IN THE MATTER OF:
P.C., Catawba County &
nbsp;
No. 02 J 280
Minor Child
R. Kirk Randleman, Attorney for Catawba County Department of
Social Services.
Douglas L. Hall, Attorney for Respondent-Appellant Mother.
Michael E. Casterline, Attorney for Respondent-Appellant
Father.
MARTIN, Chief Judge.
Respondents appeal from a decision of the Catawba County
District Court adjudicating their child, P.C., born 13 November
1997, a neglected juvenile as defined by N.C. Gen. Stat. § 7B-
101(15).
The evidence in the record discloses that on 3 September
2002, four-year-old P.C. touched another child inappropriately at
her daycare center. When the daycare workers questioned her about
this behavior, she revealed that her father touched her in a
similar manner. The daycare center contacted the Catawba County
Department of Social Services and the Newton Police Departmentabout possible sexual abuse of P.C. by her father, respondent J.C.
Thomas Neff, a Child Protective Services Investigator with the
Catawba County Department of Social Services (DSS), and Janet Mace,
a detective with the Newton Police Department, interviewed P.C. and
her parents, J.C. and R.C., the following day.
Mr. Neff and Detective Mace first spoke with respondent-
mother, R.C., at her home while waiting for her husband to come
home from work. R.C. revealed the following information: her
husband gives P.C. her baths, P.C. sleeps in the bed with them at
night, P.C. calls her privates “kitty-cat,” and P.C. likes to play
with R.C.'s breasts, which P.C. calls “roller balls.”
When J.C. arrived, Mr. Neff and Detective Mace explained the
allegations. J.C. said that P.C.'s statements could have been
referring to when he puts vaginal cream on her. Mr. Neff, however,
told J.C. he did not feel that explanation fully accounted for
P.C.'s actions. Then J.C. said, “All right, I'm going to give it
to you straight . . . [P.C.] likes to be tickled.” J.C. went on to
say that her favorite place to be tickled is high up on her inner
thigh, that she loves to run around the house naked, and that he is
the one who bathes her due to his wife's bad knees and arthritis.
Later that day, Mr. Neff and Detective Mace interviewed P.C.
Detective Mace asked P.C. questions while Mr. Neff took notes. She
had P.C. identify several body parts on a drawing, which P.C.
correctly identified. P.C. called the genital area “pee-pee.”
When asked what people do with their pee-pee, she replied that her
mom and dad take her clothes off and tickle her pee-pee. DetectiveMace then asked if she had ever felt anything inside her pee-pee.
P.C. replied that her daddy puts a “secret tube” inside her “kitty-
cat.” Detective Mace asked if that hurt, and P.C. shook her head
in the negative. She then volunteered that it tickles, that he
tells her to close her eyes, and that he does it to Mommy too.
That afternoon, after the interview with P.C., J.C. went to
the Newton Police Station and spoke with Mr. Neff and Detective
Mace again. When asked if he had ever touched P.C.'s “kitty-cat,”
he said he was sure he had while tickling her. Detective Mace
asked him to describe how he tickles her. According to J.C., P.C.
will come to him and say “Daddy do me” and raise her arms in the
air when she wants to be tickled. He demonstrated using the top
side of his fingers and said he tickles her from the neck down.
When P.C. wants to stop, she says she does not want to be tickled
anymore and walks away.
Pursuant to these interviews, Detective Mace executed a search
warrant of respondent-appellants' residence. There were no
pornographic materials, photographs, or videos found. The computer
contained no pornographic images or identified web sites, and there
were no sexual aids discovered. The officers seized a blue and
white bicycle or basketball pump, which P.C. identified as the
“magic tube.”
During the second interview with P.C. four days later,
Detective Mace asked P.C. about the secret tube. P.C. answered
that her father had told her the night before not to tell anyone
where the tube was hidden. Detective Mace asked P.C. if her fatherhad ever put the tube in her kitty-cat, and P.C. said yes.
Detective Mace also asked if P.C. had ever touched her father's
“ding-dong” (the term P.C. used for male genitalia) and whether she
had put her mouth on it. P.C. answered both questions
affirmatively.
