The Misery Machine - The Case of Porchia Bennett

Starting point is 00:00:00 Portia Bennett was born on July 7, 2000 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to mother Tiffany Bennett. She had four older sisters, Alexis, Ayanna, Aaliyah, and Priscilla. The father of the oldest two girls was Oliver Bynum Jr. It's unclear who fathered Portia and her other sisters. At the time of our story, Portia was three years old. Portia had dark hair, chubby cheeks, and brown eyes. According to the girl's aunt Bridget Bennett, Portia was a very pretty baby. Bridget said Portia loved to be held.

Starting point is 00:00:36 She said, she always had a smile on her face. She always wanted to be picked up and hugged. And she was so beautiful. You just wanted to pick her up every time. Family described her smile as one that would melt your heart. According to her aunt, her favorite food was chicken. She said Portia would run around with a chicken leg in her hand and say, I got chicken, I got chicken. She also loved her sisters, and they loved her.

Starting point is 00:01:04 Portia was the baby of the family. According to their aunts, all the girls were sweet and kind children. Alexis, the oldest, loved all of her sisters to death. She made special efforts to protect Portia as much as she could. Tiffany and Oliver had their first daughter named Alexis in January of 1993. In October of 94, they had their second child, Ianna. Later that year when Iyana was only a couple months old. The couple left her with a babysitter. They had returned. She was in bad condition as the babysitter had shook her so hard that she suffered brain injuries. Philadelphia Department of Human Services investigated the incident and determined that Tiffany and Oliver shared some of the blame as perpetrators of omission, as they called it. This meant that

Starting point is 00:01:49 the parents had an obligation to keep the baby safe and failed to do so. They lost custody of Ianna. and she was adopted by another family. The older girl Alexis remained in their custody. Sadly, their relationship did not survive the tragedy. She and Oliver soon broke up. Tiffany had another baby girl named Alia in October of 1996. By 1997, Tiffany had developed a serious substance abuse problem and wasn't taking proper care of her girls.

Starting point is 00:02:16 She wasn't taking them to the doctors or providing a staple home to them. When DHS tried to implement plans to improve their well-being and safety, Tiffany hid from the caseworkers and refused to comply. In May of that year, DHS petitioned to remove Alexis and Aaliyah from her custody, but the court opted for supervision instead. Tiffany sent Alexis to live with her father who had moved to North Carolina while she and Aaliyah were living in a homeless shelter in Philadelphia. In July of 1998, things were looking better for Alexis.

Starting point is 00:02:46 CPS and North Carolina had found that her dad was taking really good care of her there. But Aaliyah wasn't so lucky. Tiffany had gotten kicked out of the shelter. Alia spent two days in temporary foster care, but was returned to her mother after she found placement in a Salvation Army shelter. By this time, Tiffany was pregnant again. Her fourth daughter, Priscilla, was born in January of 1999. In order to keep custody of her kids,

Starting point is 00:03:14 Tiffany was ordered to stay at the shelter, work with a social worker there, and participate in mental health evaluation and program. Instead, she refused. In May of 1999, Tiffany moved out of the shelter without the permission of DHS. A social worker tried to track her down, but was unsuccessful. They reached out to her parents, but neither of them would share any information. The social worker then asked another government agency to flag her file

Starting point is 00:03:44 and required Tiffany to report her location to DHS if she tried to have her assistance check sent to a new address. The agency did flag her file but never followed through. They renewed her benefits the next month without making sure she spoke to DHS first. In September, with no idea where Tiffany was, the department tried to close Alia's case. However, the child advocate assigned to her case objected and the judge outright refused. He said, I don't want this case just sitting on a desk somewhere. I want to see work done. I want people to continue to look.

Starting point is 00:04:18 I want DHS to vigilantly look for the baby. They get the baby, I want them to take the baby. The case was assigned to another social worker who also tried to locate Tiffany. She wrote letters to several agencies that work with homeless populations and check government databases. She saw Tiffany's government assistance checks were going to an address on Grand's back street. She thought she might have a solid lead. However, she went to the house, it looked like it was abandoned.

