How Could You? Hall of Shame -Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock UPDATED

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Longview, Washington, adoptive parents Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock, both 44, were arrested after a two month investigation “on multiple counts of Criminal Treatment and Felony assault on their five adoptive children.” The four adopted girls are ages 8, 10, 11, and 12. Two are biological sisters.  Three of the girls were adopted from Haiti. The adopted boy is 13 years old. One girl and the boy were previously the Trebilcock’s foster children.

“The first report of the mistreatment came when their 13 year old son Joel was being treated at Dorenbechers Children Hospital for several broken ribs, severe malnutrition, hypothermia, bradycardia, cachexia (wasting) to be seriously malnourished. Joel was only 4’4” tall and weighed only 49 pounds.

Detectives worked closely with Child Protective Services, finding 4 adopted daughters ages 10 to 12, were also underweight and diagnosed as being in “neglect” by a pediatric doctor. All 5 children were placed in to protective custody.

The children were seen by Doctor Blaine Tolby in 2008 and at this time the parents were warned that Joel’s medical condition was perhaps quite life-threatening and advised them not to postpone a complete medical work up.

The children told detectives that the parents put an alarm in the kitchen to go off to prevent the children from being able to get to the food. They were punished if they “stole” food so they resorted to eating dog and goat food and dandelion leaves. The punishment for “stealing” food was to be hit with a wooden board. Joel reported the beatings were so bad that his butt bled to the point that he could feel blood running down his leg. They were were also put outside and doused with water and made to stand on the porch soaked.

The girls eat a vegetarian diet and they have been kept on a vegetarian diet while in protective custody.

As of May 12th Joel has grown 1 inch and gained 25 lbs. Amy has gained 18 lbs, Natasha has gained 12 lbs, Tamika has gained 10 lbs, and Ghislaine has gained 18 lbs.

There are 3 biological children in the Trebilcock home, who are not under weight and do not appear to have suffered from neglect. The parents, Jeffrey and Rebecca appear well nourished.

Both parents were booked Thursday afternoon without bail for:

One count of Criminal Mistreatment 1st degree. (relating to Joel’s condition).
Four counts of Criminal Mistreatment 2nd degree. (relating to treatment on the girls).
One count of Felony Assault 3rd degree (assaults on Joel.)”

Parents Arrested for Criminal Treatment of Their Adoptive Children
[KXL.com 5/19/11 by Jim Ferretti]

Couple Arrested for Abuse to Adopted Children, 4 Girls from Haiti
[Defend Haiti 5/20/11 by Steve Benham]

“Neighbors of the family say the couple is being wrongly accused and that the 13-year-old boy has fabricated stories.

“These people are wonderful people,” said Warren Bertold. “They’re terrific, Christian people. They have rescued these kids. Four of these kids, they rescued from Haiti.

“These kids were downtrodden (and) had nothing going for them. They have nothing but love for these children, and because of one kid’s misstatements, they are being tried, convicted, accused and convicted already which is a total miscarriage of justice.”

Parents arrested for allegedly neglecting adoptive children
[KATU.com 5/19/11 by Steve Benham]

“Bail for the Bunker Hill-area couple will be set Friday in Cowlitz County Superior Court.”

“The couple also have four biological children, three who are young enough to still live at home…The biological children were never taken into state custody, Rosenzweig said. He declined to say where they are now that their parents have been arrested, but said it was not in protective custody. He did not know their exact ages but said they were similar in age to the adopted children.”

“The adopted children were punished when they “stole” food and at times resorted to eating dog food, goat food, dandelion leaves and toothpaste, according to Rosenzweig. The punishment for “stealing” food was being hit with a wooden board, and all five children reported being spanked by both Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock, Rosenzweig said.”

“The Trebilcocks’ next-door neighbor said she’s never spoken with the parents during the seven years she’s shared a fence line with them. One of the Trebilcock’s biological sons used to sneak over the fence and play video games with her son, said the neighbor, who asked not to be named.

She said the boy, who was 17 at the time, indicated that he was being forced to sleep in a barn as punishment for playing the video games because it was against the family’s beliefs.

Unsure whether to believe the boy, the neighbor said she never reported it. As months went by and winter approached, she feared the boy was still spending nights in the barn, so she began hiding ready-to-eat meals and blankets in the grass near the fence. She said the children quickly learned where the items would be placed, and they would take them.

Sheriff’s deputies were contacted by state Child Protective Services in early March after Rebecca Trebilcock took the 13-year-old boy for medical treatment locally and he was transferred to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland.

He had several broken ribs, severe malnutrition, hypothermia, a slow heart rate, and cachexia (wasting), Rosenzweig said. The boy was falling down, couldn’t manipulate his hands and complained of chest pains, he said.

The boy was taken into custody immediately, and the adopted girls were taken into custody about week later as the investigation uncovered more information, Rosenzweig said.

The family had previously sought treatment for the children in Longview in 2008. At that time pediatrician Blaine Tolby warned the parents that the boy’s condition was “perhaps life-threatening” and warranted a complete medical work up, Rosenzweig said. The family did not follow up with Tolby, whom Rosenzweig said “is a strong advocate for children … and went above and beyond to try and make sure (the boy) was getting medical attention.”

“The Trebilcocks’ sprawling property lies at the end of a narrow gravel road that shoots off Bunker Hill Road west of Stella. A yellow manufactured home – where neighbors say the family lived – sits across from a large blue barn at the west end of the land. An older home sits on the property but was unoccupied, neighbors said. About a half-dozen cars, most of them rusted and broken down, are parked in a concrete carport next to a shop building. Neighbors say most people in the area generally keep to themselves, but the Trebilcocks were especially isolated. Sheriff’s investigators said they home-schooled their children.

The family occasionally loaded all the kids into a white van to go to church, neighbors said.

Two neighbors said they believed Jeffrey Trebilcock worked for the Longview School District and a Facebook page in his name lists a job in the district’s warehouse/delivery department.

It’s unclear how long each of the children have been with the family. At least two of the girls are siblings, but Rosenzweig said he did not believe any of them were related to the Trebilcock family before their adoptions.”

West Longview couple accused of neglecting, abusing 5 adopted children
[TDN.com 5/19/11 by Barbara LaBoe and Greg Garrison]

“Jeffrey Trebilcock is an employee of the Longview School District. A sheriff’s office spokesman said the children were home-schooled, and Rebecca Trebilcock may have stayed at the home full-time to educate them.”

Longview couple in jail after horrific child abuse
[KGW.com 5/20/11 by Justin Burton]

Update: The 13-year-old boy “is being treated at Doernbecher’s Children’s Hospital, and has been diagnosed with psychosocial dwarfism – a severe growth impairment as a response to severe environment stress.

A doctor estimates the boy will be ’10 inches shorter than he would have been’.

Meanwhile the Trebilcock’s themselves, especially Jeffrey, were described as overweight in court documents, and their four biological children also showed signs of being fed properly.”

“Ironically, the father’s job included delivering meals to schoolchildren in the area, as part of his job as a warehouse driver at the Longview School District.

The adopted children told investigators that the couple wired their kitchen so that an alarm sounded if someone tried to ‘steal’ food.

Punishments for doing so allegedly ranged from being doused with water and made to stand outside, to being beaten with a wooden board.”

“The Trebilcocks, of Reid Lane in Longview, appeared in Cowlitz County Superior Court on Friday. They managed to post the $50,000 bail, and would be arrained on May 31. The judge ordered that they stay away from their adopted children in that time. ”

“The Trebilcock children, both biological and adopted, were home educated and never enrolled in Longview schools.”
“Three years ago, when the boy was about 10, the Trebilcocks took him to see Dr Blaine Tolby.

According to court records, Dr Tolby said the boy was the height of a six-year-old and the weight of a five-year-old.

Dr Tolby said the parents gave him multiple reasons for the boy’s condition. He said he gave them a plan for making him better, but they responded that they would not follow the plan because of their personal beliefs.

It remains unclear what these beliefs are.”

Couple face charges of starving adopted children so badly that 13-year-old boy weighed 49lb and was forced to steal dog food
[Daily Mail 5/24/11]

“The judge on Tuesday allowed a 16-year-old boy to return to the Longview home of his parents, who are accused of starving and abusing their five adopted children.

