Posted on 05/01/2002 3:33:06 PM PDT by RGSpincich
Kids told police dad hit daughter in head
By JEFF BARNARD The Associated Press 5/1/02 5:21 PM
ROSEBURG, Ore. (AP) -- Brian and Ruth Christine's daughters told police that their father hit one of them in the head, causing her to fall down steps in the converted city bus they called home and cut her forehead, spreading "blood all over," a detective testified Wednesday.
Asked why he hadn't taken his daughter Lydia, then 3, to the hospital, Brian Christine "told me he was an Eagle Scout and he knew how to treat an injury," testified Grants Pass police detective Dan Evans.
"He told me his children were God's children, and if God chose to strike them down with lightning, that was his choice," Evans said.
The testimony came during a hearing on a defense motion to suppress evidence gathered when police first contacted the Christines in their bus on July 31, 2000, while it was parked at the library in Grants Pass in the course of their travels around the country.
The Christines, both 29, are on trial in Douglas County Circuit Court on charges of kidnapping, robbery, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and custodial interference.
The state alleges that a year after social workers took the three girls into foster care to protect them from their parents, Brian Christine took the girls at gunpoint from a state social worker, met up with his wife and a friend, and escaped to Montana, where they were found within days.
In the course of pretrial motions, defense attorney Edgar Steele told Judge Robert Lasswell that he intended to present a "choice of evils defense," arguing that the Christines were rescuing their children from a state agency that was out of control.
Steele described the couple as fundamentalist Christians, who home-schooled their children and believed the state should not interfere with family life unless children were being harmed.
"They have seen their children taken to a hospital, stripped and examined in a sexual way," Steele said in describing his case. "The damage done to their children far exceeds anything they have done."
The Christines were allowed to see their children only once under supervision in the 12 months from the time they were taken into foster care and Aug. 1, when they took them from state social workers, Steele said.
"We've got a pair of parents that saw a local agency of government totally out of control -- acting illegally, acting immorally," Steele said. "They got (the children) out of harm's way."
According to Evans, police initially contacted the Christines after receiving an anonymous phone call reporting children who appeared malnourished. The family had been traveling the country in a city bus converted into a motor home, and had spent the past 45 days living at parks in the Grants Pass area.
Brian Christine sold computer software on an internet auction site, and routinely stopped at libraries to use the computers to check on his sales, Evans said.
Evans said four police officers were outside the Christines' bus in the parking lot behind the Josephine County Library when he was called in because he investigates allegations of child abuse.
Brian Christine sat in the driver's seat, his arms on the steering wheel, while Evans talked to the girls in the back. Miriam lay on her back, one arm over her head. Bethany and Miriam sat against a bed. Bethany was reading a book.
All the girls were very skinny, quiet and subdued, particularly Miriam, the youngest, Evans said. Lydia had a bandage on her forehead that had bled through and discoloration around one eye, he testified.
"I asked Lydia how she got the ow-ee," Evans said. "She told me she fell. Bethany was glancing at Brian. She said, `No you didn't.' Lydia glanced at Brian sitting up front and said, `Babba did it.' She told me blood was all over and it hurt very bad and she cried. I asked who Babba was and she pointed to Brian," Evans said.
"She said she was at the front of the bus and she peed. She said Babba was real mad," he testified.
Evans said when he asked Brian Christine if he had hit his daughter, he nodded, adding that he lost his temper and "tapped" her on the back of the head with his open hand and she fell.
Evans said he arrested Brian Christine on an assault charge and social workers took the three girls to a hospital.
It's called "never guilty" and he does not accept responsibility ...ever, for anything. The state may have a rude awakening for him with regard to his pulling a weapon and forcing the events for which is on trial now. He admits to the weapon and the events but claims he was a "victim".
I'd say anyone who had their children taken away on flimsy to no evidence is a victim of a State run amok. And if Steele does a good job of destroying the evidence and the very basis of the State's initial prosecution, the jury might just think so too. We'll see.
I will say this. I find Brian to be a self-centered bafoon who allowed his children's 5th amendment rights to be violated by Dan Evans. The first rule of thumb is not to say anything and never let CPS or the police interview your children as they have no authority to do so.
He definately shirked his responsibility in protecting his children but it is a fact that the State disregarded his and his children's rights as well. So while I hold Brian responsible for that gross error, so is Dan Evans personally responsible for this tragedy.
ever hear of elections---BOYCOTTS???
Not much of an economy to begin with!
The children didn't commit the crimes, Brian did,
Brian deserved his worthless advisors.
You have a pretty cavalier attitude towards hitting. Kites get caught in trees, tires blow out, your car dumps on you all qualify for "shit happens". The premeditated striking of a child does not. Normally he would have given her a "light spanking" but this time he cut her a break and swatted her in the head causing the cut.
Her skull fracture was found to have occurred apx. thirty days prior to the children being placed in protective custody. That injury went untreated and came from an unknown source. That source may remain unknown if the girls are not allowed to testify. I think Brian did it but only because Lydia was "defiant". Lydia made him do it. Another episode of SH in your world.
I don't. But you have a pretty cavalier attitude toward government intrusions.
You don't have children. That has been quite obvious for the duration of your comments on this matter.
The government will not be able to show that such a fracture existed at all much less pinpoint when it occurred.
Irrelevant to what I stated.
Yuck, yuck...your batting goose eggs today, dog.
Nope.
The children's "5th amendment rights" weren't "violated" as you falsely asserted.
This is a growth chart that my Pediatrician uses. A five year old girl should weigh approximately 40 pounds. That is the 50th percentile, or average weight. This chart shows the 5th through 95th percentile. If they were very skinny, they could be in the 5th percentile, meaning 19 out of twenty kids would weigh more than them. This is 34 pounds. The fact that the oldest girl only weighed 25 pounds is evidence enough. This is at least five standard deviations below the average and cause for alarm by anyone. No wonder the kids had to spend five days in the hospital.
The second picture, taken the day the state took custody, shows the girls huddled on a bench--their cheeks hollow, their skin hanging from their bones, their eyes scared and wary. Lydia has a dirty bandage on her forehead from a wound so infected that it smells. The back of her skull is fractured.
Seems the Christines really do like the way the foster care system treated their kids. I have seen the first picture mentioned on virtually all of the web sites supporting the Christines. The kids do look healthy and clean. The second picture, or any other picture taken while the girls were in the Christine's care, is not on those sites.
Also, it does seem odd indeed that one could tell from a picture that an injury smelled. But don't let those glaring inconsistencies get in your way.
If the State wants to subject that picture to scrutiny, it will present it in the trial. I have doubts that it will be presented however.
I don't take orders.
Tough question...busing?
Without any context to hang on it, yes, it's a VERY tough question. I can't read minds. If you don't like that, feel free to retain the services of Edgar Steele, Esq. and sue me.
Names of those experts, please, along with their curricula vitae.
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