Starting point is 00:04:45 Around this time, Oliver and Alexis moved back to Philadelphia. She was enrolled in public school and lived with her grandfather. Oliver claimed that she lived there from 1999 to 2003, but court records show she returned to her mother's care in 1999. Later, records would show that Tiffany and the girls were living with her mother, Dale Geiger, in 1999. Either the new social worker didn't check there, or that information wasn't passed on.

Starting point is 00:05:10 In April of 2000, DHS once again tried to close the case. This time, the child advocate did not object. The case was subsequently closed. Portia was born a few months after that. No one was looking for her sister, and no one was looking out for Portia either. Jerry and Jason Chambers live just a few blocks away in the same South Philly neighborhood,

Starting point is 00:05:33 though they had not grown up there. They met Tiffany sometime in 1999 when they paid her to braid their hair. They would become part of her children's life soon after. Previously, the twin brothers lived in Chester, about a 30-minute drive away. At 16, they moved in with their godmother Ruth Leonard after having trouble at home. Three years later in 1990, she moved to South Philly, but they continued to live in Chester for several more years. In June of 1996, Jason pled guilty to two counts of aggravated indecent assault. He was sentenced to two to five years for each count and served about five years,

Starting point is 00:06:12 including time served before taking the plea. When he got a lot of time to five years, he got to out of prison, he and Jerry both moved to South Philly. First, they lived in their own apartments in a building on Dickinson Street, but Jerry lost his job and was evicted. The twins moved back in with her godmother Ruth, who now lived at a house at 1705 South 5th Street. The house had been divided into three apartments. Jerry shared the first floor apartment with Ruth. His two pit bulls lived in the unfinished basement. Jason, his son's Jay Sean and Jay Shun, and Jay Shun. and his goddaughter lived on the second floor. Another family lived on the third floor.

Starting point is 00:06:52 A couple years after Portia's birth, Tiffany got a job working the night shift at a local factory. She needed someone to watch the girls while she worked. She knew Jerry and thought he was a nice guy. She said, I didn't see anything wrong with him. Soon Jerry was watching the four girls, Alexis who was 10, Leah who was six, Priscilla who was four, and little Portia, who was almost three years old. By fall of 2002, she was paying Jerry $60 a week to watch the girls on workdays from 4 p.m. to midnight. Tiffany would pick them up after her shift and take them home in the early morning hours.

Starting point is 00:07:25 Around Thanksgiving, Jerry told Tiffany that, for a little more money, he would keep the girls overnight. She paid $80 a week to leave them there. Around this time, Tiffany's younger sister Candice left home and no one in the family knew where she was. Candice, who was only 17, had started dating Jerry, who was 31, had secretly moved in with him. Initially, Tiffany didn't know she was staying there. When she found out, Candace made her promise not to tell the rest of the family. The first Tiffany still took the girls home on weekends, but as time passed, she visited less and less. She saw them for about an hour on Christmas Day in 2002.

Starting point is 00:08:04 A few visits between then and Easter, which was on April 20th and 2003. After Easter, she stopped visiting. June, Jerry asked her to take the girls back home. She told him, I don't want the kids. Jerry also tried to kick Candice out several times. He packed all her clothes and told her to leave. She refused. Eventually, her mother and the rest of the family found out she was living with Jerry,

Starting point is 00:08:29 but by that time she had turned 18. The police told her mother there was no way they could force her to come back home. Though she would not leave Jerry, Candice did sometimes sneak men into the apartment when he wasn't home. The girls were forced to watch whatever. ever happened between Candace and those men. The first floor apartment was not large. It was a two-bedroom, one-bathroom unit.

Starting point is 00:08:53 It had a small living area in a kitchen. A child-sized plastic potty sat in the kitchen. Jerry's godmother Ruth slept in the front bedroom. Candice, Jerry, and all four girls shared the 10 by 11-foot back bedroom. Jerry and Candice slept in a bed on one side of the room. Only a couple of feet away, the girls shared. shared a mattress on the floor next to the radiator. The room had two doors, one of which was nailed shut. The other could only be opened with a key. There was one window, but it was covered

Starting point is 00:09:26 in dark plastic blocking out the light. A chore list was taped on the wall. It was labeled Jerry's Rules for the Room. The rules one through six were daily tasks like dump the potty every day and scrubbed the walls. Rule 7 was respect Jerry at all time so everyone gets their ass whooped. During the time the girls stayed there, family members tried to visit

Starting point is 00:09:51 and check on the girls, but they were often not allowed in. Their aunt Bridget was allowed to visit twice. She brought food and clothes for the kids. She asked the older girls how they were doing. They said everything was fine. But in her gut, something did not feel right to her.

