'd like to say that at a meeting of advocates for the Developmentally Disabled community Thursday, we heard from people concerned about the deaths of two young women at this state-run home. We'd like to say that, but the fact is, we don't know.
Regional Administrator Anita Delight wouldn't let the KOMO 4 reporter and photographer into the meeting. P> "I'm not prepared to have the media here," she said.
Last summer, Krissy Shannon and Jenny Jessup died. Both lived at the Frances Haddon Morgan Center, which specializes in autism. Krissy died of a drug overdose, Jenny of a perforated bowel.
Our investigation into the deaths and other problems at the Morgan Center topped the meeting's agenda. That's why patient and parent lobbyist Dave Wood wanted KOMO there. That, and to tell us the state's review is going nowhere.
"I don't think they're seriously concerned enough," says Wood. "I mean nobody has been fired, nobody's even been reprimanded."
It's four months since Krissy died; more than two months since Jenny's death.
The state hired an outside investigator in September but to date no results; no word of what happened. Police investigations are also unfinished.
Carol Kirk manages the Morgan Center. She says their investigator is still waiting for tissue samples from the Kitsap County Coroner. P> "The best I can tell you is that when the independent review is done," says Kirk, "they say that it will be approximately four weeks once they get all the materials that they need, which they don't have yet."
So two families, torn by these untimely deaths, must continue to wait for answers.
The Federal Government is also investigating the Morgan Center for allegations of patient abuse.
*************************************************************
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Public protection, private abuse: Mentally disabled preyed upon in state care
By RUTH TEICHROEB
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER
Louis couldn't tell the detective his address or phone number. But the mildly retarded young man knew what had been done to him was wrong.
Listen to an interview with a Seattle mother who fought to get her son out of the Community Protection Program after he was molested by a housemate.
Chat:
Investigator reporter Ruth Teichroeb answered readers' questions and comments about this special report on Thursday, Nov. 17. Read the full transcript.
Haltingly, he told the story: How his paid caregiver sent him to the garage in his Bremerton home to get food from the freezer. How the man followed and molested him by the workbench. How he did it again and again.
Louis wanted it to stop.
State officials had put him under 24-hour supervision with a for-profit residential care company a few months earlier to keep him safe from sexual predators -- and to protect the community in case Louis' abuse turned him into an offender.
Louis had never been in trouble with the law. He'd never threatened the safety of others.
Yet the state placed him in the $42 million annual Community Protection Program -- the closest thing Washington has to a prison without walls.
The publicly funded program pays for-profit companies an average of $93,000 a year per client to guard developmentally disabled people who are deemed to be dangerous. Clients pay their own rent and living expenses. For the companies, the lucrative, low-risk state contracts have few downsides. Since the program began in 1998, the state has ousted only one contractor for providing poor care.
Most of the clients are sex offenders, according to state officials. Some are physically violent or set fires.
Although he didn't fit those labels, Louis found himself under constant staff surveillance. He could no longer walk to the store alone or make a phone call without scrutiny. He lost touch with old friends. If he quit the "voluntary" program, the state would cut off the help he needed to live on his own.
Castleberry
That made him easy prey for Harold Dwane Castleberry, who sexually assaulted Louis and two of his housemates during the summer of 2001. Castleberry admitted to at least 30 assaults.
"It hurts me what Harold did to me," Louis later told his counselor. "It hurts my feelings."
Castleberry's employer, Kitsap Tenant Support Services, didn't know their popular new employee had a criminal record in Missouri. The state doesn't require out-of-state background checks if someone has lived here for three years.
Across the state, 381 vulnerable adults, including 78 in King County, have signed away their freedom in exchange for the intensive monitoring the Department of Social and Health Services believes they need to stay out of trouble. They live in apartments with alarmed doors and windows, submit to room searches and are not supposed to be out of sight of staff.
For those with the most violent histories, even this level of supervision is not enough. Others, like Louis, don't seem to belong there at all.
The state considers its program to be a resounding success at protecting the public. A carefully worded statement on the program's Web site says that no client has been arrested for "crimes against neighbors or members of the community."
What state officials don't talk about is the alarming amount of violence vulnerable adults in this program are enduring at the hands of housemates and paid caregivers.
Meryl Schenker / P-I
Job coach Cheri Bull tries to talk to Howard, 27, while they wait at a bus stop. Howard was one of the first graduates of the state's Community Protection Program for high-risk developmentally disabled adults. His mother fought to get him out after he was molested by a housemate.
Staff members have slapped, dragged, punched, bruised and broken bones of men and women with the mental age of elementary school children. Caregivers have shown porno movies and foisted drugs on clients, molested them and stolen their money. Housemates have bitten, pummeled, raped and terrorized other clients and staff.