The decision came despite new accusations that Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock also abused their four biological boys, allegations the boys rejected in court Tuesday.

Investigators said last week that the Trebilcocks’ biological children are average size or overweight, and there was no indication they were abused. However, during a hearing in Cowlitz County Juvenile Court, social workers and state attorneys said they’ve learned more.

They accused the Trebilcocks of tying one of their biological sons to a chair to get him to finish his homework and forcing at least one of the boys to sleep in their barn, an allegation that was made last week by one of the Trebilcocks’ neighbors.

Superior Court Judge Stephen Warning said there is no hard evidence that the 16-year-old would be harmed if he continued living with his parents, so he allowed the boy to move back into the Trebilcocks’ rural home west of Longview. The Daily News is withholding the names of all of the minors involved with the case.

The 16-year-old testified Tuesday that he wasn’t worried that he would be harmed in his parents’ home.

Asked by the state’s attorneys how he feels living under the Trebilcocks’ roof, he said: “I’ve been fine. Just wanting my sisters to come home.”

Jeffrey Trebilcock, who bailed out of jail with his wife Friday, broke down in tears as he hugged his 16-year-old son following the ruling. Later, the Trebilcocks and their biological sons — ages 16 to 24 — embraced and talked in the parking lot of the Juvenile Center in Longview.”

“The Trebilcocks’ youngest and only minor son had been living with his 24-year-old brother under a law enforcement order since Thursday’s arrests.

Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock listened quietly in court Tuesday as their boys testified and denied that their parents ever abused them or their younger, adopted siblings.

Dillon Trebilcock, 18, who still lives with his parents, called the abuse allegations “absurd.” Asked if he or any of his siblings were ever tied to a chair, he said: “Absolutely not.”

Brandon Trebilcock, 22, who also still lives with his parents, said he is an excellent baker who has won awards for his pastries at fairs. His adopted sisters helped him deliver pastries to neighbors, he said, and one sister liked to help in the kitchen.

“She looked up to me,” Brandon Trebilcock said.

Attorney Kurt Anagnostou, who is fighting to help the Trebilcocks get their children back, said the his clients’ 13-year-old adopted son lied to investigators about the abuse.

“The government has just gone way too far. The government’s gone too far,” declared Anagnostou, who is Longview’s mayor. “My clients’ family is in crisis. They are absolutely in crisis.”

Investigators said the parents starved the adopted kids so badly they resorted to eating dog and goat food as well as toothpaste and dandelion leaves. Investigators also said the Trebilcocks beat their adopted children with a paddle or forced them to stand on the porch and doused them with water if they caught them taking food.

The 13-year-old adopted boy was the most malnourished of his siblings, according to court documents. He weighed just 49 pounds —less than half the normal weight of a 13-year-old.

Investigators said the boy, who also had several broken ribs in various states of healing, has gained at least 25 pounds and grown an inch since he was placed in a foster home in early March.

The other adopted siblings, including three girls from Haiti, have similarly gained weight since they’ve been placed in protective custody in March, court documents said.

Attorney Tierra Busby, who represented the 16-year-old boy in his bid to rejoin his parents, suggested Tuesday that the adopted girls were underweight because “they are from another country where they were in an orphanage and malnourished.” (Authorities have not said how long the three girls have been in the United States.)”

The girls have gained between 10 and 18 pounds while in custody!

“Attorneys for the state argued that the 16-year-old was exposed to the alleged abuse or the victim of it himself. Returning to his parents’ home would put him at risk, they argued.

“It’s hard to imagine that, with what’s happened to these five (adopted) children, the … older children were not victimized also,” said attorney Eleanor Couto, who represents Cowlitz County Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), which is involved in the case.

Tina Day, a CASA supervisor for said the 16-year-old boy, like his brothers, had been home-schooled and has “led such a sheltered life.”

He’s “a bright kid. He’s shy. He’s very confused and concerned about what’s happening with his family,” Day said.”

Teen allowed to return to parents accused of abusing adopted children
[The Daily News 5/24/11 by Tony Lystra]

Update 2: Additional details found. The boy “was in such bad shape his body temperature was 10 degrees below normal.”

“Court records say both Trebilcocks are overweight, especially Jeff.”

“A coworker of Jeff Trebilcock, who said he’s best friends with Trebilcock, said the man described in the news is not the man he knows and Trebilcock talked about his children all the time.

District administrators say Trebilcock mentioned home-schooling his children. But when they became aware of the allegations, they immediately checked to see if the kids were in school there. They found the children weren’t. They were being home-schooled.”

“The Cowlitz County Sheriff’s Office began an investigation in March after it was notified by Washington State Children Protective Services about the 13-year-old boy’s condition and injuries that were being treated at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital.

The hospital informed protective services about the boy’s condition and the agency confirmed Friday that it then informed police.

The boy was placed in protective custody the first week of March and the other children were placed there as well the next week.

Officials with Washington State Child Protective Services said the Trebilcocks were previously foster parents and two of the five adopted children were their foster children. They adopted those two children, who were from the area, in 2004. The state then told the Trebilcocks that they had too many kids in their home.

Then the Trebilcocks went outside of state government to an unknown agency and adopted three children from Haiti.”

Couple accused of neglecting kids appear in court
[KATU 5/20/11 by Dan Tilkin]

Update 3: “Five adopted children seized by the state after their parents were accused of starving them haven’t attended school in nearly three months, state officials said Wednesday [June 1, 2011].”

“Gigler said the children’s upbringing has left them ill-equipped to attend classes.

“These children have been very isolated their entire lives,” Gigler said, adding that Children’s Administration officials hope to provide the kids with one-on-one tutoring throughout the summer.

By fall, the children should be “academically and socially ready to begin school,” she said, reporting that a local church has offered to admit the children to a private school on scholarship.”

“The Longview couple are expected to be arraigned in Cowlitz County Superior Court Friday.

A separate civil trial is scheduled for July 25 in Juvenile Court to determine whether the adopted children should become dependents of the state.”

“Lawyer Chelsea Baldwin said the Trebilcocks’ 11-year-old adopted daughter is “concerned about how far behind she is” in school and wants to return to the Trebilcocks’ home. A sheriff’s report said the girl had gained 18 pounds and grown an inch and a half by May 12, about two months after she was removed from the Trebilcocks’ home.

The Trebilcocks have four biological boys. Three are adults, and the fourth is 16 years old. The teen was sent to live with his older brother following his parents’ arrest. A Juvenile Court judge allowed him to return to his parents’ home last week. (The Trebilcocks are out on bail.)

Their biological sons were found to be overweight, but Children’s Administration officials said last week they believe the couple abused their biological sons, too.

On Wednesday, attorney Tierra Busby, who represents the 16-year-old, asked the court to dismiss the state’s efforts to intervene on the boy’s behalf. Busby argued that Children’s Administration made no direct allegations that the boy had been abused.”

“Gigler, the assistant attorney general, countered that even being a witness to the abuse of other children left the potential of emotional scarring. A pediatrician “recommended that all of the children, including (the 16-year-old boy), be removed to protect at least their psychological well-being,” she said.

State officials are “very concerned that (the boy) may not understand the risk to his psychological and physical well-being,” Gigler told the court.

The presiding juvenile judge, Superior Court Judge Gary Bashor, said the state’s attorneys will have to provide the court with more details about the alleged abuse of the Trebilcocks’ 16-year-old son.

The question of the adopted children’s schooling is expected to be addressed again in Juvenile Court next week.”

Adopted children seized from Longview couple led ‘very isolated’ lives
[The Daily News 6/1/11 by Tony Lystra]

“A Longview couple accused of beating and starving their five adopted children has pleaded not guilty.

Jeff and Rebecca Trebilcock entered the plea in court Friday. The couple is accused of mistreating a 13-year-old boy and his four younger sisters. They face charges of assault and criminal mistreatment.