Starting point is 00:10:07 Jerry stayed with them the whole time. He would not let her talk to the girls by herself. Alexis's grandfather Oliver Sr. said he had visits with her up until March of 2003. That month, Tiffany told Alexis's elementary school that she wasn't allowed to visit her grandfather anymore. After that, he said he stopped by the apartment three times a week, but Jerry never let him inside. Born to Alexis, staying at Jerry's apartment got more and more difficult as time went on. After Jerry tried to send the girls back and Tiffany refused to take them, It got even worse.

Starting point is 00:10:41 By July 4th, Alexis said conditions had gotten really bad. There wasn't much to eat, and both Jerry and Candice were hitting the girls on a regular basis. If the girls made a small mistake, like leaving the room door open or not cleaning up quickly enough, Jerry and Candice would beat them for a long time. Sometimes they would punch and kick them. There are times they would whip them with extension cords, belts, belt buckles, and broomsticks. They're often whipped while being forced to take cold shower. Afterwards, Jerry would make them stand wet and unclothed in front of the AC unit.

Starting point is 00:11:15 This was his form of punishment, and as a further form of punishment, Jerry would also throw the girls down into the basement with the dogs. Orsha had been bitten once by one of the dogs near her eye. Conditions in the apartment were deteriorating too. It was filthy. The potty overflowed with urine and solid waste, spilling out onto the floor. The dirty mattress the girl slept on stank. When Portia wet the bed, Jerry made Alexis put her in a cold shower.

Starting point is 00:11:45 Worried that the toddler would get too cold, Alexis would go in the shower with her. The mattress was surrounded by piles of feces. Feces were smeared on the floor and on the walls. No one was helping the young girls go potty and no one was cleaning up the room after any accidents. Fly swarmed over everything. Dead cockroaches littered the floor. As bad as it was, in August, it got even worse. Alexis had been beaten so badly that a neighbor noticed and made a report to DHS on August 14th.

Starting point is 00:12:18 The neighbor said Jerry beats the children like they are men. So Jerry's hands were swollen from beating on the children. She said he made them stay in the house all the time. The neighbor had knocked on the door. The oldest girl answered. The neighbor saw that Alexis's eye was very swollen and her face was badly bruised. The report was assigned to social worker Joe Maiden. He was supposed to investigate the allegations within 24 to 36 hours. In his notes, he wrote that he went to the home at 1705 South 5th Street and knocked on the door.

Starting point is 00:12:51 Getting no answer, he claimed he left a note on August 16th. He also claimed he visited it again later that day and again on August 17. Later, Joe Maiden's own attorney would admit, he probably failed to go out there, and that's not in dispute. Again, no one was looking for her sister, and no one was looking out for Portia. On the evening of August 16th, Candice made Portia a sandwich, but she didn't want to eat it. Instead, Candice said Portia just stared at her. Candice forced her to eat by smacking her across the face and whipping her stomach with a belt.

Starting point is 00:13:25 That night, Jerry beat Portia with an extension cord while she was in the shower. Lexus was also beaten very badly. At some point during the evening, she was locked in the base of her. with the dogs once again. Later that night, Candace and Jerry decided to watch an adult film while the girls were in the room. Candice told the girls to say they watched the Cheetah girls, if anyone asked. When they all went to bed, Jerry and Candice were intimate. During the act, they noticed Portia was watching.

Starting point is 00:13:54 Jerry told her to stop, but Portia kept watching. He called her over to the bed and struck her across the face several times. He then beat her with an extension cord. Candice also hit her. Portia's crying woke up the other girl so they too witnessed what happened next. Candice told Jerry to throw Portia against the wall, and he did. He picked the toddler up by her feet and threw her clear across the room, her head smacking into the cast iron radiator.

