Monsters plead not guilty

JUDGE SETS BOND AT $10.1 MILLION FOR FOSTER PARENTS
Couple pleads not guilty in child's death
Thursday, August 31, 2006 NEWS 07D
By Terry Kinney

Bonds were set at $10.1 million yesterday for a couple accused of binding their 3-year-old foster child in a cocoonlike wrapping, leaving him to die in a closet and then burning his body.

Liz and David Carroll Jr. pleaded not guilty to numerous charges, including involuntary manslaughter, in the death of Marcus Fiesel, a developmentally disabled boy who had been placed in their care in May.

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph T. Deters reiterated his intent to upgrade the involuntary manslaughter charge.

"We are going to seek the strongest possible charge that we can prove," Deters said. "I believe, at the least, this is a murder."

The couple were arraigned in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, but Deters said he and the prosecutor in neighboring Clermont County are discussing where they will be tried.

The Carrolls lived in Clermont County, just east of Cincinnati, when Marcus died. The ruse investigators say they concocted to cover up the boy's death took place in Hamilton County, where officials managed a search for the boy.

The Carrolls were arraigned separately; Liz Carroll was first.

When asked for their pleas, Liz Carroll responded a barely audible "not guilty," while David responded firmly. Their attorneys asked for reasonable bonds.

Judge Patrick Dinkelacker set bond at $10 million each on the first set of indictments, handed up Monday. The indictments charge both foster parents with involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment, and David Carroll, 35, with gross abuse of a corpse.

Dinkelacker added $100,000 for a second set of indictments released Tuesday, which included two counts each of inducing panic and one count each of making false alarms. Liz Carroll, 30, also was indicted on two counts of perjury related to her testimony Monday to a grand jury.

Liz Carroll told investigators on Aug. 15 that Marcus apparently wandered away from her when a heart condition caused her to faint at Juilfs Park in Anderson Township. She said Marcus had been with her, along with her 2-year-old son, a 1-year-old foster child and a 1-year-old that Carroll was baby-sitting.

Since then, the other foster child has been removed from the Carrolls' custody, and the couple's four children, ages 8, 7, 5 and 2, have been put in foster care.

Affidavits from two supervisors of investigations for Clermont County Children's Protective Services indicated that the Carrolls moved frequently and relied on child-care payments for support.

The couple have lived in at least 10 places since 1998, and neither had steady outside employment. Their sole income came from foster care, day care and government assistance, the affidavits said.

"They have consistently failed to accurately report the number of persons living in their home ... thus falsely receiving thousands of dollars from the government," the statements said.

David Carroll was arrested on domestic-violence charges in June when he held a knife to his wife's throat, threw a knife at a microwave and punched holes in the walls of the couple's rental home, the affidavits said.

Interviews with the children revealed that both parents had hit them with belts and their hands, according to the documents.

Marcus had been placed with the Carrolls by Butler County Children's Services through Lifeway for Youth, a private agency Clermont County stopped using in June 2005.

Butler County, northwest of Cincinnati, often places children with foster parents in other counties because it can't fill the need in Butler County alone, a spokeswoman said.

Barbara E. Riley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, said Tuesday that she wants an investigation of the handling of Marcus' case by the state, Butler County and Lifeway for Youth.

Prosecutors think that the Carrolls put Marcus in a closet when they left for a family reunion in Kentucky on Aug. 4 and that he was dead when they returned two days later.

They waited nine days to report him missing while they planned their scheme and disposed of the body, Deters said.

Authorities think they have found the place in a remote area of Brown County where the body was burned. They have turned over evidence to the Hamilton County coroner for DNA testing.

Caption: Liz and David Carroll Jr., of Clermont County, are accused of leaving their foster child in a closet to die and then burning his body to cover up his death.