The world was her diamond
Kelley, Eileen. Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 11, 2007, pg. E4.
Liz Carroll had it all. Beauty, smarts, bright future. Then she met David Carroll Jr.
The pots, the pans and wooden spoons were always ready every year late in December. With telephone in hand, Liz Carroll and her children would bang and bang, and bang again, as they ushered in the New Year.
"Happy New Year," they chorused into the phone to relatives and friends.
That was the Liz Carroll her mother, Audrey Sims, fights to remember, the full-of-life woman with the big heart, not the frightened 30-year-old locked in the Clermont County jail on murder charges.
Liz Carroll was an honor student in high school and active in sports. She dabbled in modeling.
In the fall in 1993, she wore a tiara after members of her Massachusetts high school voted her homecoming queen.
Sure, Carroll had her shortcomings.
She obsessed over being No. 1.
On paper, she had it all.
In 1994, the year she graduated, Carroll was named Most Popular, Most School Spirit and was senior class president at Nashoba Valley Technical High School in Westford, Mass., close to Fort Devens, where her father, a career Army man, was stationed.
"She was such a beautiful girl," Sims said. "You don't get to be homecoming queen because you are not loved."
At the time, the world was Carroll's diamond: shiny, bright and full of promise. She was ready to launch herself into a fantastic life.
Somewhere, that promise got sidetracked. Many point to David Carroll Jr. as the cause of the derailment.
"She met Dave and gave up her whole life," said Toni Hines, who married into Liz Carroll's side of the family. "We tried to talk her out of it. We all kept telling her . . . to get away from him, and she wouldn't listen."
People now picture Liz Carroll as pure evil, a child killer.
Prosecutors accuse her of binding her 3-year-old foster child's hands behind his back and leaving him in a closet while Carroll, her husband, David, their four children and the couple's live-in girlfriend attended a family reunion in Williamstown, Ky., about 60 miles away. When they returned home two days later, Marcus Fiesel was dead, prosecutors say.
Her trial on that murder charge begins Monday.
Liz Carroll's public image is not something old classmates or family members understand.
"I cannot believe I went to school with her," said Jennifer Madsen, a former high school classmate. "I am ashamed I knew her. I don't understand how anyone could hurt a child."
She aspired to perfection
For Carroll, relatives say, being a mom was everything.
"She wanted to be the perfect mom, the perfect wife - everything," Sims said.
At times, she also wanted her 15 minutes of fame.
Sometime in the mid 1990s, Carroll and her younger sister, Kim, appeared on "The Ricki Lake Show" in an episode in which her sister broke the news to her that she was sleeping with Carroll's former boyfriend.
Classmates say the show was Carroll's bid to recapture the spotlight, but Sims said there was some truth to the story.
A decade later, Sims herself made a TV appearance on an episode of "The Jerry Springer Show" that revolved around Sims sleeping with her best friend's cross-dressing ex-husband.
"I was broke and needed money," Sims said, laughing at the separate mother-daughter TV stunts. " ... It was a total embarrassment for me."
That trashy-tabloid appearance faded into the background when Liz and David Carroll Jr. returned to Massachusetts for her 10th high school reunion.
She took her family with her. Had there been post-graduation titles to garner, Carroll would have done her best to nab them.
"Liz always had to be No. 1, and always in the spotlight," recalled classmate Kim Redman Wojcukiewicz. "She did love her kids, though! Either that, or she put on a damn good show."
A good show?
Prosecutors will try to say that the Union Township woman put on a good show when she made a teary plea for the return of her foster child, Marcus, whom she reported missing from a Hamilton County park on Aug. 15.
"You are asking me to explain evil and I cannot explain it," Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said Aug. 28, the day he announced Liz and David Carroll were well-practiced liars who buffaloed people in Greater Cincinnati when they concocted the story about Marcus being lost in a park when he was in fact dead.
Days later, a visibly nervous and near catatonic Liz Carroll showed up in a Hamilton County court room in a yellow - suicide watch - prisoner outfit.
From that point on, Liz Carroll's fall from grace could not have been more dramatic.
"This is not the daughter I know," Sims said that summer day her daughter first appeared in court.
Carroll and her mom speak daily, and Sims also visits her daughter weekly at the Clermont County jail.
"My heart is broken," Sims said. "She is so scared. She is just broken down. ... She's just one scared kid. She reminds me of a 17-year-old kid again."
Except this time, the smile is gone, as is the teen-dream appearance she once exuded as the "It" girl of the Nashoba Valley Technical High School Class of 1994.
Questions abound
"Liz is not a cold-hearted killer," said Redman Wojcukiewicz, her former classmate. "My question is, why didn't she just take Marcus to the reunion? It's driving me crazy. If you already have three to four kids, what is one more?"
That's the question on everyone's mind.
Carroll emphatically denies having anything to do with putting Marcus in the closet. She said the Carrolls' live-in girlfriend, Amy Baker, did it and then threatened to kill her and her children if she called police.
Carroll and her husband said Marcus was dead before they left for the reunion.
From jail, Carroll shakes her head in confusion as she explains why she allowed Baker to stay in the house last summer after her husband said he was ending his relationship with Baker and wanted Baker and her three kids out of their house.
"I'm the idiot that said, 'We can't send her kids out (to be) homeless,'" said Carroll. "(Baker) didn't have anywhere to go, because everyone kept telling me they wouldn't put up with her anymore."
Friends and relatives say that's the way Carroll was. She loved kids and worried about other people.
That's been the pattern since early adulthood, many say.
"Liz loved Amy's kids. It was all for the kids that Liz put up with it," said Sims.
Last June, five months after Carroll's husband left her for Baker, David Carroll said he was coming home, but he was bringing Baker with him.
"I was begging him not to," Liz Carroll said. "He didn't know how much it would hurt me."
Baker and her kids moved in anyway.
Men, family members say, have always been Carroll's Achilles' heel.
Twice, Carroll tried to kill herself because of men, her mother said.
The most recent was around 10 years ago after being dumped by a man and losing his child by miscarriage, family members said.
Carroll's family has a long history of mental illness: so severe many members have been institutionalized, including her mother and her grandmother.
Sims said she struggles to hold it together so she can be there - on the phone, in the jail visiting room and soon in court - for her daughter.
"If it wasn't for God ... I'd be stuck in a hospital somewhere and locked away," Sims said.
Family members say that because of Carroll's familiarity with mental illness and her good-natured heart she stuck by her husband who for all intents and purposes didn't hold down a job or remain faithful.
"She loves me, too, and I have the same sickness, and she has always stuck by me," Sims said.
Carroll followed her parents back to Greater Cincinnati in the 1990s after completing less than two years at Nichols College in Dudley, Mass. She briefly attended the University of Kentucky. She met her husband not long after her second suicide attempt.
She soon became pregnant with David Carroll's child.
That pregnancy wasn't the only one David Carroll was contending with. Just months earlier, he had impregnated two sisters.
"She went on (being his wife) even after all the charades he had with other woman," said Cherice Adkins, David Carroll Jr.'s step-sister. "She bent over backward to keep that family together."
On July 30, 1999, Liz and David Carroll married. Family members recalled seeing Carroll at the reception off by herself breast feeding her child - the one she carried down the aisle in her long white gown - as the rest of the crowd mingled, ate and danced.
She looked peaceful, said Joyce Carroll, David Carroll's step-mother.
Children became her world
From that point on, beauty, fame, popularity no longer mattered to Carroll, those close to her say.
Children became her life.
"She is easily contented with the simple things in life," said Adam Bleile, one of her attorneys. "She is never going to be rich, she knows that. Her biggest thing in life is to be a mother."
After her first child was born in 1998, she had two more boys. The youngest just turned 3.
The Carrolls also took in another child, a girl born to one of the sisters David Carroll impregnated.
A former pompom girl herself, Liz Carroll was a regular at her son's Pee Wee Football games and also took many of the girls aside to teach them cheers.
Outside the home, Carroll has had few jobs in recent years. She worked in 2004 at a Target but was fired after being arrested for stealing gift cards. She admitted she stole the cards - close to $600 worth - to buy things like diapers for her children, Bleile said.
Other than that arrest, her record until now is clean.
Several years ago, she began baby-sitting for other people's children. That is how she met Baker, the woman with whom she eventually shared her husband.
At times, Baker's three children lived with the Carrolls.
A year ago, Lifeway For Youth certified Carroll and her husband to become foster parents. Marcus was their first foster child.
A second foster child was also placed in their home.
The Carroll household wasn't quite "Cheaper by the Dozen," but it came close - Baker's three kids, the Carrolls' four children, two foster children and an assortment of other kids dropped off for day care.
"Liz had patience with children that the Bible claims Job had," said Joyce Carroll.
Joyce Carroll and other relatives struggle with what has happened to their family.
Some clearly want to point their fingers at Baker. Others struggle to understand what happened and express anger that the couple duped everyone including family.
"(People are saying) they are monsters," said Joyce Carroll. "They are guilty. They are horrible.
"But there was a time that they were good parents. Something happened. We just don't know what it is. Something went horribly wrong."
In jail six months now, Carroll, though sometimes frantic and many times emotional, is doing her best to nest.
At times, she has asked her mother - a woman on a fixed income of Social Security disability - to add money to her fellow inmates' commissary funds.
If that doesn't happen, Carroll more likely than not gives away her stash of envelopes, paper and snacks to the inmates.
"It's her nature," said attorney Bleile. "Her entire being is about being maternal. This is someone who would have died before she would have let that kid be alone in a closet."
Jurors will start deciding whether that's the case this week.
Liz Marie (Sims) Carroll
Role: Defendant charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter, kidnapping, felonious assault and three counts of endangering a child in the August death of Marcus, her 3-year-old foster son.
Age: 30
Experience: Owner of Lizzies Playpen day care in her Union Township home (April 2004-August 2006); delivery person for Angilo's pizza; team leader at Target in Milford (2001-04); server at Frisch's (1998-2001); server at Country Inn (1996-98).
Education: Attended Nichols College in Dudley, Mass., and University of Kentucky; graduated in 1994 from Nashoba Valley Technical High School in Westford, Mass., where she was senior class president, homecoming queen and voted Most Popular.
Personal: Enjoys computer games and family activities; former in-class and extra-curricular volunteer at Merwin and Clough Pike elementary schools; Amelia Youth Athletic Club helper; YMCA nursery volunteer.
Notable: Married to David Carroll Jr., who has indicated he might testify on her behalf; former girlfriend of Amy Baker, primary witness for the prosecution.
Audrey Sims, Liz Carroll's mother, clings to her image of Liz as the full-of-life, big-hearted daughter she once knew. "My heart is broken," she says, when she thinks of the frightened young woman about to be tried on murder charges.
'93-94 school year: Honor student Liz Sims was homecoming queen, senior class president, and Most Popular student.
The world once was shiny, bright and full of promise for Liz Sims. But along the way, something went horribly wrong.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Judge vs. reporters
Judge orders reporters to give up notes -
Newspaper interviewed foster parents accused of killing 3-year-old
Greber, Dave. Dayton Daily News, Feb. 14, 2007, pg. A8.
BATAVIA — Two newspaper reporters were ordered by a Clermont County judge Tuesday to hand over copies of notes they took while interviewing the foster parents charged with killing a 3-year-old Middletown boy.
The newspaper has until 1 p.m. today to provide copies of the notes from last month's jailhouse interviews of Liz and David Carroll Jr. and the couple's live-in girlfriend Amy Baker to Clermont County Common Pleas Court Judge Robert Ringland.
Prosecutors on Monday, the first day of Liz Carroll's murder trial in the death of Marcus Fiesel, issued a subpoena for the records and testimony.
Attorneys for the journalists argued the judge's decision violated state and constitutional rights that uphold freedom of speech and the obligation for a free press.
Although an appeal is possible, attorneys didn't make that decision Tuesday. It was also not clear whether the matter would delay Liz Carroll's murder trial, which is expected to last 10 days to two weeks.
Attorneys also said they felt the prosecution's subpoena was ordered for other than legal reasons.
"It was a knee-jerk reaction out of emotion, anger and frustration because the prosecutors were upset about the stories that ran," said Jack Greiner, attorney for The Cincinnati Enquirer.
Prosecutors said they need the notes and the testimonials of the two reporters for rebuttal in the event Liz Carroll is called to the witness stand during her trial.
The reporters, Eileen Kelley and Sheila McLaughlin, conducted interviews of Liz and David Carroll and Amy Baker late last month in advance of a series of stories that ran Sunday and Monday.
Ringland will review the notes privately and make a determination about which portions could be used should Liz Carroll take the witness stand.
A pool of 130 potential jurors was narrowed to a group of 31 people Monday, but court was canceled Tuesday due to inclement weather. Attorneys said they expect to narrow the list further to 12 jurors and four alternates by this afternoon.
Newspaper interviewed foster parents accused of killing 3-year-old
Greber, Dave. Dayton Daily News, Feb. 14, 2007, pg. A8.
BATAVIA — Two newspaper reporters were ordered by a Clermont County judge Tuesday to hand over copies of notes they took while interviewing the foster parents charged with killing a 3-year-old Middletown boy.
The newspaper has until 1 p.m. today to provide copies of the notes from last month's jailhouse interviews of Liz and David Carroll Jr. and the couple's live-in girlfriend Amy Baker to Clermont County Common Pleas Court Judge Robert Ringland.
Prosecutors on Monday, the first day of Liz Carroll's murder trial in the death of Marcus Fiesel, issued a subpoena for the records and testimony.
Attorneys for the journalists argued the judge's decision violated state and constitutional rights that uphold freedom of speech and the obligation for a free press.
Although an appeal is possible, attorneys didn't make that decision Tuesday. It was also not clear whether the matter would delay Liz Carroll's murder trial, which is expected to last 10 days to two weeks.
Attorneys also said they felt the prosecution's subpoena was ordered for other than legal reasons.
"It was a knee-jerk reaction out of emotion, anger and frustration because the prosecutors were upset about the stories that ran," said Jack Greiner, attorney for The Cincinnati Enquirer.
Prosecutors said they need the notes and the testimonials of the two reporters for rebuttal in the event Liz Carroll is called to the witness stand during her trial.
The reporters, Eileen Kelley and Sheila McLaughlin, conducted interviews of Liz and David Carroll and Amy Baker late last month in advance of a series of stories that ran Sunday and Monday.
Ringland will review the notes privately and make a determination about which portions could be used should Liz Carroll take the witness stand.
A pool of 130 potential jurors was narrowed to a group of 31 people Monday, but court was canceled Tuesday due to inclement weather. Attorneys said they expect to narrow the list further to 12 jurors and four alternates by this afternoon.
Baker has long history of meddling in other people's marriages
Amy Baker says she's no killer
'I don't want people thinking I'm some kind of monster'
McLaughlin, Sheila. Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 12, 2007.
The way she describes Marcus Fiesel's death is almost childlike.
She calls it "the bad thing."
But Amy Baker exudes anything but girlish innocence.
That's not the way many people would describe her.
The 25-year-old mother of three from Amelia - now the star witness in one of Greater Cincinnati's most sensational murder trials in years - has gained a tawdry reputation as tough-talking, hard-drinking and brazen - a vixen who steals other women's husbands, engages in kinky sexual trysts, and threatens people to get her way.
Baker is so bold, some say, she has been known to pull her shirt off and throw it down like a gauntlet for a fist fight.
One spurned wife was so sick of Baker's meddling in her marriage that she asked a judge to keep Baker away from her and her two young children. Two years of trouble with Baker had escalated, and Baker was driving by their Amelia home, throwing things at the windows and kicking her door, the woman said.
"(It) is getting worse now that she is seeing my husband," the woman said in court records.
This week, Baker will try to overcome that sleazy image as Liz Carroll's trial unfolds in Clermont County.
Baker has told police that Liz and David Carroll Jr. - the couple she lived and slept with - left their 3-year-old foster son, Marcus, in a closet to die while they and Baker went to a family reunion in Kentucky for two days. The boy was dead when they returned Aug. 6.
Baker was with David Carroll when he burned the developmentally delayed child's body in an abandoned chimney in rural Brown County, authorities said.
David Carroll's trial is scheduled for March 19.
Without Baker, prosecutors said, they would never have been able to make their case against the Carrolls.
They've given Baker immunity to testify against the couple. The deal is off if Baker lies or if evidence surfaces showing she was involved in more than she's said.
Carroll relatives call it "a deal with the devil."
Liz and David Carroll pointed their fingers right back at Baker. They've said Marcus was dead Aug. 4 before they left for the reunion and that Liz Carroll wasn't home when it happened.
David Carroll said Baker bound the boy in blankets and strapping tape and put him in a closet so he and Baker could have sex while his wife was gone.
The Carrolls said Baker threatened to hurt their children and their families if they told authorities.
"She's devious," David Carroll said.
Angry at questions
Baker said she's told the truth about everything.
"Everybody wants to ruin my credibility so Dave and Liz can walk out of there - walk free and kill me. Is that what people want?" Baker countered in two interviews in recent weeks.
"The right people know" how Marcus died and who is responsible, she said, and she's not the one.
Baker gets angry at the questions that have been raised about her background ever since she entered the spotlight in the murder cases against the Carrolls. She's refused to respond to them until now, while she hides from public view.
Baker's desire to stay underground became acutely apparent Sept. 18, when, with a blanket over her head, she ran from photographers and television camera crews camped outside the Clermont County Juvenile Court building.
Baker was there to attend a custody hearing for her three children: two girls, 3 and 7, and a son, 5. They were placed in foster care after the Carrolls' arrests.
Baker said she rarely goes out now. She spends much of her time at her mother, Theresa Chapman's, trailer in Amelia. She moved there after the Carrolls were arrested, when an attempt to get back with her estranged husband fell apart.