Authorities became aware of the case after Rebecca Trebilcock brought the 13-year-old boy to a doctor in March. He was 4 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 49 pounds.”
Parents Plead Not Guilty In Mistreatment Case
[Fox 12 6/3/11]

“Their adopted son, 13, does not want to see them and the Trebilcocks are abiding with his wish, said attorneys Thad Scudder and Kevin Blondin, but they said the daughters miss their adoptive parents.”

“Baur said that she is also worried about the Trebilcocks “messing with the children’s heads” before the trial.

“The children have been damaged enough,” she said.

Bashor also allowed Scudder to withdraw as Rebecca Trebilcock’s attorney due to a potential conflict with a proposed prosecution witness. Bashor appointed Mayrie Grim in Scudder’s place and set the next court appearance for June 10.”

Longview couple accused of child abuse plead not guilty
[The Daily News 6/3/11 by Leslie Slape]

Update 4: “The trial date for Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock has been set for Aug. 29, with a pretrial hearing July 22.

Superior Court Judge Michael Evans was preassigned to the case Friday. The Trebilcocks previously filed affidavits of prejudice against judges Stephen Warning and James Stonier.”

Trial date set in Trebilcock child abuse case
[The Daily News 6/19/11]

Update 5: “The trials for Jeffery and Rebecca Trebilcock will be pushed back, probably to late November, to give attorneys more time to prepare.

The Trebilcocks, both 44, of Longview are charged with first- and second-degree criminal mistreatment of their five adopted children. Their trials had been set for Aug. 28.

Defense attorneys Kevin Blondin and Edward DeBray said one of the biggest challenges is trying to coordinate interviews with the children at a time all the attorneys can be there to minimize the strain on the children. There is a dependency case running at the same time as the criminal case, and each child has an attorney, Blondin said.

Judge Michael Evans set at status hearing for 1 p.m. Aug. 26. He will assign a new trial date at that time.”

Trebilcock trial delayed as attorneys prepare
[The Daily News 7/22/11]

Update 6: “A 14-year-old Longview boy allegedly starved by his adoptive parents looked on silently in Cowlitz County Juvenile Court on Wednesday as their attorney argued that the boy should not be allowed to attend public school this fall.

It was the first time the boy had seen his parents, Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock, since March, when authorities seized him and his siblings at a home in the rural Bunker Hill area west of Longview.”

Schooling

“”[A]ttorneys representing the children and state department of children’s services argued that the Trebilcocks’ children should be sent to public schools.

However, Longview attorney Kurt Anagnostou, who is representing Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock, argued that the children should be home-schooled and receive religious education just as they always have. Anagnostou said Rebecca Trebilcock’s sister is moving to the area from Alaska so she can apply for temporary custody of the children and school them at home.

Attorneys for the children argued that home-schooling already has delayed the children’s educations.
“I think the parents need to take responsibility for why they were behind: the deficits in their home-schooling,” said Eleanor Couto, who represents Cowlitz County Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), which is involved in the case.

Assistant Attorney General Dana Gigler, who is representing children’s services agency, said the children have been tutored this summer by local teachers. State funding for tutors has dried up, and private schools cost money, she and other state officials said. If the children are not sent to public school, there are no other educational options for them this fall, Gigler said.

Superior Court Judge Gary Bashor said he will take up the question of the children’s educations again next week.”

“What I’m inclined to do is have them go some place where there is religious education,” Bashor said. “Putting them in public school is contrary to that.”

Visitation with Adult Bio Brother of 14-Year-Old Adopted from Foster Care

“Attorneys advocating for the children also asked the court to allow the 14-year-old boy to have contact with a grown biological brother, saying the boy needs the support of a family member – even one he barely remembers from before his adoption.

The state’s attorneys have said that the Trebilcocks have shunned the 14-year-old boy and are no longer interested in parenting him.

That’s “not true,” Anagnostou said Wednesday. “They miss him. They want all their children returned to their household. … My clients are still the parents of these children.”

Anagnostou said the Trebilcocks object to the boy contacting his biological brother. He said the Trebilcocks, not state social workers, should be the ones to decide whom their children can see. Judge Bashor said he would address the question of contact with the biological sibling next week as well.

Trebilcock’s Criminal Trial Date

“The Trebilcocks also face criminal charges of first- and second-degree criminal mistreatment of their five adopted children. A trial in that case has been set for January in Cowlitz County Superior Court.”

Civil Trial for Termination of Parental Rights

“Bashor set a date of March 12 for a civil trial to determine whether the children will become wards of the state.”

Reminder: The boy at age 13 was 49 pounds and gained an additional 25 POUNDS while in foster care in the first few months! Three of the girls are international adoptees from Haiti–a point that US newspapers like to leave out of the followup articles.

Couple accused of starving children fighting to maintain parental control
[The Daily News 8/31/11 by Tony Lystra]

Update 7:“The Longview area couple accused of starving their five adopted children in May say they are loving parents who weren’t told of pre-existing health problems in several of the children.

The answers are the couple’s first extensive public comment on the case since their children were seized.

They adamantly denied that any of their children were mistreated, beaten or starved, as alleged in court documents.

“We have not, and would never, starve or abuse any of our children, whether adopted, biological or living with us in foster care,” the couple wrote. “We can state definitively that none of the children that have ever been in our care have been mistreated, abused or denied food, clothing, shelter, or any other necessities to thrive and develop.”

Court documents state all the children were underweight and told investigators they’re resorted to eating dog food and weeds at time. The Trebilcocks, though, said the children were in good health and a recent bout with the flu had caused several family members to lose weight and led to their son’s hospitalization.

“Based upon that weight loss, the other four adopted children were removed from our home despite no adverse symptoms stemming from our providing for them in every way that a parent should,” the couple wrote. “Rather than an investigation or inquiry into the living conditions, the children were unilaterally taken from us.”

According to court documents, the couple’s adopted son, then 13, weighted just 49 pounds when admitted to the emergency room in March, too weak to stand or use his hands properly. That’s about 50 pounds less than what a normal 13-year-old should weigh.

The Trebilcocks said the children, three of whom were from Haiti, were small for a number of reasons, including exposure to alcohol in the womb, spending time in “impoverished” Haitian orphanages and mental and physical disorders. They said they were not appraised of these conditions prior to the adoptions.

A state report released last week said claims of pre-existing physical disorders is a common way tactic by abusive parents trying to disguise starvation symptoms.

The couple also discredits reports that the children gained weight after being placed in foster care.

“Our understanding is that they are now being fed a high-fat and high-sugar diet that would cause weight gain as result,” they wrote. They said some of the weight gain also was normal after a bout with the flu. “This ‘rebound’ effect is being used as evidence of mistreatment despite the fact that their weight would have returned and increased naturally had they not been displaced.” [Good luck with that ridiculous conspiracy theory!]

The couple has not seen the adopted children for several months and blame state officials.

“When healthy and thriving children can be taken from their home for no apparent reason, it clearly indicates there is a flaw in the system,” the Trebilcocks wrote. “We hope and pray on a daily basis that visitation and reunification will occur soon.” [Healthy and thriving?Is that why they ate goat and dog food and dandelion leaves while locked out from the refrigerator? I don’t think so.]

Trebilcocks deny mistreating adopted children
[The Daily News 1/15/12 by Barbara LaBoe]

REFORM Puzzle Pieces

We again must question how this family was screened during the homestudy process. Were they using dangerous discipline techniques or were these adoptions based on religious saving? That they were approved for a private adoption right before the arrest speaks volumes for how POORLY trained these social workers are. Did they NOT notice that the children were emaciated? Who is the homestudy agency?

Postplacement monitoring is in question in this case. The local news finally are admitting that the girls are from Haiti as initial stories did not share that. We had to find those important details in Haitian newspapers. Which agency placed these children or was it an independent adoption?

Accountability for the approvals as well as for the AP’s actions is needed. From Update 6, it is disturbing that the Trebilcocks are trying to prevent contact between their foster-adopted son and his biological brother and that the aunt was trying to gain custody in order to homeschool them after attorneys FOR THE CHILDREN have stated that homeschooling has already kept them behind in their studies.

This arrest occurred in the same month as Hana Williams died. That makes two white couples in Washington state who internationally adopted black children and starved them in May 2011. One dead, the others survived.

