This treatment is abusive. Period.

BOY RECOUNTS PUNISHMENT IN CAGED CHILDREN CASE
Cincinnati Post, The (OH)December 7, 2006Author: Joe Milicia, Associated Press
Estimated printed pages: 3

The boy said he spent weeks in his wooden cage, the stink of urine in the air, writing out the Bible's Book of Deuteronomy in long hand as punishment.

He recalled sleeping in the cramped cage on the bare wood, losing the right to a mattress and pillow because of his bed-wetting problem. He said it was stifling hot in the summer and if he got out of the cage at night, a shrill alarm would go off.

The boy told his story while testifying Wednesday against his former parents, Michael and Sharen Gravelle, who are accused of abusing their adopted children.

The Gravelles deny the allegations, saying they built enclosures to protect some of the 11 special-needs children from themselves and each other.

But another child, their daughter, told a jury that the Gravelles did nothing positive for them and that the children were kept in the cages like animals.

"You don't put people in those things," she said.

The Gravelles are charged with 16 counts of felony child endangering and eight misdemeanor child endangering charges. If convicted, they face one to five years in prison and a maximum fine of $10,000 for each felony count.

The children ranged in age from 1 to 14 when authorities removed them in September 2005 from the home in rural Wakeman, about 60 miles west of Cleveland.

The youngsters, who suffered from problems such as fetal alcohol syndrome, were placed in foster care last fall and the couple lost custody in March.

The Gravelles are not accused of abusing the girl who testified. The court has prohibited the media from identifying the children or referring to their ages.

The girl did not sleep in a cage, but had an alarm on her bedroom door. She acknowledged she is still angry with the Gravelles, parents she said she once loved because they were all she had.

"Just the thought of them getting away with stuff that they shouldn't get away with," she said. "Everything they've done to us."

She testified that some of the children would be sent to their cages -- a term she said her parents occasionally used -- when they misbehaved.

The boy who testified admitted to being a violent child who used to throw objects and bully the other children. He told the jury that he was sent to a cage for weeks at a time for punishment.

"Mine was really small. In the summertime, it was really hot in there. It didn't feel very great to be in one," the boy testified. "We said we liked them because it made us safe. But we really didn't like them. We said it to make them (the Gravelles) happy."

Under questioning by defense lawyers, the boy acknowledged that he was an angry child who would have fits.

"They would sit on me until I calmed down," he said of the Gravelles. "I could have gained my own control by myself, but they chose to do that."

He also said he held one of his brothers out of a second story window, set paper on fire upstairs and urinated out of a window, onto a wall and a heating grate. But he said he felt safe and secure in the home and slept well once he got used to his enclosed bed.

The child testified that he and the other children called the cages "beds" or "boxes" but that he did not object to the term cage.

"They actually do look like cages," he said.

He couldn't recall why he was forced to write out the Bible's Book of Deuteronomy, a collection of sermons written by Moses. Other witnesses have testified that Michael Gravelle often referred to himself as Moses.

The boy also said he spent 81 days living in a bathroom used by seven other children because of a bed-wetting problem.

"I had to sleep in the bath tub. Whenever somebody else had to use it, I had to get out," he said. "Whenever somebody used the tub, I had to drain it and dry it out so I could sleep."

The boy and girl also testified that another girl who has Down Syndrome would get smacked across the face. They also stuck her head into the toilet."When she had her mouth hanging open, they would stick a sock in it. It just wasn't nice," he said.