By Hilary White
AKRON, Ohio, August 2, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - 19 year-old
Darrell Shaffer is suing his mother Mary Rowles, her lesbian partner Alice
Jenkins, the Summit County Children's Services Board, the agency's former
director, and agency social workers for the horrifying abuse and neglect he and
his brothers suffered for years.
Jenkins and Rowles pleaded guilty and were convicted in 2003 of 55
counts of abuse and neglect that included savage beatings, starvation, being
locked in a closet and forced to eat animal feces. When they were apprehended
by police, the boys were found to be severely malnourished; one boy was 8 years
old and weighed only 28 pounds.
In January 2004, the women were each sentenced to 30 years imprisonment
and are being held at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville. Shaffer is
the eldest of five boys who, at the time of the two women's arrest, were aged
six, eight, ten, thirteen and fourteen. Their sister, 12 years old at the time,
was not harmed, police said.
Shaffer is asking for $25,000 from each of the defendants. The suit says
that local child services made at least three visits to the home between July
1998 and April 2003: "During each of these home visits, there was open,
obvious and overwhelming evidence of ongoing abuse of, and neglect to [Shaffer]
and his siblings. Nonetheless, defendants...took no further action to protect
[Shaffer] and his siblings."
Mary Rowles, the children's mother, had been in a lesbian relationship
with Alice Jenkins, described as the "man" in the relationship, for
seven years at the time of the arrest. The children were told to call Jenkins
"dad", and police said that although they were clearly afraid of
their mother, they were "terrified" of Jenkins.
Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh said the boys told police
that Jenkins beat them with a hammer, kicked one in the groin with steel-toed
boots and forced them to eat dog and cat feces as punishment for sneaking out
of their urine-soaked closet and stealing food.
Reports say that Rowles had "adversarial" relationships with
the true fathers of her children, but at least one of the men applied for
custody of two of the children and complained to Children's Services about the
abuse. In May 2003 Brady Postlethwaite and his wife said they had repeatedly
tried to get help for the children, but said "we were just called
liars."
Testimony at a custody hearing in March 2001 revealed that Summit County
Children's Services and Akron police were aware of the allegations but did
nothing. Postlethwaite said he and his wife "were told if we made any more
complaints we'd be arrested."
Before their convictions, Rowles and Jenkins told press they were proud
to be gay.