Update 8: The Washington state review of adoption and foster care abuse cases will begin on February 21, 2012 and the governor hopes that a report will be available in May 2012.

Mary Meinig, of the Office of the Family and Children’s Ombudsman, read case files on each child starved and found striking similarities.

“These parents were withholding food, beating the children, putting them outside, locking them in closets, locking them in bathrooms or not giving them bathroom facilities,” Meinig said.

DSHS oversees foster-care placements and assigns caseworkers who follow up with the families, but adoptions are a different story.

“Once that adoption is approved and closed by the order of the judge, the child welfare agency would no longer have responsibility. The parents who have adopted the child would be legally responsible for the care,” DSHS Assistant Secretary Denise Revels Robinson said.

In February, a work group of child experts ordered by Gov. ChristineGregoire will meet to discuss what more can be done.

“We really want to learn from international adoption agencies what they do and what they look for and their follow-up after children are adopted here,” Meinig said. “It’s very serious business. We all promise these children a safe and loving family, and with these children we’ve failed to give them that and we need to know why.”

The governor hopes the group can complete its work in May and make a presentation on proposed changes.”

State reviewing adoption placement after child starvation cases
[Q13Fox 1/25/12 by Dana Rebik]

“The group of child experts will examine adoption abuse and the “cluster of very concerning situations in 2011,” according to the letter sent by state officials. Five abuse cases involving starvation were reported in 2011, and four involved adopted children. Included in that group is the Cowlitz County criminal case against Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock in May. The couple denies ever harming their children.

The work group will be lead by Denise Revels Robinson, assistant secretary of the state Department of Social and Health Services and Mary Meinig, ombudsman of the state Office of the Family & Children.

The work group will be asked to answer several questions, including:

• Are neglect and abuse, including withholding food, on the rise? And are they more prevalent in adopted homes?

• Are changes needed to foreign or cross-race adoptions procedures? Or in the foster care adoption process?

• Do child welfare agencies maintain adequate long-term data on adoption outcomes?

• Does a push to have more foster children adopted sooner created risks to child safety?

The first meeting is Feb. 21 in Olympia. Officials hope to have their report completed by May.”

The Daily News says “Cowlitz County Superior Court Judge Michael Evans will oversee the trial and deliver a verdict.

Investigators said a 13-year-old adopted son weighed only 49 pounds, less than half the national average for boys his age, when authorities intervened last year.

The boy grew an inch and gained 25 pounds in roughly two months, authorities said. The other children, three of whom are originally from Haiti, also rapidly gained weight after being placed in protective custody, authorities said.

The Trebilcocks, authorities said, rigged an alarm in their kitchen to keep the adopted children from getting into food cupboards and hit the children with a wooden board if they “stole” food.

The Trebilcocks’ biological children were all said to be healthy and well fed.”

KOIN says “Opening  statements began Monday morning in the trial of a   Longview couple accused of starving their five  adoptive children.”.

Also, “Investigators say the abuse happened before the children were removed from the family in March 2011. The kids were between the ages of 8 to 13 at the time. They reportedly had resorted to eating dog food and toothpaste by the time authorities took them into protective custody.

The trial begins

On Monday, July 16, the prosecution began calling witnesses. They claimed the children were regularly denied food, saying the children were so hungry they had to steal food and the parents had even put a monitoring alarm in the kitchen — punishing kids if they tried to get food.

The prosecution witnesses include medical staff who first saw the oldest adopted boy. They said the boy was so ill that his body temperature had dropped to 88 degrees and his heart had slowed. They finally sent him to the hospital, despite his mother’s objections.

At the hospital the boy was found to have broken ribs and severe malnutrition. At 13 years old he weighed only 49 pounds, and looked like a 6-year-old child.

The state says he gained 22 pounds in the three weeks after he was removed from the home.

While the defense waits to present its case and witnesses, attorneys for the Trebilcocks plan to show the children were adequately fed with no restrictions on what they ate, but that the family had just gone through the flu. They also said they planned to show that the oldest adopted boy had digestive problems and the kids gained weight after they were taken out of the home because they no longer ate health food.”

 

Daily Mail says “The boy, who was just 4ft 4in at the time but is now a healthier weight after being taken into care, testified against the Trebilcocks yesterday and spoke of the abuse he suffered at their hands.

He told the court how he ate the food intended for animals because he ‘didn’t get to eat anything else and I was hungry.’

Fox News reported that the boy, who is now 14, also testified that the couple had installed alarms to prevent him and his siblings from obtaining any food.

‘The alarm was right in front of the hallway to go into the kitchen, so if you went past that it would go off,’ the court heard.

The boy also said he had been forced to drink his own urine.

A doctor examining the boy in 2008 said he had the weight and height levels of a six-year-old, and that he suffered severe malnutrition, hypothermia, a slow heart rate and muscle wastage.

He was also diagnosed with psychosocial dwarfism – a growth impairment believed to be caused by severe environmental stress.

A doctor had estimated the boy was 10 inches shorter than a normal, healthy child of his age.

Meanwhile the Trebilcocks themselves, especially Jeffrey, were described as overweight in court documents, and their four biological children also showed signs of being fed properly.

Ironically, the father’s job included delivering meals to schoolchildren in the area, as part of his work as a warehouse driver for Longview School District.

The Trebilcocks’ lawyer claimed the adopted children were well cared for, however, and accused them of giving conflicting statements to the court.

‘Over the course of a number of interviews, some of them rather lengthy, (they) did tell a number of different renditions of what happened in the family home during the time they were there,’ Ted Debray told the judge in a statement reported by Fox News.

He also said the boy’s unusually low weight was caused by illness.

The Trebilcock children, both biological and adopted, were home educated and never enrolled in local schools.”

Couple ‘starved their five adopted children who were forced to eat goat food’

[KOIN local 6 7/16/12]

Update 10: “The testimony of three children remained consistent Tuesday in the trial of Jeff and Rebecca Trebilcock, the couple accused of nearly starving five adopted children to death.
A 14-year-old boy, whom prosecutors said was near death a year ago, testified Monday. His biological sister testified Tuesday and then later in the afternoon, one of their sisters who was born in Haiti took the stand.
The girl was extremely shy and answered questions with mostly one or two words. The 12-year-old, whose face will not be shown by KATU, said she often wouldn’t get to eat if she didn’t finish her chores. She said she was also made to stand outside in the cold with no jacket or shoes.
The girl, however, said the treatment by the Trebilcock couple was worse for her 13-year-old adopted brother because the Trebilcocks caught him eating dog food. Prosecutors said he weighed only as much as a six-year-old child when he was rushed to the hospital last year.
“Sometimes he would get spanked … Sometimes he would get slapped in the face,” she said.
The girl is one of three the Trebilcocks adopted from Haiti, along with adopting the boy and his biological sister who were born in America. During testimony from the girl, Jeff Trebilcock got somewhat emotional, wiping away tears from his face.
The three who have testified so far said the Trebilcocks put a motion-sensing alarm in their kitchen to keep the kids from taking more food. The girl testified she still stole bread and foraged in the bathroom for something to eat.
“(I) took toothpaste,” she said.
The prosecutor asked her why she did that.
“(Because) I was hungry,” she said.
The prosecutor showed a picture of a locked cabinet inside the Trebilcocks’ master bedroom. It was stocked with food, including soap and candy bars. ”
More children recount abuse, neglect in Trebilcock trial
[KATU 7/17/12 by Dan Tilkin]

“On Tuesday, the prosecution focused on a motion-sensing alarm setup inside the kitchen of the Trebilcocks’ home that, investigators say, would go off if the kids tried to get more food.

Both girls that testified are now 12 years old.

“I didn’t get enough food,” the first girl said on the stand.

“We had to brush our teeth and get them checked. Then, if we got those done, we got to eat breakfast,” the 12-year-old said.

The first girl told the court that her adopted parents would make her and her siblings eat outside and wash their clothes with cold water in a bucket.

She said that, when punished, they would be hit with a board or slapped in the face.

“If we cried, they poured water on us,” she said.”

