In re WB
| Citation | 772 N.E.2d 522 |
| Decision Date | 05 August 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 27A02-0201-JV-76.,27A02-0201-JV-76. |
| Parties | In the Matter of the Termination of the Parent-Child Relationship of W.B. and J.B., the children. William M. Bartrum and Patrice Bartrum, Appellants-Respondents, v. Grant County Office of Family and Children, Appellee-Petitioner. |
| Court | Court of Appeals of Indiana |
Bruce N. Elliott, Marion, IN, Attorney for Appellants.
Deborah S. Burke, Marion, IN, Attorney for Appellee.
Appellants-Respondents, Patrice Bartrum ("Mother") and William Bartrum ("Father") (hereinafter collectively referred to as "Parents"), appeal the trial court's order terminating the parent-child relationship between the Parents and their two (2) youngest children, J.B. and W.B.
We affirm.
The Parents raise three (3) issues on appeal, which we consolidate and restate as: whether there was sufficient evidence to support the involuntary termination of the parent-child relationship under Ind. Code § 31-35-2-4.
The facts most favorable to the trial court's judgment are as follows. The Parents married on June 22, 1991, and lived in Marion, Grant County, Indiana. Seven (7) children have been born to this marriage so far, namely: S.B., born July 27, 1993; K.B., born July 15, 1994; D.M.B., born August 23, 1995; D.E.B., born February 13, 1997; M.B., born June 8, 1998; and twins, J.B. and W.B., born April 9, 2000. The termination of the parent-child relationship for the twins is the subject of this appeal.
Prior to the twins' birth, between August 1997 and May 1999, the Grant County Office of Family and Children ("OFC") received at least three (3) complaints regarding the condition of the Parents' home and the oldest five (5) children (hereinafter collectively referred to as "the older Bartrum children"). One complaint was substantiated, but two others could not be investigated because the Parents moved immediately after the complaints were made.
On May 21, 1999, Tina Kelly (Kelly), a Child Protection Services investigator with the OFC, investigated yet another complaint that the Parents' home was dirty and inappropriate for children. This time, she found Mother and the older Bartrum children at home, where there was (Tr. pp. 136-7). There were no beds, and no kitchen table and chairs, in the trailer. The children were dirty and half-dressed; one toddler had caked feces on his legs. Kelly testified further that there was no food in the freezer and very little food in the refrigerator. Based on this investigation, Kelly removed the older Bartrum children from the Parents' home and placed them in foster care. In the process of placing the children, it was discovered that they were infected with lice.
A Child in Need of Services (CHINS) petition was filed on May 24, 1999, and the older Bartrum children were determined to be CHINS on June 9, 1999. After the children had been placed in foster care, and appropriate testing completed, it was found that the children were severely developmentally delayed. The older Bartrum children were all found to have behavior problems, untreated medical problems, and a lack of basic social skills. A petition to terminate the Parents' rights to the older Bartrum children was filed on February 22, 2000, and granted on November 28, 2000.
In the midst of this CHINS proceeding, the twins were born on April 9, 2000. On April 10, 2000, the OFC filed a petition alleging that the twins were in need of services, citing the Parents' history of neglect with respect to the older Bartrum children. At the initial detention hearing held on May 14, 2000, the trial court granted OFC temporary custody of the twins and ordered that they be placed in foster care upon their release from the hospital. After a fact-finding hearing on July 12, 2000, the trial court found that the twins were CHINS and "subject to high risk of abuse and neglect because of prior incidents on behalf of the respondent-mother...." (Exhibits' Vol. p. 6). At the disposition hearing held August 2, 2000, the trial court ordered the Parents to participate in services, undergo psychiatric evaluation, and visit the twins in a supervised, therapeutic setting.
By the time of the disposition hearing, the parents had completed the parenting classes required by the older Bartrum children's CHINS proceeding. In fact, Mother had taken extra classes on her own. When George Herman (Herman) became the Bartrums' case manager, the parents had already begun to visit the twins in the welfare office for one (1) hour a day per week. Herman arranged for visitation to take place at a more neutral place. These visits were therapeutic visits, facilitated for the purpose of teaching the parents proper parenting skills. Herman testified that the parents brought appropriate gifts for the twins and played appropriate games with them.
