Couple accused of locking up, starving toddler
Dallas Morning News
May 10, 2002 09:00:00

DALLAS - A Dallas couple methodically starved their 4-year-old son - possibly for as long as two years - and locked him in a bathroom when he tried to sneak out of his room to eat, police said.

The boy's father, Johnny Edwards, 29, and his stepmother, Monica Edwards, 27, were charged with serious bodily injury to a child after a six-week investigation by police and Child Protective Services.

The boy, who was hospitalized on life support for a time and not expected to survive, has improved and is now in foster care, along with his 11-year-old stepsister, authorities said.

Authorities said Thursday that they could give no reason why the parents might have denied the child food, but officials described the boy as a sick child who had become a burden to his father and stepmother.

The case comes less than a year after an 8-year-old girl was found locked inside a small room of a Hutchins, Texas, mobile home for up to four years. When the girl was rescued in June, she weighed 25 pounds and had severe developmental problems.

Records do not show how much the Dallas boy weighed when police found him, but Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said he had lost 2 pounds since his second birthday.

The average weight for a 2-year-old is about 28 pounds; for a 4-year-old, it is about 37 pounds.

Meisner said the Hutchins girl suffered similar abuse for a longer period of time but had less severe injuries than the Dallas boy, who had been in his father's care for two years.

"Abuse to the extent that this child suffered is uncommon," Meisner said. "But it's not uncommon for parents to use food as a form of punishment."

She said the boy was talking and very helpful to investigators.

Police said the Dallas couple called 911 on March 26 after the boy went limp and became unresponsive after a bath.

When authorities first found the boy in an apartment in the 1600 block of John West Road in Far East Dallas, he had a body temperature of 84 degrees and was covered with sores and bruises, police records indicate.

The boy's stepsister was healthy, authorities said, but the boy was frail. The parents told police and child-abuse investigators at the time that the boy hadn't gained weight because of a gastrointestinal problem.

Child development experts say that neglect and starvation can inhibit a child's development, including learning, language, attention, judgment and social skills.

The chances for full recovery drop if brain damage has occurred, because significant brain development occurs in infancy and childhood.

Dallas police Deputy Chief Alfredo Saldana said the boy was kept in a locked room and given only small amounts of food. When his parents did feed him, it was sometimes only a bite from a sandwich, he said. At night, the boy would sneak out of the room to find more food, and at one point he ate raw bacon, according to police reports.

The couple punished the boy for sneaking out of his room by placing him in a locked bathroom, Chief Saldana said.

Doctors have ruled out any medical condition that could have caused the boy to lose weight, investigators said. Police say they now believe that the two adults systematically deprived the boy of food over an undetermined time period.

The investigation took several weeks because of medical tests, Meisner said.

"We wanted to make sure that any medical conditions could be ruled out," she said.

Neighbors in the couple's apartment complex were stunned to hear about the boy's condition. Some were surprised to learn that the couple even had children.

"I never knew they had any children," said Penny Anderson, 28, who lives one floor above the Edwards. "I can't believe this happened right in our building . . . right downstairs."

Latres Bagley said she had never seen the Edwards' children, but her son, Jukeidric, said he had seen their daughter.

"She would ride her bike or roller blade. A lot of the time she would be sitting on the steps, but I didn't know she had a brother," the 13-year-old said.

He said there were times he and friends would see the girl crying. Whenever he asked what was wrong, she wouldn't respond, he said.

Johnny Edwards pleaded guilty in 2001 to evading arrest and unlawfully carrying a weapon. He was sentenced to 12 days in jail and placed on probation for a year, according to Dallas County records. Two charges of possession of a controlled substance were dismissed in 1991, records showed.

Johnny and Monica Edwards each face five to 99 years to life in prison on the charges of injury to a child if convicted.

In the Hutchins case, the girl's mother, Barbie Atkinson, pleaded guilty to serious bodily injury of a child and was sentenced to life in prison. Her stepfather, Kenneth Atkinson, faces trial in September on charges of injury to a child and sexual assault.