The third interview took place three days later at P.C.'s
daycare at the YMCA. Detective Mace asked P.C. if she remembered
what they had talked about last time. P.C. responded that they had
talked about her daddy's ding-dong. When Detective Mace asked what
her father did with the magic tube, P.C. said he “sticks it in my
pee-pee.” During the interview, P.C. also said she sleeps in bed
with her mother and father at night, and she wears “panties” to
bed. When asked if anyone had ever touched her under her panties,
she said that daddy had put his hand in her panties. Detective
Mace asked where mommy was when daddy put his hand in her panties,
and P.C. said mommy was in the bed and P.C. was on the couch.
Detective Mace then pulled out her key chain, which had
attached to it a small baton three to four inches in length, and
asked P.C. to demonstrate how she touches daddy's ding-dong using
the baton. According to Mr. Neff's notes, “the child wrapped her
hand around it and squeezed her hand while moving the stick up and
down.” The keys jingled as she shook the baton. Detective Mace
asked where her mommy was when this happened, and P.C. replied that
mommy was at work. She went on to say, “he lets me touch his ding-
dong on Saturdays.” When Detective Mace asked what she did with
it, P.C. stated, “I squeeze it.” Detective Mace asked where thishappens, and P.C. said it happens on the couch. She said she lays
on top of him and he has his shorts on. When asked how it felt,
P.C. replied that it was soft. Detective Mace also asked if she
had ever touched daddy's ding-dong with her mouth, and according to
the trial transcript, P.C. said yes, followed by “Umm, tastes good,
smells like apple deodorant.” When asked if mommy had ever seen
her touch daddy's ding-dong, she said, “No, Mommy would not like
that.”
As a result of these statements, the Department of Social
Services removed P.C. from her home and placed her in the home of
a licensed foster parent who was also a family friend of the
parents. However, the foster parent reported that her nine-year-
old child heard P.C. tell her five-year-old son to pull his pants
down. The foster parent intervened before anything could happen.
Soon after this incident, P.C. went to live in the home of her
paternal aunt and uncle.
P.C. was given a physical examination to determine if there
was physical evidence of abuse. The exam was not conclusive. The
doctor found thickened tissue on the labia minora, which was most
likely a scar from trauma. However, the examiner said the cause of
the trauma could be accidental, self-inflicted, or abuse. The
hymen was normal and intact. After the exam, the foster parent
reported that P.C. began crying during her bath and said, “it hurts
again.” When questioned if she had ever hurt like that before,
P.C. replied it had hurt when “Adam,” a classmate, put his finger
in her at daycare. She said “Adam” received a time out aspunishment for this behavior. The daycare teacher said no such
incident ever occurred.
P.C. was interviewed several times by psychologist Dr. James
A. Powell. Dr. Powell was initially retained by respondent-
appellant father to determine the origin of P.C.'s statements.
During the first interview, P.C. stated spontaneously that “Daddy
didn't do nothing.” She denied having ever touched or seen a
penis. When asked if she had ever put her mouth on a “ding-dong,”
she said “no.” When asked about the secret tube, she first said
she did not remember. Later she said, “it was a magic tube and
daddy put it in my pee-pee and it was orange. It felt good. It
felt perfect. That was the one mommy, daddy and me wanted. . . .
It tickled when you put it in my pee-pee. When you turn it on.”
She said it sounded like a motor, and she circled the inside of the
vagina of an anatomically correct doll to demonstrate. Dr. Powell
concluded that “[t]he statements of [P.C.] indicate a sexual
knowledge that is far beyond her chronological age.” During the
course of his interviews, Dr. Powell also learned that P.C. told
her daycare workers that people were touching her “inappropriately”
at times when the workers knew those people had not been present.
Respondent-appellant mother hired another psychologist, Dr.
Jonathan Gould, Ph.D., to review the report by Dr. Powell. Dr.
Gould did not interview P.C., the parents, or the investigators,
but he reviewed Dr. Powell's written conclusions and evaluated the
methods used to draw those conclusions. He did not testify in
court, but he submitted a detailed report challenging thescientific value of Dr. Powell's report. He concluded the
following:
In my professional judgment, the lack of
considering alternative explanations of the
data, the lack of using a scientifically
informed evaluation protocol, the lack of
specific, detailed, and consistent information
from [P.C.], and the lack of integrating
current scientifically informed research into
explanations of [P.C.'s] behavior render the
opinions and conclusions of this report
unreliable. The nature of the information
upon which opinions and conclusions were based
did not include a proper scientific analysis
of the data and, as a result, yielded opinions
and conclusions that are biased.
