If we really want to make a difference for future generations of parents and children, we will stop just assuming that the ability to procreate comes with a built-in ability to nurture children and begin to mandate that all kids receive some basic parenting training well before they will become parents, along with 'booster' training throughout middle school and high school – Rob Parrish
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second in a two-day look at the pervasive problem of child abuse. Today, how some in Utah are taking a lead on protecting children by changing perceptions and finding solutions. Read part one here.
SALT LAKE CITY — Earlier this year, Rob Parrish got a call informing him that a man named Leland Thomas Demille had died.
Parrish has been an attorney for more than 30 years and worked on countless cases, but Demille's is a name he would never forget.
“He was one of the first people in Utah convicted with murder for killing a child,” Parrish said, referring to child abuse-related deaths. “Back then, it was uncommon for anyone to be convicted of anything higher than manslaughter.”
Parrish, a relentless prosecutor with extensive experience and skill working on child abuse homicide cases, started his career in the 1980s in the Utah Attorney General’s Office. He is intimately familiar with the changes in the legal landscape and treatment of such cases.
“In the 1980s, it was still sort of the public perception that people who even kill kids never meant to do it. There was this sense of, ‘We’ve been stressed by taking care of kids, too. We can understand that they lose it,’” Parrish said.
“There was this attitude that kids' lives are less important because they have less of a history."
He has seen the evolution from close range, still working as a deputy district attorney while also traveling and training others across the country as an expert in this heartbreaking field.
“The best news is that it’s not just the legal system, but the public perception of child abuse and child abuse homicide in general has changed — not just here in Utah, but all over the country,” Parrish said. “The general public has much more understanding of what’s going on and much less tolerance for people who maim and abuse children.”
But as cases of child abuse continue, with another fatality attributed to abuse reported last week, the push is on to educate the public about the resources in Utah available to help children by helping parents and bring an end to tragic stories.
Protecting children
Utah is home for several organizations working to protect children and educate their parents and caregivers, including the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome, Primary Children’s Center for Safe and Healthy Families and Prevent Child Abuse Utah.
Defending and advocating for child victims of abuse was not a lifelong goal for Parrish when he started his career at the attorney general’s office after passing the Utah State Bar in 1980. He first worked in criminal appeals before he transferred to the litigation division, where he represented state agencies in civil lawsuits, before taking on felony-level criminal cases.
He was called to help on the case against Demille in 1985.
When Demille was convicted of murder in the death of 3-year-old Ronnie Davies and sent to prison, it became a turning point in Utah. It was the first case in the state to be recognized as a non-accidental trauma child death.
Ronnie had bruises and welts all over his body and a skull fracture from a blow to the head that one doctor said was equal to being dropped from a third-story window and hitting concrete. Demille, the boyfriend of Ronnie's mother, told police the little boy collapsed in the bathroom. An investigator thinks he picked up the child by his feet and swung him against a bathtub or the basement concrete.
Parrish would help prosecutors around the state handle 10 similar cases between 1985 and 1990, when he applied for and received a federal grant that facilitated a child abuse assistance unit in the attorney general’s office.
That unit eventually became the Child Protection Division, which continues in the state.
Parrish left the attorney general's office in 2000 to serve as director for the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome. While there, he was able to work with medical experts to create a tool he knew would help in the courtroom — graphics and animation that illustrated the internal injuries children can sustain through abuse.
“When I was doing the specialty unit and all those things in court, I started realizing that it was very difficult to have an expert witness draw things on a piece of paper or chalkboard and have the jury understand what they’re talking about. … I got the impression that the juries just weren’t getting it,” Parrish said.
A pathologist in the northwest had already created a slideshow that illustrated the effects of shaken baby syndrome, which motivated Parrish to take it to the next level. The CD he helped develop is in its third version and still used in courtrooms around the country.
Shaken baby syndrome
Located in Farmington, the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome was formally created in 2000. Though based in Utah, its prevention and education efforts reach much farther.
“Our belief statement is that we believe all babies can be safe from harm,” said Marisa McPeck-Stringham, the center's information and research specialist. “Our Period of Purple Crying program is implemented all over the country and in several countries outside of the U.S. We’ve worked with Canada and Australia, and we worked with Israel to get it translated in Hebrew and Arabic.”
