OGDEN — It was about 5 a.m. on a summer morning, and a little girl awoke to the sounds of activity in the living room.
Courtney Jo Flemal was crying when she left her bedroom, witnesses say. Her mom had been up all night, playing Nintendo with a male friend and the woman took her daughter back to bed. No one ever saw the 3-year-old girl alive again.
It is not clear what happened in those wee hours of June 4, 1994.
What is clear is, a police dog found little Courtney Jo's body shoved under a bush in the Ogden City Cemetery three days later. The medical examiner saw evidence of blunt force trauma, including hemorrhages on her neck and bruises on her arms, legs and torso. There was swelling in her brain.
Later, police found clumps of Courtney Jo's hair next to the mattress in the bedroom.
What is also clear is Shelly Flemal, Courtney Jo's mother, pleaded guilty to murder in the case, and she demonstrated a "depraved indifference to human life," as identified by state law.
It is also clear Shelly Flemal had been on a meth binge for several days when her daughter died.
"You are loved and will be greatly missed, but you are now in a far better place." — Courtney Jo Flemal's obituary
Courtney Jo Flemal fell through the cracks. The 3-year-old girl paid with her life for a mother addicted to methamphetamine and a system that failed to recognize what was happening in the Flemal home.
Today, 10 years after Courtney Jo's death, the details of her case illustrate the most devastating outcomes of a child's life with a mother addicted to methamphetamine.
And a study of 500 pages of court documents, police records and interviews with detectives and Division of Child and Family Services workers show Courtney Jo died despite the warning signs of her mother's history of violence toward another child, a long record of drug abuse, multiple complaints to child welfare officials about the girl's well-being and a filthy home that had all the signs of being a meth house.
"I'm scared. I'm very scared. We're going to find her. They're going to bring her home. She's going to be OK." — Shelly Flemal in a television interview June 7, 1994, after reporting her daughter missing.
Her daughter disappeared from near the swings at Ogden's Liberty Park, Shelly Flemal first told police. The girl's 1994 disappearance caused a communitywide search.
But three days later, Vickie King's search dog keyed in on Courtney Jo in a nearby cemetery. The girl was so tiny, King said later, she looked like a doll.
Police arrested Flemal six months later, and Shelly Flemal's story unraveled as details of her lifestyle and accounts of the days surrounding Courtney's disappearance came to light.
Almost immediately, police were suspicious.
Police found Shelly Flemal at a friend's house the night they found Courtney Jo's body. Police officers picked her up and took her to the Children's Justice Center in Ogden where they could talk privately. In the car, detective David Lucas told Shelly Flemal her daughter had been found.
"I'm sorry, but your child has been killed," Lucas told the woman.
"There really wasn't any response," Ogden police detective Shane Minor told the court during a hearing.
"She never asked how the child was, where the child was or whether (Courtney Jo) was dead or alive."
"Did you find that unusual?" prosecutor William Daines asked Minor.
"It's very unusual. It's the child's mother."
Today the case of Courtney Jo Flemal still angers the detective who spent more than a year on the case.
"It's a little baby," Minor said, looking over a box of records from the case. "You can't go away from something like this without taking some of it with you."
Looking back, there were numerous signs that the girl could have been in danger, but no one seemed to connect the dots.
Courtney's aunt, Jennifer Ross-Smith, told police later that when she would pick up the girl from her mother, she would have lice in her hair and bruises, plus the child was living in an unhealthy environment.
Brandy Ringo contacted police after Courtney Jo was reported missing and told police she was worried. Flemal was an "abusive mother," according to Ringo, who had witnessed Flemal smacking the child and sticking socks in her mouth to keep her quiet.
Just seven days before Courtney Jo disappeared, Shelly Flemal obtained a temporary restraining order against a boyfriend who sometimes slept at the apartment.
The Division of Child and Family Services had a long history with the Flemal case, too.
And then there was the abuse of Courtney's brother, Tyler.
Question: OK. Now describe for the court how you would see — we're talking about a kid who was never with her after he turned 8 months old.
Answer: Right
Question: Describe how you would observe her slap him.
Answer: She would — it wasn't a full hand. She would take the tips of her finger and she would just draw back and just let loose across his cheek.
Question: How hard? Describe for the record how hard she would strike this infant.
Answer: Hard enough to leave welts and red marks and bruises and fingertips on the child's face. — Testimony of Shelly Flemal's acquaintance James Arrowsmith under examination by Deputy County Attorney William Daines.
According to court records, Flemal's indifference to her children started years earlier, shortly after she gave birth to her son, Tyler, on Oct. 18, 1988. Flemal was 17 at the time, had only a ninth-grade education and had no job.
Social workers identified the young woman as a mother "in need of special attention and help" shortly after Tyler's birth, according to prosecutors. Although Flemal was pointed toward counseling sessions and parenting-skills classes through the Children's Aid Society, she rarely attended, according to 2nd District Court documents.
In June 1989, records showed Tyler had a bruise on his face, which Flemal said was the result of an accident.
Twelve days later, 7-month-old Tyler was admitted to McKay-Dee Hospital semicomatose and unresponsive.
