Grandparents Out of Control - The CRAWFORD Boys (2009) - Hartsville SC

A Hartsville couple had
nothing to say about the torturous acts they confessed to committing
against their three grandsons for more than year —acts that included
placing shock collars on a 12-year-old boy and then forcing his younger
brother to electrocute him.



James and Cheri Crawford offered no excuses or explanations for their
acts after pleading guilty Monday in Chesterfield County to three
counts of unlawful neglect towards a child, 4th Circuit Assistant
Solicitor Kendall Burch, who prosecuted the case, said.

Cheri Crawford received a 10-year prison sentence suspended to eight years for each charge.

Her husband, James Wilbert Crawford, was sentenced to 10 years for
each count, but that sentence was suspended to seven years in prison.

All sentences will run concurrently. Once they are released from prison, they must serve five years supervised released.

James Crawford, the paternal grandfather of the three boys, and their step-grandmother gained custody of the victims in 2005 after their
father was slain in Missouri, Burch said. Authorities don’t have any
information about the boys’ biological mother.

Deputies and the state Department of Social Services were notified about
the case in July 2009 after a neighbor noticed two of boys, then aged 8
and 11, standing at military-style attention in the hot sun.

The oldest boy was found locked in an abandoned trailer in Hartsville
with out any electricity, food or running water. There was no sewer
service in the trailer, and the 12-year-old had only a bucket to use as
toilet.

Cheri Crawford forced the boy’s younger brothers to empty the raw waste from the bucket every few days, Burch said.

“When they found them, that bucket was full,” she said.

The 12-year-old had been locked in the trailer for more than a year
and six months. The door was locked from the outside and could only be
opened by his step-grandmother.

“He was not allowed out. He could only come out at Christmas. Cheri
felt like that child was a bad seed,” Burch said. “He was fed with a
blindfold because his food had bugs in it. There was a bed in there, but
he had stop sleeping in it because of the bed bugs.”

The 11-year-old boy was forced to electrocute his older brother using
the shock collars their grandparents forced him to wear around his
neck.

Neither the 11-year-old nor his older brother were allowed in the
house. The 11-year-old was only allowed to sleep in an outdoor shed or
in a camping tent with his brothers, Burch said.

All the boys were fed sour milk and spoiled food and were forced to
dig holes and hold heavy objects for hours at a time. When they weren’t
busy, their grandparents made them stand at attention outside, Burch
said.

“Their bodies were disfigured. They were so malnourished. She would
make them hold weights so their upper bodies were bigger than their
lower bodies,” Burch said.

The Crawfords also forced their grandchildren to learn a rigorous and complicated clothing schedule.

They had to master the clothing drill before they could sit down and eat after standing up all day.

“It was very complicated. The middle child told me, ‘I knew it. But
she (Cheri Crawford) would change it up on me,’” Burch said. “The middle
child still remembered. He was even able to tell me the clothing
schedule months after it happened.”

Fourth Circuit Assistant Solicitor Adam Foard said the office was
prepared to take the case to trial Monday, even though the Crawfords
indicated last week they would plead guilty.

“I am so happy they pled. I am happy for the children’s sake. (The
children) didn’t even want to see them. I didn’t want to put them
through a trial,” Burch said.

Burch said all the boys are now in loving foster homes with families
who genuinely care about them. She said the victims have all undergone
amazing changes over the past year and are doing well.

Though their grandparents didn’t allow them to attend school, all
three boys are now caught up in their studies, thanks to a year of
tutoring and counseling, and are at their proper grade levels, Burch
said.

Even after enduring torture in their young lives, the grandsons of a Hartsville
couple who beat them with goat whips and physically abused them in
other ways are well on the road to recovery, according to the child
abuse victim’s advocates who are working with them.
The three brothers, ranging in age from 8 to 12, were found by state Department of Social Services case workers and Chesterfield County sheriff’s deputies just over a year ago in a home near Hartsville.
Their step-grandmother, Cheri Crawford, was sentenced to eight years in prison while her husband, James Wilbert Crawford, was sentenced to seven years after each pleaded guilty Monday to three counts of unlawful neglect of a child.
After their rescue, the children were taken by law enforcement to the CARE House of the Pee Dee in Florence for forensic interviews and other examinations.
The CARE House is a nonprofit agency that provides care to children suspected of being abused.
“At that point, they have already been placed into emergency
protective custody because we knew things were not well with the
children,” said Dr. Kathy Saunders, CARE House director and forensic interviewer.
“The children were pretty open verbally. They were ready to talk
about what had happen to them without much hesitation at all,” she said.
“This kind of surprised me, because when children have been abused,
especially to the severity that these children were, they know when
somebody shows up with a gun and a badge they know someone is going to
be in trouble and sometimes they fear they are going to be the ones in
trouble, because everything they did in the past had negative
repercussions.”
Fourth Judicial Circuit prosecutors who handled the case said the
oldest child was locked in an abandoned trailer for more than a year
with no electricity
or sewer service and was forced to wear shock collars usually worn by
dogs and other animals. One of his younger brothers was forced to
administer shocks to him, 4th Circuit Assistant Solicitor Kendall Burch said. All of the boys were forced to do manual labor and work outside for long periods of time.
A year later, authorities in the case said the boys, now ages 9 to 13, are healing. They initially were taken to a facility in Rock Hill where they received special care and treatment, Saunders said. Since then, they have been moved to separate foster homes, Chesterfield County sheriff’s investigators said.
Saunders said she’s seen the boys once during a family court proceeding and they seemed to be doing well.
“... And one of the children has taken on a special project and using
(his) talents in a very positive direction despite some of the torture
and negative events that have been a part of his life and he is making
jewelry to signify,” she said. “Most of them (the jewelry pieces) are a
representation of a heart to represent that there is love and he is able
to move on and heal from his life events.“
The boy placed one of the hearts on the string and presented it to a family court judge as a thank-you gift, Saunders said.
The children did not have to testify in family court or during their grandparents’ criminal proceedings. Both Burch and Saunders said they were relieved that the children didn’t have to be subjected to the witness stand.
“The theory is — and it really has to be evaluated case-by-case —
some children feel safe enough to tell their story in front of the
person who has abused or neglected them. It’s kind of like, ‘I’ve done
this,’ and it’s liberating,” Saunders said.
Often, children internalize their pain and believe the abuse they’ve suffered is their fault, she said.
The children had been in custody of the Crawfords since late 2004 or 2005, DSS spokeswoman Virginia Williamson said.
The Crawfords were not receiving any form of DSS guardian funding assistance and the agency had no role in providing home visits or checking on the children, she said.
Chesterfield County Sheriff’s Lt. Briana Davis, who investigated the case, said the Crawfords had little to say about the charges against them.
“The only thing Cheri (Crawford) would say is, ‘It was not abuse. It was discipline,’” Davis said.
“I think the biggest thing to realize is that horrible acts of
torture like these children suffered are not unique to another country
or another state — it’s in our own community,” Saunders
said. “For whatever reason, these grandparents lacked coping skills,
whether it was an inherent illness of their own or a past history of
their own. You never know the intent of a person who abuses a child.”
The only way to help children is to educate the public, as child safety is an entire community’s responsibility, she said.
“Society will pay; and that’s what we failed to realize. If we don’t
keep our children safe and give them a healthy environment, it will cost
society,” Saunders said.