Specifically, Dr. Gould cited Dr. Powell's failure to follow the
Guidelines for Psychological Evaluations in Child Protection
Matters. He found that Dr. Powell did not address the majority of
the criteria recommended in the Guidelines in his assessment of
P.C. He also objected to the use of anatomically correct dolls,
which he said lack reliability as a form of investigating sexual
abuse and fail to distinguish between abused and non-abused
children. He quoted the North Carolina District Court Judges'
Seminar from 1997, where it was stated that “there appears to be
agreement that a child's play with anatomical dolls . . . is not a
psychological test and may not be used to diagnose sexual abuse .
. . largely because dolls may lead to inaccuracies in children's
reports.” Dr. Gould also stated that placing a child in sex abuse
therapy before there has been a legal determination of abuse “may
teach a child inaccurate and unreliable memories for events that
did not occur,” and “may well destroy any ability to obtain areliable statement from the child.” Dr. Gould did not feel there
was conclusive evidence of sexual abuse. He concluded that:
The data describing [P.C.'s] report of alleged
abuse that is reported [by] Dr. Powell
represents age-appropriate language containing
either non-specific statements about her
parents touching or inconsistent information
about her parent's touching. There is no data
to support Dr. Powell's view that [P.C.'s]
language or [P.C.'s] behavior reflects
anything but typical behavior seen among
preschool children.
On 3 December 2002, P.C. gave testimony in the chambers of the
trial judge. P.C. was questioned by Kirk Randleman, attorney for
the Catawba County Department of Social Services, Gary Corne,
attorney for respondent-appellant mother, Carolyn Crouch, Attorney
Advocate, and the trial judge. Also present was Edward de Torres,
attorney for respondent-appellant father.
During her testimony, P.C. made several statements that
conflicted with her prior accounts. In her first interview with
the investigators, P.C. said the tube went inside her. In her
testimony, she first described the magic tube as “something that
goes in your private that will be in the front part.” However,
when asked whether her father put the magic tube inside her or
whether he just touched her with it, she replied, “he just touched
me.” P.C. testified she had never touched or seen her father's
“ding-dong,” also in conflict with her prior interviews. When
asked what the magic tube looked like, P.C. replied, “the color is
orange.” Previously, she had identified a blue and white bicycle
pump as the magic tube. At one point during her testimony P.C.said she could not remember if the tube made any noise. When asked
again later, she said it made a noise like a motor, which was how
she had previously described it to Dr. Powell.
The transcript of P.C.'s testimony revealed indecisiveness and
an inability to focus. When asked how many times her father
touched her with the tube, she first replied, “did I say three or
two?” When prodded, she answered, “[i]t was three times.” When
asked if her mother ever touched her private parts, P.C. answered:
A: no _ yes.
Q: She did?
A: I said no _ yes.
Q: Which is it?
A: Yeah.
Q: She did?
A: Yes.
When asked if she had her underwear on or off when her father
touched her with the tube, she said:
A: On - I mean, off.
Q: Off? Did you --
A: You've got longer hair than I do.
When the judge asked the same question later, P.C. replied “off _
on.” The judge also asked, “[w]hat did he do with his fingers in
your private parts?” to which P.C. answered, “[h]e used to be able
to French braid my hair.” When asked, “[d]id your daddy say
anything when he touched you with the magic tube?” P.C. answered,
“I don't remember. I drew a fish.” The trial judge later noted
that P.C. answered many questions during her testimony with “I
don't remember” or “I forgot.” The trial judge adjudicated P.C. neglected on 15 July 2003.
The adjudication order included the following three findings of
fact about respondent-appellant parents:
Respondent parents have not been willing or
able to recognize the significant nature of
their daughter's sexualized behaviors, nor
have respondent parents appropriately
addressed those issues.
Respondent parents did not acknowledge the
child's problems or seek help until after the
Catawba County Department of Social Services
filed this petition.
Respondent parents have contributed to their
daughter's sexualized behavior through their
activities and “play” with the minor child.
The court concluded as a matter of law that P.C. “is a neglected
juvenile as defined by N.C. Gen. Stat. § 7B-101(15), in that she
does not receive the proper care or supervision from the juvenile's
parents, and that she lives in an environment injurious to the
juvenile's welfare.” There was no finding of abuse by respondent-
appellant father. The court determined there was insufficient
information to proceed with an appropriate disposition on that
date. She ordered psychological and sex offender specific
evaluations of both parents and set a disposition hearing for 12
August 2003 to consider the results and recommendations from those
evaluations.