A team employed by the center travels and meets with health administrators around the country to teach them about the crying prevention program, which seeks to educate parents about infant crying and arm them with resources and coping mechanisms.
“The point of the period of purple crying is to normalize infant crying,” McPeck-Stringham said. “It teaches parents that crying is normal and it’s not forever. It’s the period, and periods have an end. … If a baby is healthy, it’s OK if they cry. It’s OK if you put them down and walk away. It’s better they're down and in a safe place than with a parent who is on verge of snapping.”
McPeck-Stringham said she grew up learning about shaken baby syndrome in school, but some people are still unfamiliar with the impacts of shaking a child. At least once a week, she fields phone calls from concerned parents who are worried they may have harmfully shaken their child by jumping or rocking.
“People know it (shaken baby syndrome) exists, but aren’t sure about the mechanism,” she said. “I get at least several calls a month. We always tell them that if they are concerned, to speak to their child’s doctor.”
Changing attitudes
Changing and impacting society’s perception of abuse hasn’t come without its frustrations. Years ago, Parrish said reputable news outlets published pieces questioning the validity and existence of shaken baby syndrome.
“Every single one was full of bogus information,” he said.
McPeck-Stringham said she, too, was aware of the reports and said the medical community has never wavered on the legitimacy of shaken baby syndrome.
“It’s a public health issue,” she said. “What you’re seeing is these experts who always testify for the defense and they’re compensated for that financially. It’s kind of like the anti-vaccine debate. The mainstream medical community has always affirmed that vaccines are beneficial and that they are safe, but there’s a tiny, fringe movement who say it’s not. It’s the same with shaken baby syndrome.''
After two years at the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome and six years directly representing children as a guardian ad litem attorney, Parrish returned to prosecution work in the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office in 2008. He continues to handle child abuse homicide cases there while, at any given time, also consulting attorneys in other states on child abuse-related cases.
“The one thing that has motivated me throughout my career is realizing how few people want to specialize in this area,” Parrish said. “There’s kind of a real need for somebody to handle this type of case, not just here in Utah, but nationwide.
"When I started handling cases and got into the facts of the case and realized what a tragedy it is when people kill kids by abuse, that’s when it sort of hit me that there’s a niche that needs to be filled. I never thought of myself as becoming an expert. That was never my purpose, but just being willing to do it and willing to learn and willing to do the homework that’s necessary.”
When his days in court are over, Parrish hopes those he has trained and mentored will pick up the torch. Regardless, he is confident that Utah is much better equipped to help, protect and defend children who have been abused than it was 30 years ago.
“I think things are going to be much better in the future in terms of the way these things are handled,” he said, noting the Children’s Justice Centers around the state and nodding specifically to Primary Children’s Hospital's Center for Safe and Healthy Families. “They’re very active in making sure these cases are handled well and not just ignored and not just missed and that will continue,” he said.
Working together
One such case involved 4-year-old Vanessa Hart, who died in 2010 after sustaining massive head injuries. In a hearing held that year on the evidence against the girl’s father, who was charged along with his girlfriend in Vanessa’s death, Dr. Kristine Campbell testified that she was contacted about the girl after she arrived in the emergency room at Primary Children’s Hospital.
Campbell said she was told there were injuries that appeared to be non-accidental, prompting her to pull the child’s available medical history and assess the injuries herself.
“Vanessa was critically injured,” Campbell testified at the time. “She had very obvious, life-threatening injuries from the time she arrived at Primary Children’s.”
The doctor would ultimately find that the girl had internal abdominal injuries that proved fatal.
Though the child did not survive, her case illustrates the value of work performed at the Center for Safe and Healthy Families, where professionals in a range of fields, including doctors, mental health professionals and social workers, band together to assess and treat children who may have been abused or neglected.
Dr. Toni Laskey, the center’s medical director, said the process staff uses is an objective one and is ultimately aimed at aiding children in need.
“It’s meant to be comprehensive,” she said. “It’s meant to think about other possibilities so we can help a family. It’s not about pointing fingers or accusing people. Our job is focused on making sure a child can be physically and mentally OK.”