Doctors found skull fractures and bleeding on his brain, listing him in critical condition. X-rays also revealed the infant's left leg and left wrist had been fractured three weeks earlier.
Shelly Flemal told doctors Tyler had fallen from his crib.
But in a later court hearing, prosecutor Daines offered a hypothetical situation to a pediatrician who had cared for Tyler throughout his hospital stay.
If a person picked up a child of Tyler's age and size, threw him against the wall specifically by grabbing him by the arm and leg, would that be an explanation for the injuries you observed?
"Yes," Ogden pediatrician Donald Watts answered. "A high velocity event would be consistent with a skull fracture and bleeding."
The Division of Child and Family Services took custody of the boy after doctors warned he would be in grave danger if sent home. Flemal eventually gave him up for adoption.
James Arrowsmith, a friend of Flemal's, testified he called DCFS at least 18 times to report incidents of abuse toward Tyler. DCFS worker Nick Vesper, who took at least two of Arrowsmith's calls, told the Deseret News in 1995 he could not comment on the case.
"When any person has reason to believe that a child has been subjected to physical abuse or neglect, or who observes a child being subjected to conditions or circumstances which would reasonably result in physical abuse or neglect, they are required to immediately notify the nearest peace officer, law enforcement agency or office of the Division of Child and Family Services." — Utah Code 62A-4a-403(1)
At the end of 1994, child protective services workers were questioned about their involvement with Flemal.
Richard Anderson, then DCFS northern region director and now head of the state agency, said the division did everything it could for the girl and was not slow to respond to complaints of abuse and neglect.
"We didn't have evidence that Courtney Jo's abuse had come to the level where we could remove her," Anderson told Deseret Morning News reporter Amy Joi Bryson, who then worked for the Ogden Standard-Examiner. "We have actually responded appropriately each time we had a referral."
No social workers were disciplined in the case.
The agency received its first complaint regarding Courtney Jo and her mother in fall 1991. Flemal was leaving the toddler alone while she stayed out all night. She would then sleep all day and wouldn't watch the girl.
A second complaint of neglect was made in March 1993. The home was not clean, but Flemal brought the home up to standards within 30 days, and the case was closed.
A third complaint was made with the agency in November 1993 alleging Courtney Jo had been beaten until she was bruised. DCFS workers were shown pictures of hand-shaped bruises on the child, but they were alleged to have happened several months earlier, so Anderson said the agency couldn't do anything.
After a recent review of the case, a DCFS spokeswoman maintained the agency did all it could at the time.
"When you go hindsight, you always think, I wish we would have done this . . . ," said Megan Wiesen, a DCFS spokeswoman. Each time the workers went out on the complaints, they were unable to substantiate the neglect or abuse, or that Flemal fixed the problem. "At the time, looking at just what the workers did. They couldn't find anything, and the child couldn't talk."
There was only one reference to drug use in the DCFS reports, she said.
But DCFS practices are different now from what they were in the early 1990s, Wiesen said. A social worker today might take note of a parent sleeping all day, the filthy house, the people cycling through the home and ask Flemal about drug use. "But if a parent says, 'No, I don't use,' a judge won't court order (a drug test) unless there is really strong evidence," Wiesen said.
Minor and other detectives who went to the house said Flemal and her lifestyle certainly presented strong evidence of meth use.
Flemal had bad teeth, bad skin and sores from the relentless picking common among meth users. She was twitchy, fidgety, paranoid.
The house was filthy — with cat feces, dishes, clothes and trash everywhere.
Even by admission of Flemal's attorneys, her household was a chaotic, unhealthy place.
"Shelly had a terrible lifestyle," defense attorney Bernie Allen said during the sentencing. "She had people coming in and out of the apartment, she was always on the verge of being evicted, and the house was unkempt.
"We know that they were using a lot of methamphetamine — she and the people that she was with — for many days prior to this."
"But I guess one factor that troubles me most — and it was the aggravating factor, Ms. Flemal — and that is the victim in this particular case. The victim in this case was a child, and the victim in this case was your child. It is the responsibility of mothers and fathers to care for their children, to love and nurture them. Parents are not here to hurt them or abuse them or torture them. Most importantly, parents should not let their children die." — 2nd District Judge Brent W. West, at Shelly Flemal's sentencing hearing April 25, 1996.
Shelly Flemal was sentenced to five years to life in the Utah State Prison for her daughter's death. She is expected to come before the state Board of Pardons and Parole in January, nearly nine years after she was sentenced.
Flemal, who turned 33 Sunday, refused requests to be interviewed by the Deseret Morning News. She is inmate No. 25045 at the prison and works for a menial wage doing laundry and kitchen work.
She completed the prison's Excell substance abuse treatment program and graduated from high school in 1999. Like most inmates, prison authorities note, she's been in trouble for refusing direct orders and for fighting.
She has had no visitors over the years, according to corrections officials.
Even up until sentencing, Shelly Flemal maintained Courtney Jo's death was an accident.
"That she took CJ to bed with her and that when she woke up CJ was deceased is basically what she can tell us," defense attorney Allen told the court at sentencing.
Courtney Jo would have celebrated her 14th birthday Nov. 11.
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