Dr. Jennifer S. Cappelletty, a clinical psychologist with the
Carolina Treatment Associates, conducted the evaluations of the
parents. Dr. Cappelletty found that “from an intellectual,
emotional and behavioral perspective [R.C.] has the skills needed
to appropriately nurture, discipline and provide for a child.” Dr.Cappelletty found that J.C. has the capacity to be an adequate
parent. She felt he had a significant bond with P.C. as he was her
primary caretaker, and he seemed willing to learn new parenting
skills.
Dr. Cappelletty expressed concerns, however, about both
parents' ability to empathize with P.C. Neither parent would
consider that P.C. may have been sexualized by a third party.
According to Dr. Cappelletty, both parents felt that sexual abuse
of a child was wrong, but neither parent demonstrated an
understanding of why such abuse was wrong, and, therefore, could
not fully grasp the seriousness of their child's behaviors. Dr.
Cappelletty's greatest concern was that if P.C. were to be returned
to her parents' home, the parents would not be able to protect her
from future abuse. Their disbelief of her current sexualization
indicated that future allegations of abuse, or future sexualized
behavior, would be met by skepticism from her parents. Therefore,
P.C. would not receive appropriate professional treatment to work
through these problems.
Kathy Young-Sugar, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with New
Directions Counseling Services, testified at the disposition
hearing on 12 August 2003. Ms. Young-Sugar had weekly counseling
sessions with P.C. beginning in November 2002. She testified that
P.C.'s temper tantrums and sexually reactive behaviors had
escalated in the last two to three months while living with her
aunt and uncle, who then decided they could not provide long-term
care for P.C. as they had hoped. In August of 2003, P.C. wasplaced in a new foster home. Ms. Young-Sugar said P.C. was
anxious and confused after this latest move to a new foster home.
She testified that P.C. exhibited some symptoms of separation
anxiety. She also testified she believed it was in P.C.'s best
interest not to be returned to her parents because “[i]t would be
difficult for her to work through the issues of sexual abuse in the
presence of two people who are saying it didn't happen and she's
saying it did happen.” She felt that any contact at all with her
parents “would be detrimental to her mental health.” She did say,
however, that P.C. misses her parents and expresses a desire to see
them and live with them.
After this disposition hearing, the trial court made, inter
alia, the following findings of fact:
7. That [P.C.] has expressed concerns to her
therapist, Kathy Young-Sugar that her parents
do not believe her disclosures of sex abuse
that they are not supportive of her in these
disclosures and they continue to deny the
disclosures.
. . .
10. The parents have attended a parenting
preview at Catawba County Parenting network
and have signed up for “Active Christian
Parenting Now” a six session course to be held
in August and September, 2003 and are signed
up for a Strengthening course, which will last
16 weeks.
11. That according to the testing and
evaluations prepared by Dr. Cappelletty, both
parents are capable of providing care and
supervision for [P.C.]. Dr. Cappelletty noted
significant issues in that neither parent
acknowledged [P.C.'s] problems; they do not
accept any responsibility for contributing to
her problems; that neither parent believes
[P.C.] needs the specialized care she isgetting, and in fact, both parents are
strongly biased against the treatment [P.C.]
is receiving; they expressed no understanding
of [P.C.'s] needs; expressed no empathy for
[P.C.]; and did not show the ability to
support the long term treatment which has been
provided by the treatment team professionals.
12. That the parents have said to the Court
that they are willing to modify behaviors to
pursue reunification. There has been no
demonstration of this commitment as evidenced
by all of the evidence up to today and their
statements to Dr. Cappelletty.
The trial court concluded as a matter of law that the Catawba
County Department of Social Services had made reasonable efforts to
prevent removal of P.C. from her home, but that removal was in
P.C.'s best interest and it continued to be necessary to protect
P.C.'s safety, health, and well-being. Therefore, the court
continued custody of P.C. with DSS. The court ordered a brief
attempt at reunification with the parents and P.C. but set up a
concurrent process of adoption. The parents were ordered to
participate in therapy, and visitation was not allowed between P.C.
and her parents or any members of her family until such time as
recommended by the treatment professionals and approved by the
court.
From these factual and legal conclusions and the adjudication
of neglect, respondent parents appeal.
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