After a review hearing held September 27, 2000, the trial court ordered that the twins remain wards of the court and that they be placed in care of the paternal great-aunt, Lori Warnock. On March 9, 2001, OFC filed its Permanency Recommendation in which it stated "[e]ven though the [Parents] have cooperated with all service providers and completed or are actively involved in services, the County is requesting termination based on the previous termination." (Exhibits' Vol. p. 25).
A hearing on the OFC's petition to terminate parental rights to the twins was held on June 28 and July 18, 2001. By this time, the twins had been living with their great-aunt for nine (9) months, and she had expressed a desire to adopt them. The OFC had indicated that they would approve the adoption. At the time of the termination hearing, the Parents were visiting the twins twice a week, for a total of seven (7) hours a week.
Tina Kelly testified regarding the condition of the Parents' home when the older Bartrum children were removed. According to Kelly:
[Mother] had told me that it was due to the children and they had made the mess in the trailer and that the reason that the clothes were all over is because she didn't have laundry detergent to do laundry. Uh, she had stated in regards to the question about why the kids were so dirty that she had taken a bath but had not gotten around to giving the children a bath yet and it had probably been two days since they had been bathed.
(Tr. p. 145).
Herman testified that, by that time, the Parents had lived at the same address for a year or more. He testified further that he had visited the Parents' present home numerous times and that it was always clean, appropriate, and stocked with food. He also testified that the Parents always complied with his instructions.
The Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) testified that from the time the oldest Bartrum child was born in 1993, the Parents had lived in fourteen (14) different places. Prior to the removal of the older Bartrum children, the family was evicted from at least six (6) residences and sued for back rent. Occasionally, the Parents and the older Bartrum children stayed with relatives; a few nights they even slept on the street. After the removal of the older Bartrum children, the Parents moved from Marion to Gas City and back, living in several different places during this period.
Father testified that he was currently self-employed in his own construction business. He had just begun submitting bids on various projects, however, and had made very little money so far. Prior to his current situation, Father had been unemployed for several years except for one (1) month when he worked a temporary job. His last regular job was for four (4) years, on and off, ending in about 1998. Father had pled guilty to four (4) felony counts of theft in June 2000 and spent 63 days in jail. In December of 1998, Father pled guilty to welfare fraud and was ordered to pay restitution, which remains unpaid. At the time of the termination hearing, there was a pending criminal action against Father for five (5) counts of neglect of a dependent child—Class D felonies—for the older Bartrum children. The Parents had planned for Father to be a stay-at-home dad if they got custody of the twins.
Mother testified she had been employed at her present job since June 2000, and that she had received three (3) raises. Mother also testified that she had a miscarriage the week preceding the removal of the older Bartrum children, which left her feeling very sick, tired, and depressed. Both parents testified that at the time the older Bartrum children were removed, they were in the process of moving from one trailer to a larger, better trailer, and that was why the smaller trailer, visited by Kelly, was so messy. At the time of the termination hearing, Mother had five (5) counts of child neglect pending against her.
At the termination hearing, the trial court also heard testimony from two (2) counselors who had worked with the older Bartrum children. Their individual testimonies corroborated the following facts: when the older Bartrum children were first observed by these professionals, they were severely delayed developmentally, socially, emotionally, and intellectually. For example, with respect to the oldest, S.B., who was almost six (6) years old when she was first seen, Diane Burks testified that:
Um, she had minimal language. Um, we estimated it to be at approximately 18 to 24 months, but very, very simplified. Um, she had no object identification. Um, for example, in food products, the only thing she could identify was an egg. Um, she was uninhibited, had very few boundaries ... she would, um, be all over somebody, climbing all over, climbing right up your body, so forth.... She had poor hand-eye coordination and poor fine motor skills.... She knew no colors, she knew no shapes. She knew no alphabetic, alphabet letters. She knew no numbers. She could not count. Um...
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