Chapter 1

The Official Story

This is the official story of the incident as pieced together from written reports, interviews with staff and interested parties, as well as informal channels of communication. The narrative was written anonymously by a member of the staff known to have writing skills.

On the night of May 1, about eight-thirty p.m., while trying to put her eight-year-old daughter Melissa to bed, Mrs. Angela Gunnarsen (nee Bonicelli) hit her daughter in the face repeatedly when Melissa became defiant and refused to go to sleep. Though the child became passive and started crying out to her mother to stop hitting her, Mrs. Gunnarsen continued to hit the child harder and harder for a period of fifteen minutes. As a result, one of Melissa’s eyes was partially closed and turned black and blue. Elsewise on the child’s face were inflicted scars, bruises and swellings.

Melissa’s father, Andrew Gunnarsen, was not in the house at the time. He is a businessman, who was out on assigned duties commensurate with his occupation. There is no evidence Mr. Gunnarsen had any knowledge of his wife’s actions in regard to their daughter until the next morning (see subsequent paragraphs for further information about the father’s belated obtaining of such knowledge). Mr. Gunnarsen did not return home until close to eleven p.m. By that time, his wife had retired to her bed and his daughter was sleeping.

A second daughter Nicole, age eleven, was also preparing for bed at the time of the incident. Though she occupies a different room than Melissa, she heard Melissa screaming and ran to her sister’s room. She saw her mother beating Melissa as reported above. What she saw caught her so off guard that for several moments all she could do was watch. This was interrupted when Melissa seeing her sister Nicole present, screamed out to Nicole for help. Nicole at that point yelled at her mother to stop. Nicole continued to yell for some five minutes. When this did not stop the beatings, Nicole threw herself at her mother and physically intervened, grabbing her mother’s hands, courageously placing herself in between her mother and sister.

This action apparently startled Mrs. Gunnarsen and as a result she stopped beating Melissa. Mrs. Gunnarsen muttered an obscenity and sat down on the bed. She immediately hugged both of her children and assured them she did love them both and would never do anything to hurt either of them. The two girls cried and mother joined in. They sat and cried and hugged for about a half-hour. Subsequently, Mrs. Gunnarsen and Nicole left the room. Melissa went to sleep. Nicole went to her own bed. Mrs. Gunnarsen withdrew to the family room to watch TV for about another half-hour and then went to bed.

Upon returning home, Mr. Gunnarsen watched the eleven-p.m. news and read the daily newspaper for a short while before proceeding to bed himself. Mr. Gunnarsen does not leave for work until nine a.m. because of his regular evening hours out of the house. Consequently, he is the last person to arise in the morning. Mrs. Gunnarsen arises at six a.m. to prepare the children for school, Nicole being in the sixth grade and Melissa in the third. Mr. Gunnarsen usually awakens just prior to the children’s departure, often seeing them out the door.

On the morning of May 2, the usual schedule was followed by all concerned. As the children were going out the door and Mrs. Gunnarsen was in the kitchen starting to prepare breakfast for her husband before he went to work, Melissa stopped, turned to her father and said, “Daddy, Mommy hurt me badly last night.”

She pointed to her eye, which was still black and blue, and to her face, which exhibited signs of puffiness. Before her father could respond, she quickly exited the house and went to school. Andrew Gunnarsen moved into the kitchen, sat down for his breakfast, turned to his wife and said, “Melissa says you hurt her last night, and her face looks a mess. What the hell is going on?”

Mr. Gunnarsen reports his wife turned pale at the question and sat rather artificially in her chair at the kitchen table. She started to cry. “Angela, what happened last night?” Mr. Gunnarsen said he asked his wife.

“She would not go to bed for me last night and so I hit her. But I couldn’t stop hitting her. I couldn’t stop hitting her until Nicole grabbed me and actually put herself in between me and Melissa. I didn’t mean to; I didn’t plan to. It just happened. You know how difficult Melissa can be, especially at bedtime. I guess I was just impatient, angry and I couldn’t take it any longer. So I hit her, I hit her, I hit her!”

Mrs. Gunnarsen reports her husband Andrew looked at her in shock and in askance. “I thought I knew you better. How could you do such a thing?”

Her reply was to indicate that Melissa was a difficult child as even he knew and finally her patience broke. She could not take it any longer and just could not control her anger against Melissa. She knew it was wrong, but she was unable to stop.

She went on to suggest that she might need professional counseling and that he might have to watch the children for a while lest she repeat this action. He promised he would be home early that night, canceling any evening meetings and assuring her he would put the children to bed that night. She was also to call him at work several times during the day and let him know how she was doing. Such was the gist of their conversation.

He prepared for work and left at the customary time. Approximately an hour and a half later, while Mrs. Gunnarsen was at home cleaning the house, she received a phone call from the school nurse. The school nurse mentioned what she saw in Melissa’s face and indicated that Mrs. Gunnarsen should get some help if there was a problem. She further stated that since this was a first-time incident, she did not foresee any other actions being taken by the school or appropriate authorities.