Starting point is 00:14:27 Jerry picked her up and threw her against the wall once more. This time her tiny body ended up wedged between the bed and the wall. When the other girls tried to help her, Jerry told them they weren't allowed to. Then, he and Candice went back to their intimate relations. Portia was too weak to move. She remained stuck unable to breathe. Over the course of several hours, the three-year-old slowly suffocated to death. When they woke on August 17th, Portia had been dead for a long time.

Starting point is 00:14:59 Jerry coached the girls on what to say to the police, said to tell them a man they didn't know came into the apartment and attacked them. During the fight, Portia fell behind the radiator and suffocated. Because her injuries were so extensive, he told Alexis to hide on the third floor so no one would see her. At one that afternoon, Jerry's brother Jason called 911 and reported that Portia was not breathing. Police, firefighters, and EMTs responded. Found Porsche face up on the couch. Dark bruise marked where her head had collided with the radiator. It was clear the toddler had been dead for hours, the MTs still tried to resuscitate her. He rushed her to Methodist Hospital where she was subsequently pronounced dead.

Starting point is 00:15:42 Officers were disgusted by the conditions they observed when they arrived. Lieutenant Mike Morin, the lead detective, said he first noticed the stench, a pungent urine mixed with wet dogs. The smell was even stronger in the back bedroom, said. The entire property was absolutely filthy and fly infested. The floors were so dirty and encrusted with dead cars. cockroaches that your feet stuck to the floor as you walk through. Jerry and Candace told officers they had just woken up and found Portia stuck between the wall

Starting point is 00:16:13 and the bed. They said they had put the kids to bed at 9 p.m. the night before and had no idea what could have happened. Officers were obviously suspicious and continued to look around the building. Found a child hiding on the third floor, but couldn't tell right away who it was. Child's head was wrapped in a towel. Police pulled it away. they found that the child's eyes were both swollen shut.

Starting point is 00:16:36 The head and face were so bruised and distorted that they couldn't tell if they were looking at a girl or a boy until she spoke to them. They had found Alexis. Alexis, Alia, and Priscilla were taken to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. All of them had bruises, old scars, and new well marks on their backs of their knees and their backs. Alexis' eye socket was fractured. She had scabbed over injuries and scars on her back and on her bottom. Terrified, Alexis first told Jerry's version of events, the story with a strange man bursting in and fighting. She also said she had hurt herself falling down and that Jerry had beaten her because she had hurt her sisters.

Starting point is 00:17:18 But once she realized she would not have to return to the apartment, she told officers the truth. Jerry and Candace had beaten Portia and had been beating all the girls for some time. She said Portia's wounds were so severe that she could not lay down and go to sleep. Later that day, Jerry beat her again for making noise. Alia also spoke to the police. She said Jerry had punched Alexis in the face, beating her badly, and locked her in the basement overnight. She told the officers about everything she had witnessed in the bedroom. She said Candace told her to tell them Jerry treated us right, but he didn't.

Starting point is 00:17:57 She also said Candace told her to say that she didn't call 911 sooner because her phone wasn't charged. When detectives questioned Candice, she admits she hit the children but said, We only beat them when they do something wrong. Not every day, maybe every other day. Sometimes we would smack them. Sometimes we would punch them. Sometimes Jerry would kick them, but he never kicked them in the face. Jerry, Candice, and Tiffany were all arrested on August 22nd.

Starting point is 00:18:26 Jerry and Candice were charged with homicide, conspiracy, and CA. Jerry was also charged with attempted homicide for the severe beating he gave Alexis. Both were held without bail. He was charged with four counts of endangering the welfare of children and conspiracy. Her bail was set at $100,000. Through her attorney, she said she hoped to get custody of her surviving children back after the trial. While awaiting trial, she was free on bail. At a press conference after the arrest, the district attorney said,

Starting point is 00:18:57 Everybody in the city, I think, is stunned and horrified at the fact that children could live in what amounts to a chamber of horrors. These little children suffered incredibly. It was one of the worst cases of CA ever seen in the city of Philadelphia. Jerry claimed he was bipolar and unfit to stand trial. At various times, he pretended he didn't know his own name or where he was from. He said he was a 16-year-old girl from Arizona named B. Daryl. He claimed he was born in 1948. He said he was in jail because he stole a car. He hoped he would be sent to Norristown State Hospital instead of prison, but thankfully his antics did not work.

