Posted on 01/29/2008 10:33:14 PM PST by Huntress
A Washington County woman is accused of locking her 10-year-old grandson in a feces-filled dog crate for about 90 minutes.
Police said 51-year-old Rhonda Lehman, of Washington, put the boy in the crate Saturday because the boy laced the family's drinks with lamp oil and household cleaner called "Bam."
Lehman has custody of the boy, who told police he did it because "he was angry because he didn't get to go on a trip" last year, said Washington police Officer James Markley. It is possible the boy had been spiking the drinks for a while, authorities said. Family members became sick, but were not hospitalized.
Police said Lehman also told a county agency if someone didn't come for the boy, she would bury him alive in the back yard. Lehman was charged with child endangerment and making terroristic threats.
On Saturday, the boy was put in a 3-foot-by-4-foot plastic dog cage with only a small metal door for him to look out, Markley said.
The boy's 24-year-old brother, Michael McCreery, is charged with punching the youngster.
"When I asked the brother, I said, 'Why would you punch a 10-year-old in the eye?' he said, 'It's better than what I wanted to do to him,"' Markley said.
Markley said the defendants told authorities they don't believe they did anything wrong.
"They were very calm, like this was nothing," Markley said.
The 10-year-old is now in the county's Children and Youth Services, which is treating him for mental health issues, authorities said.
Lehman and McCreery remain at the Washington County Jail on $25,000 bail. Preliminary hearings are scheduled for Feb. 5.
The kid sounds like a Ted Bundy in the making. I would not want to close an eye with such a dangerous sociopath under MY roof.
However, this clearly is not the way to deal with the problem.
I wouldn’t go that far but I’d definitely say the kid has issues. I hope the authorities are checking out the rest of the family.
What is this, an attempt to secure more DHS funding?
Aside from that bit of fashionable stupidity in the mess, this is the sort of kid that discipline camp is built for. By the sounds of things, the monster doesn't have anything approaching a proper father figure. If someone doesn't straighten him out ASAP (and properly...the methods utilized here were obviously borne in a fit of desperation - not rational thought), he will be sporting a body-count of innocents next time we read about him.
The fact that his grandmother is the one looking after him says volumes right there.
Remember the grandson of Malcom X? The son of the daughter (Quibilah Shabazz) who was a total drug-addled, unemployable, man-hopping f***up who tried to hire a hitman to kill Farrakhan? After years of being bounced from home to home and being abused by his mother’s many paramours, he ended up in his grandmother’s custody in 1997 and set fire to her bed as she slept, condemning the widow of the late civil-rights radical to a slow agonizing death.
I, for one, would not want to take chances around such a character and will assume the worst about his upbringing.
This is how sociopaths are created. If this is the environment he’s been in for ten years, I don’t have much hope for him. But I’ll pray.
Robert Hare says there’s no such thing as a parent of a psychopath child who wouldn’t be happy to hand the kid over to some govt. agency on his sixth birthday...
If and my family were being poisoned by a child in my care I'd ensure control of the child and call the authorities to remove the the danger from your household. I doubt she had many means to secure him other than the dog cage to ensure her safety. This doesn't appear to be the usual method of handling him like the usual abuse cases.
This kid is very bad news.
Dog crate, jail cell, whats the difference. The little SOB will end up incarcerated for sure. I have no problem with what granny did. A little humiliation may help the mutant.
Pops would have beaten me with his belt....the kid got off easy imo
The lady was begging for help. The child was beyond her control. She knew her limitations. She is probably the one who called the police. If one can drop a newborn off at a firehouse why not a ten year old?
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