Police responded more than 500 times to such incidents, resulting in more than 200 arrests of clients and seven staff between 2000 and 2004, according to state records.
"This containment comes at the expense of those who are being abused in the program," said Jim Haaven, a national expert who ran Oregon's program for developmentally disabled sex offenders. "It's easier to contain them because who's going to say anything? This population has no voice."
No law governs who is put in the program and no court reviews the decisions -- prompting questions from advocates about civil-rights violations. Case managers in the Division of Developmental Disabilities consult with state-contracted therapists, then decide a client's fate.
They wield a heavy hammer: Enroll or lose the lifeline of state-funded support services, such as in-home care and job aid. There is no appeal.
MERYL SCHENKER / P-I
"Our biggest concern is that DSHS is placing people who shouldn't be there in this program," says David Girard, an attorney with the federally funded Washington Protection and Advocacy System in Seattle.
"Our biggest concern is that DSHS is placing people who shouldn't be there in this program," said David Girard, an attorney with the Washington Protection and Advocacy System in Seattle, a federally funded watchdog group for people with developmental disabilities.
State officials disagree: "Every single one of these people has a history that sets off alarms that they present a danger to other people," said Linda Rolfe, director of DSHS' Division of Developmental Disabilities.
Only five clients have been allowed to graduate from the program, which continues to expand. Legislators know the public is willing to pay. About 25 percent are registered sex offenders who everyone agrees need close supervision.
Family members are so exhausted and desperate that they either don't realize the risks or ignore them. Faced with this or getting no help from the state, the choice isn't hard.
*************************************************************
KOMO 4 News Investigation: Death And Denial
November 4, 2005
By Tracy Vedder
Video : KOMO 4 NEWS
Four deaths and a rape have occurred in the past seven years at a state-run facility for children with special needs, but what is being done about them?
BREMERTON - There is, in Bremerton, a home to care for some of the most vulnerable among us: young adults with autism. The state-run facility is supposed to be a safe place; a place to live and get treatment.
But a KOMO 4 News exclusive investigation found that, for the first time in its history, four residents at the Frances Haddon Morgan Center have died, and another was raped. This is their story.
Priceless photographs show the faces of children who are loved and adored. They are children with special needs; autistic, developmentally delayed.
Their families turned to the state for help. Through tears, one mother explains the grief of giving her son into the state's care, "And when I let him go, I let him go because I loved him."
The parents found a special place, the Frances Haddon Morgan Center in Bremerton. It's a home-like institution specializing in autism. But for each of these children we looked at, their time at the Morgan Center ended in tragedy.
6 a.m. Saturday, July 2, 2005: Krissy Shannon collapses in the common room at a Morgan Center duplex. Paramedics and Krissy's family believe the 29 year-old had a heart attack or seizure.
Her father Denny Shannon recalls, "special star that's been dimmed, except in my heart."
'We Had No Idea She Was Sick'
6:30 .a.m. Sunday, Sept. 4, 2005: 27-year-old Jenny Jessup collapses in a bathroom at the Center. She dies of septic shock from a perforated bowel.
"We had no idea that she was even sick," says Jenny's sister and guardian Marjorie Aust. "And it was so sudden."
Both families thought their children died natural deaths. But, six weeks after Krissy Shannon's death, Pathologist Dr. Emmanuel Lacsina ruled Krissy died of acute drug intoxication.
Dr. Lacsina was Pierce County's Chief Medical Examiner for 13 years and now performs all of Kitsap County's autopsies. He says the drug in Krissy's blood stream is a common, over the counter allergy medication: Chlortrimeton.
"I looked at it and it was high," says Dr. Lacsina referring to the level of Chlortrimeton in Krissy's toxicology report. "I looked at it again - it was high."
Dr. Lacsina says he's certain, the allergy drug killed Krissy. "Yes, I am."
But, at the Morgan Center, all drugs are supposed to be locked up. Krissy's dad Denny Shannon fights tears and anger: "I'm just so angry. If the drug intoxication was done intentionally, we need to find out who it is, if it was accidental and somebody left the drugs out unsupervised, we need to find out what the story is here."
Anita Delight oversees the Morgan Center for the state's Division of Developmental Disabilities. When asked if the report raises questions in her mind about where Krissy got the drugs she responds, "We have reservations about the interpretation of the information."
In other words, the state is challenging the pathologist's report. Shannon's response? "I think the state's having to cover their rear end."
'You Don't Ignore Abdominal Pain'
What about Jenny Jessup? The night before she died, Jenny complained of a stomachache and began vomiting.
Dr. Lacsina says, "to me, abdominal pain is a very serious symptom because many things can happen when somebody has abdominal pain."
