A group of legislators heard Wednesday that no one has been fired or disciplined at the Arkansas Department of Human Service (DHS) for failing to protect a Mountain Home teen who was kept locked in a bathroom naked and unfed.
The information came out during a joint meeting of the House and Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committees held in Little Rock.
Rep. Ryan Rose of Van Buren called the situation the teen endured even though 29 reports had been made alleging child abuse “horrible and hard to believe.”
He then asked if there had been any disciplinary actions taken on staff members involved in the case and was told no.
Tiffany Wright, director of the DHS Division of Children and Family Services, said there had been “hard conversations” with a number of individual staff members of the agency.
Rose told DHS officials, “I hope you would agree that the child in his case was harmed” by the agency’s inaction “and there should be accountability.”
Rose also pushed DHS officials testifying at the joint committee meeting as to whether or not they had a list of the staff members who had been involved in the case.
He was told that the record showed who was involved but that some had already left the agency for reasons not related to the Baxter County case.
“Then I hope since you are aware of their involvement that you would not take them back if they wanted to go to work for the agency again,” Rose said.
He then asked the DHS officials “do you agree that failures in the system made this child suffer?” The officials said they agreed with the statement.
Several legislators said everyone involved in the system had to do what was necessary so that this type of situation will not happen again.
Senator Scott Flippo of Bull Shoals, chairman of the Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee, said “We are all accountable. The terrible thing is – we can’t get back the years this child lost while he was left in that situation.”
Flippo said he knew one of the callers to the abuse hotline, “and I can tell you this lady is very sincere, knew something bad was happening and reported it, but nothing was done.”
14th Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney David Ethredge testified before the joint committee and said the investigation into the teen’s situation was launched by the Mountain Home Police Department and that he had heard nothing from DHS prior to MHPD becoming involved.
Police went to the apartment complex in 2024 where the teen lived to investigate complaints of noise coming from an upstairs unit and found the teen naked and locked in a bathroom.
The young man had no bedroom in the apartment and told police he slept in the bathroom. He said he was naked because he had once used clothing to block cold air from coming into the bathroom through a vent.
Ethredge said after the boy’s situation came to light DHS promised a report which would deal with the issue of why 29 abuse complaints were made beginning in 2013 and no action was taken by the agency. The report was to be made public.
DHS later reversed itself and said the report would not be released and that flaws detected in the system would be “handled internally.”
Ethredge told the legislators, “this is what makes me so angry about this case, no one protected this child for 11 years despite all of the abuse reports that came into the system.”
The prosecutor told the legislators, “that is something I just cannot wrap my mind around.” Ethredge said reports had come into the Child Abuse Hotline from another part of the state before the family moved to the Mountain Home area.
DHS admitted in a letter to Ethredge dated September 15 that the agency had failed by not having systems in place to recognize “the pattern of maltreatment reports.” Because of the Baxter County case, DHS is now placing “additional emphasis on the history in all cases,” the legislators were told.
Senator Kim Hammer of Benton said there had been a similar situation in a school district in his area. He said report after report had been made regarding that situation and nothing was done. “How many calls do you have to make before something happens?” he asked.
Rep. Jimmy Gazaway of Paragould said, “we should all work together” to solve problems in the system. He said he hoped “DHS is not hiding behind confidentiality” because that is not a good way to get things done.
Gazaway is a former prosecutor and he said he knew of one prosecutor in the state who had to use the state’s Freedom of Information Act to pry needed documents from DHS. “That is not the way it’s supposed to work.”
Gazaway told DHS officials to prepare a “list of things you need to do your job better and give it to us. We will work with you to fix what is broken.”
At the beginning of the 2 1/2-hour hearing, Gazaway said what happened to the Mountain Home teen “was horrendous, more akin to torture than abuse.”
Two people, 41-year-old Daniel Alan Wright and 42-year-old Jaclyn Barnett are both charged with 112 counts of first-degree imprisonment, kidnapping, and one count each of endangering the welfare of a minor and permitting child abuse.
Barnett had guardianship of the teen and was his maternal aunt.
A jury trial for the couple is now set for November 10. Wright and Barnett are each free on $50,000 bond.
Rep. Rose said he felt “the people who did this are monsters and their actions are evil.”
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