Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Pregnant Woman Forced 2 Kids to Burn in Scalding Hot Bath: Sheriff

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. An Ohio woman is accused of endangering two children by putting them in a bathtub of hot water and refusing to let them get out. The sheriff says a five-year-old girl actually started having seizures because of the trauma. I have the disturbing details of the allegations made against Melinda Harrison and what detectives claim she told them. I'm Anjanette Levy, and thanks for being with me for Crime Fix. Melinda Harrison is in jail in Gallia County, Ohio,

Starting point is 00:00:39 facing four felony counts of endangering children. This case started back on Thursday, June 6th. Deputies in the county of 29,000 went to the home on Hannon Trace Road after receiving a call about a five year old child having seizures. But once deputies got there, they say they found something much, much worse. The little girl who was having seizures, according to court records, had second degree burns over a large part of her body. A second child, deputies said, was four years old and had first and second-degree burns. The children were rushed to a hospital in West Virginia for treatment.

Starting point is 00:01:16 Three days later, the Gallia County Sheriff said Melinda Harrison, who lived at the home, was brought in for questioning. Court records state Melinda admitted to placing two children into a bathtub of hot water, refusing to let them exit or adjust the water temperature, and physically restraining them to keep them in the tub, which resulted in seizure activity and second-degree burns to one child and first and second-degree burns to the other child. The child endangering statute says Melinda was a parent, guardian, custodian, or person that had custody or control of the children. Melinda Harrison's social media account appears to show that she has two children and she seemed

Starting point is 00:01:58 frustrated by them at one point on May 2nd, writing, my kids are about to learn a real hard lesson on how to be grateful for the things that they have. Now, it's important to note this was more than a month before this incident, and parents do get frustrated. But given what Harrison is accused of, this does raise a little bit of concern. And get this, Melinda Harrison is pregnant, according to posts on her Facebook account. The day after the children were placed in the water. Melinda Harrison also posted on Facebook, everyone pray for, and I'm not going to name the child's name. Please don't ask why with a heart afterwards. I want to give a quick shout out to Upside for sponsoring this episode of Crime Fix. Upside is a free app that gets you

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Starting point is 00:03:57 the allegations in this case are particularly disturbing. This woman, Melinda Harrison, is accused of actually putting these children in hot water, scolding them and restraining them, not letting them out. One of the kids, according to sheriff's deputies, actually had seizures. So, wow, what do you do with this case? I think from the defense attorney perspective, at least right now, I know what the allegations are, but I'm missing a couple key pieces of information. I went to a seminar many years ago by Warner Spitz, who I'm sure you're familiar with, a forensic pathologist from Detroit. And he was talking about different kinds of injuries and thermal injuries like this are ones that he was talking about.

Starting point is 00:04:41 There are some cultures, and I don't know why this sticks out, where that is a method of punishment. He's not saying it's right or wrong, but it comes from a cultural history of it. When you look at the allegations, my first thought is probably what a lot of people think, there might be some mental health component here. I don't know anything about the lady in her background. I don't know how much experience she has taking care of kids. I think when she's 22 and they were the children of her boyfriend, the child endangering charges, the way I read it, it caused a substantialonious assault charge also, because if the reports are accurate that she admitted to doing this, she knowingly did this, that would appear to satisfy felonious assault, we need to know what happened leading up to it. And I don't have that information right now. I don't know that anybody does, but I guess what I'm saying is you don't go from a four and a five-year-old playing to just putting them in scalding water. What precipitated that? It's interesting you bring up the grand jury

Starting point is 00:06:00 because the case went to the grand jury and And it seems like this happened pretty quickly. She was arrested on June 9th. Then she's indicted a short time later. We're now at June 21st. And they added second degree child endangering and third degree child endangering. So there's now four felony counts of child endangering. They did not add a felonious assault charge. And we don't know what precipitated it, of course, Jay, but this is a woman, you're right. She's 22 years old, living in Gallia County out there in Southeast Ohio. It's a generally speaking lower income area. We don't know what kind of parenting classes she's had. We do know back on May 2nd, she had posted something on Facebook. I found this where it said, my kids are about to learn what it means to be

Starting point is 00:06:53 grateful for things. I mean, these are like little kids, right? These are a four and a five-year-old child. These are not like 10 and 12-year-old kids. She also appears to be pregnant from her Facebook page. So there may be a lot going on here. They were also looking, she was also looking for different housing, a two bedroom, maybe pet friendly space instead of the mobile home where they were living. So she's, she's facing these felony charges. She's in the Gallia County jail right now. She's still there. I just called and found out she hasn't posted bail. So she admitted to this, though. She admitted to putting them in there. Why? We don't know. This is what the deputies are saying. And she apparently physically restrained them and wouldn't let them get out. So I don't know about the cultural aspect of this,

Starting point is 00:07:43 maybe being punishment. But my God, can you think about that being stuck in hot scalding water? And the kids are probably screaming like, get me out of here, get me out of here. And she's admitting according to the deputies to restraining them. One of the things that I was thinking about last night when I was reading up on this, this may be similar to children or people who are convicted or have possession of child pornography. A lot of people who are involved in child pornography themselves were victimized and abused when they were children. And there's a lot of studies that show that if you look at the pornography that I, for example, might have, and you can see the

Starting point is 00:08:20 approximate age, there will be a pattern. And if you go back in my history you'll see that that's about the age i was i was abused as well what i got thinking was i've never had children of my own i had stepchildren what maybe that is what had happened to her maybe she had been the victim of that same type of of abuse or or torture whatever label the statute wants to put on it and that's that's how she knows to parent it's only what she's lived through as a child becoming in a position where she has parenting uh power over children i'm not saying that excuses any of it but i think if you can find out what caused it, I think that can be mitigating in many different ways. Again, it doesn't excuse it, assuming that she did it, she knowingly did it.