Starting point is 00:19:36 The psychiatrist doing his evaluation said Jerry presented a classic case of malingering. He found competent to stand trial in April of 2005. The trial for all three began on May 2nd, 2005. The Honorable Renee Cardwell Hughes presided. Jason's two sons testified to what they saw. Jayshan said the girls got hit with extension cords and belts by Jerry and Candice. He said Jerry would sometimes order the dogs to attack the girls. Jay Shine said that he saw Jerry hit Portia and Alexis in the face. He said, they got beat.

Starting point is 00:20:11 They got punched. They got hit by hand and extension cords. Alexis's grandfather testified that he did not know what was happening in the apartment. He would have known more if Tiffany hadn't forbidden. him from contacting her. He said, if I had, I would be sitting over there, implying that he would have killed the defendant to protect the children. Defendants have a well-established right to confront witnesses face to face, but that was a problem in this case. The girls were afraid of Jerry, Candace, and their mother. Experts thought testifying in the same room would cause severe emotional

Starting point is 00:20:43 distress. In order to protect the young witnesses, the court set up a system to allow them to testify on video. Defendants were allowed to watch the video in another room. room and their lawyers could ask any question they wanted to. Even more terrible details would emerge during their testimony shown via video on May 4th. Priscilla held a stuffed Nemo doll while she testified. She said sometimes Jerry, and these are her words, throwed me down in the basement. She said he hit her. She said Jerry touched her private parts and he made her touch him too. She said this happens when he and Candace were in bed together with no clothes on.

Starting point is 00:21:24 Alexis called her life with Jerry a nightmare. She said they weren't fed enough and spent much of their time hungry. As punishment, each of the girls were at times forced to eat dog poop out of the dog's food bowl. Jerry would also lock her in the basement with the two large dogs. Alexis also said Jerry touched her inappropriately and forced himself on her when she was only 10 years old. Alia told how Portia's crying.

Starting point is 00:21:51 woke her up that August night. She said Candace told Jerry to throw her sister. She described how Portia was thrown head first into the radiator. The next morning, Alia could see a line on Portia's head. That line was the area bruised and indented by the impact. She said Jerry picked Portia up off the radiator and threw her across the room again, where she hit the wall, slid down, and got wedged between the wall and the bed. Jerry testified in his own defense.

Starting point is 00:22:24 He told the jury he hit the girls, but he said he never meant to kill Portia. Without that intent, the lawyer asked the jury to consider a much lower charge of third-degree murder. Tiffany's lawyer said she was unaware of the CA that was happening in the home because Jerry only hit the children where the marks could be hidden by clothing. She claimed she stopped by the apartment almost every day, though, that was contradicted by other testimony. The children and other defendants said she stopped coming after Easter of 2003. Tiffany's statement infuriated the judge. After the jury had been dismissed from the courtroom, Judge Hughes said, how much did Portia weigh in September of 2002,

Starting point is 00:23:03 and how much did Porsche away in August of 2003? You really expect me to believe that you saw Porsche every day when she lost 50% of her body weight, she was so gone that she looked like a flipping skeleton. Dr. Ian Hood, the deputy medical examiner, said Portia was well below normal height and weight for her age, off the bottom of the chart. Her body was so emaciated that her bones jutted out and stretched her thin skin. She was very scrawny, very thin, with loose folds of skin that indicated she had been heavier.

Starting point is 00:23:35 From the condition of her body, Dr. Hood concluded she had lost a lot of weight over a short period of time. He determined she was suffering from a condition called inundition. Similar to starvation, this is something that happens to small children when they are neglected and abused. Dr. Hood said young children have to receive emotional support and feel safe, and when they don't, you tend to see this phenomenon of wasting away. We call that inonition for want of a better term. Portia had a shrunken thymus gland and her body was covered in the lanugo hair. These are typical findings in children suffering from inonition. Newgo hair is the soft fine hair that babies grow in the womb.