Children are referred to the center in a variety of ways: by law enforcement, the Utah Division of Child and Family Services, emergency room visits, even parents or other individuals who come on their own initiative with concerns. In the cases where abuse is found and charges are necessary, able and committed prosecutors are crucial.
“The longevity is really difficult, it requires such a special skill,” Laskey said. “If you can’t have somebody who is passionate about it and willing to learn, then you really lose a valuable asset.”
Each year, the center helps around 2,000 families, both at the hospital or at 10 satellite sites spanning the state, according to Primary Children’s spokeswoman Bonnie Midget.
“One of the things that makes us very strong is we work as a team. Not just within Safe and Healthy Families, but also with our colleagues at Primary Children's,” Julie Bradshaw, the center’s director, said, noting that doctors with specialties ranging from radiology to neurosurgery work with the center’s physicians. “We work with whoever we need to make the right diagnosis.”
Bradshaw said the center has come a long way since its start in 1975 when it was “on the cutting edge” for even addressing the issue of child abuse.
“No one in the field was talking about it except for some pediatricians,” she said. “There were early pediatricians throughout the country who were noticing odd things about kids and were talking about it, but it was not something being dealt with on a systematic basis.”
Now, there are a range of experts who contribute to every diagnosis to ensure it is the right one.
“I think that one of the misconceptions about our child abuse physicians is that they’re a lone wolf and make a single determination, and that isn’t even true,” Bradshaw said. “It’s a team effort by a group of people working hard together through hours of consideration to make sure we’re coming up with the correct diagnosis. I think that makes us very strong.”
The center also strives to go beyond the physical, offering mental health services to child abuse victims and their families as they work through the complicated emotions surrounding abuse.
“We have a very robust mental health side, so we’re providing total, wrap-around health care,” Laskey said.
The center strives to make its contact with children therapeutic from day one, and even families who were angry to have been involved in treatment have offered thanks.
“From the first medical visit to the last day they’re here for a mental health visit, they’re learning that they’re OK and their parents are learning so much more about how to give them support and how to move on with their lives — and they do — and that’s why I’ve been able to do this for 40 years,” Bradshaw said.
Train parents
During her tenure, Bradshaw said she, too, has seen advances and setbacks.
“I think we, in terms of treatment are far more sophisticated than we were 20 years ago,” she said. “We have evidence-based practices that work and are much more sophisticated, and I think we continue to evolve in the whole medical end of the program, because of the science we are able to bring to bear.”
Fatalities are the worst-case scenarios. Identifying and stopping abuse is the goal of those involved in fighting child abuse and assisting children in whatever recover they need.
“I always emphasize that the treatment works. Kids can get better. That’s the good news,” she said. “While kids go through really difficult things sometimes, the treatment helps, and while bad things happen, they can come out of this in good shape in the end.”
In 2014, Utah’s Division of Child and Family Services reported that child protective services were called in on 20,294 cases.
Trina Taylor, executive director of Prevent Child Abuse Utah, said those numbers have more or less held steady, with only slight variation since 2010, when there were 19,838 cases. Typically, it takes two generations to effect change, she said, and prevention remains crucial.
Prevent Child Abuse Utah works with families who are at risk through trainings in the home from the time a baby is born until they are 3 years old. Taylor said prevention is more effective and less expensive than addressing abuse after the fact.
“We believe the parents are the best expert on the child, so nationally we have to fund and support in-home programs that start with babies — giving them a better chance at life,” she said. “We know nationally that outcomes are better and costs are cheaper as opposed to prison, mental health treatment, lawyers … not to mention the emotional destruction that is a result of abuse.”
Parrish said training is crucial. He feels many adults don't know how to parent their children. They will have age-inappropriate expectations, prescribe adult motives to infants, or think they can make a child stop crying.
"If we really want to make a difference for future generations of parents and children, we will stop just assuming that the ability to procreate comes with a built-in ability to nurture children and begin to mandate that all kids receive some basic parenting training well before they will become parents, along with 'booster' training throughout middle school and high school," Parrish said.
Email: emorgan@deseretnews.com, Twitter: DNewsCrimeTeam