Baker goes to work at a Bob Evans restaurant, but not until she changes her appearance and identity. She wears her hair differently from her usual style. She puts on glasses. She goes by her maiden name.
Baker hopes the disguise will throw her co-workers off and they won't make the connection.
Where's the good?
She wants to know why nothing "good" is ever reported about her on television and in the newspapers. Baker is tired of people trashing her name.
"I didn't save no whales or anything," Baker said. "But I don't want people thinking I'm some kind of monster and all I do is sleep with married men."
David Carroll wasn't the first.
Baker said her relationship with the Carrolls wasn't as twisted as it sounds.
Baker said she met the Carrolls in 2005, when the Clermont County Department of Job and Family Services referred Liz Carroll to her as a baby-sitter.
Baker later lied to help the Carrolls become foster parents by telling officials at Lifeway For Youth that she had known the Carrolls for five years and had met them in a bowling league, according to the state investigation into Marcus' death.
Her affair with David Carroll began early last year after he separated from his wife, she said.
She and David Carroll lived with his mother, Debbie Hounshell, in Union Township for about two months, where Hounshell's longtime boyfriend, Durl Adkins, and David Carroll's uncle, Richard Hounshell, said Baker made passes at them.
Debbie Hounshell and Adkins said they were less than enamored with Baker, who refused to work.
When David Carroll decided in June to go home to his wife, Baker moved in with them. Even her sister, Tina, disapproved and she said so. "I told her several times, she was ridiculous," she said.
Baker said she was in love with David Carroll.
"It wasn't some three-way, live-in slut thing," Baker said of the sleeping arrangements at the Carrolls' Valley Wood Drive house.
David Carroll says otherwise.
"She was our live-in girlfriend," he said.
A broken family
Baker, one of three sisters from a broken family, was raised in her father's home near rural Higginsport.
The small ranch-style house sits on a country road that winds up a hill from the Ohio River, less than two miles from the chimney where Marcus' body was burned.
Baker, who stands a little over 5 feet, grew up scrappy.
She admitted she won't back down from a physical fight, but she won't start one either.
The itch to defend herself put an end to Baker's formal education by her sophomore year in high school.
Baker said she was expelled from Felicity-Franklin High School in 1996 when the punch she threw at another girl "accidentally" hit a teacher. Baker said the other girl had landed the first blow.
Soon after, Baker ran off to Colorado with her boyfriend, Brian Baker. They lived with his sister.
The couple moved back to Ohio and married. They had three children in seven years despite an off-and-on relationship that started to sour soon after their oldest daughter was born.
Baker said she and her husband haven't lived together for three years although they have not filed for divorce.
A court record
Men became the center of Baker's legal problems.
Her name started appearing in Clermont County court files in 2000. She was 19.
Police reports and court records in Clermont and Brown counties detail Amy Baker's ongoing feuds with Brian Baker's girlfriend that came to physical blows and with the wife of one of Baker's boyfriends.
Baker said she became pregnant by an Amelia man, but aborted the baby because he was still married.
Even relatives were not immune from Baker's threats of violence.
Sister-in-law Kim Baker, then 24 and living in Amelia, took Baker's threat "that I need to die, she was going to kick my ass" so seriously in July 2000 that authorities charged Amy Baker with menacing.
Clermont Municipal Judge Victor Haddad issued a restraining order to keep Amy Baker away from her sister-in-law and 4-year-old nephew, court records show.
Baker pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct. She forked out $50 for a fine. The judge put her on probation for two years.
"I was mad because she went behind my back trying to split me and her brother up. I didn't say she should die," Baker said of the incident. "I was so stressed out. I was pregnant. I did say I was going to kick her ass after I had my baby."
Kim and Brian Baker could not be reached for comment.
Just 18 months ago, a former boyfriend complained to Union Township police that Baker was making harassing phone calls to his home. Police issued a referral for the man to file a misdemeanor charge against her in Clermont County Municipal Court, but he didn't act on it.
Baker said she still hears occasionally from the now married man, and they remain friendly.
More troubles
Baker ran into trouble with the law more recently when she turned to booze to ease what she said was the emotional strain of losing her children.
A Brown County deputy arrested Baker and a 17-year-old girl behind the grandstand at the county fairgrounds in Georgetown at 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 27 when they found the two drinking together.
Baker said she consumed a fifth of vodka on top of the anxiety medication Klonopin that a doctor had prescribed.
"I was wasted," Baker said. "I was stressed out."
Last week, Baker appeared at an unscheduled hearing in Brown County Municipal Court and pleaded guilty to a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor by providing alcohol to the teen. A judge placed Baker on probation for one year, fined her $100 and ordered her to pay $77 in court costs. A charge of disorderly conduct was dismissed.
That incident was not Baker's only trouble since she went to police about Marcus.
David Carroll's step-sister accused Baker last month of harassing them during Baker's visits to her sister across the lane in the same closely stacked trailer park.
A Pierce Township police report filed Jan. 5 by Misty Campbell claims that Baker keeps driving past her home and beeping her horn, making obscene gestures and that Baker threatened her at a Kroger store two days earlier.
"She pulled her jacket off and said, 'You want to start some ---- ?" said Cherice Adkins, another of David Carroll's step-sisters who was there.
Baker denies threatening anyone. She said David Carroll's family followed her down the ketchup aisle at the Amelia grocery store and they confronted her.
No charges were filed over the incident.
The Carrolls' families said they are afraid of Baker.
They've heard stories about her, saying Baker's boasted about a relative's connection to one of the area's most violent motorcycle gangs, and that another family member had "fed a woman to the alligators" in the Florida Everglades after she wouldn't continue to prostitute herself for him.
Baker says that's all nonsense.
Cherice Adkins said she has another reason to fear Baker: "I watched her fight like a man."
Children bounced around
Baker now wants to be seen as a mother who just wants her children back.
Her son and two daughters have bounced between at least three foster homes since child protective caseworkers took them away from Baker on Aug. 29, Baker said.
Clermont County caseworkers and a judge decided Baker was unfit to care for them right now because she was virtually homeless and exposed her children to domestic violence when they stayed with her at the Carrolls' home last summer.
Before that, Baker said, the children stayed for a couple of months with their father until his girlfriend dropped them off one afternoon at the Carrolls, saying she didn't want them around any more.
Baker said caseworkers have told her she might be able to get her kids back if she took a job, found her own apartment, completed a six-week parenting class and underwent substance-abuse counseling.
Baker said she's done most of that and plans to move out of her mother's trailer in about two weeks. But, given her involvement in the Carrolls' case, she's not betting that she will get her children back. - NEITHER AM I
"You don't know what I went through in (the Carrolls') house," Baker said. "I did what I had to do for the safety of my children."
She won't explain.
She's keeping it a secret until she gets on the witness stand.
DAY 1
What's ahead: Liz Carroll, 30, goes on trial today in Clermont County. She is charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter, kidnapping, felonious assault and three counts of endangering a child in the August death of Marcus Fiesel, her 3-year-old foster son.
Jury selection: The selection of jurors is expected to start today and could take up much of the week. The case is notorious because Liz and David Carroll Jr. claimed Marcus wandered off Aug. 15 at an Anderson Township park. Authorities say he died the weekend of Aug. 4-6.
What you missed: In Sunday's Enquirer, Liz and David Carroll Jr. blamed their live-in girlfriend, Amy Baker, for causing Marcus' death. Go to Cincinnati. Com to read their version of events.
'I don't want people thinking I'm some kind of monster'
McLaughlin, Sheila. Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 12, 2007.
The way she describes Marcus Fiesel's death is almost childlike.
She calls it "the bad thing."
But Amy Baker exudes anything but girlish innocence.
That's not the way many people would describe her.
The 25-year-old mother of three from Amelia - now the star witness in one of Greater Cincinnati's most sensational murder trials in years - has gained a tawdry reputation as tough-talking, hard-drinking and brazen - a vixen who steals other women's husbands, engages in kinky sexual trysts, and threatens people to get her way.
Baker is so bold, some say, she has been known to pull her shirt off and throw it down like a gauntlet for a fist fight.
One spurned wife was so sick of Baker's meddling in her marriage that she asked a judge to keep Baker away from her and her two young children. Two years of trouble with Baker had escalated, and Baker was driving by their Amelia home, throwing things at the windows and kicking her door, the woman said.
"(It) is getting worse now that she is seeing my husband," the woman said in court records.
This week, Baker will try to overcome that sleazy image as Liz Carroll's trial unfolds in Clermont County.
Baker has told police that Liz and David Carroll Jr. - the couple she lived and slept with - left their 3-year-old foster son, Marcus, in a closet to die while they and Baker went to a family reunion in Kentucky for two days. The boy was dead when they returned Aug. 6.
Baker was with David Carroll when he burned the developmentally delayed child's body in an abandoned chimney in rural Brown County, authorities said.
David Carroll's trial is scheduled for March 19.
Without Baker, prosecutors said, they would never have been able to make their case against the Carrolls.
They've given Baker immunity to testify against the couple. The deal is off if Baker lies or if evidence surfaces showing she was involved in more than she's said.
Carroll relatives call it "a deal with the devil."
Liz and David Carroll pointed their fingers right back at Baker. They've said Marcus was dead Aug. 4 before they left for the reunion and that Liz Carroll wasn't home when it happened.
David Carroll said Baker bound the boy in blankets and strapping tape and put him in a closet so he and Baker could have sex while his wife was gone.
The Carrolls said Baker threatened to hurt their children and their families if they told authorities.
"She's devious," David Carroll said.
Angry at questions
Baker said she's told the truth about everything.
"Everybody wants to ruin my credibility so Dave and Liz can walk out of there - walk free and kill me. Is that what people want?" Baker countered in two interviews in recent weeks.
"The right people know" how Marcus died and who is responsible, she said, and she's not the one.
Baker gets angry at the questions that have been raised about her background ever since she entered the spotlight in the murder cases against the Carrolls. She's refused to respond to them until now, while she hides from public view.
Baker's desire to stay underground became acutely apparent Sept. 18, when, with a blanket over her head, she ran from photographers and television camera crews camped outside the Clermont County Juvenile Court building.
Baker was there to attend a custody hearing for her three children: two girls, 3 and 7, and a son, 5. They were placed in foster care after the Carrolls' arrests.
Baker said she rarely goes out now. She spends much of her time at her mother, Theresa Chapman's, trailer in Amelia. She moved there after the Carrolls were arrested, when an attempt to get back with her estranged husband fell apart.
Baker goes to work at a Bob Evans restaurant, but not until she changes her appearance and identity. She wears her hair differently from her usual style. She puts on glasses. She goes by her maiden name.
Baker hopes the disguise will throw her co-workers off and they won't make the connection.
Where's the good?
She wants to know why nothing "good" is ever reported about her on television and in the newspapers. Baker is tired of people trashing her name.
"I didn't save no whales or anything," Baker said. "But I don't want people thinking I'm some kind of monster and all I do is sleep with married men."
David Carroll wasn't the first.
Baker said her relationship with the Carrolls wasn't as twisted as it sounds.
Baker said she met the Carrolls in 2005, when the Clermont County Department of Job and Family Services referred Liz Carroll to her as a baby-sitter.
Baker later lied to help the Carrolls become foster parents by telling officials at Lifeway For Youth that she had known the Carrolls for five years and had met them in a bowling league, according to the state investigation into Marcus' death.
Her affair with David Carroll began early last year after he separated from his wife, she said.
She and David Carroll lived with his mother, Debbie Hounshell, in Union Township for about two months, where Hounshell's longtime boyfriend, Durl Adkins, and David Carroll's uncle, Richard Hounshell, said Baker made passes at them.
Debbie Hounshell and Adkins said they were less than enamored with Baker, who refused to work.
When David Carroll decided in June to go home to his wife, Baker moved in with them. Even her sister, Tina, disapproved and she said so. "I told her several times, she was ridiculous," she said.
Baker said she was in love with David Carroll.
"It wasn't some three-way, live-in slut thing," Baker said of the sleeping arrangements at the Carrolls' Valley Wood Drive house.
David Carroll says otherwise.
"She was our live-in girlfriend," he said.
A broken family
Baker, one of three sisters from a broken family, was raised in her father's home near rural Higginsport.
The small ranch-style house sits on a country road that winds up a hill from the Ohio River, less than two miles from the chimney where Marcus' body was burned.
Baker, who stands a little over 5 feet, grew up scrappy.
She admitted she won't back down from a physical fight, but she won't start one either.
The itch to defend herself put an end to Baker's formal education by her sophomore year in high school.
Baker said she was expelled from Felicity-Franklin High School in 1996 when the punch she threw at another girl "accidentally" hit a teacher. Baker said the other girl had landed the first blow.
Soon after, Baker ran off to Colorado with her boyfriend, Brian Baker. They lived with his sister.
The couple moved back to Ohio and married. They had three children in seven years despite an off-and-on relationship that started to sour soon after their oldest daughter was born.
Baker said she and her husband haven't lived together for three years although they have not filed for divorce.
A court record
Men became the center of Baker's legal problems.
Her name started appearing in Clermont County court files in 2000. She was 19.
Police reports and court records in Clermont and Brown counties detail Amy Baker's ongoing feuds with Brian Baker's girlfriend that came to physical blows and with the wife of one of Baker's boyfriends.
Baker said she became pregnant by an Amelia man, but aborted the baby because he was still married.
Even relatives were not immune from Baker's threats of violence.
Sister-in-law Kim Baker, then 24 and living in Amelia, took Baker's threat "that I need to die, she was going to kick my ass" so seriously in July 2000 that authorities charged Amy Baker with menacing.
Clermont Municipal Judge Victor Haddad issued a restraining order to keep Amy Baker away from her sister-in-law and 4-year-old nephew, court records show.
Baker pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct. She forked out $50 for a fine. The judge put her on probation for two years.
"I was mad because she went behind my back trying to split me and her brother up. I didn't say she should die," Baker said of the incident. "I was so stressed out. I was pregnant. I did say I was going to kick her ass after I had my baby."
Kim and Brian Baker could not be reached for comment.
Just 18 months ago, a former boyfriend complained to Union Township police that Baker was making harassing phone calls to his home. Police issued a referral for the man to file a misdemeanor charge against her in Clermont County Municipal Court, but he didn't act on it.
Baker said she still hears occasionally from the now married man, and they remain friendly.
More troubles
Baker ran into trouble with the law more recently when she turned to booze to ease what she said was the emotional strain of losing her children.
A Brown County deputy arrested Baker and a 17-year-old girl behind the grandstand at the county fairgrounds in Georgetown at 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 27 when they found the two drinking together.
Baker said she consumed a fifth of vodka on top of the anxiety medication Klonopin that a doctor had prescribed.
"I was wasted," Baker said. "I was stressed out."
Last week, Baker appeared at an unscheduled hearing in Brown County Municipal Court and pleaded guilty to a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor by providing alcohol to the teen. A judge placed Baker on probation for one year, fined her $100 and ordered her to pay $77 in court costs. A charge of disorderly conduct was dismissed.
That incident was not Baker's only trouble since she went to police about Marcus.
David Carroll's step-sister accused Baker last month of harassing them during Baker's visits to her sister across the lane in the same closely stacked trailer park.
A Pierce Township police report filed Jan. 5 by Misty Campbell claims that Baker keeps driving past her home and beeping her horn, making obscene gestures and that Baker threatened her at a Kroger store two days earlier.
"She pulled her jacket off and said, 'You want to start some ---- ?" said Cherice Adkins, another of David Carroll's step-sisters who was there.
Baker denies threatening anyone. She said David Carroll's family followed her down the ketchup aisle at the Amelia grocery store and they confronted her.
No charges were filed over the incident.
The Carrolls' families said they are afraid of Baker.
They've heard stories about her, saying Baker's boasted about a relative's connection to one of the area's most violent motorcycle gangs, and that another family member had "fed a woman to the alligators" in the Florida Everglades after she wouldn't continue to prostitute herself for him.
Baker says that's all nonsense.
Cherice Adkins said she has another reason to fear Baker: "I watched her fight like a man."
Children bounced around
Baker now wants to be seen as a mother who just wants her children back.
Her son and two daughters have bounced between at least three foster homes since child protective caseworkers took them away from Baker on Aug. 29, Baker said.
Clermont County caseworkers and a judge decided Baker was unfit to care for them right now because she was virtually homeless and exposed her children to domestic violence when they stayed with her at the Carrolls' home last summer.
Before that, Baker said, the children stayed for a couple of months with their father until his girlfriend dropped them off one afternoon at the Carrolls, saying she didn't want them around any more.
Baker said caseworkers have told her she might be able to get her kids back if she took a job, found her own apartment, completed a six-week parenting class and underwent substance-abuse counseling.
Baker said she's done most of that and plans to move out of her mother's trailer in about two weeks. But, given her involvement in the Carrolls' case, she's not betting that she will get her children back. - NEITHER AM I
"You don't know what I went through in (the Carrolls') house," Baker said. "I did what I had to do for the safety of my children."
She won't explain.
She's keeping it a secret until she gets on the witness stand.
DAY 1
What's ahead: Liz Carroll, 30, goes on trial today in Clermont County. She is charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter, kidnapping, felonious assault and three counts of endangering a child in the August death of Marcus Fiesel, her 3-year-old foster son.
Jury selection: The selection of jurors is expected to start today and could take up much of the week. The case is notorious because Liz and David Carroll Jr. claimed Marcus wandered off Aug. 15 at an Anderson Township park. Authorities say he died the weekend of Aug. 4-6.
What you missed: In Sunday's Enquirer, Liz and David Carroll Jr. blamed their live-in girlfriend, Amy Baker, for causing Marcus' death. Go to Cincinnati. Com to read their version of events.
CASA volunteers needed in Cincinnati
Volunteer opportunities
Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 12, 2007.