Starting point is 00:24:12 It usually falls off before birth or shortly after. It's only present on a three-year-old when something is very wrong. The size of her thymus gland showed she'd been suffering significant stress for months. Dr. Hood said, and I quote, The most significant finding about this child was just everywhere you looked on the skin. There was a mark or bruises of varying age. Injuries overlapped and ran together. There were so many marks Dr. Hood couldn't count them all.

Starting point is 00:24:41 He found 30 to 40 fresh bruises that had occurred in the week before her death. Her oldest injuries were at least two months old. Combined, they covered almost 100% of her body. For into Doctor Hood, the marks were all different shapes, meaning she had been beaten by many different items. He was able to identify wounds caused by belts, buckles, and looped cords. He also found a couple of patterned, barely nasty scars that had completely depigmented the skin

Starting point is 00:25:08 and made with something that was about the size of a number. knuckle. She had a recent bruise on her left forehead, another around her left eye, and a third underneath her left eyebrow. A series of bruises over the left side of her face and a bruise on the right side were consistent with the knuckles or fingers of an adult hand. Her forehead was bruised and indented in a pattern that matched the radiator. This was the line Alia mentioned in her testimony. Inside Portia's body, Dr. Hood found more bruising and bleeding. Her liver had suffered a sudden, forceful compression and had ruptured. He was bleeding, but not enough to have killed her if that was her only injury.

Starting point is 00:25:48 He said it took several hours for her to die, but there was no singular cause of death. It was either semi-conscious or unconscious after hitting the radiator. She was so weak that she couldn't move and she couldn't maintain her airway. Her autopsy showed signs of long-term stress and malnourishment. We're into Dr. Hood, and I quote, putting all of that together, the multiplicity of the blunt trauma, the obvious stress the child had been under, I finally assigned her cause of death as multiple blunt trauma, asphyxia, and in addition. Her manner of death was ruled a homicide.

Starting point is 00:26:25 The trial ended on May 17, 2005. The sentencing phase began on May 25th. Candace was convicted of third-degree homicide, conspiracy, and endangering the welfare of children. She was sentenced to 17 to 34 years in prison. Tiffany was convicted of abandonment, four counts of felony conspiracy, and endangering the welfare of children. She was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison.

Starting point is 00:26:54 Jerry was convicted of first-degree homicide, criminal conspiracy, aggravated assault, four counts of endangering the welfare of a child, four counts of conspiracy to endanger the welfare of a child, three counts of indecent, assault for touching the girls inappropriately. In three counts of corruption of a minor, he was found not guilty of forcible essay of Alexis, though he was found guilty of touching her

Starting point is 00:27:20 inappropriately. In a case involving the death penalty, the jury has to consider their actions carefully. They make their decision in the heat of passion. It can be overruled on appeal. They must consider any mitigating factors as well as any aggravating circumstances. must decide if the evidence justifies such a harsh sentence. In this case, the mitigating factors the jury found were that Jerry had never been convicted of a crime before and that he was allegedly experiencing

Starting point is 00:27:47 an emotional or mental disturbance. The aggravating factors the jury found were the young age of the victim and the torture that she suffered at the hands of Jerry. The jury found that the bad acts he committed outweighed any reasonable excuses that he had. So, Jerry was sentenced to death for Porsche's murder. The sentence is 72 to 144 years additional for his crimes against the other girls.

Starting point is 00:28:10 In his appeal, Jerry claimed he enjoyed beating Portia so much that he, and I quote, would never wish to kill her and deprive himself of that pastime. His lawyer argued his lack of intent and his death sentence should be overturned, but the court did not agree. Sentence was upheld on September 30th, 2009. However, Pennsylvania has not executed a prisoner since 1999. The moratorium on executions was imposed in 2015, and it still exists as of the date of this recording. Jerry is currently incarcerated at the SCI Phoenix facility in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

Starting point is 00:28:47 He kept busy in jail by writing long complaints and filing lawsuits. He wrote 145 pages claiming that various Philadelphia newspapers and media outfits were conspiring with police to falsely accuse him. He said they owed him $60 million. The court explained the problems with his claim. He wrote another 202-page response. All claims were dismissed because he provided no facts to support them. Tiffany is still serving her sentence at Muncie Women's Prison in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. Candice is no longer listed at any of the Pennsylvania prisons, so it seems likely that she has since been released. Portia's funeral was held at Lovely Baptist Church on August 24th. She was buried in Mount Moriah's

Starting point is 00:29:31 cemetery in southwest Philadelphia. Her sisters were all placed in foster care. They received trauma counseling and other mental health services. They struggle to recover. In the months following the incident, Alexis's grandfather was allowed to visit twice. He said she spoke about Portia, telling him, it wasn't my fault, grandpa. Portia's estate, along with the surviving girls, sued DHS and social worker Joe Maiden. They had two main complaints.