Starting point is 00:09:10 But I think understanding how we got there would be where I would spend a lot of time focusing the defense. So you think possibly that there's a history here where this woman, Melinda Harrison, may have been subjected to something maybe similar or subjected to some abuse. And it's almost like a learned behavior, not excusing it, but it may be an explanation. In her life experience from zero to 22 years, that's how people were punished. When she was a kid, maybe that's how a parent did her or a family member or somebody. And that's her learned manner of dealing with children. Again, it's not right. But I think if you start with the premise that most people knowing basics of life would not do that, there's some reason she did.

Starting point is 00:10:03 And my guess is it's either a learned behavior or she's seen it maybe if she's got siblings but that's that's her response to whatever situation she was in i think if you can understand what got her there at least you have can have some empathy for what happened and and the reason i think that's important is, for example, for an F2, the range of sentences is two to eight years and half because of Reagan-Tokes. There's a big difference between child endangering and being able to explain what got her there and getting you closer to a lower end sentence than she's just this heinously evil, demonically possessed woman who has nothing but hatred for children that gets her up at the high end. So I think in terms of a defense, it might very well be working towards mitigating the punishment she gets and trying to figure out how she got where she is because that is so far out of what we would expect as the norm that I think I would have to look and see what was motivating her. Yeah, we certainly would have to look at that. And I've reached out to her defense attorney, you know, left a voicemail or left a message with his receptionist, I should say,

Starting point is 00:11:15 not expecting to hear back just based on the conversation I had. But we've also reached out to the prosecuting attorney to see what he might have to say. And they're not saying anything right now because this case is pending, but it really does sound like a horrific scene. So Jay, we don't really know much about dad here. He's not facing charges, obviously, and we don't know much about him, but the children obviously do have a father. Um, but he, you know, according to the sheriff's office, this is all Melinda Harrison,

Starting point is 00:11:48 that she did this. What I do find interesting about this is that the day after these kids were placed in the bathtub, according to the sheriff, this happens on June 6th, on June 7th, the next day, she puts on Facebook, please pray for, and there's a child's name. I'm not going to say the name because she's a crime victim and a minor. Please pray for so-and-so. Don't, please don't, or don't ask why with a heart. Yikes. Don't ask why. And then she's accused of doing this, of putting the kids in the hot water and restraining them and holding them down. Ooh, as far as the defense attorney goes, that, please don't ask why. Oh, yikes. That does not sound, that does not sound good. Off the top of my head, no, it doesn't. But like we were talking about before we started, I have this other murder case that has 12 bullet wounds. That sounds bad.

Starting point is 00:12:43 But when you look at it, and there might be something behind it, an explanation for it, that it's not as bad as it sounds for a lot of different reasons. But at first blush, yeah, that's what I would say is bad evidence. Yeah, it sounds like very bad evidence. It almost sounds like to me, was there a cover story here, an attempt at a cover story? I don't know that, but that makes it kind of sound like that to me. I don't know that though. I want to reiterate that, but I'm just trying to put the puzzles pieces together here, having covered stuff for a really long time. So Jay, it sounds like you're going, as far as what we know right now,

Starting point is 00:13:26 you're looking at this and you're thinking, how do I minimize the damage mitigation? You're not going for a not guilty. Assuming that what you've been told by law enforcement is accurate, that she confessed to doing this or admitted. I don't think they use the word confessed. Admitted is, I think, the word they use. Correct they use. We can't deny her involvement. So I think then it becomes, why did it happen? And is there anything mitigating about why it happened? As to your point about the Facebook message, that was the next day. I could see, like we were talking about before, this happens on day one, the kids go to the hospital and she finds out that's the wrong way to parent. I know it sounds stupid for us to have a conversation like that.

Starting point is 00:14:07 But if her life experiences, that's what happened. Don't ask why, because I screwed up. As opposed to don't ask why, because I intentionally put them in scalding water. So, I mean, it could. I'm not trying to spin it. All I'm saying is we don't know what it means. And of course, whoever her attorney is, will have the chance to talk to her and she may well have an explanation for that.

Starting point is 00:14:29 And she very well may. It's just when I first saw it, it raised a red flag to me. And you're right. We don't know. But the allegation here, and these are allegations. She is innocent until proven guilty. The allegations and what is contained in the initial complaint is really awful. Jay Clark, thank you so much. Appreciate your time.

Starting point is 00:14:50 Anytime, Anjanette. Take care. 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 - Pregnant Woman Forced 2 Kids to Burn in Scalding Hot Bath: Sheriff

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Pregnant Woman Forced 2 Kids to Burn in Scalding Hot Bath: Sheriff

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