The pathologist reviewed the Morgan Center's nursing notes. He says less than 12 hours after Jenny started feeling sick, she died of a perforated bowel.
"All of this what we call 'catastrophic abdominal catastrophe' can occur so you don't ignore abdominal - as far as I'm concerned I will not ignore abdominal pain."
But at the Morgan Center, no one called a doctor or took Jenny to the emergency room or did more than give her Pepto Bismol -- until she collapsed.
"And for it to rupture, that is a painful, painful way to die," says Aust, "and that is how my baby sister died - her intestines blew up."
Delight responds, "What I know so far leads me to believe that the staff responded appropriately and timely." But, two weeks after KOMO 4 News requested Krissy and Jenny's records, the state hired an outside investigator.
Critics insist their deaths are the latest tragedies at a state facility that is disintegrating.
"The center of expertise that the Morgan Center used to be no longer exists," says a state health care professional who knows the operations at the Morgan Center intimately. He asked us to protect his identity because he fears retaliation.
And he believes residents are still at risk.
"There needs to be an administrative change otherwise, unfortunately there will probably be more deaths."
'They Did Not Protect Brandon'
In its first 26 years, no one at the Morgan Center died. That changed in August of 1998 starting with Arvid Arden. Counselors were supposed to watch Arvid constantly -- he had a problem stealing food. But he got away from them, snuck into the kitchen and stuffed so many pancakes in his mouth, he choked to death.
Two years later, Bob Elder also died. Bob choked during a seizure. He had a seizure disorder. Yet in the weeks before his death, Center doctors changed his medication to one that increased his risk of seizures. Both deaths were ruled accidental.
Then there's the case of Brandon Newman. His mother, Linda Carter, compares photos of Brandon at age 11, to one at 12 shortly after the autistic youngster moved into the Morgan Center.
"Something is going on in his face when I look at this," she said.
Carter reported that Brandon had bruises, burns, a black eye and a cauliflower ear to Child Protective Services at least three times. Each time, the state ruled the complaints unfounded.
"A light bulb should have went on in somebody's head; here's another mother, the same mother, calling about the same Frances Haddon Morgan Center," Carter said.
Then, in February 2000, when Brandon was now 16, his caretaker at the center, Bill Wilson, confessed to raping the boy, repeatedly, for a year.
"Sixteen years old, innocent, haven't done nothing, and a grown man is penetrating him?" says Carter. "That eats me up."
Wilson had been taking Brandon to his home and molesting him. No one at the center ever reported Brandon's absences.
And no one said anything about Bill Wilson's record. He'd done three years for armed robbery and burglary.
"They did not protect Brandon," says Carter, "they let a criminal work with him -- a rapist."
"For one thing," explains the state's Anita Delight, "nobody, his background check did not reveal concerns about him as a person of potential risk." At the time Wilson was hired, the state only checked back 10 years. His conviction pre-dated that.
But at least one person, a nurse at the center, knew Wilson's criminal background intimately. KOMO 4 asked Delight about Wilson's wife, a registered nurse who knew her husband's background and worked at the Center and who still works at the Center.
"She might have known that," answers Delight. "I am not aware that at that point in time, management at Morgan Center knew what Bill's background was."
The state health care professional has a different explanation.
"What I'm aware of, even going back to Arvid's death, something happens and it becomes a liability issue and the cover-up begins."
But Delight insists, "I believe that we have more oversight now than what we have had in the past."
Federal Investigation
In the last seven years, there have been four deaths, and a brutal rape at the Morgan Center. The Federal Justice Department is investigating the facility.
In preliminary reports, the feds found evidence of staff abuse and neglect and determined the Center does not fully investigate suspicious injuries. The Justice Department concluded patients continue to be at risk.
Carter believes it's obvious: "The deaths, four deaths? Five deaths? Brandon's rape? Come on. What is the state of Washington doing with all these deaths in one spot, right at the Morgan Center?"
But again, Delight is confident in the program: "I think that the Morgan Center provides an extraordinary level of care to the residents who live here."
But, the parents believe their children deserve something more.
"They're our special babies," says Krissy's dad. It's too late for his daughter, but he wants to speak out for the other people still living at the facility. "They are our special babies and somebody needs to watch out for them."
And Linda Carter vows, "I'll fight for Brandon 'til the end, 'til the end."
The state disagrees with the Department of Justice report and, in response, gave KOMO 4 News reports it commissioned. Those reports both found minor problems at the Morgan Center but, in general they concluded the level of care was within accepted standards.
But all those reports were written before Krissy Shannon and Jenny Jessup died. We are still waiting for the results of investigations into those deaths.