Starting point is 00:29:59 The HHS lost track of the family and stopped looking for them. Social worker Joe Maiden didn't adequately or at all respond to the hotline call placed a few days before Porsche's death. As in other cases we have covered, social worker and the state were not found legally liable. The court agreed that Joe Maiden was incompetent and negligent. They said, the facts on record suggest that Maiden made no effort to respond to the hotline report. He failed to act, but in action, isn't enough to meet the legal standard, at least in the state of Pennsylvania. Failing to save her wasn't a crime.

Starting point is 00:30:36 DHS and Joe Maiden didn't help her, but they also didn't do anything that put her in more danger than she was already in. The court found that the source of the danger was the mother and the people with whom she chose to leave her children. When the court dismissed the case, they said, government entities and their employees should be held accountable for incompetence, negligence, and non-feasance. Courts, however, are not always the appropriate forum to redress such wrongdoing.

Starting point is 00:31:02 When tragic events occur and alarmed citizenry and its representatives must respond to prevent similar tragedies in the future. DHS disciplined Joe Maiden for his failure to go to the home on 1705 South Fifth Street and for the lies he made in his report. He resigned in lieu of termination. Forcia's death did help other children. After her death, DHS reopened 310 case. that had been closed just like Portia's had been.

Starting point is 00:31:30 Those 310 cases involved 558 children. An agency director said, We're trying to learn from this. DHS updated their procedures, added research databases, and hired a detective agency. They found 278 families, all but 42 of the children who had slipped through the cracks.

Starting point is 00:31:51 76 of the families they had found needed help, either intervention for neglect or abuse or referral to CA prevention programs. The investigation into Portia's murder also directly impacted the lives of three other young girls, all of whom are known only by their initials in court documents. Jason's goddaughter, AL, sister CE, and her cousin, AR. While asking Jay Sean about what he witnessed happened to the Bennett girls, detectives found out about another crime. Sean said he had seen his father, who was 30 years old, essaying,

Starting point is 00:32:24 A.L. and her cousin A.L. was Jason's 11-year-old goddaughter. She lived with him from ages 8 to 11. Police found that Jason hit all of the children, including the boys. His brother Jerry, he sometimes whipped them with an extension cord. He threatened to kill the girls if they told anyone what happened. They also threatened to kill anyone that they told. This made a particular impression on A.R. Because she had once seen him choke her mother during an argument. After one of his attacks, A.R. became pregnant. She was afraid to tell anyone who the father was. Her baby was born on September 23, 2003. Jason Chambers was arrested the same month the baby was born. He was charged with SA, decent assault, endangering the welfare of a child, and statutory essay. During the trial, DNA evidence showed

Starting point is 00:33:13 that Jason was the father of AR's baby. He was convicted in March 2005 and sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison. He is serving his time at SCI Benner Township and Center County, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania. Portia's aunt Bridgett is a religious woman. She converted to Islam four years before the toddler's death. She said she needs to forgive Jerry in order to heal, but she struggles. She said, I pray the Lord lifts the anger and bitterness I feel towards this man so I can move on with my life.

Starting point is 00:33:44 But if she knew then what she knows now, she'd kick Jerry's ass, period. I would have picked up something and hit him upside the head. Portia's death led to changes at DHS and exposed the horrors happening in Jason's house. It also helped her sisters escape the hellhole apartment on South Fifth Street. Bridget thinks Portia made a difference. She said, I don't want this to happen to anybody else. I don't want anybody to feel the pain, the loss, the anger I felt.

Starting point is 00:34:16 I hope her death helped a lot of people, that it woke a lot of people up.

The Misery Machine - The Case of Porchia Bennett

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