Susan Carter's children abused by foster parent

Sometimes foster care is no safer
Candice Brooks, Cincinnati Post, Hamilton Journal News.
September 18, 2006, News pg. A2

When Butler County Children Services takes a child from his or her biological parent, the foster home is supposed to be better, safer.

That's what Donna Trevino has said she expected -- that her children would receive better care than she could provide.

Instead, her 3-year-old son, Marcus Fiesel, isn't safe. He's dead.

The developmentally disabled boy and his two siblings were removed from their mother's Middletown home April 22 after police said Marcus was found wandering the streets.

Fourteen weeks later, authorities say foster parents Liz and David Carroll Jr. wrapped Marcus in a blanket, bound him with tape and left him in a closet for nearly two days.

He died on about Aug. 6 at the Carrolls' Clermont County home.

After the couple returned from a family reunion in Kentucky, David Carroll Jr. repeatedly burned the boy's body in a chimney in rural Brown County to cover his tracks, authorities say. The couple faces multiple charges, including murder.

Trevino is not the only birth parent to lose her children to allegations of abuse or neglect -- only to find that all too often, children are no safer in the foster care system.

It is policy to inform birth parents immediately when a child in foster care has been hurt, said Dawn Grady, spokeswoman for Butler County Children Services.

However, Susan Carter, of Middletown, said she had to read in a local newspaper last September that her three children and six others had been removed from Elizabeth Hazelbaker's Jamestown home.

There, allegations of abuse arose against the foster mother, Hazelbaker. She was sentenced on June 30 to 90 days in jail on three counts of child endangering.

"Marcus couldn't tell them what was going on, but my kids did," Carter said. "Even if he was able to tell them, they would not have believed him, and he would have died anyway."

Carter said she is bitter.

Carter said she told a judge about her children's complaints, only to be found in contempt of court. She said she showed caseworkers bruises on her 6-year-old daughter's face and body. But Hazelbaker's explanation was that the injuries were self-inflicted because the girl didn't want to see Carter.

Eleven children -- six adopted and five foster children, ages 2 to 17 -- were living with Hazelbaker just weeks before the children were removed.

Hazelbaker, who was recently widowed, was a foster mother with Kettering-based Youth Services Network of Southwestern Ohio for more than 20 years. She is barred from fostering again.

Initially, a child told a teacher small children were being taped to their high chairs. That sparked an investigation, officials said.

In court hearings, children said Hazelbaker hit them with a fly swatter and forced them to wear diapers, rather than letting them use the bathroom, according to news reports.

Carter said her children told her they were called names, left unfed, given slop to eat, forced to sleep on floors and forced to stand in a cold shower for hours.

"Thank God those older kids spoke up because I was about to lose custody of my kids," Carter said.

Carter's three children -- now 2, 6, and 8 -- were taken from her and her husband, Bruce Kay, in July 2004, soon after a relative said Carter abandoned them. A caseworker came to investigate and found Carter's oldest child had a cut on his head. Carter said her son has impaired vision and Kabuki syndrome, a rare genetic disorder, which causes him to trip and fall occasionally.

Though Carter said she completed anger management and parenting classes, drug counseling and has maintained her employment and residence, it took her some 18 months to get her children back.

Hazelbaker made repeated accusations of abuse against Carter and her husband that were investigated and never proved, Carter said.

Finally, Carter was reunited with her children on Dec. 22 -- three months after her children were taken from Hazelbaker.

Carter has filed a lawsuit against Hazelbaker in Butler County Common Pleas Court.