ProKids seeks volunteer Court Appointed Special Advocates to work with children in foster care. Training provided; 513-281-2000; www.prokids.org. An information "snapshot" will be held 7-8 p.m. Feb. 22 at Hyde Park Plaza Panera Bread, 3806 Paxton Ave.; Patti 513-243-8329.
Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 12, 2007.
ProKids seeks volunteer Court Appointed Special Advocates to work with children in foster care. Training provided; 513-281-2000; www.prokids.org. An information "snapshot" will be held 7-8 p.m. Feb. 22 at Hyde Park Plaza Panera Bread, 3806 Paxton Ave.; Patti 513-243-8329.
Odd trivia about the Carrolls
Other key figures
Brunsman, Barrett. Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 11, 2007, pg. E4.
Marcus Fiesel
Age: 3 at death in August.
Notable: Died after being bound in a blanket with packing tape and left in a playpen in a closet of the Union Township home of his foster parents, Liz and David Carroll Jr., prosecutors say.
Personal: Developmentally disabled. Removed from care of his biological mother, Donna Trevino, of Middletown, by Butler County. Placed in the foster care of the Carrolls by Lifeway For Youth.
David Carroll Jr.
Role: Might testify for defendant, Liz Carroll. Will be tried separately March 19 on same charges, plus gross abuse of a corpse.
Age: 29
Experience: Unemployed since March 2005; Rent-A-Center store manager (2002-05); subcontractor for Planes Moving & Storage (off and on for eight years); Terminix pest control (one year); Greg Hart Communications (1997-2002); Value City driver (1996-97).
Education: Clermont Northeastern High School 1996.
Notable: Husband of Liz Carroll and former boyfriend of Amy Baker.
Personal: Enjoys playing Xbox video games and learning martial arts.
Amy Lynn Baker
Role: Main witness for the prosecution.
Age: 25
Experience: Currently working at a Bob Evans.
Notable: Former live-in girlfriend of Liz and David Carroll Jr.; her children were enrolled at Liz Carroll's day care; she was a reference on the Carrolls' application to be foster parents. Prosecutors say she accompanied David Carroll to burn Marcus Fiesel's body and throw his remains into the Ohio River. Granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for testimony.
Education: Attended Felicity-Franklin High School.
Personal: Recently attended parenting classes sponsored by Clermont County Department of Job and Family Services.
Gregory A. Cohen
Role: Lead defense attorney for Liz Carroll
Age: 49
Experience: Trial lawyer in private practice since 1993, specializing in criminal defense; tried cases as intern for six months with Sylvania municipal prosecutor's office in 1993; law clerk for Toledo Legal Aid Society (1991-93). Past president of Greater Cincinnati Criminal Defense Lawyers Association.
Education: University of Toledo College of Law (1993); American Graduate School of International Management (1986); Universite de Grenoble (certificate in French studies, 1982); Miami University (1979); Walnut Hills High School (1975).
Notable: Lawyer in more than 100 civil and criminal jury trials. Defended Gary Smith, who was found not guilty in the 2001 shootings of four men in Over-the-Rhine, including one who died.
Political: Plans to run for Hamilton County Municipal Court in November.
Personal: Speaks French and Chinese; rugby player and referee.
Daniel "Woody" Breyer
Role: Prosecutor in Liz Carroll case
Age: 56
Experience: Chief criminal trial lawyer for Clermont County Prosecutor Don White; assistant Clermont County prosecutor since 1987; private law practice (1984-87) included defending people in death-penalty cases; assistant prosecutor with Hamilton County prosecutor's office (1977-84).
Notable: Prosecuted Clermont County murder trials of Jerry Lawson, Michael Webb and Jesse James Cowans, all of whom are on death row. As special prosecutor for Lucasville prison riot, won convictions in all six cases he tried, including death penalty in one.
Education: University of Cincinnati College of Law (1977); University of Cincinnati (1973); Roger Bacon High School (1968).
Personal: Coach of mock trial teams at St. Xavier High School; former coach for CYO basketball teams and Cincy Legend AAU basketball program.
Mark Piepmeier
Age: 53
Role: Hamilton County assistant prosecutor appointed special prosecutor in Liz Carroll murder trial as a liaison with Clermont County.
Experience: Chief criminal trial lawyer for Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters; assistant Hamilton County prosecutor since 1981; economics teacher at Roger Bacon High School and coach of junior varsity football team (1976-79).
Education: Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University (1980); Miami University (Evans Scholarship for golf caddies, 1976); Roger Bacon High School (1972).
Military: Former captain, Army Reserve, Judge Advocate General's office (1986-96); called to active duty for Gulf War (January to June 1991); awarded National Defense Service Medal and Meritorious Service Medal.
Notable: Prosecuted more than 200 homicide cases. Special prosecutor for Lucasville prison riot, overseeing prosecution of 50 inmates on riot-related charges - with 47 convicted and five sentenced to death. Prosecuted serial killer Alton Coleman (executed), serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin (on death row in Missouri), and more than a dozen others now on Ohio death row.
Personal: Has run nine marathons.
Brunsman, Barrett. Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 11, 2007, pg. E4.
Marcus Fiesel
Age: 3 at death in August.
Notable: Died after being bound in a blanket with packing tape and left in a playpen in a closet of the Union Township home of his foster parents, Liz and David Carroll Jr., prosecutors say.
Personal: Developmentally disabled. Removed from care of his biological mother, Donna Trevino, of Middletown, by Butler County. Placed in the foster care of the Carrolls by Lifeway For Youth.
David Carroll Jr.
Role: Might testify for defendant, Liz Carroll. Will be tried separately March 19 on same charges, plus gross abuse of a corpse.
Age: 29
Experience: Unemployed since March 2005; Rent-A-Center store manager (2002-05); subcontractor for Planes Moving & Storage (off and on for eight years); Terminix pest control (one year); Greg Hart Communications (1997-2002); Value City driver (1996-97).
Education: Clermont Northeastern High School 1996.
Notable: Husband of Liz Carroll and former boyfriend of Amy Baker.
Personal: Enjoys playing Xbox video games and learning martial arts.
Amy Lynn Baker
Role: Main witness for the prosecution.
Age: 25
Experience: Currently working at a Bob Evans.
Notable: Former live-in girlfriend of Liz and David Carroll Jr.; her children were enrolled at Liz Carroll's day care; she was a reference on the Carrolls' application to be foster parents. Prosecutors say she accompanied David Carroll to burn Marcus Fiesel's body and throw his remains into the Ohio River. Granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for testimony.
Education: Attended Felicity-Franklin High School.
Personal: Recently attended parenting classes sponsored by Clermont County Department of Job and Family Services.
Gregory A. Cohen
Role: Lead defense attorney for Liz Carroll
Age: 49
Experience: Trial lawyer in private practice since 1993, specializing in criminal defense; tried cases as intern for six months with Sylvania municipal prosecutor's office in 1993; law clerk for Toledo Legal Aid Society (1991-93). Past president of Greater Cincinnati Criminal Defense Lawyers Association.
Education: University of Toledo College of Law (1993); American Graduate School of International Management (1986); Universite de Grenoble (certificate in French studies, 1982); Miami University (1979); Walnut Hills High School (1975).
Notable: Lawyer in more than 100 civil and criminal jury trials. Defended Gary Smith, who was found not guilty in the 2001 shootings of four men in Over-the-Rhine, including one who died.
Political: Plans to run for Hamilton County Municipal Court in November.
Personal: Speaks French and Chinese; rugby player and referee.
Daniel "Woody" Breyer
Role: Prosecutor in Liz Carroll case
Age: 56
Experience: Chief criminal trial lawyer for Clermont County Prosecutor Don White; assistant Clermont County prosecutor since 1987; private law practice (1984-87) included defending people in death-penalty cases; assistant prosecutor with Hamilton County prosecutor's office (1977-84).
Notable: Prosecuted Clermont County murder trials of Jerry Lawson, Michael Webb and Jesse James Cowans, all of whom are on death row. As special prosecutor for Lucasville prison riot, won convictions in all six cases he tried, including death penalty in one.
Education: University of Cincinnati College of Law (1977); University of Cincinnati (1973); Roger Bacon High School (1968).
Personal: Coach of mock trial teams at St. Xavier High School; former coach for CYO basketball teams and Cincy Legend AAU basketball program.
Mark Piepmeier
Age: 53
Role: Hamilton County assistant prosecutor appointed special prosecutor in Liz Carroll murder trial as a liaison with Clermont County.
Experience: Chief criminal trial lawyer for Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters; assistant Hamilton County prosecutor since 1981; economics teacher at Roger Bacon High School and coach of junior varsity football team (1976-79).
Education: Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University (1980); Miami University (Evans Scholarship for golf caddies, 1976); Roger Bacon High School (1972).
Military: Former captain, Army Reserve, Judge Advocate General's office (1986-96); called to active duty for Gulf War (January to June 1991); awarded National Defense Service Medal and Meritorious Service Medal.
Notable: Prosecuted more than 200 homicide cases. Special prosecutor for Lucasville prison riot, overseeing prosecution of 50 inmates on riot-related charges - with 47 convicted and five sentenced to death. Prosecuted serial killer Alton Coleman (executed), serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin (on death row in Missouri), and more than a dozen others now on Ohio death row.
Personal: Has run nine marathons.
He said, she said. Timeline following the death of Marcus Fiesel and the three liars that surrounded him.
One child's death, two different stories
Star witness blames foster parents, but they insist she's the real killer
Kelley, Eileen. Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 11,2 007, pg. E1.
They placed him in a cardboard box, his cold body hidden by clothes.
And early in the morning on Aug. 6, David Carroll Jr. said, as the rest of the household ate breakfast, he and Amy Baker packed the body of 3-year-old Marcus Fiesel - dead now for two days - into the back of a white SUV and took it to an abandoned chimney in rural Brown County.
David Carroll said he then doused his foster son's body with gasoline.
Amy Baker, he said, lit the match.
But Baker did more, Carroll, 29, and his wife, Liz, 30, said in separate, face-to-face interviews with The Enquirer from jail.
"The whole thing was Amy," David Carroll said. "One thing I can say for sure now is that she's pure evil."
The Carrolls told their story of Marcus' death and Baker's alleged role in it just days before Liz Carroll's murder trial, which is scheduled to begin Monday.
Both Carrolls conceded they made mistakes in the Marcus case, but they said the wrong woman sits in jail.
The Carrolls said Baker bound the boy and put him in a playpen in a closet while Liz Carroll was at a physical therapy appointment and running errands.
The Carrolls said Marcus was dead before they left town Aug. 4 to attend a family reunion in Kentucky.
"She had no problem with anything," David Carroll said of Baker. "She was emotionless."
Prosecutors offered Baker immunity in exchange for her testimony against the Carrolls. They say the information she gave them broke the case that riveted the region's attention for weeks last summer.
"Everybody knows I was there. But I didn't hurt him. No way," Baker said.
Prosecutors say they've got plenty of physical evidence to support Baker's story and anything the Carrolls now say is hogwash.
None of the three involved is a saint. They've all made mistakes in their past. And they have admitted to covering up Marcus' death.
Two of the three, the Carrolls, have struggled with mental illness.
Liz Carroll has tried twice to kill herself. Many members of her family - including her mother and grandmother - have been institutionalized because of bipolar disorder and psychotic episodes.
David Carroll is bipolar and has a history of obsessive-compulsive disorder and is known to cut himself.
David Carroll now questions whether investigators rushed to judgment in believing what Baker told them.
"There is no truth in her vocabulary," he said.
Authorities accuse the Carrolls of murder, saying they left Marcus, wrapped in blankets and bound with tape, hands behind his back, in a closet when they left town to attend the reunion. They say Marcus was dead when the couple returned two days later on Aug. 6.
The Carrolls and others - interviewed in the six months since thousands of people in the region searched futilely for the little blue-eyed boy - portray Baker, 25, the Carrolls' live-in girlfriend, as a damaged young woman who would do anything to destroy those who stand in her way.
When David Carroll tried to end his affair with Baker and move back to his family in June, Baker had a tattoo about David Carroll inked across the top of her foot. She also threatened to kill herself, Liz Carroll said.
The Carrolls let her move into their rented home on Valley Wood Drive in Clermont County's Union Township.
Liz Carroll said Baker threatened to kill Carroll's family if she called 911, something Liz Carroll wanted to do when she first learned Marcus was dead Aug. 4.
David Carroll and others close to the case say Baker went to detectives Aug. 25 and told them Marcus wasn't missing, but was dead, and that she blamed the Carrolls.
That revelation to detectives came just after David Carroll told Baker he finally was ending their long-term love affair, Liz Carroll said.
"She gets mad and then does this to cover her butt," Liz Carroll said. "She's mad because she lost another married man. She is really good at manipulating and deceiving."
Three days later, Baker testified before a Hamilton County grand jury.
Liz and David Carroll were arrested Aug. 28.
The Carrolls haven't seen Baker since.
They've been in jail.
Baker now works at a Bob Evans restaurant, a job she goes to wearing a disguise and using her maiden name.
A little boy's dead
Liz Carroll had one of her typically busy days on Friday, Aug. 4. She said she went to physical therapy. She needed to write a note to the parents of a foster child she was sending home for a weekend visit.
Her own four children and Marcus, the Carrolls' other foster child, needed tending and then the kids she baby-sat would soon arrive.
On top of that, Liz Carroll said, she had a full day of errands to run - Meijer, Wal-Mart, the bread store and Walgreens - before the family headed to the reunion.
She said she left the house around 9:30 a.m.
Things unraveled after that, David Carroll said.
"Amy wanted sex," David Carroll said. "She wanted to fool around while my wife was gone, but the kids would interfere."
David Carroll said Baker ushered Marcus upstairs for a nap as the other kids were sent outside to play on the trampoline.
But Marcus wouldn't stay down, he said.
Baker tried again, taking the boy upstairs one more time.
David Carroll said that was his last glimpse of Marcus alive.
"None of this would be happening if I wasn't so greedy with my sexual needs," David Carroll said.
What happened next, and how the boy died, may never be known.
Eighteen fragile bone shards were found at the chimney: the smallest 1/8th of an inch and the largest no more than 2½ inches.
One fragment, a forensic anthropologist's report states, is consistent with a piece of skull from a 2- to 4-year-old child.
The bones are too frail to test for DNA, much less provide clues as to how the child died.
Investigators also collected several types of fabric, numerous buttons and snaps, as well as fasteners from a pair of bib overalls.
Death stuns Liz Carroll
Liz Carroll said she got home around 2 p.m.
David Carroll said he and Baker left shortly afterward and no one checked on Marcus.
Six or seven kids were in the house that day, David Carroll said.
David Carroll said he went upstairs to check on Marcus around 6 p.m. so he could get him ready for the family reunion.
When David Carroll saw Marcus wasn't in his room, he said he called downstairs, asking where the boy was. He said Baker raced up the stairs, flushed and stuttering.
"He's in the closet; your closet," David Carroll said Baker blurted.
"I opened the door and there was no doubt about anything."
Marcus was dead.
David Carroll said a stream of blood trickled from Marcus' nose.
Both Carrolls describe the moments after that discovery as chaotic. They say Liz Carroll soon became catatonic.
Liz Carroll said she recalled seeing streaks of blood on Marcus' toes, apparently from kicking his feet against the playpen netting in an attempt to free himself from his improvised cocoon.
Liz Carroll said she remembered screaming, crying and fighting the noises that filled her head.
"I asked him why he did it and he said, 'She did it,'" Liz Carroll said. "(Baker) was crying at first, saying she was so sorry, that she didn't mean it, but he wouldn't stay in bed ... But then when I went to call 911 she turned angry and she was shaking me and pushing me up to the wall next to the shower."
David Carroll said he also didn't want his wife to call police, fearing child protective services would take their four children away.
Liz Carroll said that wasn't her only fear that afternoon. She said Baker had told them her sister had a 9mm pistol and she wasn't afraid to use it to "take out all of us before I spent one day in jail."
David Carroll said he, too, was afraid.
"I was afraid for my own children's lives and my wife," he said. "(Baker) told me so many times her family is crazy."
The threats then turned violent.
Liz Carroll said Baker hit her husband and kicked clothes around the bedroom.
At that point, Liz Carroll said, she took double doses of Xanax, an anxiety medication she uses to control panic attacks.
"She was pretty much a zombie," David Carroll said.
When the Carrolls tried to back out of the family reunion, David Carroll said, Baker coaxed them out of it. "You have to go," he said she told them. "You go every year."
Both Carrolls said Baker controlled the situation at that point.
"I realize now all those things I could have done," David Carroll said.
Someone put a fan on Marcus' body - still in his playpen and still in the closet - to keep the house from smelling.
Baker helped Liz Carroll to the couple's leased white GMC Envoy.
David Carroll said his wife was upset, distraught, not thinking clearly. "She said she couldn't breathe," he said.
With Liz Carroll in the back seat, David Carroll, Baker and the children set off for the reunion in Williamstown, Ky., an hour's drive away.
Burning the body
They arrived late to the reunion.
Sometime in the middle of the night on Saturday, the Carrolls, Baker and the children headed home.
Baker had already planted the idea to burn Marcus in Brown County, David Carroll said.
"She said, 'My dad lives a mile down the road where there is a chimney,'" David Carroll said. "She said, 'We can burn the body and dump the ashes in the creek that runs next to the chimney.'"
With clothes covering Marcus' body in the box, David Carroll said, he and Baker made several stops on the way to Brown County on Sunday morning, Aug. 6.
David Carroll said he and Baker filled two gasoline cans at the AmeriStop on Main Street in Amelia. They then realized they didn't have matches.
David Carroll said they made two more stops in their search for supplies before heading down Brown County's winding roads to burn Marcus' body.
After the flames engulfed Marcus' body, he said, he and Baker drove to her father's house nearby and sat in the driveway because no one was home.
