Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Couple Starved and Tortured Little Boy: Police

Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. A couple accused of child abuse and kidnapping after a teacher notices something just isn't right with a young boy. I have the disturbing case out of Kentucky and how police say this boy may have been singled out in his own home. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. You know, this is one of those cases where I read

Starting point is 00:00:30 the warrant and the complaint, and I just absolutely cringe. I'm going to tell you that right up front, and I'm going to go through this warrant with you, and your heart is just going to sink for this child. Mary Hall and her boyfriend, Jerome Norman, they're in the Pike County Jail in Kentucky, charged with child abuse, kidnapping, and first-degree assault. Kentucky State Police say the alleged abuse was discovered after this boy returned to school after Christmas break. Now, when I think about Christmas break, I think about kids and what it's supposed to be like. It's supposed to be happy, presents under the tree, cookies in the oven, things like that. But state troopers say

Starting point is 00:01:10 what this child endured, a doctor called it torture. A warrant for Mary Hall's arrest said the person who called police hadn't seen the child in question since December 23rd, right before Christmas break. And this person said they noticed bruising on the child's chin that could have been from horseplay. The warrant states, the boy has chipped front teeth and a busted nose on the state. He said he's been packing wood and riding his bike, but he would not say how he was injured.

Starting point is 00:01:41 Mary was asked about his nose and teeth. She stated that they've been packing wood and he's been out playing. She said he could have done it in his sleep. She denies knowing what caused this. Now, if you've ever had children, you know a child chipping teeth in their sleep is highly unlikely. Also very unlikely you would get a busted nose from doing something in your sleep unless you fell down or something like that. And if that wasn't bad enough, what the trooper wrote in the warrant only gets worse. There are times when the boy is not allowed to eat at home due to discipline. He has appeared

Starting point is 00:02:16 hungry. The other children report to Mary as to what happens at school. The boy was able to have a piece of cake and pizza at school, and Mary stated that he will not receive dinner since he was given this at school. Food isn't withheld from the other children. He was sick this morning after eating. He is real pale, real skinny. He does not look good. He looks malnourished with clammy skin tone. There are siblings that never look like this. They aren't injured. Now, from what the state trooper wrote, it sounds like the other children may have revealed something to either the police or to someone at school, since the trooper knew that the other children were supposed

Starting point is 00:02:56 to report to Mary Hall what the boy had done and eaten at school. And from what is written, it sounds like the child was being starved. The trooper wrote, and do not appear malnourished. The boy is not allowed to go on school field trips. When asked about his tooth, the boy turned away and denied that this hurt. So by the sound of it, troopers are suspecting that this boy is starved at home and only gets to eat at school. The troopers then searched the home according to the warrant. It states, upon serving the search warrant on the residence, troopers found the room where the child had been held and referred to as It states, There are more details that are just gut-wrenching, including the boy's condition being so grave that his heart actually stopped beating. The warrant states, since the child was taken from Holland Norman, the child suffered cardiac arrest and was taken to UK hospital. The child at this time is unable to keep solid food down, and the treating doctor stated that the child showed signs of torture.

Starting point is 00:04:24 I want to bring in Florina Altshuler. She is a former prosecutor. Florina, this case is just absolutely stunning to me. The fact that this little boy, we don't know his age because they've been keeping things about him tightly under wraps. But the fact that he was starved, according to what we're reading in the warrant, and so much so endured so much abuse is what they're suggesting that he went into cardiac arrest at the University of Kentucky Hospital. So talk to me about how serious that is and what that tells you as a former prosecutor about his condition. Yeah, the allegations, if supported and true, are really just horrific.

Starting point is 00:05:07 Unfortunately, it's not all that uncommon. And I've seen many cases where parents or guardians withhold food from their children as punishment. And they withhold food to the point where the child is essentially starving to death. And sometimes we see cases where that child passes away from being deprived of food and water. And it's really just horrific. It is one form of abuse. Oftentimes that abuse is paired with actual physical abuse where they beat the child, they leave marks on the child, they will lock the child in a closet, in a room, sometimes tie a child to a chair or a car seat, a radiator, really just horrific, horrific forms of clearly torture.

Starting point is 00:06:00 Mary Hall and her boyfriend, Jerome Norman, they're the ones facing the charges in this case. And again, they're being very, very careful not to identify the child here. So we don't know if it's Mary's child or Jerome's child. But the child, we believe, you know, obviously is the son of one of these two people. So I am just horrified by this because the timeline here is very important. December 23rd is the last time the person at the school sees this child. You assume because they didn't report anything until January that they didn't see anything in December that rose any type of concern or raised a concern, I should say. The child was seen on December 23rd

Starting point is 00:06:48 and they didn't see anything that, there were no red flags. Then when a break is over, the child comes back to school and the child doesn't look good. And so this child is being deprived of food. It sounds like the other children either told the police this or somebody told somebody this because the police are aware of it. And it's being used as discipline. I mean, how on earth do you think disciplining a child by withholding food is the way to get through to a child? Right. Not only is this not appropriate, this is clearly criminal. And not only is this neglect, but this is physical abuse. And it really rises to the level where this is causing such serious injuries that it could potentially be attempted murder. And if this poor child passes

Starting point is 00:07:41 away, this would be murder. Murder does not have to be somebody shooting somebody with a gun or stabbing somebody to death. When this is your child and you are the caretaker and you purposefully withhold food from this child to the point where there's organ failure, if that child, God forbid, passes away, you are responsible for killing that child. It becomes murder. And if the child survives but had life-threatening injuries, that could potentially be charged as attempted murder. And here, you know, you make a great point. You mentioned how, well, everything seemed fine by December 23rd, and then he's out of school because of the holidays, comes back, has all these injuries.