The investigation began when Rebecca took her then-13-year-old son to a Longview clinic. The boy weighed only 49 pounds and stood 4-foot-4. A dietician told the court that the Trebilcocks’ 13-year-old’s weight was what a healthy 6-year-old should be. The prosecution said he wasn’t the only one starved.

“I got toothpaste,” the second girl testified Tuesday.

When asked why she took the toothpaste, she said, “Because, I was hungry.”

The Trebilcocks’ defense attorneys said the kids were fed three meals a day and the kids’ stories don’t match up, but both children who testified Tuesday said they didn’t like living in their adopted home.

“I didn’t really think about how it felt, but now I think it was the worse place I’ve ever been,” the second girl said.

During cross examination, the kids told the court that they did do some fun things with the Trebilcock family and have at times missed their adopted home.”
Two adopted girls testify against parents in Longview abuse trial

[Q13Fox 7/17/12 by Brian MacMillan]

“The trial of a couple accused of mistreating and starving five adopted children entered its second day Tuesday as an adopted daughter testified she was spanked, starved and had her mouth taped.

Jeff and Rebecca Trebilcock are charged with criminal mistreatment involving their adopted kids. Five came into their Longview home between 2002 and 2008. Their own children were reportedly well cared-for.

Those adopted children were put in protective custody in March of 2011.”

“An adopted daughter testified about the treatment she faced in the Trebilcock home: “They spanked us and put tape on our mouths.”

When asked about when the children’s mouths were taped, she said: “If we were crying.”

“The Trebilcocks’ attorneys have characterized the couple as good parents who fed the children as much as they wanted — that their low weights were caused by a flu, and by fetal alcohol syndrome.

But testimony from the children and from doctors disputes that claim.

When the parents were first arrested, the children said a motion detector had been set up in the kitchen to catch them if they tried to get food. They were beaten with a board if caught and resorted to eating dog and goat food and dandelion leaves.

One 13-year-old boy was 4 foot 4 and 49 pounds. He was treated at Doernbecher for broken ribs, malnutrition and hypothermia.

Neighbors defended the couple, saying they were good parents. Girls adopted from Haiti were far better off with the couple than her previous home. The arrest was characterized as a miscarriage of justice.”

Adopted daughter says parents spanked, taped mouths

[KGW 7/18/12]

Update 11: “Forty-eight hours before authorities seized their adopted children and placed them in foster homes, Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock loaded the kids in a van and sent them off to Wyoming, one of their adopted daughters testified Tuesday.

Cowlitz County Deputy Prosecutor James Smith has accused the Longview couple of spiriting four of the five adopted children away in March 2011 after allegations surfaced that the parents had been starving and abusing the kids. The intent, Smith told the court Monday, was “escape,” and authorities ordered that the children be immediately returned to Cowlitz County.

On Tuesday, the second day of the Trebilcock’s abuse and neglect trial, their 12-year-old adopted daughter, who is now living in a foster home, said the Trebilcocks asked one of their four biological sons, Dylan Trebilcock, to drive four adopted daughters out of the state.

“They just gave him some money,” the girl said. “They said, ‘Hurry.’ ”

The Daily News is not naming the Trebilcocks’ five adopted children to protect their identities.

The girl told the court that she and her three adopted sisters rode in the van all night and ate cereal. “We slept in the car,” she said. They were at a Wyoming relative’s house for less than a day, she said, when Dylan Trebilcock got a phone call instructing him to return to Washington with the girls.

The 12-year-old girl testified that she and her sisters were handed over to authorities the day they arrived back in Longview. The girls have been living in foster homes since.

Children’s Administration Supervisor Stephanie Frost testified Tuesday that Jeffrey Trebilcock surrendered the girls to Children’s Administration officials, which had a court order for their seizure, in the parking lot of the Hall of Justice on March 10, 2011.

Not with them on the trip was the 12-year-old girl’s biological brother, who had been admitted to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland earlier in March. The boy, who was adopted with his sister by the Trebilcocks in 2004, nearly died from malnourishment before authorities intervened, medical experts testified this week. He, too, is now in foster care.

Prosecutors say the Trebilcocks, who are accused of multiple counts of criminal mistreatment, failed to feed the children and subjected some of them to a regime of humiliation and abuse that included putting an alarm in the kitchen to keep them from stealing food, duct-taping their mouths and making them stand in the cold on their home’s porch for extended periods.

The Trebilcocks’ four biological children, some of whom are now grown, were well-fed, authorities said.

The couple have denied starving or abusing the adopted children. Their defense attorneys, Kevin Blondin and Ted DeBray, said this week that other health problems may have caused the kids to be underweight. Blondin and DeBray have sought during cross-examination to discredit the children by suggesting they were known as liars in the home. The defense attorneys also have encouraged the children to discuss on the stand times when they were well-fed or went on family vacations.

Some of the adopted children testified Monday and Tuesday that the Trebilcocks insisted on watching them while they went to the bathroom. The children also said the Trebilcocks often refused to feed them unless they finished their chores and homework. Many of the children resorted to eating dog and goat food, they said.

“I was hungry… because I didn’t get enough food,” testified the 12-year-old girl, who, according to authorities, was underweight and gained 18 pounds in two months after being taken away from the Trebilcocks.

“I think it was the worst place I’ve ever been,” she said of life with the Trebilcocks. “It was scary.”

Her brother gave similar testimony Monday.

The Trebilcocks, both 45, had been stone-faced during the testimony of two of their adopted children. But Jeffrey Trebilcock wiped tears from his eyes and his wife cracked a hint of smile as a third child, one of their three girls adopted from Haiti, sat in the witness stand Tuesday.

The girl, also 12, was by far the most reticent of the children who have testified so far. Between long silences, she worked a silver memento of some sort in her hands as she described eating toothpaste and dog food because she was so hungry.

Authorities said the girl also was strikingly underweight, but gained 12 pounds in about two months after being placed in foster care.”

Trebilcocks’ daughter tells of escape attempt

[The Daily News 7/17/12 by Tony Lystra]

“The boy was severely malnourished and near death when he was  rushed to a Portland hospital last year, his heart beating so  slowly one doctor was surprised he was conscious, Smith said.   The boy and his four adopted sisters, ages 8 and 13, all  rapidly gained weight and improved in health once they were  away from the Trebilcocks.”

“Defense lawyers Kevin Blondin and Ted Debray said the Trebilcocks are good parents who clothed their children and  gave them all the food they wanted. The kids were underweight because they’d recently suffered a bout of the flu, the  attorneys told the judge.

The lawyers suggested other medical problems, such as fetal  alcohol syndrome, also could explain the boy’s condition.

The boy who testified Monday said he wasn’t allowed to use  the bathroom at night so he urinated in a cup. He said that if  his parents found the cup, they made him drink it.

The boy said his parents taped his mouth shut as a  punishment. He testified that he was often cold and damp. When he wet himself or the bed, the Trebilcocks made him wash his  own sheets and clothes in a bucket in the yard, regardless of  how cold or wet the weather. He then hung the clothes and sheets outside.

He wasn’t allowed to wear shoes often on the Trebilcocks’  roughly 30 acres in west Longview and did chores – feeding and  watering goats and other animals – in his bare feet, he said.   And his parents insisted that his bare feet be inspected before he came inside to ensure that he didn’t track dirt into  the house. But no one would bother, he said, so he spent hours  huddled on the porch. If he cried about it, he said, his mother or another family member popped out the door and doused  him with cold water from a glass.

The boy said his parents sometimes fed him on the porch. They  put food in a plastic potato salad container, which they called his trough, then passed it out the door to him.  Breakfasts often amounted to dry oatmeal, he said. And on at least one occasion the Trebilcocks gave him moldy bread  because they didn’t want it to go to waste.”

“They gave it to me in the back in my trough,” he said.”

Longview couple on trial accused of child abuse

[The News Tribune 7/18/12 by The Associated Press]

“Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock’s oldest biological son testified Wednesday that he spoke with his father about his underweight adopted brother in 2010, but his father told him it wasn’t his place to worry about it.

