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Charges dropped in filthy home casesThu, 03/15/2007 - 4:48pm
By: John Munford
DA: law not adequate, but parents deserve prison time Fayette County prosecutors have dropped criminal charges in two separate cases against Peachtree City parents who were accused of letting their children live in filth and squalor. Fayette County District Attorney Scott Ballard said he hated to drop the charges because he felt all those involved deserved jail time based on the disgusting conditions the children were living in. But the law requires proof the children were deprived of food or medical care, or that the suspects caused excessive physical or mental pain, Ballard said. Prosecutors were unable to get a physician to testify to any of those points, Ballard noted. “It’s just very frustrating,” he said. "They need to do prison time but I don't have a charge that will stick." The problem leading to the dropped charges has to do with the way the statute is worded, Ballard explained. Ballard said there is no statute in Georgia law that fits the case. The felony child cruelty charges were dropped against Angela Kaetterhenry and her boyfriend Bryan Dennis Evans and also against Michael and Tina O’Toole, Ballard confirmed. Kaetterhenry had remained in jail and was released Thursday after having been locked up for more than 15 months; Evans had been out on a $75,000 bond. The case against Kaetterhenry and Evans began late June 2005 when police were called to a report of a naked child playing on a neighbor’s parked golf cart in the Clover Reach subdivision. The child apparently wandered away from the home undetected, police said. The investigation revealed that the children were living in a home that had feces, urine and dirty diapers on the inside. A police officer testified in a bond hearing that the naked child had hair lice and also fecal matter in the hair. A search of the house revealed dirty diapers that had been stuffed behind the sofa and in holes in the walls of the house, which was being rented at the time. Police said that Kaetterhenry, who was pregnant at the time, also said that "they" had smoked cocaine two days prior and that Kaetterhenry also had used methamphetamine. A total of three children were removed from the home, ages 2 to 5, officials said at the time. The O'Tooles were arrested in September 2005 after officials discovered fecal matter and other trash all over the inside of their home, police said. Five children, ages 3 to 14 years old, who were living at the home at the time were taken into custody by the Department of Family and Children Services. That investigation was initiated by a request from then part-time municipal court judge Stephen Ott after a city code enforcement case went to court because the exterior of the house was found to be in poor condition. Peachtree City Police Chief James Murray later said the conditions inside the O'Toole's home could best be described as "squalor." The house was later condemned as uninhabitable by city officials, partly because of several bedrooms were blocked and there was a significant amount of trash in the back yard, according to Peachtree City Building Official Tom Carty. Based on the circumstances of the Kaetterhenry case at least, there’s little chance she will ever have custody of her children again, Ballard said. The custody status of the O’Toole children was not known at press time Thursday afternoon. login to post comments
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