David Carroll said he and Baker returned to the chimney a few times to check on the fire's progress.
The flames weren't intense enough to do away with the 30-pound boy's remains completely.
David Carroll said he and Baker went home to Valley Wood Drive, only to return to the chimney later that night. He said they went back with two king-sized pillow cases that they bought at the Eastgate Meijer to carry away Marcus' remains.
David Carroll said he and Baker got back in the SUV and drove east on U.S. 52. He said they drove about 45 minutes to a bridge across the Ohio River.
That's when Baker spoke up.
"She said, 'I threw the match,' so I had to throw the body," David Carroll said.
And he did.
"I just dropped it over the rail," he said. He said he was crying as they headed back to Union Township for the last time that evening.
As he cried, David Carroll said, Baker reached over and unzipped his pants.
"She said she wanted to make me feel better."
He said he brushed her aside.
Coming up with a plan
Marcus was gone.
The Carrolls and Baker knew someone eventually would ask about him. They needed to explain his disappearance.
The three plotted as Liz Carroll continued taking more medicine than usual.
Marcus would somehow vanish. They'd file a missing-child report.
David Carroll would lose Marcus after feigning a panic attack. They talked about losing him at Kings Island or a Clermont County park.
Liz Carroll said the plan changed to have her stage the disappearance. "I was falling apart. (Baker) said I was the one to do it because I was the one sick with grief," she said.
The disappearance was supposed to happen at Kings Island, but Liz Carroll said she "chickened out," even when a brief power outage hit the amusement park, presenting an opportunity to stage the vanishing act while park video cameras were off.
Over days, and then weeks, Liz Carroll said, Baker closely watched her and her children to make sure she didn't grab the kids and run.
"She was afraid I would crack," said Liz Carroll.
The couple fended off the suspicions of a Lifeway For Youth foster-care caseworker who - just days after Marcus was incinerated - showed up at the Carrolls' house to check on the boy.
Liz Carroll told the woman he wasn't feeling well and she left.
That caseworker didn't press to see him, but others might.
Debbie Hounshell, David Carroll's mother, said the couple seemed to drop out of sight Aug. 4, ending their usual three-times-a-week visits.
The Carrolls and Baker realized on Aug. 15 they had to do something, Liz Carroll said.
Marcus had a 2 p.m. appointment with a child welfare agency, and they couldn't wait any more to stage the disappearance.
"(Baker) said I had no choice," Liz Carroll said. She said Baker picked a Hamilton County park thinking that because there is more crime there, the loss of one little boy would not capture attention for very long.
They couldn't have been more wrong.
Where's the baby?
"Where's my baby" Liz Carroll cried after pretending to pass out at Juilfs Park.
The search for Marcus officially began as paramedics wheeled her to an ambulance.
Over the next five days, thousands of people flocked to the Anderson Township park and its nearby suburban neighborhoods, traipsing through bushes, flower beds and hunting under cars and in culverts.
People brought sandwiches and cool drinks to share with the hordes of paid and volunteer searchers. Some brought musical instruments, hoping child-like sounds would lure the frightened, developmentally disabled boy from hiding.
As the hours turned to days and the days turned to weeks, David Carroll's family grew suspicious.
"I think we knew from day one that something was wrong," said Joyce Carroll, David Carroll's stepmother. She said David's father asked her if his son had that look about him.
She said, "Yes" after glimpsing the younger Carroll when a television cameraman recorded the search for Marcus. Her stepson's arms were crossed and his head was cocked.
"It's the how-dare-you-even-try-to-touch-me look," Joyce Carroll said.
After seeing that image, Joyce Carroll called David Carroll's stepsister, Cherice Adkins, and told her to come home from the search. "There's no reason for you to be there," she told her daughter.
The search spread beyond the park and the neighborhoods around it.
Investigators moved east to the Carrolls' home in Clermont County, taking computers and other items.
The couple gave two televised interviews, then seemingly vanished. They moved from their rented middle-class home on a green and leafy suburban street and into a trailer. Then, they stayed at a relative's house.
The Carrolls first talked in an interview conducted from the home of WKRC-TV's Deborah Dixon, where Liz Carroll quickly disintegrated although Dixon denied the interview was conducted in her home. Liz Carroll went from being methodical in her description of the afternoon Marcus disappeared to a crumbling mess, holding her head as she sobbed.
"He wasn't just a foster kid, he was my kid," she wailed for the television station's viewers.
David Carroll sat silent on the couch next to his wife, stroking her hand, her shoulder and the back of her head during the seven-minute interview.
Baker, David Carroll said, stood in the corner of the reporter's house.
"She didn't want to be on the TV," David Carroll said.
The following day, on Aug. 22, Liz Carroll stood before a huge bouquet of TV cameras, reporters and cops, and she tripped over her words. She rambled for 45 minutes. The longer she talked, the more investigators and reporters covering the case noted inconsistencies with her earlier statements.
The situation was just what investigators wanted. When a Hamilton County Sheriff's Office official walked over to cut Liz Carroll off and end the press conference, some deputies were irked.
Behind the scenes, detectives questioned the Carrolls and Baker.
The Carrolls said all three of them failed lie-detector tests.
How extensively investigators grilled Baker is unclear.
Liz Carroll said it doesn't seem they questioned her too rigorously. She said Baker told her the detectives appeared more interested in hearing details about the Carrolls' sexual relationship with her than anything else.
"So she just kept talking with them about sex rather than Marcus to distract them," Liz Carroll said.
Liz Carroll said Baker was particularly proud of that. She said Baker pranced around the bedroom - singing what many acquaintances describe as her trademark song, "Scandalous" - and gloating about how she had deceived the police.
Baker's cockiness soon morphed into vengeance, the Carrolls said.
On Aug. 25, the Carrolls said, they assured Baker they wouldn't crack under pressure as they told her their menage à trois was over and showed her the door.
Baker left and contacted investigators.
On the morning of Aug. 28, Baker called the Carrolls and told them detectives were waiting at a nearby biggs and that Liz Carroll needed to come soon.
David Carroll drove her to the Eastgate parking lot.
As Baker and Liz Carroll got into separate cruisers, Liz Carroll said, Baker told her: "Don't crack."
About four hours later, two agents showed up at David Carroll's mother's house off Mount Carmel-Tabasco Road.
"Is David around?" Durl Adkins recalled them saying.
"He's in the house," replied Adkins, who is the boyfriend of David Carroll's mother.
Within minutes of David Carroll being hand-cuffed and led away, child protective service workers pulled up to the house and took Liz and David Carroll's four children.
Wrong woman in jail?
Liz and David Carroll said they have not seen or heard from Baker since Aug. 28.
Asked if they could say one thing to her, their answers are the same despite the question being asked at different times on different days in the Clermont County jail.
"Tell the truth," they both said.
In jail, Liz Carroll sobbed as she held up a Christmas photograph taken of her four children, who remain in foster care.
"These are my babies," she said, holding the photo up to the glass that separates her from visitors.
Missing from her collection of photographs are snapshots of Marcus.
Prosecutors are keeping them until the trial is over.
But Liz Carroll wants them now.
"I want to see him smile," she said. "He smiled all the time, and the only image I can keep in my head is him (dead) in the playpen."
Liz Carroll said she is nervous about what lies ahead as her murder trial nears.
"I've never been on this side of the justice system," she said. "It's crazy They have to know any physical evidence that they have goes back to (Baker)."
In an interview with The Enquirer, Baker refused to talk about what happened the weekend of Aug. 4-6 and other pertinent dates.
She systematically referred to Marcus' death as "the bad thing."
Baker said she has a much different story than the Carrolls', but she'll wait to tell it on the witness stand at Liz Carroll's trial if she's called to testify.
Prosecutors, Baker said, told her not to talk about what she told detectives or the grand jury, or what she'll say in court.
"If Liz and Dave's lawyers get hold of what I am going to say, don't you think they'd use it to twist things around?" she said. "Everything that I say matches, and I am not lying."
It's anyone's guess, however, as to who actually takes the stand.
Both prosecutors and defense attorneys appear ready for a good fight in court. None is willing to say just who will be called to testify.
Besides physical evidence that places Baker where she said she was on Aug. 6, prosecutors also will rely on Liz Carroll's grand jury testimony. She admitted Marcus was put in a closet, but said it was Baker's idea.
Interpretations of that testimony vary.
Prosecutors say Liz Carroll incriminated herself.
"Why would she say what she said in the grand jury if she didn't do it?" said Joe Deters, the prosecutor in Hamilton County where the Carrolls were first indicted. "That would be pretty stupid.
"Amy Baker is no saint," said Deters, adding that without her, authorities would still be searching for "that little boy."
"They've got a problem, let me just say that," Deters said of the evidence against the Carrolls. "The evidence is going to be a real problem for them." He said Baker was questioned extensively.
"We have no evidence she hurt this child herself," Deters said.
Clermont County Prosecutor Don White refused comment on the Carrolls' stories, citing the gag order the trial judge placed on lawyers.
The defense sees Liz Carroll's grand jury testimony differently, saying she was spoon fed tidbits of information so prosecutors could elicit the answers they wanted during the grand jury. Liz Carroll's defense lawyers tried earlier to keep her grand jury testimony out of her trial, but failed.
From jail, Liz Carroll explained it this way: "I was really, really stressed out, and I didn't answer a lot of stuff the way that it was."
She said she had no idea how to answer the questions because "I never thought about what happened. (Baker and David Carroll) told me to concentrate on the park (story)."
Prosecutors will try to blunt the Carrolls' version of the story and are expected to say that the two concocted yet another story - this time in phone calls from jail and in letters.
David Carroll's mother said two phones at her Union Township home are held up to each other so that Liz and David Carroll can say how much they miss each other and talk about their children. She said they do not talk about the case because they suspect the jail is recording their calls.
Until the jailhouse interviews with The Enquirer, family members said, they have been in the dark about their children's side of the story because Liz and David Carroll feared authorities were listening in on their phone calls, reading their mail and eavesdropping on their visits with family.
In addition to murder, Liz Carroll also is charged with involuntary manslaughter, kidnapping, felonious assault, and endangering a child in Clermont County. She is charged in Hamilton County with inducing panic, making false alarms and perjury.
David Carroll's trial is scheduled to begin March 19. He was arrested on the same charges as his wife except for the perjury charge. He is also charged with gross abuse of a corpse.
"I believe I am guilty of some of the things they have charged me with, but not the major thing," he said.
David Carroll refused to accept a plea agreement that would have dropped some of the lesser charges, but still carried a prison sentence of 15 years to life.
"I could even accept the fact if all three of us were here," he said, referring to Baker.
"But I cannot understand the immunity part. It's a lie and it shows what this justice system has come to."
David Carroll's court-appointed attorneys have tried to get off the case. David Carroll fired them Feb. 2 and hired his own attorney. Liz Carroll has not accepted a plea deal.
"I can say 100 percent Liz was gone when Marcus died," David Carroll said.
"I cannot believe she is here. I can understand why I am here. ... What's done cannot be taken back."
The Marcus case
The Marcus Fiesel case began the weekend of Aug. 4-6, when Marcus' foster parents, Liz and David Carroll Jr., their children and girlfriend Amy Baker went to a family reunion in Williamstown, Ky. Authorities later accused the Carrolls of murder, saying they had left Marcus wrapped in blankets and bound with tape, hands behind his back, in a closet while they were gone. When they returned Aug. 6, authorities say, Marcus was dead.
Aug. 3
Marcus Fiesel's social worker visits Liz and David Carroll Jr. and sees the Middletown boy for the last time.
Aug. 4
Liz and David Carroll Jr. leave their Union Township, Clermont County, home to attend a family reunion in Williamstown, Ky. Prosecutor Joe Deters later says they left Marcus "restrained" in a closet in their home while they were gone.
Aug. 6
The Carrolls return home. Deters later says they found Marcus dead upon their return and that David Carroll Jr. took the child's body to Brown County and burned it.
Aug. 10
Marcus' social worker arrives at the Carroll home, but is told he is sick. The social worker leaves.
Aug. 15
A Hamilton County dispatcher receives a 911 call reporting a woman unconscious in Juilfs Park in Anderson Township, with three small children nearby. Liz Carroll tells EMTs her foster child, Marcus, is missing. A missing-child alert goes out in Anderson Township, and hundreds of volunteers show up for the search, which continues around the clock.
Aug. 16
Hundreds more volunteers join the search. Police search the Carrolls' home and remove some items. Liz Carroll talks to reporters from her hospital bed. She suggests park workers lost Marcus during her collapse. The volunteer search is called off at 8 p.m.
Aug. 17
Police bring in dive teams, police dogs and mounted officers. They urge anyone who saw Marcus in the park to come forward.
Aug. 19
The Carrolls move out of their Union Township home.
Aug. 21
Liz Carroll says her Clermont County day-care certificate was taken away.
Aug. 22
Police say Liz Carroll reported that a Lifeway For Youth caseworker saw Marcus on Aug. 10. She describes adults she saw in the park in the hope that someone saw Marcus. She saysher husband failed a lie-detector test. She calls Marcus "my son. I know 100 percent he was at the park with me -- and my husband, myself, nobody harmed him."
Aug. 23
Police release more photos of Marcus. Clermont, Hamilton, Butler and Warren counties halt placements through Lifeway and remove some clients from Lifeway-trained foster parents.
Aug. 24
Butler County officials reveal that the caseworker who was supposed to see Marcus on Aug. 10 was told the boy was sick and the caseworker was turned away.
Aug. 25
Hamilton County Sheriff Simon Leis says he doubts Marcus is alive.
Aug. 28
Liz Carroll and Amy Baker, a live-in girlfriend, go before a Hamilton County grand jury. Liz and David Carroll Jr. are each indicted on one count of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of child endangering. David Carroll Jr. also faces one charge of abuse of a corpse. They are arrested and jailed. Investigators search in Brown County for the boy's remains.
Sept. 1
The state orders all counties to check on the safety of foster children who were placed through Lifeway For Youth.
Sept. 5
Donna Trevino, Marcus' birth mother, sues the Carrolls, Baker, Lifeway For Youth, Butler County commissioners and Butler County Children Ser vices for $5 million.
Sept. 6
Prosecutors in Clermont County file murder charges against the Carrolls, but say they won't seek the death penalty because the couple, who were receiving $1,000 a month from Butler County to care for Marcus, didn't intend to kill the boy.
Sept. 7
Hamilton County Coroner O'dell Owens says authorities recovered just 18 frail bones from the chimney where Marcus' body was burned.
Oct. 6
Prosecutors say the Carrolls routinely tied Marcus up with tape and a blanket and left him in a closet while they did their daily chores.
Oct. 31
A Hamilton County sheriff's deputy says during a court hearing that David Carroll was deceptive when given a lie-detector test on Aug. 16, the day after his wife reported Marcus missing.
Nov. 15
A Clermont County judge delays a court case on whether the Carrolls will keep custody of their four children until after their murder trials.
Nov. 27
State regulators slam Lifeway For Youth for its placement of Marcus with the Carrolls and call for stricter licensing requirements, better monitoring of foster children and increased state oversight of private agencies. The state later announces it will not renew Lifeway's license.
Dec. 19
Grand jury testimony from August is made public. In it, Liz Carroll told officials that girlfriend Amy Baker had come up with the plan that led to Marcus' death.
Jan. 17
The Ohio Department of Job and Family Ser vices notifies Lifeway For Youth that it intends to revoke its license to operate as a foster-care placement agency. That move would leave the care of more than 400 Ohio foster children in question.
Feb. 6
A Clermont County judge sets David Carroll Jr.'s murder trial for March 19, after he hires a private lawyer.
Feb. 12
Liz Carroll's murder trial is scheduled to begin in Clermont County.
WHAT THEY'RE SAYING
"I asked him why he did it and he said, 'She did it.' (Baker) was crying at first, saying she was so sorry, that she didn't mean it but he wouldn't stay in bed ... But then when I went to call 911 she turned angry and she was shaking me and pushing me up to the wall next to the shower."
Liz Carroll
"Everybody knows I was there. But I didn't hurt him. No way."
-Amy Baker
"(Amy) said, 'My dad lives a mile down the road where there is a chimney.' She said, 'We can burn the body and dump the ashes in the creek that runs next to the chimney.'"
-David Carroll Jr.
"Her entire being is about being maternal This is someone who would have died before she would have let that kid be alone in a closet."
-Adam Bleile, Liz Carroll attorney
"(People are saying) they are monsters. They are guilty. They are horrible. But there was a time that they were good parents. Something happened. We just don't know what it is. Something went horribly wrong."
-Joyce Carroll, David's stepmother
"Why would she say what she said in the grand jury if she didn't do it? That would be pretty stupid."
Star witness blames foster parents, but they insist she's the real killer
Kelley, Eileen. Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 11,2 007, pg. E1.
They placed him in a cardboard box, his cold body hidden by clothes.
And early in the morning on Aug. 6, David Carroll Jr. said, as the rest of the household ate breakfast, he and Amy Baker packed the body of 3-year-old Marcus Fiesel - dead now for two days - into the back of a white SUV and took it to an abandoned chimney in rural Brown County.
David Carroll said he then doused his foster son's body with gasoline.
Amy Baker, he said, lit the match.
But Baker did more, Carroll, 29, and his wife, Liz, 30, said in separate, face-to-face interviews with The Enquirer from jail.
"The whole thing was Amy," David Carroll said. "One thing I can say for sure now is that she's pure evil."
The Carrolls told their story of Marcus' death and Baker's alleged role in it just days before Liz Carroll's murder trial, which is scheduled to begin Monday.
Both Carrolls conceded they made mistakes in the Marcus case, but they said the wrong woman sits in jail.
The Carrolls said Baker bound the boy and put him in a playpen in a closet while Liz Carroll was at a physical therapy appointment and running errands.