Shane Michael Trebilcock, 25, acknowledged the discussion during a long exchange with a deputy prosecutor on the third day of his parents’ child abuse and neglect trial. But, after being called to the witness stand as a prosecution witness, Shane Trebilcock tried to defend his parents. He also tried to distance himself from statements he reportedly made to a sheriff’s investigator last year suggesting his parents had mistreated his adopted little brother.

Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock, both 45, are accused of starving and abusing their five adopted children, including three girls from Haiti. One of the children, a 14-year-old boy, was admitted to a Portland hospital last year, cold and emaciated.

Deputy Prosecutor James Smith noted Wednesday that Shane Trebilcock told a detective last year that he was worried about the boy, then 13. Smith said Shane Trebilcock also said it was obvious the boy had not been eating properly and that he wanted the boy to come live with him so that he would be safe. He also said his parents treated the adopted girls better than the boy.

In court Wednesday, however, Shane Trebilcock backed away from those statements. He said sheriff’s investigators lied to him about his parents’ treatment of the adopted children. He also said he spoke out in anger during his interview with the detective because he was frustrated that he learned about boy’s hospitalization from a family friend, not his parents.

“She had me pretty stressed,” Shane Trebilcock said of the detective.

“So, you’re saying you told things to the detective that are untrue?” Smith asked.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Shane Trebilcock said, adding that he’s never in trouble and not used to dealing with law enforcement. “I was under a great deal of stress. … When I’m speaking with officers, they stress me out.”

“It sounds like your perspective on some of these things has changed over time, Mr. Trebilcock,” Smith said.

Smith also said Shane Trebilcock told the detective that his mother, Rebecca Trebilcock, had said she wanted the adopted girls “to be thin.” Smith also reminded Shane Trebilcock that he told investigators his parents were scheduled to adopt yet another child from Africa and that he didn’t want the girls or the adopted boy to be returned to his parents after authorities seized them and placed in foster care in March 2011.

Shane Trebilcock acknowledged that he may have told authorities that his mother wanted thin girls. However, he said he didn’t recall making the other statements. He also said his parents fed all of the children well and punished them fairly, usually with the occasional spanking and “time out.”

Some of the adopted children, who joined the Trebilcock home between 2002 and 2008, described during testimony this week a horrific routine of humiliation and abuse. As of Wednesday, all of the adopted children had testified.

Three of the girls adopted from Haiti have been quiet and demur, often answering lawyers’ questions with one word or leaving long silences lingering over the courtroom as they failed to answer the questions at all. One girl said Wednesday she’d eaten toothpaste because she was hungry. Another said she’d resorted to eating dandelions and said the Trebilcocks had placed tape over her mouth as a punishment.

The boy said the Trebilcocks made him wear a diaper and wash his clothes and sheets in a bucket outside if he wet his pants. He said he often wasn’t allowed to wear shoes on the couple’s Bunker Hill area property west of Longview, no matter the weather, and was forced to drink his own urine.

Emily Haukaas, a tutor who visited the Trebilcock home regularly for at least six years to help with the children’s home-schooling, read Wednesday from a written exercise she had done with the boy one day when he was feeling sad and frustrated. [A tutor was there for 6 years and did NOT report their malnourishment!!!???]

“What can you asked Jesus for?” she had written on the paper.

“Help not to aggravate my family,” the boy wrote”.

Oldest son takes stand in Trebilcock trial

[The Daily News 7/19/12 by Tony Lystra]

Update 12: “An expert on child abuse testified that, in his professional opinion, Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock’s adopted son was suffering from neglect as the couple’s child-abuse trial ended its first week.

Dr. Thomas Dalvano, medical director of the Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect program at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland, saw the Trebilcock’s adopted son at Doernbecher in March 2011.

The Trebilcocks, both 45, each are accused of one count of first-degree criminal mistreatment and four counts second-degree criminal mistreatment of their three adopted children. Judge Michael Evans is hearing the bench trial, which is expected to last two weeks.

Dalvano said the boy, then 13, weighed only 49 pounds when examined.

“We were looking at an extremely malnourished child,” he said, adding that he found no underlying medical condition.

“In my opinion, he was being neglected because he wasn’t being given enough to eat,” Dalvano said.

He said the boy also suffered from hypothermia from being “left in a too-cold environment,” and eczema, a skin condition that cleared up during the boy’s eight days at Doernbecher.

Dalvano told deputy prosecutor James Smith that the boy did not have cellulitis, a skin infection; rickets, a loss of calcium in the bones; or sepsis, a bacterial infection in the bloodstream. In cross-examination, defense attorneys Ted DeBray and Kevin Blondin asked Dalvano about all these conditions, noting that two weeks after the boy was discharged from Doernbecher he was diagnosed with cellulitis. They maintain that many factors could explain the boy’s poor condition.

DeBray asked Dalvano if the boy’s abnormally low height could be due to psychosocial dwarfism, in which stress causes the body to stop producing a growth hormone.

Dalvano replied that the boy gained 8 pounds, “just by feeding. That’s not psychosocial dwarfism, that’s malnourished.”

Prosecution testimony will resume Monday and the defense will begin its case Tuesday or Wednesday. The Trebilcocks are expected to testify Thursday.”

Child abuse expert testifies at Trebilcock trial

[The Daily News 7/20/12 by Leslie Slape]

Update 13: “The pediatrician who cared for Jeffery and Rebecca Trebilcocks’ adopted son testified Monday that the suspected abuse against the boy is “the worst case in severity of neglect that has not resulted in death” he has ever seen.

Dr. Blaine Tolby, who began testifying Friday afternoon, continued his testimony under cross-examination Monday morning as the Trebilcocks’ child-neglect trial entered its second week.

Tolby resisted defense attorneys’ attempts to get him to concede that the boy’s short stature might have been caused by fetal alcohol syndrome.

Tolby saw the boy at the Child & Adolescent Clinic in Longview from 2002 — when he was placed in foster care with the Trebilcocks — to 2011 (he was formally adopted in 2004). He testified that the boy suffered from “psychosocial dwarfism,” in which heavy stress stops a child’s growth. He said the boy was above average in height and weight in 2002, but by 2008 Tolby grew concerned about the boy’s failure to grow and advised state Child Protective Services workers.

In 2011, when the boy was 13 and authorities took him from the Trebilcocks’ home, he was 4-foot-4 and weighed 49 pounds. Tolby said that based on projections from the boy’s height at 5 years old, he should have been about 7 inches taller.

Defense attorney Ted DeBray asked Tolby why he didn’t stress urgency when he made his first report to CPS about the boy in 2008.

“I didn’t have all the facts,” Tolby said. He said he told CPS he was concerned about the boy’s lack of growth, “but it was not reported in a ‘get him out of the house tomorrow’ fashion.”

He said if he had known what the boy’s condition would be on March 1, 2011, he would have acted with more urgency in 2008.

When he examined the boy in 2011, the child was “incredibly malnourished,” Tolby said. According to the boy’s body mass index (the relationship of weight to height), “99 out of 100 children would have weighed more,” Tolby said.

Cowlitz County sheriff’s deputies removed the boy and his three adoptive sisters at that time. Authorities reported that within two months of being removed from the home, the boy had grown an inch and gained 25 pounds.

DeBray and co-defense attorney Kevin Blondin asked Tolby if the boy’s small stature could be caused by fetal alcohol syndrome, showing a letter from a medical expert who diagnosed the condition.

Tolby said he disagreed with that diagnosis. He said that although heavy drinking during pregnancy can result in small babies, some of whom grow slowly, “there’s no interruption of growth halfway through childhood” as with the Trebilcock boy.”

Pediatrician dismisses fetal alcohol syndrome theory during abuse trial

[The Daily News 7/23/12 by Leslie Slape]

“A forensic physician who studied medical reports on Jeffery and Rebecca Trebilcocks’ adopted children said he believes the oldest boy suffered from rickets and fetal alcohol syndrome.

Dr. Steven Gabaeff of Jackson, Calif., who is also licensed to practice emergency-room medicine and has 30 years’ medical experience, said he never examined the children in person. However, he said he reviewed numerous documents, including Dr. Blaine Tolby’s report that the abnormally undersized boy suffered from psychosocial dwarfism brought on by a traumatic home situation.