Starting point is 00:08:25 Unfortunately, that too is not uncommon. What we see is parents and guardians are with their children for this prolonged period of time due to school vacation, and they don't know how to handle that. Not an excuse. What they're doing is absolutely unequivocally criminal. But because they have a child for this longer period of time, it's not just after school, it's all day, every day, they act like the criminals that they are and begin to try to torture this child in an effort to control and condition the child. And it is often that we see homicides during these prolonged school breaks when parents and guardians just do not know how to discipline and control their children properly and instead do things that are really just absolutely unimaginably horrific.

Starting point is 00:09:21 You know, one of the things that really bothers me about this case, one of the many, many, many things that bothers me about this case and the allegations is the fact that the claim in the documents is that the child, the boy, was treated much worse than the other children. So the other children, we don't know how they were treated. Maybe they weren't treated. I can't imagine they were put up on pedestals the way this whole thing reads. This whole thing reads. But they at least weren't treated as poorly as this child was, deprived of food and also, you know, apparently locked in a room.

Starting point is 00:09:57 So talk to me about how common that is that one child is singled out and takes the brunt of the abuse. It's almost like the classic Cinderella story. There's one child who's the scapegoat and there's one child who's the black sheep. And there's this one child that the parents really take their rage out on. And they think that this child is the problem child. This child isn't listening. This child isn't cooperating. And it's not

Starting point is 00:10:26 surprising that sometimes these are the same people who aren't abusing their other children, but are abusing horrifically just one child. Sometimes you see cases where there's abuse and neglect of all of the parents' children, but it's not that rare where there's one child that's being picked on and picked on consistently. And when I say picked on, that's how it starts. But it goes from being picked on to horrible criminal activity where they are abusing, eventually torturing, and eventually sometimes killing the child. There's an allegation too in here, and I kind of touched on this earlier, that they were locking this child in a room. There was a single mattress and a light in the

Starting point is 00:11:11 corner of the room and then locks on the outside of the room. I mean, this child was being treated worse according to what's in these documents. I mean, these are allegations at this point in time, worse than a caged animal. I mean, I can't believe it. Yeah. And again, that too is something that unfortunately I have seen many times. It's almost like creating a dog, but worse, right? If you need to create a dog because you're leaving for a few hours, you leave food, you leave water, and we're talking about a dog and we're talking about crate training. Here, we're talking about a human being who should never be crated or caged or locked in a room, unequivocally, absolutely never. There's no situation where that is acceptable. But these people who are themselves acting like animals are locking their child in

Starting point is 00:12:06 a room. And that's just yet another form of power and control and in their eyes, exercising discipline when really they are exposing this poor child to a very significant risk of death. The child had chipped teeth, busted nose from what the reporting party was telling law enforcement. Law enforcement, I'm assuming, could see this when they saw the child because chipped teeth don't heal. They don't just go away and grow back. So this child, you know, gives this story about packing wood. They were packing wood and this is how he was hurt. And then mom says, oh, well, he could have done it in his sleep. Well, you and I both know that that's highly unlikely that this child hurt himself in his sleep, chipping his teeth and busting his nose. You know, I get the feeling that these are charges,

Starting point is 00:13:04 they face child abuse, kidnapping, first degree assault charges. Jerome Norman is accused of fleeing, evading police. He finally, they got him into custody. Do you think when this goes to grand jury, you know, we see even more serious charges? I mean, the doctor at the University of Kentucky said they saw signs of torture in this child. It's going to depend on the seriousness of the injuries that the child sustained. And frankly, unfortunately, whether or not this child even survives those injuries. So certainly if the child passes away, there's the very real possibility that both of these people can be charged with murder for causing this poor child's death. If hopefully this child survives it's going to be a question of how serious are the injuries and if there are injuries that are

Starting point is 00:13:54 serious, if there's protracted impairment of an organ, if there's organ failure, if there's a permanent injury, they could be charged with attempted murder for causing those injuries and for exposing this child to a significant risk of death. So those are potentials depending on what those medical records show and depending what time will tell us. And certainly all the other charges would be appropriate because they've restrained this poor child in a room and locked him. That would be kidnapping. Kidnapping is not necessarily abducting somebody and moving them. Kidnapping could be just locking somebody in one place and restricting their movement or preventing them from leaving. In addition to potential assault charges for the injuries that they caused. Well, this poor child, I hope that he survives and that he's able to recover in some form and just is surrounded by people who love him.

Starting point is 00:14:57 He was put through hell, it sounds like, and it's just horrific. Florina Altshuler, thank you, as always, for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Couple Starved and Tortured Little Boy: Police

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Couple Starved and Tortured Little Boy: Police

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