The Carrolls said Marcus was dead before they left town Aug. 4 to attend a family reunion in Kentucky.
"She had no problem with anything," David Carroll said of Baker. "She was emotionless."
Prosecutors offered Baker immunity in exchange for her testimony against the Carrolls. They say the information she gave them broke the case that riveted the region's attention for weeks last summer.
"Everybody knows I was there. But I didn't hurt him. No way," Baker said.
Prosecutors say they've got plenty of physical evidence to support Baker's story and anything the Carrolls now say is hogwash.
None of the three involved is a saint. They've all made mistakes in their past. And they have admitted to covering up Marcus' death.
Two of the three, the Carrolls, have struggled with mental illness.
Liz Carroll has tried twice to kill herself. Many members of her family - including her mother and grandmother - have been institutionalized because of bipolar disorder and psychotic episodes.
David Carroll is bipolar and has a history of obsessive-compulsive disorder and is known to cut himself.
David Carroll now questions whether investigators rushed to judgment in believing what Baker told them.
"There is no truth in her vocabulary," he said.
Authorities accuse the Carrolls of murder, saying they left Marcus, wrapped in blankets and bound with tape, hands behind his back, in a closet when they left town to attend the reunion. They say Marcus was dead when the couple returned two days later on Aug. 6.
The Carrolls and others - interviewed in the six months since thousands of people in the region searched futilely for the little blue-eyed boy - portray Baker, 25, the Carrolls' live-in girlfriend, as a damaged young woman who would do anything to destroy those who stand in her way.
When David Carroll tried to end his affair with Baker and move back to his family in June, Baker had a tattoo about David Carroll inked across the top of her foot. She also threatened to kill herself, Liz Carroll said.
The Carrolls let her move into their rented home on Valley Wood Drive in Clermont County's Union Township.
Liz Carroll said Baker threatened to kill Carroll's family if she called 911, something Liz Carroll wanted to do when she first learned Marcus was dead Aug. 4.
David Carroll and others close to the case say Baker went to detectives Aug. 25 and told them Marcus wasn't missing, but was dead, and that she blamed the Carrolls.
That revelation to detectives came just after David Carroll told Baker he finally was ending their long-term love affair, Liz Carroll said.
"She gets mad and then does this to cover her butt," Liz Carroll said. "She's mad because she lost another married man. She is really good at manipulating and deceiving."
Three days later, Baker testified before a Hamilton County grand jury.
Liz and David Carroll were arrested Aug. 28.
The Carrolls haven't seen Baker since.
They've been in jail.
Baker now works at a Bob Evans restaurant, a job she goes to wearing a disguise and using her maiden name.
A little boy's dead
Liz Carroll had one of her typically busy days on Friday, Aug. 4. She said she went to physical therapy. She needed to write a note to the parents of a foster child she was sending home for a weekend visit.
Her own four children and Marcus, the Carrolls' other foster child, needed tending and then the kids she baby-sat would soon arrive.
On top of that, Liz Carroll said, she had a full day of errands to run - Meijer, Wal-Mart, the bread store and Walgreens - before the family headed to the reunion.
She said she left the house around 9:30 a.m.
Things unraveled after that, David Carroll said.
"Amy wanted sex," David Carroll said. "She wanted to fool around while my wife was gone, but the kids would interfere."
David Carroll said Baker ushered Marcus upstairs for a nap as the other kids were sent outside to play on the trampoline.
But Marcus wouldn't stay down, he said.
Baker tried again, taking the boy upstairs one more time.
David Carroll said that was his last glimpse of Marcus alive.
"None of this would be happening if I wasn't so greedy with my sexual needs," David Carroll said.
What happened next, and how the boy died, may never be known.
Eighteen fragile bone shards were found at the chimney: the smallest 1/8th of an inch and the largest no more than 2½ inches.
One fragment, a forensic anthropologist's report states, is consistent with a piece of skull from a 2- to 4-year-old child.
The bones are too frail to test for DNA, much less provide clues as to how the child died.
Investigators also collected several types of fabric, numerous buttons and snaps, as well as fasteners from a pair of bib overalls.
Death stuns Liz Carroll
Liz Carroll said she got home around 2 p.m.
David Carroll said he and Baker left shortly afterward and no one checked on Marcus.
Six or seven kids were in the house that day, David Carroll said.
David Carroll said he went upstairs to check on Marcus around 6 p.m. so he could get him ready for the family reunion.
When David Carroll saw Marcus wasn't in his room, he said he called downstairs, asking where the boy was. He said Baker raced up the stairs, flushed and stuttering.
"He's in the closet; your closet," David Carroll said Baker blurted.
"I opened the door and there was no doubt about anything."
Marcus was dead.
David Carroll said a stream of blood trickled from Marcus' nose.
Both Carrolls describe the moments after that discovery as chaotic. They say Liz Carroll soon became catatonic.
Liz Carroll said she recalled seeing streaks of blood on Marcus' toes, apparently from kicking his feet against the playpen netting in an attempt to free himself from his improvised cocoon.
Liz Carroll said she remembered screaming, crying and fighting the noises that filled her head.
"I asked him why he did it and he said, 'She did it,'" Liz Carroll said. "(Baker) was crying at first, saying she was so sorry, that she didn't mean it, but he wouldn't stay in bed ... But then when I went to call 911 she turned angry and she was shaking me and pushing me up to the wall next to the shower."
David Carroll said he also didn't want his wife to call police, fearing child protective services would take their four children away.
Liz Carroll said that wasn't her only fear that afternoon. She said Baker had told them her sister had a 9mm pistol and she wasn't afraid to use it to "take out all of us before I spent one day in jail."
David Carroll said he, too, was afraid.
"I was afraid for my own children's lives and my wife," he said. "(Baker) told me so many times her family is crazy."
The threats then turned violent.
Liz Carroll said Baker hit her husband and kicked clothes around the bedroom.
At that point, Liz Carroll said, she took double doses of Xanax, an anxiety medication she uses to control panic attacks.
"She was pretty much a zombie," David Carroll said.
When the Carrolls tried to back out of the family reunion, David Carroll said, Baker coaxed them out of it. "You have to go," he said she told them. "You go every year."
Both Carrolls said Baker controlled the situation at that point.
"I realize now all those things I could have done," David Carroll said.
Someone put a fan on Marcus' body - still in his playpen and still in the closet - to keep the house from smelling.
Baker helped Liz Carroll to the couple's leased white GMC Envoy.
David Carroll said his wife was upset, distraught, not thinking clearly. "She said she couldn't breathe," he said.
With Liz Carroll in the back seat, David Carroll, Baker and the children set off for the reunion in Williamstown, Ky., an hour's drive away.
Burning the body
They arrived late to the reunion.
Sometime in the middle of the night on Saturday, the Carrolls, Baker and the children headed home.
Baker had already planted the idea to burn Marcus in Brown County, David Carroll said.
"She said, 'My dad lives a mile down the road where there is a chimney,'" David Carroll said. "She said, 'We can burn the body and dump the ashes in the creek that runs next to the chimney.'"
With clothes covering Marcus' body in the box, David Carroll said, he and Baker made several stops on the way to Brown County on Sunday morning, Aug. 6.
David Carroll said he and Baker filled two gasoline cans at the AmeriStop on Main Street in Amelia. They then realized they didn't have matches.
David Carroll said they made two more stops in their search for supplies before heading down Brown County's winding roads to burn Marcus' body.
After the flames engulfed Marcus' body, he said, he and Baker drove to her father's house nearby and sat in the driveway because no one was home.
David Carroll said he and Baker returned to the chimney a few times to check on the fire's progress.
The flames weren't intense enough to do away with the 30-pound boy's remains completely.
David Carroll said he and Baker went home to Valley Wood Drive, only to return to the chimney later that night. He said they went back with two king-sized pillow cases that they bought at the Eastgate Meijer to carry away Marcus' remains.
David Carroll said he and Baker got back in the SUV and drove east on U.S. 52. He said they drove about 45 minutes to a bridge across the Ohio River.
That's when Baker spoke up.
"She said, 'I threw the match,' so I had to throw the body," David Carroll said.
And he did.
"I just dropped it over the rail," he said. He said he was crying as they headed back to Union Township for the last time that evening.
As he cried, David Carroll said, Baker reached over and unzipped his pants.
"She said she wanted to make me feel better."
He said he brushed her aside.
Coming up with a plan
Marcus was gone.
The Carrolls and Baker knew someone eventually would ask about him. They needed to explain his disappearance.
The three plotted as Liz Carroll continued taking more medicine than usual.
Marcus would somehow vanish. They'd file a missing-child report.
David Carroll would lose Marcus after feigning a panic attack. They talked about losing him at Kings Island or a Clermont County park.
Liz Carroll said the plan changed to have her stage the disappearance. "I was falling apart. (Baker) said I was the one to do it because I was the one sick with grief," she said.
The disappearance was supposed to happen at Kings Island, but Liz Carroll said she "chickened out," even when a brief power outage hit the amusement park, presenting an opportunity to stage the vanishing act while park video cameras were off.
Over days, and then weeks, Liz Carroll said, Baker closely watched her and her children to make sure she didn't grab the kids and run.
"She was afraid I would crack," said Liz Carroll.
The couple fended off the suspicions of a Lifeway For Youth foster-care caseworker who - just days after Marcus was incinerated - showed up at the Carrolls' house to check on the boy.
Liz Carroll told the woman he wasn't feeling well and she left.
That caseworker didn't press to see him, but others might.
Debbie Hounshell, David Carroll's mother, said the couple seemed to drop out of sight Aug. 4, ending their usual three-times-a-week visits.
The Carrolls and Baker realized on Aug. 15 they had to do something, Liz Carroll said.
Marcus had a 2 p.m. appointment with a child welfare agency, and they couldn't wait any more to stage the disappearance.
"(Baker) said I had no choice," Liz Carroll said. She said Baker picked a Hamilton County park thinking that because there is more crime there, the loss of one little boy would not capture attention for very long.
They couldn't have been more wrong.
Where's the baby?
"Where's my baby" Liz Carroll cried after pretending to pass out at Juilfs Park.
The search for Marcus officially began as paramedics wheeled her to an ambulance.
Over the next five days, thousands of people flocked to the Anderson Township park and its nearby suburban neighborhoods, traipsing through bushes, flower beds and hunting under cars and in culverts.
People brought sandwiches and cool drinks to share with the hordes of paid and volunteer searchers. Some brought musical instruments, hoping child-like sounds would lure the frightened, developmentally disabled boy from hiding.
As the hours turned to days and the days turned to weeks, David Carroll's family grew suspicious.
"I think we knew from day one that something was wrong," said Joyce Carroll, David Carroll's stepmother. She said David's father asked her if his son had that look about him.
She said, "Yes" after glimpsing the younger Carroll when a television cameraman recorded the search for Marcus. Her stepson's arms were crossed and his head was cocked.
"It's the how-dare-you-even-try-to-touch-me look," Joyce Carroll said.
After seeing that image, Joyce Carroll called David Carroll's stepsister, Cherice Adkins, and told her to come home from the search. "There's no reason for you to be there," she told her daughter.
The search spread beyond the park and the neighborhoods around it.
Investigators moved east to the Carrolls' home in Clermont County, taking computers and other items.
The couple gave two televised interviews, then seemingly vanished. They moved from their rented middle-class home on a green and leafy suburban street and into a trailer. Then, they stayed at a relative's house.
The Carrolls first talked in an interview conducted from the home of WKRC-TV's Deborah Dixon, where Liz Carroll quickly disintegrated although Dixon denied the interview was conducted in her home. Liz Carroll went from being methodical in her description of the afternoon Marcus disappeared to a crumbling mess, holding her head as she sobbed.
"He wasn't just a foster kid, he was my kid," she wailed for the television station's viewers.
David Carroll sat silent on the couch next to his wife, stroking her hand, her shoulder and the back of her head during the seven-minute interview.
Baker, David Carroll said, stood in the corner of the reporter's house.
"She didn't want to be on the TV," David Carroll said.
The following day, on Aug. 22, Liz Carroll stood before a huge bouquet of TV cameras, reporters and cops, and she tripped over her words. She rambled for 45 minutes. The longer she talked, the more investigators and reporters covering the case noted inconsistencies with her earlier statements.
The situation was just what investigators wanted. When a Hamilton County Sheriff's Office official walked over to cut Liz Carroll off and end the press conference, some deputies were irked.
Behind the scenes, detectives questioned the Carrolls and Baker.
The Carrolls said all three of them failed lie-detector tests.
How extensively investigators grilled Baker is unclear.
Liz Carroll said it doesn't seem they questioned her too rigorously. She said Baker told her the detectives appeared more interested in hearing details about the Carrolls' sexual relationship with her than anything else.
"So she just kept talking with them about sex rather than Marcus to distract them," Liz Carroll said.
Liz Carroll said Baker was particularly proud of that. She said Baker pranced around the bedroom - singing what many acquaintances describe as her trademark song, "Scandalous" - and gloating about how she had deceived the police.
Baker's cockiness soon morphed into vengeance, the Carrolls said.
On Aug. 25, the Carrolls said, they assured Baker they wouldn't crack under pressure as they told her their menage à trois was over and showed her the door.
Baker left and contacted investigators.
On the morning of Aug. 28, Baker called the Carrolls and told them detectives were waiting at a nearby biggs and that Liz Carroll needed to come soon.
David Carroll drove her to the Eastgate parking lot.
As Baker and Liz Carroll got into separate cruisers, Liz Carroll said, Baker told her: "Don't crack."
About four hours later, two agents showed up at David Carroll's mother's house off Mount Carmel-Tabasco Road.
"Is David around?" Durl Adkins recalled them saying.
"He's in the house," replied Adkins, who is the boyfriend of David Carroll's mother.
Within minutes of David Carroll being hand-cuffed and led away, child protective service workers pulled up to the house and took Liz and David Carroll's four children.
Wrong woman in jail?
Liz and David Carroll said they have not seen or heard from Baker since Aug. 28.
Asked if they could say one thing to her, their answers are the same despite the question being asked at different times on different days in the Clermont County jail.
"Tell the truth," they both said.
In jail, Liz Carroll sobbed as she held up a Christmas photograph taken of her four children, who remain in foster care.
"These are my babies," she said, holding the photo up to the glass that separates her from visitors.
Missing from her collection of photographs are snapshots of Marcus.
Prosecutors are keeping them until the trial is over.
But Liz Carroll wants them now.
"I want to see him smile," she said. "He smiled all the time, and the only image I can keep in my head is him (dead) in the playpen."
Liz Carroll said she is nervous about what lies ahead as her murder trial nears.
"I've never been on this side of the justice system," she said. "It's crazy They have to know any physical evidence that they have goes back to (Baker)."
In an interview with The Enquirer, Baker refused to talk about what happened the weekend of Aug. 4-6 and other pertinent dates.
She systematically referred to Marcus' death as "the bad thing."
Baker said she has a much different story than the Carrolls', but she'll wait to tell it on the witness stand at Liz Carroll's trial if she's called to testify.
Prosecutors, Baker said, told her not to talk about what she told detectives or the grand jury, or what she'll say in court.
"If Liz and Dave's lawyers get hold of what I am going to say, don't you think they'd use it to twist things around?" she said. "Everything that I say matches, and I am not lying."
It's anyone's guess, however, as to who actually takes the stand.
Both prosecutors and defense attorneys appear ready for a good fight in court. None is willing to say just who will be called to testify.
Besides physical evidence that places Baker where she said she was on Aug. 6, prosecutors also will rely on Liz Carroll's grand jury testimony. She admitted Marcus was put in a closet, but said it was Baker's idea.
Interpretations of that testimony vary.
Prosecutors say Liz Carroll incriminated herself.
"Why would she say what she said in the grand jury if she didn't do it?" said Joe Deters, the prosecutor in Hamilton County where the Carrolls were first indicted. "That would be pretty stupid.
"Amy Baker is no saint," said Deters, adding that without her, authorities would still be searching for "that little boy."
"They've got a problem, let me just say that," Deters said of the evidence against the Carrolls. "The evidence is going to be a real problem for them." He said Baker was questioned extensively.
"We have no evidence she hurt this child herself," Deters said.
Clermont County Prosecutor Don White refused comment on the Carrolls' stories, citing the gag order the trial judge placed on lawyers.
The defense sees Liz Carroll's grand jury testimony differently, saying she was spoon fed tidbits of information so prosecutors could elicit the answers they wanted during the grand jury. Liz Carroll's defense lawyers tried earlier to keep her grand jury testimony out of her trial, but failed.
From jail, Liz Carroll explained it this way: "I was really, really stressed out, and I didn't answer a lot of stuff the way that it was."
She said she had no idea how to answer the questions because "I never thought about what happened. (Baker and David Carroll) told me to concentrate on the park (story)."
Prosecutors will try to blunt the Carrolls' version of the story and are expected to say that the two concocted yet another story - this time in phone calls from jail and in letters.
David Carroll's mother said two phones at her Union Township home are held up to each other so that Liz and David Carroll can say how much they miss each other and talk about their children. She said they do not talk about the case because they suspect the jail is recording their calls.
Until the jailhouse interviews with The Enquirer, family members said, they have been in the dark about their children's side of the story because Liz and David Carroll feared authorities were listening in on their phone calls, reading their mail and eavesdropping on their visits with family.
In addition to murder, Liz Carroll also is charged with involuntary manslaughter, kidnapping, felonious assault, and endangering a child in Clermont County. She is charged in Hamilton County with inducing panic, making false alarms and perjury.
David Carroll's trial is scheduled to begin March 19. He was arrested on the same charges as his wife except for the perjury charge. He is also charged with gross abuse of a corpse.
"I believe I am guilty of some of the things they have charged me with, but not the major thing," he said.