The Trebilcocks are charged with criminal mistreatment of their four adopted children. The defense began presenting its case Tuesday in the trial’s second week.

Gabaeff disputed Tolby’s diagnosis. He said the boy developed a vitamin D deficiency in 2002 when he entered the Trebilcocks’ Longview home as a foster child and began eating a vegan diet, which has no dairy products. The prolonged absence of vitamin D led him to develop rickets, a thinning of the bones, Gabaeff said. He said the boy’s stunted growth is a result of rickets, not psychosocial dwarfism.

Gabaeff he said the boy’s broken ribs also are caused by rickets, which he said was rampant in the 1930s and 1940s but is much less common today.

Neverthless, he said, “Many misdiagnoses of child abuse are really rickets,” he said.

He said when the boy entered Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in March 2011, he had a vitamin D level of nine. The normal range is 30 or more.

At Doernbecher, the boy was given large doses of vitamins that “gave him the capacity to grow again,” Gabaeff said. “He made a very good recovery.”

During cross-examination, Deputy Prosecutor James Smith tried to differentiate between vitamin D deficiency and rickets. Gabaeff insisted they are the same.

Smith also noted that other experts didn’t find rickets.

“The OHSU radiologist didn’t find rickets,” he said. “He found osteopenia,” or poor bone density.

“That’s rickets,” Gabaeff said.

As for fetal alcohol syndrome, which Tolby said the boy didn’t have, Gabaeff said he diagnosed the condition based on telltale facial features, behavior and a social services report that said the boy’s birth mother drank 10 to 12 beers a day during pregnancy.

“You had no training to diagnose fetal alcohol syndrome,” Smith said.

“I’ve done 20 years of reading. I’ve seen hundreds of cases. I know what it is. It’s not that difficult to diagnose,” Gabaeff said.

He said odd behavior such as eating dog food — alleged in the Trebilcock’s case — could be blamed on fetal alcohol syndrome.

Smith showed Gabaeff a psychological exam in which the birth mother said she didn’t drink during pregnancy.

“Whatever it says won’t change my opinion,” Gabaeff said. “(The boy) had fetal alcohol syndrome.””

Defense’s expert witness has different take on Trebilcocks’ son

[The Daily News 7/25/12 by Leslie Slape]

Jeffrey “broke down into tears while describing the day he handed his adopted daughters over to Child Protective Services.

“I hugged ’em and I prayed with them,” he said. “I told ’em I wouldn’t let nothing happen to them. I felt like a failure now.”

The state took custody of the girls during a child neglect investigation that began when his wife took their adopted son to a doctor in March 2011.

The boy, then 13, weighed 49 pounds at the time. Doctors have testified the boy was severely malnourished and had five rib fractures.

Last week, the children testified the Trebilcocks withheld food and put up alarms so they couldn’t access it.

Jeffrey Trebilcock said food was always plentiful in the home and the children were always given food if they asked for more.

He described a motion sensor in the hallway and a makeshift alarm set up outside the boy’s room as a baby gate with bells fastened to it, but said they were in place to notify him if the boy was leaving to wander around the house or outside.

“Before we used the gate, at nighttime, we caught him in our bedroom in the middle of the night while we were sleeping, just staring at us, like four times,” said Jeffrey Trebilcock.

The most shocking testimony came from the boy, now 14, who said he would urinate in a cup because he wasn’t allowed to leave his bedroom at night. The boy testified he was forced to drink his urine when his parents discovered it.

Jeffrey Trebilcock said that incident never happened.

The boy also said he ate dog and goat food because he was hungry.

Jeffrey Trebilcock testified the boy ate dog food by choice, sneaking pieces from a shelf in the laundry room.

“For some reason, (the boy) would surpass the human food and climb that shelf to get the dog food,” he said.

When asked how the Trebilcocks knew the boy was stealing dog food, he said, “Because Rebecca, she was a genius, she put down flour you to know, to see the fingerprints and toe prints.”

Rebecca Trebilcock is expected to testify Thursday morning.”

Father denies withholding food from adopted kids

[KPTV 7/26/12]

Update 14: “”You guys stole my children from me,” said Rebecca Trebilcock who, along with her husband, Jeff, faces criminal mistreatment charges after being arrested in March 2011.

During her testimony, Rebecca Trebilcock tried to paint her son as a difficult child. Throughout the trial the defense tried to turn the blame on the 13-year-old for why he only weighed as much as a 6-year-old. His mother continued the defense theme, saying the boy had odd behavior and wasn’t truthful.

Trebilcock said her attitudes about food weren’t to blame. She also said her religious beliefs inspired her to adopt a mostly vegetarian lifestyle for her family and admitted she traveled to Mexico for weight-loss surgery.

She said she cooked ample food for her five adopted kids, but the 13-year-old boy often refused to eat or stole dog food to eat instead of people food. And she said a motion detector in the kitchen wasn’t meant to keep him from stealing food in the middle of the night.

“It could keep (him) from getting out of the house,” she said.

Trebilcock said she had no idea why the boy would sneak out or what he was doing. She and her husband broke down in tears when her lawyer showed a video of the Trebilcocks and their four adopted daughters during a state supervised visit after the couple’s arrest.

The video shows them as an affectionate family with the girls telling the Trebilcocks they love them, but one of the girls testified she didn’t know the way the Trebilcocks treated her was wrong until she experienced another way of life in foster care.

Rebecca Trebilcock lashed out at the prosecutor when he asked her about her emotional response at seeing the girls’ pictures.

“Because that’s all I have left of my daughters: You guys stole my children from me,” she said.

Jeff Trebilcock tearfully testified in his own defense the day before, saying that he and his wife would wake up in the middle of the night to find the 13-year-old standing over them. He said the motion detector and gate were installed inside the home to keep the boy from wandering around the house at night.

The case was placed in the hands of the judge at the end of the day. If he finds the couple guilty, according to Washington sentencing guidelines, the Trebilcocks face four to 5 ½ years in prison on the most serious charge of first-degree criminal mistreatment of their son.

The second-degree charges for their daughters carry likely sentences of six to 12 months.

The judge said he will issue his ruling Tuesday [July 31, 2012] at 1 p.m.”

Mom blames boy’s difficult behavior for extreme weight loss

[KATU  7/26/12 by Dan Tilkin]

“Attorneys wrapped up their cases Thursday in the bench trial of a Longview couple charged with criminal mistreatment of their five adopted children.”

“An emotional highlight of Thursday’s concluding testimony was a 52-minute video of Jeffery and Rebecca Trebilcock cuddling, reading, kissing and playing with their four adopted daughters during a supervised visit.

The Trebilcocks wept while watching the playback of the visit, which took place April 7, 2011, about a month after the state seized the children. Their adopted son did not want to attend. A judge ended supervised visitation in May 2011.”

“”Why did you adopt five children?” asked defense attorney Ted DeBray.

“We had the room in our home and in our hearts,” Rebecca Trebilcock said. “When God has given a lot, he requires a lot, and I felt he had given us a lot.”

As her husband did on the witness stand Wednesday, Rebecca Trebilcock insisted their adopted children had plenty to eat. They had a 6,000-square-foot garden and canned 14 canner loads of vegetables a year, she said.

She said the boy usually told her he didn’t want dinner, which the family ate together.

“He’d say, ‘You don’t have to make me anything. I don’t want to eat,’ ” Rebecca Trebilcock quoted him as saying, adding, “He’d say he was fat.”

But when he smelled the food, “He’d change his mind pretty quick,” she said.

She said she grew worried about the boy’s lack of growth, which led her to take him to the doctor in 2008, but she said she did not believe he was dangerously thin.

Showing her a March 2011 photo of the boy with stick-thin arms in his hospital bed, deputy prosecutor James Smith tried to get Rebecca Trebilcock to agree that the boy was emaciated. The boy, then 13 years old, weighed only 49 pounds.

“Does he look like he’s at a healthy weight?” he asked.

“No, he looks like he’s been sick,” she replied.

“He doesn’t look malnourished?”

“I don’t know. I’m not a doctor.”” [Unbelievable!]

“In his closing statement, Smith said the combined testimony of the Trebilcocks’ adopted children — who testified last week — along with the medical records is enough to prove the charges.