The principal of the school, Mr. Rizzick, had also seen Melissa’s face that morning, as he had made it a policy to greet all the children on their arrival at school. He did not talk to the school nurse. Rather, after greeting all the children, he walked into his office and immediately called the state child-abuse hotline. He reported what he saw to the appropriate state authorities and provided names, addresses, phone numbers and other information he had available concerning the parents as well as the children.

Social workers Ann Brown and Jolene Raycox were assigned to the case. Under state procedures, they were to go to the house of the parents that day and interview them first (if possible) before the children arrived home. The children would be interviewed subsequently and privately. Following the interview, the social workers would report back to their immediate superior, the case manager. The threesome would proceed to decide on what would be the next step in the case. The possibilities ranged from the extremes of dismissing the case out of hand, if nothing was perceived to have transpired, to removing the children from the situation if the situation was perceived as imminently dangerous to the welfare of the children. Other than removing the children (if something was perceived to have happened), various possible actions could be taken. The social workers and the case manager had widespread fl exibility in working out a plan of action depending on the situation itself.

At precisely 2:02 p.m., social workers Ann Brown and Jolene Raycox knocked on the door of the house of Angela and Andrew Gunnarsen. Mrs. Gunnarsen answered the door. She was informed that they were social workers for the state Children’s Affairs Division. They were there to investigate a possible child-abuse situation. They needed to talk to Mrs. Gunnarsen, her husband, and her children. Mrs. Gunnarsen was hesitant about admitting them until they informed her that if she did not cooperate voluntarily, they had the authority to call the police and force entry, have her arrested on the spot and brought in for questioning. Also, refusal to cooperate under state laws was an automatic admission of guilt. Children’s safety required assuming the children must be protected at all costs and thus parents must be assumed to be abusers.

Upon hearing this litany, Mrs. Gunnarsen let the social workers into the house. The house was clean, perhaps compulsively so was the impression of Ann Brown. Compulsiveness would go far in explaining Mrs. Gunnarsen’s abusing her child. A compulsive parent would be too demanding of a child and quick to strike out and eventually abuse the child when the child did not meet up to the compulsive’s expectations.

Sitting in the living room with Mrs. Gunnarsen, the social workers took turns questioning her about the previous evening’s events. Using tested procedures they alternated between threats and subtle cajoling. They could be judge or cop one moment and friend and confidante the next. Mrs. Gunnarsen quickly confessed to having hit Melissa, but she denied it was abusive. She insisted it was for the moment and that the child did not exhibit any significant facial characteristics that would demonstrate abuse.

Mrs. Gunnarsen was extremely nervous during this interview, unable to remain seated for more than a few moments, her right foot shaking continually, her right hand combing her hair almost non-stop. Her talk was fast but staccato. Her left hand seemed to gesture in contradiction to her words, felt both Brown and Raycox. Her eyes could not look directly at either Brown or Raycox.

The more they talked the more the social workers became convinced Mrs. Gunnarsen had indeed abused the child. At this point they were unsure of the husband’s role in all of this, even though she told them her husband had not been home at the time of the incident as he had been working. Such statements are under regulation guidelines to be treated with skepticism, since both parents are assumed to be either involved in the act or one parent consciously or unconsciously gives the other parent permission to abuse the child. It would be up to the Gunnarsens to prove that Andrew Gunnarsen was not also abusing the child.

When the children arrived home from school, they were brought face to face with the social workers. They had to be told their regular schedules, for the day would be set aside. The parents had them both in dance, and this was their normal dance day. Obviously that had to be cancelled in order for the social workers to ascertain the truth of the situation and protect the children if necessary from further abuse. The children would also need to be told why the social workers were present.

Ann Brown insisted on the girls calling her Ann, feeling that would help ease their tension. She wanted to be their friend, someone they could talk to one on one and not be afraid to talk to. When she did explain whey she and Jolene Raycox were in the house, Melissa started to scream and run throughout the house, finally coming to rest in her mother’s lap and saying, “No, no, no!” She turned to the social workers and added, “I won’t let you take my mother away.”

Having been through this scene before, Brown told Melissa that she was there to help Melissa and Nicole and to help her mother too. She did not want to take her mother away; she wanted to help everybody.

This was of course a slight prevarication. Social workers in child-abuse situations may very well have to require the separation of parent and child, but that is not to be dealt with unless it actually happens. Telling the child that could happen (at least hypothetically, though often actually, in such actions) leads the child to assume it will happen. Once the child makes that assumption, the child can be very difficult to deal with. The child may refuse to speak up; the child may be too emotionally distraught by the possibility of losing the parent as to be unable to speak; and in a few specific situations, the child may want the parent out of the picture and is more than willing to exaggerate the truth or make up stories if that will remove the parent.

Melissa, Mrs. Gunnarsen had said, was medically certified as hyperactive. Ann Brown had no background in the field of hyperactivity, but Jolene Raycox did. Ann Brown was the point person, the leader of the team, but Jolene Raycox was the medically, psychologically trained partner who could make sense out of such claims. Mrs. Gunnarsen did provide medical records to the team certifying that Melissa was indeed hyperactive.