David Carroll refused to accept a plea agreement that would have dropped some of the lesser charges, but still carried a prison sentence of 15 years to life.
"I could even accept the fact if all three of us were here," he said, referring to Baker.
"But I cannot understand the immunity part. It's a lie and it shows what this justice system has come to."
David Carroll's court-appointed attorneys have tried to get off the case. David Carroll fired them Feb. 2 and hired his own attorney. Liz Carroll has not accepted a plea deal.
"I can say 100 percent Liz was gone when Marcus died," David Carroll said.
"I cannot believe she is here. I can understand why I am here. ... What's done cannot be taken back."
The Marcus case
The Marcus Fiesel case began the weekend of Aug. 4-6, when Marcus' foster parents, Liz and David Carroll Jr., their children and girlfriend Amy Baker went to a family reunion in Williamstown, Ky. Authorities later accused the Carrolls of murder, saying they had left Marcus wrapped in blankets and bound with tape, hands behind his back, in a closet while they were gone. When they returned Aug. 6, authorities say, Marcus was dead.
Aug. 3
Marcus Fiesel's social worker visits Liz and David Carroll Jr. and sees the Middletown boy for the last time.
Aug. 4
Liz and David Carroll Jr. leave their Union Township, Clermont County, home to attend a family reunion in Williamstown, Ky. Prosecutor Joe Deters later says they left Marcus "restrained" in a closet in their home while they were gone.
Aug. 6
The Carrolls return home. Deters later says they found Marcus dead upon their return and that David Carroll Jr. took the child's body to Brown County and burned it.
Aug. 10
Marcus' social worker arrives at the Carroll home, but is told he is sick. The social worker leaves.
Aug. 15
A Hamilton County dispatcher receives a 911 call reporting a woman unconscious in Juilfs Park in Anderson Township, with three small children nearby. Liz Carroll tells EMTs her foster child, Marcus, is missing. A missing-child alert goes out in Anderson Township, and hundreds of volunteers show up for the search, which continues around the clock.
Aug. 16
Hundreds more volunteers join the search. Police search the Carrolls' home and remove some items. Liz Carroll talks to reporters from her hospital bed. She suggests park workers lost Marcus during her collapse. The volunteer search is called off at 8 p.m.
Aug. 17
Police bring in dive teams, police dogs and mounted officers. They urge anyone who saw Marcus in the park to come forward.
Aug. 19
The Carrolls move out of their Union Township home.
Aug. 21
Liz Carroll says her Clermont County day-care certificate was taken away.
Aug. 22
Police say Liz Carroll reported that a Lifeway For Youth caseworker saw Marcus on Aug. 10. She describes adults she saw in the park in the hope that someone saw Marcus. She saysher husband failed a lie-detector test. She calls Marcus "my son. I know 100 percent he was at the park with me -- and my husband, myself, nobody harmed him."
Aug. 23
Police release more photos of Marcus. Clermont, Hamilton, Butler and Warren counties halt placements through Lifeway and remove some clients from Lifeway-trained foster parents.
Aug. 24
Butler County officials reveal that the caseworker who was supposed to see Marcus on Aug. 10 was told the boy was sick and the caseworker was turned away.
Aug. 25
Hamilton County Sheriff Simon Leis says he doubts Marcus is alive.
Aug. 28
Liz Carroll and Amy Baker, a live-in girlfriend, go before a Hamilton County grand jury. Liz and David Carroll Jr. are each indicted on one count of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of child endangering. David Carroll Jr. also faces one charge of abuse of a corpse. They are arrested and jailed. Investigators search in Brown County for the boy's remains.
Sept. 1
The state orders all counties to check on the safety of foster children who were placed through Lifeway For Youth.
Sept. 5
Donna Trevino, Marcus' birth mother, sues the Carrolls, Baker, Lifeway For Youth, Butler County commissioners and Butler County Children Ser vices for $5 million.
Sept. 6
Prosecutors in Clermont County file murder charges against the Carrolls, but say they won't seek the death penalty because the couple, who were receiving $1,000 a month from Butler County to care for Marcus, didn't intend to kill the boy.
Sept. 7
Hamilton County Coroner O'dell Owens says authorities recovered just 18 frail bones from the chimney where Marcus' body was burned.
Oct. 6
Prosecutors say the Carrolls routinely tied Marcus up with tape and a blanket and left him in a closet while they did their daily chores.
Oct. 31
A Hamilton County sheriff's deputy says during a court hearing that David Carroll was deceptive when given a lie-detector test on Aug. 16, the day after his wife reported Marcus missing.
Nov. 15
A Clermont County judge delays a court case on whether the Carrolls will keep custody of their four children until after their murder trials.
Nov. 27
State regulators slam Lifeway For Youth for its placement of Marcus with the Carrolls and call for stricter licensing requirements, better monitoring of foster children and increased state oversight of private agencies. The state later announces it will not renew Lifeway's license.
Dec. 19
Grand jury testimony from August is made public. In it, Liz Carroll told officials that girlfriend Amy Baker had come up with the plan that led to Marcus' death.
Jan. 17
The Ohio Department of Job and Family Ser vices notifies Lifeway For Youth that it intends to revoke its license to operate as a foster-care placement agency. That move would leave the care of more than 400 Ohio foster children in question.
Feb. 6
A Clermont County judge sets David Carroll Jr.'s murder trial for March 19, after he hires a private lawyer.
Feb. 12
Liz Carroll's murder trial is scheduled to begin in Clermont County.
WHAT THEY'RE SAYING
"I asked him why he did it and he said, 'She did it.' (Baker) was crying at first, saying she was so sorry, that she didn't mean it but he wouldn't stay in bed ... But then when I went to call 911 she turned angry and she was shaking me and pushing me up to the wall next to the shower."
Liz Carroll
"Everybody knows I was there. But I didn't hurt him. No way."
-Amy Baker
"(Amy) said, 'My dad lives a mile down the road where there is a chimney.' She said, 'We can burn the body and dump the ashes in the creek that runs next to the chimney.'"
-David Carroll Jr.
"Her entire being is about being maternal This is someone who would have died before she would have let that kid be alone in a closet."
-Adam Bleile, Liz Carroll attorney
"(People are saying) they are monsters. They are guilty. They are horrible. But there was a time that they were good parents. Something happened. We just don't know what it is. Something went horribly wrong."
-Joyce Carroll, David's stepmother
"Why would she say what she said in the grand jury if she didn't do it? That would be pretty stupid."
One child inspired Helen Jones- Kelley to devote her life to helping children
One child left lasting mark on new chief
Candisky, Catherine. Columbus Dispatch, Feb. 11, 2007, pg. C1.
After the death of a 6-year-old boy she had tried to help, Helen Jones-Kelley decided to devote her career to improving the lives of children.
Michael was disruptive in the classroom and Jones-Kelly, then a social worker for the city of Cincinnati, learned his mother was putting large amounts of sugar on his cereal in the morning to get him to eat breakfast. Michael's mother didn't realize that the sugar was sending him out of control at school.
"He struggled. It wasn't his fault," Jones-Kelley said.
But fixing his diet wasn't enough. A few months later, when he and his younger brother were home alone, Michael tumbled from his apartment window and died.
"He never had a chance," Jones-Kelley said.
Nearly 30 years later, "I see Michael's face whenever I'm advocating for children," she said. It's her full-time job: She's the new director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
She was appointed by Gov. Ted Strickland to oversee the state's largest agency and its annual budget of more than $17 billion, staff of 4,400 and equally massive mission to protect and help children, families, the elderly and the unemployed.
The department oversees Medicaid and preschool, unemployment compensation and child support, food stamps and adoption services.
Jones-Kelley, 55, was chief of Montgomery County's human services agency when Strickland's transition team asked her to come to Columbus to meet the governor.
"After our first meeting, it was clear that Helen embodied the kind of leadership that I think this difficult, demanding agency needs," Strickland said. "I knew that Helen's experience and common-sense commitment to the people of Ohio would serve her well."
Raised in Cincinnati, Jones-Kelley graduated from Miami University in Oxford with an education degree and planned to teach English. After Michael's death, she decided her calling was to serve as a voice for those who had none.
Jones-Kelley was a newly divorced mother of two daughters -- including one she fostered when she put herself through law school at the University of Dayton.
"I used to study with my daughter," she recalled during an interview from her Downtown office on the 32nd floor of the Rhodes Tower.
After obtaining her attorney's license, Jones-Kelley became a court-appointed advocate in Montgomery County Juvenile Court and, then, a court referee.
In 1995, she became executive director of Montgomery County Children Services. When the agency merged with the county Department of Job and Family Services in May, she was named director.
As director of the state agency, Jones-Kelley said one of her top priorities is to increase input from county departments and better coordinate efforts.
She also hopes to expand access and improve the quality of educational opportunities for preschoolers and help implement Strickland's plan to expand health-insurance coverage to low-wage workers by using Medicaid funds to provide premium assistance.
Jones-Kelley, who is married to Tom Kelley and has four daughters and a stepson, will commute to Columbus from her family's Clayton home. She will be paid $141,980 a year.
Candisky, Catherine. Columbus Dispatch, Feb. 11, 2007, pg. C1.
After the death of a 6-year-old boy she had tried to help, Helen Jones-Kelley decided to devote her career to improving the lives of children.
Michael was disruptive in the classroom and Jones-Kelly, then a social worker for the city of Cincinnati, learned his mother was putting large amounts of sugar on his cereal in the morning to get him to eat breakfast. Michael's mother didn't realize that the sugar was sending him out of control at school.
"He struggled. It wasn't his fault," Jones-Kelley said.
But fixing his diet wasn't enough. A few months later, when he and his younger brother were home alone, Michael tumbled from his apartment window and died.
"He never had a chance," Jones-Kelley said.
Nearly 30 years later, "I see Michael's face whenever I'm advocating for children," she said. It's her full-time job: She's the new director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
She was appointed by Gov. Ted Strickland to oversee the state's largest agency and its annual budget of more than $17 billion, staff of 4,400 and equally massive mission to protect and help children, families, the elderly and the unemployed.
The department oversees Medicaid and preschool, unemployment compensation and child support, food stamps and adoption services.
Jones-Kelley, 55, was chief of Montgomery County's human services agency when Strickland's transition team asked her to come to Columbus to meet the governor.
"After our first meeting, it was clear that Helen embodied the kind of leadership that I think this difficult, demanding agency needs," Strickland said. "I knew that Helen's experience and common-sense commitment to the people of Ohio would serve her well."
Raised in Cincinnati, Jones-Kelley graduated from Miami University in Oxford with an education degree and planned to teach English. After Michael's death, she decided her calling was to serve as a voice for those who had none.
Jones-Kelley was a newly divorced mother of two daughters -- including one she fostered when she put herself through law school at the University of Dayton.
"I used to study with my daughter," she recalled during an interview from her Downtown office on the 32nd floor of the Rhodes Tower.
After obtaining her attorney's license, Jones-Kelley became a court-appointed advocate in Montgomery County Juvenile Court and, then, a court referee.
In 1995, she became executive director of Montgomery County Children Services. When the agency merged with the county Department of Job and Family Services in May, she was named director.
As director of the state agency, Jones-Kelley said one of her top priorities is to increase input from county departments and better coordinate efforts.
She also hopes to expand access and improve the quality of educational opportunities for preschoolers and help implement Strickland's plan to expand health-insurance coverage to low-wage workers by using Medicaid funds to provide premium assistance.
Jones-Kelley, who is married to Tom Kelley and has four daughters and a stepson, will commute to Columbus from her family's Clayton home. She will be paid $141,980 a year.
Carrolls held on $10 million bond
Jury set for foster mom's murder trial
Columbus Dispatch, Feb. 15, 2007, pg. D4.
A jury was chosen yesterday for the murder trial of a foster mother accused of causing the death of a 3-year-old boy by leaving him bound in a closet.
Nine women and three men were seated, and opening statements are expected today in the trial of Liz Carroll.
She and her husband, David Carroll Jr., are accused of wrapping Marcus Fiesel in a blanket, binding him with packing tape and leaving him in a closet while they went out of town for a weekend family reunion. Prosecutors say the boy was dead when they returned.
Judge Robert Ringland rejected a defense effort to move Liz Carroll's trial from Clermont County because of pretrial publicity in the southwestern Ohio community.
Potential jurors were questioned about their knowledge and opinions about the case and about giving a witness immunity in exchange for testimony. The prosecution's key witness is Amy Baker, a live-in companion of the Carrolls.
David Carroll Jr., 30, also is charged with murder, but he will be tried separately on March 19. Both have pleaded not guilty and are being held on $10.1 million bond each.
They also are charged with involuntary manslaughter, kidnapping, child endangerment and other counts in a case that triggered calls for reform of Ohio's foster-care system.
Liz Carroll acknowledged in grand jury testimony days after the child was reported missing that he had been left in the closet, but she said she had no intention of hurting him.
Columbus Dispatch, Feb. 15, 2007, pg. D4.
A jury was chosen yesterday for the murder trial of a foster mother accused of causing the death of a 3-year-old boy by leaving him bound in a closet.
Nine women and three men were seated, and opening statements are expected today in the trial of Liz Carroll.
She and her husband, David Carroll Jr., are accused of wrapping Marcus Fiesel in a blanket, binding him with packing tape and leaving him in a closet while they went out of town for a weekend family reunion. Prosecutors say the boy was dead when they returned.
Judge Robert Ringland rejected a defense effort to move Liz Carroll's trial from Clermont County because of pretrial publicity in the southwestern Ohio community.
Potential jurors were questioned about their knowledge and opinions about the case and about giving a witness immunity in exchange for testimony. The prosecution's key witness is Amy Baker, a live-in companion of the Carrolls.
David Carroll Jr., 30, also is charged with murder, but he will be tried separately on March 19. Both have pleaded not guilty and are being held on $10.1 million bond each.
They also are charged with involuntary manslaughter, kidnapping, child endangerment and other counts in a case that triggered calls for reform of Ohio's foster-care system.
Liz Carroll acknowledged in grand jury testimony days after the child was reported missing that he had been left in the closet, but she said she had no intention of hurting him.
Selecting the jury for Liz Carroll's trial
Jury selection gets under way in murder trial of foster mom
Kinney, Terry. Columbus Dispatch, Feb. 13, 2007, pg. D5.
BATAVIA, Ohio -- A woman charged with murder in the death of her developmentally disabled foster son sat quietly at the defense table yesterday as potential jurors were asked what they knew and thought about the accusations against her.
Prosecutors say Liz Carroll and her husband wrapped 3-year-old Marcus Fiesel in a blanket, bound him with packing tape, and left him in a closet this past August while they went out of town for the weekend, returning to find the boy dead.
The jury candidates were questioned closely about their knowledge of the case, heavily covered by news media in southwestern Ohio, and about whether they had formed opinions. Candidates repeatedly said they had read or watched accounts of the case. But most said they could put those aside.
"Can you keep an open mind and make up your mind on what you hear here?" Judge Robert Ringland repeatedly asked.
Jury selection is expected to resume this afternoon. The initial stage is focusing on pretrial publicity.
Carroll, 30, was brought into the Clermont County courtroom before prospective jurors entered.
Her husband, David Carroll Jr., also is charged with murder and is to be tried separately next month. Both are being held under $10.1 million bond.
Liz Carroll's attorney, Gregory Cohen, has asked that the trial be moved from southwestern Ohio.
Ringland has not ruled on that motion but could at any time if a jury cannot be seated.
Ten of the first 30 prospective jurors who were questioned were excused. Three were excused because they told Ringland they had strong opinions about the couple's guilt.
One woman said she could not be objective because her daughter has three foster children who were placed through the same agency that placed Marcus with the Carrolls.
The others were dismissed because of child-care concerns, other family situations, or financial hardship from missing work. Several who remained said they seldom read newspapers or watched newscasts.
Ringland told prospective jurors to stop reading newspapers, listening to news reports or researching the case on the Internet until the trial ends. He said the trial probably would take two weeks.
Liz Carroll and David Carroll, 29, have pleaded not guilty to murder and other charges including kidnapping and child endangerment. David Carroll, who is accused of burning the boy's body and dumping the remains in the Ohio River, also is charged with gross abuse of a corpse.
Liz Carroll acknowledged in grand jury testimony days after the child was reported missing that he had been left in the closet and died, but she said that she had no intention of hurting him.
The Carrolls also face trial on lesser charges, including perjury and inducing panic, in Hamilton County, where they told authorities Aug. 16 that Marcus wandered off or had been taken from a park during an outing.
Prosecutors have said the Carrolls' live-in companion, Amy Baker, provided information leading to the couple's indictments and is expected to testify at the trial.
Kinney, Terry. Columbus Dispatch, Feb. 13, 2007, pg. D5.
BATAVIA, Ohio -- A woman charged with murder in the death of her developmentally disabled foster son sat quietly at the defense table yesterday as potential jurors were asked what they knew and thought about the accusations against her.
Prosecutors say Liz Carroll and her husband wrapped 3-year-old Marcus Fiesel in a blanket, bound him with packing tape, and left him in a closet this past August while they went out of town for the weekend, returning to find the boy dead.
The jury candidates were questioned closely about their knowledge of the case, heavily covered by news media in southwestern Ohio, and about whether they had formed opinions. Candidates repeatedly said they had read or watched accounts of the case. But most said they could put those aside.
"Can you keep an open mind and make up your mind on what you hear here?" Judge Robert Ringland repeatedly asked.
Jury selection is expected to resume this afternoon. The initial stage is focusing on pretrial publicity.
Carroll, 30, was brought into the Clermont County courtroom before prospective jurors entered.
Her husband, David Carroll Jr., also is charged with murder and is to be tried separately next month. Both are being held under $10.1 million bond.
Liz Carroll's attorney, Gregory Cohen, has asked that the trial be moved from southwestern Ohio.