“We can clearly break down the growth charts to before Trebilcock, during Trebilcock and after Trebilcock,” he said. “At the Trebilcocks, they slide off the growth scale. They’re not gaining weight. After the Trebilcocks, all the children gain weight and height. They become much healthier. Why?

“The answer is clear. The common denominator is the people caring for these children.”

Defense attorney Kevin Blondin, who represents Jeffrey Trebilcock, said in his closing statement that the Trebilcocks are “a more normal family than the state wants to paint them as.”

The video, family photos and letters prove that, he said.

“The kids are not fearful of their parents. They don’t look like kids who were forced to have duct tape over their mouths, underfed, neglected and mistreated,” he said. “There’s no awkwardness.”

He suggested that sometime after visitation was denied, someone planted ideas in the children’s heads that influenced them to make up stories.

DeBray, who represents Rebecca Trebilcock, noted that in their first interview with authorities, the girls said their brother had plenty to eat. One of the girls said her brother had a reputation for not telling the truth, Debray said.

He said there are other possible medical reasons for the boy’s condition such as rickets, reactive attachment disorder or pyschosocial dwarfism. [RAD does not cause malnourishment. Psychosocial dwarfism and rickets in this child would be the result of NEGLECT. Either way, this is not a DEFENSE for the APs. If a child says he doesn’t want to eat, then you just say ‘Oh ok don’t ever eat.’ How is that NOT neglect?]

In his rebuttal, Smith scoffed at those arguments.

“The defense maintains there’s no proof of malnourishment,” he said. “(The boy) weighs 49 pounds!”.

As for the video, “That proves nothing,” he said. “The children don’t know any better. Their whole world is their parents. Children always love their parents, even abusive parents.””

Mother takes the stand as abuse trial testimony concludes

[The Daily News 7/26/12 by Leslie Slape]

Update 15/August 14, 2012: Sorry for the late update on this case!

International adopted children-acquittal. Foster children-guilty.Riiiiight…this is what happens when you have a bench trial-sympathy for the APs!

“A Superior Court judge has convicted a Longview, Wash., couple of withholding food from two of their five adopted children.

Cowlitz County Judge Michael Evans ruled Tuesday that Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock starved their then-13-year-old adopted son nearly to death and denied a significant amount of food to his biological sister.

The girl was 12 when she and her adopted siblings were seized by the state last year.

The Daily News reported that the couple were convicted of first-degree criminal mistreatment of the boy and third-degree criminal mistreatment of his sister.

The prosecution alleged the couple also denied food to three other adopted girls. However, the judge acquitted the Trebilcocks of those charges.

Prosecutor James Smith said they face four to five years in prison at sentencing Aug. 23.

All five of the children are now in foster homes.

The couple declined comment. ”

Judge convicts Longview, Wash., couple of starving two of five adopted children

[Oregon Live 8/14/12 by The Associated Press]

“The judge said he believes the couple was reckless and criminally negligent, but did not act in malice.

“I think the Trebilcocks love their children. I don’t think there’s any question of that,” he said. [Are you bleeping kidding me?]

However, he added the couple, both of whom have struggled with obesity, appear to have developed a “warped” and “twisted” view of food.

The adopted children testified they were not allowed to eat breakfast unless their chores were done and that their parents severely punished them for wetting their beds or other violations of the family rules.

“Food was used as a carrot and also a punishment,” Evans said. “This combination of food and punishment and accidents and disobedience all got wrapped up together.”

When Rebecca Trebilcock took the 13-year-old boy to a pediatrician on March 1, 2011, he weighed 49 pounds, about half the weight of a normal 13-year-old, and had hypothermia, severe eczema and an extremely low heart rate.

He was immediately admitted to a Portland, Ore., hospital. One expert testified the boy’s body had grown a peach-fuzz-like layer of hair to stay warm because it had no fat. He also had four broken ribs. The couple said he fell out of a truck.

“The question is: Why didn’t somebody notice that (the boy) was really hurting?” Evans asked. “Why wasn’t he taken to a doctor to address those issues?”

The boy has gained weight in foster care but will never be normal in size, authorities said.

He testified that his parents forced him to wash his clothes and bedsheets in a bucket if he wet the bed. He said he wasn’t allowed to use the bathroom at night, but the Trebilcocks made him drink his own urine if he relieved himself in a cup in his bedroom. The boy said he was made to stand on the porch in cold weather. If he cried about it, he said Rebecca Trebilcock splashed cold water on him. The boy said he ate dog and goat food for nourishment.

The other adopted children testified to varying degrees of similar treatment. [THEN WHY WEREN’T THEY CONVICTED FOR ABUSING ALL THE ADOPTED CHILDREN?]

Authorities have said the couple’s four biological children, most in their late teens, were well-fed.

Defense lawyers Kevin Blondin and Ted Debray said their clients were good parents who gave the children all the food they wanted. The youngsters were underweight because they’d recently had the flu, the lawyers said.”

Judge: Wash. couple mistreated 2 of 5 adopted kids

[The Daily News 7/31/12]

The Trebilcocks changed the foster children’s names! Now the biological brother wants to adopt them.

“Early in his teenage years, Deric Whittington’s already fragile family fell to pieces. He was placed in a foster home with one of his sisters. His mother, a heavy drinker, gave up her parental rights to his younger half brother, Matthew, and half sister, Amber, he said in a recent interview.

In 2004, Matthew and Amber were adopted by a Longview couple, Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock, who changed the children’s names. Whittington said he never knew the new names or what had become of his younger siblings.

Last year, he learned that authorities believed the Trebilcocks were starving and abusing the children he’d known as Matthew and Amber. Last month, after months of investigation and a two-week trial that drew national attention, the Trebilcocks, both 45, were convicted in Cowlitz County Superior Court of first-degree criminal mistreatment against the boy and third-degree criminal mistreatment against his sister. The Trebilcocks are scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 23.

Whittington, 23, said he now intends to adopt both of his 14-year-old half brother and 12-year-old half sister.

“We want both of those kids with us,” said Whittington, of Longview, who is married and works at Pacific Fibre Products. “I want to give them a safe environment that they know they will always have for years…. I want them to know that they’ll always have someone who loves them and will always be there for them. I feel like I was robbed of that as a child.”

Whittington said that, when he was around 10 or 11, before his family fell apart, he took care of the boy and girl. “I fed us, clothed us,” he said. “I changed their diapers. I taught both of them how to walk.”

The Daily News is not identifying the children by their adopted names to protect their identities.

Whittington, who has no children of his own, said he began reading about the abuse case in the newspaper after the Trebilcocks were arrested in May 2011. He didn’t realize the children involved where his half-siblings until representatives of a an organization called the Court Appointed Special Advocate Association contacted him and explained that something had gone wrong with their adoption. The organization’s representatives weren’t specific, but Whittington said he and his wife put two and two together.

The boy testified at trial that the Trebilcocks denied him food, made him drink his own urine, forced him to wash his clothes in a bucket in the rain and made him stand on the porch for long periods. Doctors said he was severely malnourished and near death when he was admitted to a Portland hospital last year. He has since recovered.

The girl testified to similar treatment. She, too, was underweight, although not as severely malnourished, authorities said.

“I just felt horrified” Whittington said of learning the children’s fate. “I cried over it. It was just really hard to take in.”

He said he and his wife immediately hired a lawyer and petitioned the court to intervene in the case. They also rented a bigger home and began preparing bedrooms for his siblings in case the court allowed them to take them in.

That hasn’t happened yet. The children remain in foster homes. Whittington said he will ask the court to grant him temporary custody during a hearing next week while he pursues the adoption process.

He pointed out that the girl has been in five foster homes since she was taken from the Trebilcocks. The boy has been in at least two, he said.

“That’s not stability,” Whittington said. “That’s not a chance to get loved. That’s just going around from home to home, just getting by.””

Abused children’s biological brother wants to adopt them

[The Daily News 8/10/12 by Tony Lystra]

Update 16: The children will remain in foster care for now. Hopefully they are not being shuttled to multiple homes and no word if bio siblings adopted from foster care are currently in the same home.