As a hyperactive child, Melissa would require more discipline, more control. Specifically, the doctors had agreed that in Melissa’s case, corporeal punishment would be necessary at times, simply to focus her attention. Despite this in writing, Ann Brown was uneasy about corporeal punishment; it could too easily be used as an excuse for abusive behavior by the parent. She had seen it before, and it appeared to her as if she were seeing it again.

On the other hand, Jolene Raycox had worked with hyperactive children before and knew whereof the doctors spoke. She also realized that raising such a child would and could be difficult. Additionally, if the child was medicated, that made the situation more complex. Certain types of medicines for hyperactive children were known to provoke bizarre, occasionally paranoid symptoms in some children. If such symptoms persisted, the child would be almost impossible to control by anybody, least of all a frustrated parent trying to put a medically unwilling child to bed.

Melissa’s behavior to this point suggested hyperactivity. As Jolene Raycox reread the report with Melissa sobbing in her mother’s arms, the social worker in her yielded to the frustrated mother and felt she had misread the situation. Maybe at the worst, the mother had overreacted but not abusively, and not without cause. If so, all the mother would need is some counseling. Surely the doctors could find some other way to treat Melissa.

Ann Brown maintained her reserve and skepticism. She had to be shown otherwise. She was still unmoved and as team leader, her word would have more authority than Raycox’s. The fact is she had been a social worker in child-abuse cases for some fifteen years. Jolene Raycox had been one for only two years. Ann Brown’s credentials and work with the agency were exemplary. She had been a team leader for nearly seven years. She was now partnered with Raycox for nearly two years in order that Raycox would be trained properly with a veteran in the field. It was assumed that within several months, Ann Brown would be appointed case manager herself. She had the seniority, the experience, the recognition within the agency and she had applied for the position. When the agency wanted to explain what a social worker did and was, it pointed to Ann Brown. The agency fully expected some of Ann Brown would rub off on Jolene Raycox.

Jolene Raycox had received a high honor in being teamed up with Ann Brown. The agency felt when Raycox was hired that she had the potential of being one of their top social workers, but she had to be trained in the agency way by the best; thus, she was teamed with Ann Brown.

Ann Brown turned to Mrs. Gunnarsen and said, “Angela—may I call you Angela? I really need to talk to the children now, alone. Why don’t I go upstairs with them and Jolene will stay here with you?”

One reason Ann Brown had maintained her reserve and skepticism and why she asked at this point to speak to the children alone was Nicole’s response to her answering Melissa’s question about removing the mother from the children. Nicole had been quiet — brutally quiet, not so much a whimper or a sigh — no sound from her whatsoever. Physically, she did not change facial color; she gave no involuntary body reactions. To a person with a trained eye as was Ann Brown’s, the reaction of Nicole suggested the child expected or assumed the parent would be leaving under the circumstances. She took it in stride as if the possibility of removing a parent was but the natural consequence of what the parent had done.

Ann Brown wanted to explore that reaction privately and now, while the thought was still fresh in Nicole’s mind. At this point, Mrs. Gunnarsen became highly resistant. There was no way she would allow the children to be interviewed privately. She insisted on her right to be present at the questioning. Brown and Raycox tried to reason with her, pointing out the necessity of finding out the truth of the situation, and that if the truth was that she did only what she said she did, she had nothing to be afraid of. Mrs. Gunnarsen, however, continued to resist, insisting that the social workers could and would manipulate the children into saying whatever the social workers wanted them to say.

Brown and Raycox denied this as even being possible. They cited studies showing that children do not lie about such matters. Further, the presence of the mother might intimidate the children. Only a private interview could secure the truth. Mrs. Gunnarsen would not hear of it.

Ann Brown calmly told Mrs. Gunnarsen that either she permit the interview or she would be forced to call the police. To emphasize the point and prove she was serious, Ann Brown walked to the phone. It was but a few yards away, visible to all the parties present and easily accessible to her. She picked up the phone, dialed the operator and stated, “This is a Children’s Affairs Division emergency call. My code number is 630202. This is Ann Brown.”

The operator checked into the computer, which could confirm or deny that such a call was genuine. The operator replied that the information was confirmed and she should state her emergency. Standard procedure is to ask the operator to hold and ask the client once more to give permission. If the client did so, the operator was told the emergency was hereby cancelled. If the client still refused, the operator was instructed to contact the local police and order they be sent out to the house to enforce the request of the division. Ann Brown put the operator on hold and following procedure, asked Mrs. Gunnarsen if it were necessary to call in the police. Mrs. Gunnarsen replied it was not — the social worker could talk to the children. Ann Brown cancelled the emergency.

While Jolene Raycox stayed with Mrs. Gunnarsen, Ann Brown escorted the children upstairs. Mrs. Gunnarsen was visibly agitated at this, and as a result, Jolene Raycox started asking Mrs. Gunnarsen all sorts of questions. Each in its own way would help the investigation along. Questions were asked about Mr. Gunnarsen, when he might return, his work, his relationship to the family, and specifically the children, who handled the discipline, who did the cooking, who did the cleaning, Mrs. Gunnarsen’s out-of-the-house activities, where the family went on vacation last year, how often the children were out of school and for what reasons, who the family doctor was and how long they had lived in this house, among other questions.