Ringland has not ruled on that motion but could at any time if a jury cannot be seated.
Ten of the first 30 prospective jurors who were questioned were excused. Three were excused because they told Ringland they had strong opinions about the couple's guilt.
One woman said she could not be objective because her daughter has three foster children who were placed through the same agency that placed Marcus with the Carrolls.
The others were dismissed because of child-care concerns, other family situations, or financial hardship from missing work. Several who remained said they seldom read newspapers or watched newscasts.
Ringland told prospective jurors to stop reading newspapers, listening to news reports or researching the case on the Internet until the trial ends. He said the trial probably would take two weeks.
Liz Carroll and David Carroll, 29, have pleaded not guilty to murder and other charges including kidnapping and child endangerment. David Carroll, who is accused of burning the boy's body and dumping the remains in the Ohio River, also is charged with gross abuse of a corpse.
Liz Carroll acknowledged in grand jury testimony days after the child was reported missing that he had been left in the closet and died, but she said that she had no intention of hurting him.
The Carrolls also face trial on lesser charges, including perjury and inducing panic, in Hamilton County, where they told authorities Aug. 16 that Marcus wandered off or had been taken from a park during an outing.
Prosecutors have said the Carrolls' live-in companion, Amy Baker, provided information leading to the couple's indictments and is expected to testify at the trial.
Liz Carroll's trial starts today
Foster mom's trial starts today in death of disabled toddler
Kinsey, Terry. Columbus Dispatch, Feb. 12, 2007, pg. D5.
The trial of a woman charged in the death of her 3-year-old developmentally disabled foster son, who authorities say was wrapped in a blanket and packing tape and left in a closet, is set to begin today.
Liz Carroll, 30, and her husband went to a family reunion in Kentucky in August. Marcus Fiesel was dead when the Carrolls returned two days later, authorities say. Both are charged with murder, kidnapping, felonious assault and child endangering.
Her husband, David Carroll Jr., 29, who will be tried separately starting March 19, also is charged with gross abuse of a corpse. Prosecutors allege that he took the child's body to a rural area of southwestern Ohio, burned it and dumped most of the remains into the Ohio River.
Authorities found some small, charred bone fragments near a crude, outdoor fireplace, but DNA tests weren't conclusive.
The Carrolls both have pleaded not guilty, and Clermont County Common Pleas Judge Robert Ringland has issued a gag order for prosecutors and defense attorneys.
The case has triggered calls for reforming Ohio's foster-care system.
The state has moved to revoke the license of the private agency that helped place Marcus with the Carrolls.
Last week, Lifeway for Youth said it would no longer fight the decision and will stop doing business in Ohio.
Prosecutors have said the Carrolls' live-in companion, Amy Baker, provided information leading to the couple's indictments. She is among 14 potential prosecution witnesses.
Ringland also has ruled that prosecutors may use grand jury testimony, in which Liz Carroll acknowledged finding Marcus' body in the closet, against her in the trial.
After jury selection begins, the judge can rule at any time on a defense motion to move the trial from southwestern Ohio, where the boy's disappearance and the foster parents' indictments were widely reported.
But moving a trial happens only rarely.
"It's the exception rather than the rule," said Adam Steinman, a professor at the University of Cincinnati's College of Law. "The overriding context is whether the defendant can get a fair trial."
The Carrolls also face trial on lesser charges, including perjury and inducing panic, in Hamilton County, where they told authorities on Aug. 16 that the boy wandered off or had been taken from a park during an outing with Liz Carroll.
Hundreds of volunteers searched for the boy for days.
Ringland has set aside five days for the trial.
Kinsey, Terry. Columbus Dispatch, Feb. 12, 2007, pg. D5.
The trial of a woman charged in the death of her 3-year-old developmentally disabled foster son, who authorities say was wrapped in a blanket and packing tape and left in a closet, is set to begin today.
Liz Carroll, 30, and her husband went to a family reunion in Kentucky in August. Marcus Fiesel was dead when the Carrolls returned two days later, authorities say. Both are charged with murder, kidnapping, felonious assault and child endangering.
Her husband, David Carroll Jr., 29, who will be tried separately starting March 19, also is charged with gross abuse of a corpse. Prosecutors allege that he took the child's body to a rural area of southwestern Ohio, burned it and dumped most of the remains into the Ohio River.
Authorities found some small, charred bone fragments near a crude, outdoor fireplace, but DNA tests weren't conclusive.
The Carrolls both have pleaded not guilty, and Clermont County Common Pleas Judge Robert Ringland has issued a gag order for prosecutors and defense attorneys.
The case has triggered calls for reforming Ohio's foster-care system.
The state has moved to revoke the license of the private agency that helped place Marcus with the Carrolls.
Last week, Lifeway for Youth said it would no longer fight the decision and will stop doing business in Ohio.
Prosecutors have said the Carrolls' live-in companion, Amy Baker, provided information leading to the couple's indictments. She is among 14 potential prosecution witnesses.
Ringland also has ruled that prosecutors may use grand jury testimony, in which Liz Carroll acknowledged finding Marcus' body in the closet, against her in the trial.
After jury selection begins, the judge can rule at any time on a defense motion to move the trial from southwestern Ohio, where the boy's disappearance and the foster parents' indictments were widely reported.
But moving a trial happens only rarely.
"It's the exception rather than the rule," said Adam Steinman, a professor at the University of Cincinnati's College of Law. "The overriding context is whether the defendant can get a fair trial."
The Carrolls also face trial on lesser charges, including perjury and inducing panic, in Hamilton County, where they told authorities on Aug. 16 that the boy wandered off or had been taken from a park during an outing with Liz Carroll.
Hundreds of volunteers searched for the boy for days.
Ringland has set aside five days for the trial.
Goodbye, Lifeway
License in jeopardy
Foster-care agency says it will pull out of Ohio
Columbus Dispatch, Feb. 11, 2007, pg. C6.
A private foster-care agency, which is losing its license after the death of a 3-year-old developmentally disabled boy it helped place, will stop doing business in Ohio, founder and director Michael Berner said Friday.
Lifeway for Youth previously had said it would challenge the state's decision to revoke the license, made in the aftermath of the death of Marcus Fiesel, who was placed with a Clermont County couple certified to be foster parents through the agency.
Liz and David Carroll Jr. face separate trials on charges accusing them of leaving Marcus alone in a closet for two days, wrapped in a blanket and packing tape. Authorities say the boy was dead when the couple returned to their home in southwestern Ohio after a family reunion in Kentucky.
Lifeway had been licensed in Ohio since 1994 and also operates in other states, including Kentucky, Indiana and Virginia. Once the state of Ohio sends a formal revocation notice, a license is canceled in 30 days if an agency does not appeal. Lifeway is based in New Carlisle, which is near Dayton.
Under state law, the more than 300 families who worked through Lifeway will be able to work directly with county foster offices or through other private agencies.
The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said it notified Lifeway for Youth in January that it would not renew its license, which was scheduled to expire. The state said a review of 40 Lifeway foster homes and investigations after the boy's death found 147 violations of state rules, 27 in the Carroll case.
Foster-care agency says it will pull out of Ohio
Columbus Dispatch, Feb. 11, 2007, pg. C6.
A private foster-care agency, which is losing its license after the death of a 3-year-old developmentally disabled boy it helped place, will stop doing business in Ohio, founder and director Michael Berner said Friday.
Lifeway for Youth previously had said it would challenge the state's decision to revoke the license, made in the aftermath of the death of Marcus Fiesel, who was placed with a Clermont County couple certified to be foster parents through the agency.
Liz and David Carroll Jr. face separate trials on charges accusing them of leaving Marcus alone in a closet for two days, wrapped in a blanket and packing tape. Authorities say the boy was dead when the couple returned to their home in southwestern Ohio after a family reunion in Kentucky.
Lifeway had been licensed in Ohio since 1994 and also operates in other states, including Kentucky, Indiana and Virginia. Once the state of Ohio sends a formal revocation notice, a license is canceled in 30 days if an agency does not appeal. Lifeway is based in New Carlisle, which is near Dayton.
Under state law, the more than 300 families who worked through Lifeway will be able to work directly with county foster offices or through other private agencies.
The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said it notified Lifeway for Youth in January that it would not renew its license, which was scheduled to expire. The state said a review of 40 Lifeway foster homes and investigations after the boy's death found 147 violations of state rules, 27 in the Carroll case.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Foster care incident, yes. Trampoline? No.
Lawyer suing Carrolls over son's accident
Brunsman, Barrett. Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 10, 2007, pg. B2.
BATAVIA - An assistant Clermont County public defender has sued Liz and David Carroll Jr. over a trampoline accident suffered by her son in the yard of the Union Township home where Marcus Fiesel is said to have later died.
The Carrolls were negligent in allowing unsupervised access to the trampoline, according to a lawsuit filed in the Clermont County Court of Common Pleas on behalf of public defender Lauri Viney; her husband, Jeffrey; and their son Brent.
The 7-year-old boy broke his leg on May 9 while using the trampoline at the Carrolls' home in the 1000 block of Valley Wood Drive, the suit said.
Marcus, the 3-year-old foster son of the Carrolls, died after being left bound in a closet while the Carrolls attended a family reunion in Grant County, Ky., the weekend of Aug. 4, prosecutors in the murder cases against the Carrolls have said.
Brent required medical treatment that cost about $10,000, and he suffered pain and permanent injury, the suit claims.
Both of his parents missed work to care for Brent, costing them another $5,000, the suit said.
The Vineys requested a jury trial and are seeking $5,000 for themselves and more than $25,000 for Brent, as well as attorney fees.
Common Pleas Judge William Walker was assigned the case. A pretrial hearing would be scheduled 60 days after its filing.
It's unlikely Walker or any other Clermont County judge would hear the case because of Lauri Viney's role with the Public Defender's Office. If the parties don't agree to mediation, a visiting judge might have to hear the case.
The Carrolls never trained Brent how to use the trampoline and didn't have proper guards on the device to prevent the boy from falling between the jumping surface and its frame, according to the suit filed Tuesday.
The trampoline was next to a rail fence that could be scaled by small children to gain access to the jumping surface, the suit said.
"Trampolines are inherently dangerous and constitute an attractive nuisance," the suit claims.
"The conduct of the defendants is intentional, negligent and/or negligent per se (in that it violates standards set by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission)," said the suit filed by Batavia attorney Gary A. Rosenhoffer.
Also named as a defendant in the suit is the owner of the property, Xu Zhenlong, who rented the home to the Carrolls. She is required by law to keep all common areas of the rental property in safe condition, the suit claims.
The property owner failed to inspect the yard and control its use with regard to the trampoline, the suit claims.
Zhenlong couldn't be reached for comment.
The Carrolls are being held in the Clermont County Jail in lieu of $10.1 million bail apiece.
After being indicted in Clermont County in September on charges of murder and other offenses in the death of Marcus, Liz and David Carroll said they couldn't afford to hire lawyers. Two attorneys were appointed to represent David Carroll at taxpayer expense, while Liz Carroll's family raised money to hire an attorney for her.
Clermont County Public Defender R. Daniel Hannon said at the time that his office couldn't represent the Carrolls because of conflicts of interest involving two of his assistants.
Hannon declined at the time to identify Lauri Viney as one of those assistants to which he was referring, but he said Friday that she is.
Viney works part-time for his office, Hannon said.
Hannon said he knew Viney planned to sue the Carrolls, but he declined to comment further, saying he had not seen the lawsuit.
The other assistant is Anita Bechmann, who represents the legal interests of the Carrolls' four children in a custody case in Clermont County Juvenile Court. They were placed in foster care after the arrest of their parents.
Last week, David Carroll hired another assistant in the Public Defender's Office to represent him on the murder charge. His family raised the money to hire Cathy Adams, who is a full-time assistant public defender but also has a private law practice. Adams said she plans to take a leave of absence to work on the David Carroll case.
Liz Carroll's murder trial is to begin Monday before Common Pleas Judge Robert P. Ringland. David Carroll's murder trial is to begin March 19 before Common Pleas Judge Jerry R. McBride. Trial developments
Liz Carroll stipulated during a Thursday hearing that bones to be introduced as evidence in her murder trial are those of her 3-year-old foster son, Marcus Fiesel. The bones, which were recovered in Brown County, were so fragmentary that they might have been destroyed if subjected to DNA testing. If so, the remains could not have received a proper burial.
Judge Robert P. Ringland agreed to a defense request that Carroll not be required to be handcuffed and shackled in the presence of the jury. Instead, she will wear a leg brace that will restrict her movements but not be noticeable to jurors.
Defense attorney Gregory A. Cohen requested copies of transcripts of any testimony that Amy Baker, expected to be the prosecution's key witness against Carroll, might have given before grand juries in Hamilton and Clermont counties. Whether such testimony even exists is usually kept secret. Cohen said that he assumed Baker had testified in both counties and that he wanted to see if Baker had changed her story.
Brunsman, Barrett. Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 10, 2007, pg. B2.
BATAVIA - An assistant Clermont County public defender has sued Liz and David Carroll Jr. over a trampoline accident suffered by her son in the yard of the Union Township home where Marcus Fiesel is said to have later died.
The Carrolls were negligent in allowing unsupervised access to the trampoline, according to a lawsuit filed in the Clermont County Court of Common Pleas on behalf of public defender Lauri Viney; her husband, Jeffrey; and their son Brent.
The 7-year-old boy broke his leg on May 9 while using the trampoline at the Carrolls' home in the 1000 block of Valley Wood Drive, the suit said.
Marcus, the 3-year-old foster son of the Carrolls, died after being left bound in a closet while the Carrolls attended a family reunion in Grant County, Ky., the weekend of Aug. 4, prosecutors in the murder cases against the Carrolls have said.
Brent required medical treatment that cost about $10,000, and he suffered pain and permanent injury, the suit claims.
Both of his parents missed work to care for Brent, costing them another $5,000, the suit said.
The Vineys requested a jury trial and are seeking $5,000 for themselves and more than $25,000 for Brent, as well as attorney fees.
Common Pleas Judge William Walker was assigned the case. A pretrial hearing would be scheduled 60 days after its filing.
It's unlikely Walker or any other Clermont County judge would hear the case because of Lauri Viney's role with the Public Defender's Office. If the parties don't agree to mediation, a visiting judge might have to hear the case.
The Carrolls never trained Brent how to use the trampoline and didn't have proper guards on the device to prevent the boy from falling between the jumping surface and its frame, according to the suit filed Tuesday.
The trampoline was next to a rail fence that could be scaled by small children to gain access to the jumping surface, the suit said.
"Trampolines are inherently dangerous and constitute an attractive nuisance," the suit claims.
"The conduct of the defendants is intentional, negligent and/or negligent per se (in that it violates standards set by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission)," said the suit filed by Batavia attorney Gary A. Rosenhoffer.
Also named as a defendant in the suit is the owner of the property, Xu Zhenlong, who rented the home to the Carrolls. She is required by law to keep all common areas of the rental property in safe condition, the suit claims.
The property owner failed to inspect the yard and control its use with regard to the trampoline, the suit claims.
Zhenlong couldn't be reached for comment.
The Carrolls are being held in the Clermont County Jail in lieu of $10.1 million bail apiece.
After being indicted in Clermont County in September on charges of murder and other offenses in the death of Marcus, Liz and David Carroll said they couldn't afford to hire lawyers. Two attorneys were appointed to represent David Carroll at taxpayer expense, while Liz Carroll's family raised money to hire an attorney for her.
Clermont County Public Defender R. Daniel Hannon said at the time that his office couldn't represent the Carrolls because of conflicts of interest involving two of his assistants.
Hannon declined at the time to identify Lauri Viney as one of those assistants to which he was referring, but he said Friday that she is.
Viney works part-time for his office, Hannon said.
Hannon said he knew Viney planned to sue the Carrolls, but he declined to comment further, saying he had not seen the lawsuit.
The other assistant is Anita Bechmann, who represents the legal interests of the Carrolls' four children in a custody case in Clermont County Juvenile Court. They were placed in foster care after the arrest of their parents.
Last week, David Carroll hired another assistant in the Public Defender's Office to represent him on the murder charge. His family raised the money to hire Cathy Adams, who is a full-time assistant public defender but also has a private law practice. Adams said she plans to take a leave of absence to work on the David Carroll case.
Liz Carroll's murder trial is to begin Monday before Common Pleas Judge Robert P. Ringland. David Carroll's murder trial is to begin March 19 before Common Pleas Judge Jerry R. McBride. Trial developments
Liz Carroll stipulated during a Thursday hearing that bones to be introduced as evidence in her murder trial are those of her 3-year-old foster son, Marcus Fiesel. The bones, which were recovered in Brown County, were so fragmentary that they might have been destroyed if subjected to DNA testing. If so, the remains could not have received a proper burial.
Judge Robert P. Ringland agreed to a defense request that Carroll not be required to be handcuffed and shackled in the presence of the jury. Instead, she will wear a leg brace that will restrict her movements but not be noticeable to jurors.
Defense attorney Gregory A. Cohen requested copies of transcripts of any testimony that Amy Baker, expected to be the prosecution's key witness against Carroll, might have given before grand juries in Hamilton and Clermont counties. Whether such testimony even exists is usually kept secret. Cohen said that he assumed Baker had testified in both counties and that he wanted to see if Baker had changed her story.
Lifeway decides not to put up a fight
Lifeway to halt work in Ohio
Foster care agency says it won't fight to keep license
McGurk, Margaret. Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 10, 2007, pg. A1.
Lifeway For Youth, the nonprofit organization that put Marcus Fiesel in the home where he died, will not fight Ohio's plan to revoke its license.
"We are not going to be doing business in Ohio," founder and director Michael Berner said Friday.
Lifeway also operates in Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia, Virginia and Texas, but most of its $15 million business came from Ohio.
Berner said he expects Phoenix Homes Inc., a new, private, nonprofit based in Allen County, to absorb much of Lifeway's operations.
Phoenix CEO Isaac Palmer said his start-up group is shopping for staff and offices to launch a new child-placement service but has not made any arrangements with Lifeway.
Under state law, the more than 300 soon-to-be-former Lifeway families will be free to work directly with county foster offices or through another private agency.
Phoenix's application is under review by state authorities.
Lifeway's future has been under a cloud since Jan. 17, when the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said it would revoke its license. A state investigation after Marcus died in August - allegedly at the hands of his foster parents Liz and David Carroll Jr. - found 147 violations in 40 Lifeway cases. The state has not sent a formal revocation notice. The state held off to allow the company the opportunity to appeal. When the revocation notice goes out, the license will be canceled in 30 days in the absence of an appeal by Lifeway.
According to forms filed with Ohio for the fiscal year that ended June 30, Lifeway provided almost $12.4 million worth of services in the state.
More than $11 million of that total came from foster care placements for an average of 526 children on any given day. In the past two years, Lifeway has been expanding its operations outside Ohio; it now has 10 offices in Kentucky and two in Indiana, as well as one each in San Antonio, Texas, Atlanta and Richmond, Va.
Foster care agency says it won't fight to keep license
McGurk, Margaret. Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 10, 2007, pg. A1.
Lifeway For Youth, the nonprofit organization that put Marcus Fiesel in the home where he died, will not fight Ohio's plan to revoke its license.
"We are not going to be doing business in Ohio," founder and director Michael Berner said Friday.
Lifeway also operates in Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia, Virginia and Texas, but most of its $15 million business came from Ohio.
Berner said he expects Phoenix Homes Inc., a new, private, nonprofit based in Allen County, to absorb much of Lifeway's operations.
Phoenix CEO Isaac Palmer said his start-up group is shopping for staff and offices to launch a new child-placement service but has not made any arrangements with Lifeway.
Under state law, the more than 300 soon-to-be-former Lifeway families will be free to work directly with county foster offices or through another private agency.
Phoenix's application is under review by state authorities.
Lifeway's future has been under a cloud since Jan. 17, when the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said it would revoke its license. A state investigation after Marcus died in August - allegedly at the hands of his foster parents Liz and David Carroll Jr. - found 147 violations in 40 Lifeway cases. The state has not sent a formal revocation notice. The state held off to allow the company the opportunity to appeal. When the revocation notice goes out, the license will be canceled in 30 days in the absence of an appeal by Lifeway.
According to forms filed with Ohio for the fiscal year that ended June 30, Lifeway provided almost $12.4 million worth of services in the state.
More than $11 million of that total came from foster care placements for an average of 526 children on any given day. In the past two years, Lifeway has been expanding its operations outside Ohio; it now has 10 offices in Kentucky and two in Indiana, as well as one each in San Antonio, Texas, Atlanta and Richmond, Va.
Donna Trevino should not be rewarded for his greed
Marcus' mom settles lawsuit
Lifeway to pay her other children
Kelley, Eileen. Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 10, 2007, pg. B1.
Donna Trevino, the birth mother of the 3-year-old foster child killed last August, allegedly by his foster parents, would receive up to $800 every month to care for the child's siblings should they be returned to her.
Of the $206,819 draft settlement between Lifeway for Youth and Trevino, of Middletown, $67,058 would go to her attorneys. She had sought $5 million in a multiparty lawsuit filed in September.
The children could be getting more money as various parties to the suit settle.
Trevino told police in April to take her children; that her son Marcus Fiesel, who was developmentally disabled, and his older brother and infant sister, were not her problem.
Trevino now is trying to get her other children back. If she does, the money would have to be used for them, said Kevin Hughes, Trevino's attorney.
A trust officer would be assigned to oversee how the money is spent. "They'll be asking for receipts," said Hughes.
Hughes anticipates that the payments would begin in April whether Trevino gets the children or not. If she doesn't, the money would go to the children's foster parents.
Each child also would receive four lump sum payments. The smallest would be $5,000, when each turns 19 and is old enough to manage money, and the largest would be $25,000 at age 30, according to the probate documents obtained by The Enquirer.
"The whole thing is for the benefit of the kids," Hughes said. "That is what Donna tried to explain early on. She is not receiving anything out of this settlement."
Children Services has been involved with Trevino, 38, and Marcus since he was at least 1. All three children were put into foster care about 22 months ago.
Marcus was placed in the home of Liz and David Carroll Jr. Marcus' siblings, a brother, 11, and a sister, 19 months, remain in foster care.
Prosecutors maintain the Carrolls left Marcus in a closet for a weekend in August when they and their live-in girlfriend, Amy Baker, left the Clermont County home to go to a family reunion.
Liz Carroll's murder trial begins Monday.
Not long after the Carrolls were arrested, Trevino, through her attorneys, filed the lawsuit against Lifeway for Youth, the private agency that trained the Carrolls to become foster-care providers; Butler County and Butler County Children Services; the Carrolls; and Baker.
Butler County and the Children Services Board were later dropped from the suit after Trevino's attorneys were unable to prove gross negligence. The Carrolls were served legal papers in jail.
Baker was served last week, a delay caused because attorneys had a difficult time finding her address. None has responded to the suit. Hughes said he will file a judgment against the Carrolls.
A probate judge needs to approve the Lifeway settlement. A hearing is set for Feb. 27.
Trevino has said that she would like to have her surviving children back. She moved to Middletown a few years ago.
She is on Social Security disability and has moved frequently. Caseworkers in Butler County have prepared a plan for her to follow if she is to get her two children back.
Details of that plan are not public. She is able to visit with her children. Efforts to reach her Friday were not successful because her phone has been disconnected.
"We are happy with the settlement," said Hughes. "We wanted to provide some protection and security for these kids as they grow up. We are glad that Lifeway actually came forward with the money."
Lifeway to pay her other children
Kelley, Eileen. Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 10, 2007, pg. B1.
Donna Trevino, the birth mother of the 3-year-old foster child killed last August, allegedly by his foster parents, would receive up to $800 every month to care for the child's siblings should they be returned to her.
Of the $206,819 draft settlement between Lifeway for Youth and Trevino, of Middletown, $67,058 would go to her attorneys. She had sought $5 million in a multiparty lawsuit filed in September.
The children could be getting more money as various parties to the suit settle.
Trevino told police in April to take her children; that her son Marcus Fiesel, who was developmentally disabled, and his older brother and infant sister, were not her problem.
Trevino now is trying to get her other children back. If she does, the money would have to be used for them, said Kevin Hughes, Trevino's attorney.
A trust officer would be assigned to oversee how the money is spent. "They'll be asking for receipts," said Hughes.
Hughes anticipates that the payments would begin in April whether Trevino gets the children or not. If she doesn't, the money would go to the children's foster parents.
Each child also would receive four lump sum payments. The smallest would be $5,000, when each turns 19 and is old enough to manage money, and the largest would be $25,000 at age 30, according to the probate documents obtained by The Enquirer.
"The whole thing is for the benefit of the kids," Hughes said. "That is what Donna tried to explain early on. She is not receiving anything out of this settlement."
Children Services has been involved with Trevino, 38, and Marcus since he was at least 1. All three children were put into foster care about 22 months ago.
Marcus was placed in the home of Liz and David Carroll Jr. Marcus' siblings, a brother, 11, and a sister, 19 months, remain in foster care.
Prosecutors maintain the Carrolls left Marcus in a closet for a weekend in August when they and their live-in girlfriend, Amy Baker, left the Clermont County home to go to a family reunion.
Liz Carroll's murder trial begins Monday.
Not long after the Carrolls were arrested, Trevino, through her attorneys, filed the lawsuit against Lifeway for Youth, the private agency that trained the Carrolls to become foster-care providers; Butler County and Butler County Children Services; the Carrolls; and Baker.
Butler County and the Children Services Board were later dropped from the suit after Trevino's attorneys were unable to prove gross negligence. The Carrolls were served legal papers in jail.
Baker was served last week, a delay caused because attorneys had a difficult time finding her address. None has responded to the suit. Hughes said he will file a judgment against the Carrolls.
A probate judge needs to approve the Lifeway settlement. A hearing is set for Feb. 27.
Trevino has said that she would like to have her surviving children back. She moved to Middletown a few years ago.
She is on Social Security disability and has moved frequently. Caseworkers in Butler County have prepared a plan for her to follow if she is to get her two children back.
Details of that plan are not public. She is able to visit with her children. Efforts to reach her Friday were not successful because her phone has been disconnected.
"We are happy with the settlement," said Hughes. "We wanted to provide some protection and security for these kids as they grow up. We are glad that Lifeway actually came forward with the money."
PCSAO gives recommendation regarding foster care
Foster care change pushed
Marcus spurring overhaul
Craig, Jon. Cincinnatti Enquirer, Feb. 9, 2007, pg. A1.
COLUMBUS - Marcus Fiesel is not forgotten - and Ohio's foster-care system is being overhauled in part because of the 3-year-old's death last summer, child advocates said Thursday.
At a news conference unveiling a report on Ohio's foster care and child protection systems, top child advocates said the case has galvanized foster care reform efforts.
"The Marcus Fiesel case has brought renewed, intensive focus to the child welfare system," said Crystal Ward Allen, executive director of the Public Children Services Association of Ohio, a coalition of public service agencies that promote child safety, family stability and sound public policy.
The report comes just days before the trial of Liz Carroll begins next week in Batavia. She is charged in the August death of Fiesel, a disabled boy from Middletown whom Liz and David Carroll Jr. had taken in as a foster child in Union Township, Clermont County.
"We need to improve the pool of foster care homes in Ohio," said Greg Kapcar, assistant legislative director with the children services association. But they don't want to scare off potential families, he said.
Allen praised state lawmakers, including Sen. Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, for strengthening child welfare laws - legislation that took effect the month after Marcus' death - and a 30-member task force investigating foster care.
Allen's group also urged:
--Tougher penalties for foster parents who harm kids in their care.
--Placing more children with familiar caregivers, such as coaches or teachers.
--Spending another $20 million in the state budget on child welfare, up from $75.5 million in 2005.
--Increasing adoption subsidies to $350 a month, up from the $250-a-month rate set in 1986.
Marcus spurring overhaul
Craig, Jon. Cincinnatti Enquirer, Feb. 9, 2007, pg. A1.
COLUMBUS - Marcus Fiesel is not forgotten - and Ohio's foster-care system is being overhauled in part because of the 3-year-old's death last summer, child advocates said Thursday.
At a news conference unveiling a report on Ohio's foster care and child protection systems, top child advocates said the case has galvanized foster care reform efforts.
"The Marcus Fiesel case has brought renewed, intensive focus to the child welfare system," said Crystal Ward Allen, executive director of the Public Children Services Association of Ohio, a coalition of public service agencies that promote child safety, family stability and sound public policy.
The report comes just days before the trial of Liz Carroll begins next week in Batavia. She is charged in the August death of Fiesel, a disabled boy from Middletown whom Liz and David Carroll Jr. had taken in as a foster child in Union Township, Clermont County.
"We need to improve the pool of foster care homes in Ohio," said Greg Kapcar, assistant legislative director with the children services association. But they don't want to scare off potential families, he said.
Allen praised state lawmakers, including Sen. Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, for strengthening child welfare laws - legislation that took effect the month after Marcus' death - and a 30-member task force investigating foster care.
Allen's group also urged:
--Tougher penalties for foster parents who harm kids in their care.
--Placing more children with familiar caregivers, such as coaches or teachers.
--Spending another $20 million in the state budget on child welfare, up from $75.5 million in 2005.
--Increasing adoption subsidies to $350 a month, up from the $250-a-month rate set in 1986.
Ohio ranks 49th in the nation in state support of child protective services
Child service budget blasted
Ohio needs to allocate another $20 million, activist group says
Craig, Jon. Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 9, 2007, pg. B1.
COLUMBUS - Ohio ranks 49th in the nation in state support of child protective services including foster care, according to a report released Thursday. Only Minnesota is ranked lower.
The good news is the number of cases of physical and sexual abuse and neglect of children has fallen to 93,251 in 2005, down from more than 100,000 cases in 2001, according to the Public Children Services Association of Ohio. And the number of children awaiting adoption dropped from 5,391 in 2001 to 2,781 in 2005.
The association, a coalition of public child services agencies, releases its "Factbook" every two years in anticipation of the state budget, which Gov. Ted Strickland plans to submit to the General Assembly on March 15.
Of the $772 million spent across the state in 2005 on child protective services, including foster and adoptive home placements, caseworkers and investigations, $75.5 million - or 10 percent -- came from state taxpayers - ranking Ohio second to last among all states.
The federal government pays 41 percent and local tax levies 49 percent of the total.
The association recommends that state government spend another $20 million annually.
"There's always a cry for more money," said state Rep. Tom Brinkman, R-Mount Lookout, who hopes to meet with association officials soon about ideas he has about making it easier to adopt in Ohio.
"We need to do more to encourage adoption and get rid of some of the rigmarole and craziness that comes with adoption in our state," Brinkman said.
Too many parents go overseas to adopt because of excessive rules in Ohio, he said, such as requirements that homes have fire extinguishers and the children's rooms have doors that can close.
"It just discourages more people from doing it," he said. "A good home is a good home."
Meanwhile, the local share is expected to plummet from about $380 million a year to less than $300 million statewide by 2010 because of changes in property tax laws, according to Gayle Channing Tenenbaum, a lobbyist with the children services association.
"We have a long way to go," Tenenbaum said. "We need to make these issues a priority ... to protect Ohio's children and families."
By the numbers
The Factbook published by the Public Children Services Association of Ohio contains statistical snapshots for each of Ohio's 88 counties, based on 2005 figures. Data for local counties include:
BUTLER COUNTY
Child services spending: $23,985,816*
Share paid with county funds: 63 percent
New reports investigated: 2,952
Average daily number of kids in custody: 368
Median time in custody: 132 days
CLERMONT COUNTY
Child services spending: $7,685,855*
Share paid with county funds: 34 percent
New reports investigated: 743
Average daily number of kids in custody: 328
Median time in custody: 335 days
HAMILTON COUNTY
Child services spending: $87,130,962*
Share paid by county funds: 51 percent
New reports investigated: 6,604
Average daily number of kids in custody: 1,464
Median time in custody: 359 days
WARREN COUNTY
Child services spending: $3,783,015*
Share paid by county funds: 56 percent
New reports investigated: 768
Average daily number of kids in custody: 107
Median time in custody: 394 days
* Total spending includes county, state and federal money.
**Reports include physical, sexual and emotional abuse, as well as neglect and dependency (i.e. orphaned, abandoned). "In custody" means in foster care, awaiting adoption, in group homes, in jail, even living with their parents, as long as they are in the legal custody of the county.
Ohio needs to allocate another $20 million, activist group says
Craig, Jon. Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 9, 2007, pg. B1.
COLUMBUS - Ohio ranks 49th in the nation in state support of child protective services including foster care, according to a report released Thursday. Only Minnesota is ranked lower.
The good news is the number of cases of physical and sexual abuse and neglect of children has fallen to 93,251 in 2005, down from more than 100,000 cases in 2001, according to the Public Children Services Association of Ohio. And the number of children awaiting adoption dropped from 5,391 in 2001 to 2,781 in 2005.
The association, a coalition of public child services agencies, releases its "Factbook" every two years in anticipation of the state budget, which Gov. Ted Strickland plans to submit to the General Assembly on March 15.
Of the $772 million spent across the state in 2005 on child protective services, including foster and adoptive home placements, caseworkers and investigations, $75.5 million - or 10 percent -- came from state taxpayers - ranking Ohio second to last among all states.
The federal government pays 41 percent and local tax levies 49 percent of the total.
The association recommends that state government spend another $20 million annually.
"There's always a cry for more money," said state Rep. Tom Brinkman, R-Mount Lookout, who hopes to meet with association officials soon about ideas he has about making it easier to adopt in Ohio.
"We need to do more to encourage adoption and get rid of some of the rigmarole and craziness that comes with adoption in our state," Brinkman said.
Too many parents go overseas to adopt because of excessive rules in Ohio, he said, such as requirements that homes have fire extinguishers and the children's rooms have doors that can close.
"It just discourages more people from doing it," he said. "A good home is a good home."
Meanwhile, the local share is expected to plummet from about $380 million a year to less than $300 million statewide by 2010 because of changes in property tax laws, according to Gayle Channing Tenenbaum, a lobbyist with the children services association.
"We have a long way to go," Tenenbaum said. "We need to make these issues a priority ... to protect Ohio's children and families."
By the numbers
The Factbook published by the Public Children Services Association of Ohio contains statistical snapshots for each of Ohio's 88 counties, based on 2005 figures. Data for local counties include:
BUTLER COUNTY
Child services spending: $23,985,816*
Share paid with county funds: 63 percent
New reports investigated: 2,952
Average daily number of kids in custody: 368
Median time in custody: 132 days
CLERMONT COUNTY
Child services spending: $7,685,855*
Share paid with county funds: 34 percent
New reports investigated: 743
Average daily number of kids in custody: 328
Median time in custody: 335 days
HAMILTON COUNTY
Child services spending: $87,130,962*
Share paid by county funds: 51 percent
New reports investigated: 6,604
Average daily number of kids in custody: 1,464
Median time in custody: 359 days
WARREN COUNTY
Child services spending: $3,783,015*
Share paid by county funds: 56 percent
New reports investigated: 768
Average daily number of kids in custody: 107
Median time in custody: 394 days
* Total spending includes county, state and federal money.
**Reports include physical, sexual and emotional abuse, as well as neglect and dependency (i.e. orphaned, abandoned). "In custody" means in foster care, awaiting adoption, in group homes, in jail, even living with their parents, as long as they are in the legal custody of the county.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
