Texas CPS Fail

Fourteen CPS reports of abuse or neglect between 1995 and 2011 on a special needs 11-year-old boy and/or his 16-year-old half-sister. Foruteen investigations closed or ruled “unsubstantiated.”

The latest CPS investigation was finally substantiated when the boy’s mother Gina Delynn Murasky, 39 “told staff at her son’s elementary school that scratches on the boy’s face had been caused by another child and asked them not to contact CPS, according to court documents.

A school nurse who examined the boy found severe bruises, including five belt-buckle-shaped bruises on his back and legs, and others that covered about 80 percent of his buttocks, later determined to have been caused when he was hit with the cutting board.

Murasky, her boyfriend, Russell Scott Herrick, 34, and a couple who share the residence — Karen Denise Horner, 31, and Jason Radell Harnsberger, 37 — were arrested two days later.

The four were released from jail on $30,000 bail each. The indictments on the third-degree felony charges were returned April 26.

Courts records state that Harnsberger is the father of Murasky’s 16-year-old daughter, who also lived in the household.

On Feb. 16, Murasky’s children were placed in foster care where they remained on Wednesday, according to CPS.”

“According to a CPS petition, the ketchup incident occurred after the boy, angry that other children were given candy but he was not, threw ketchup on a wall, kicked his mother and Horner, and hit a window. Witnesses said Murasky placed her son on the kitchen table, and she and Horner held the boy down while Harnsberger and Herrick took turns paddling him with the 6-by-8-inch cutting board, described as being about 1/2-inch thick.

Harnsberger told police that he was in charge of discipline in the household.

After the boy refused to clean the ketchup from the wall, Harnsberger told police, he picked the boy up from the ground by his ears and rubbed his face in the ketchup “like you would a dog on the carpet.”

Harnsberger acknowledged paddling the boy five or six times but denied the seriousness of the situation, the petition states.

Herrick acknowledged paddling the boy twice at Murasky’s request but agreed that the boy was hit too many times and “it was not right,” the petition states. Herrick said he had never previously spanked the boy.

“Russell stated [the boy’s] special needs require special treatment. Russell stated everyone in the house beats on [the boy] and he acts aggressive,’” the petition quoted Herrick as saying.

Horner told police that Murasky’s son has mental retardation, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Tourette syndrome, and oppositional defiant disorder, defined by the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry as an “ongoing pattern of uncooperative, defiant, and hostile behavior toward authority figures that seriously interferes with the youngster’s day to day functioning.”

The boy weighs 60 to 70 pounds; the four adults range in weight from 190 to 299 pounds, she told police.

Horner said her own 8-year-old son was told to attack the boy, but she told investigators she could not remember by whom.

The 8-year-old told investigators that he gouged at the 11-year-old’s face, causing one of the scratches near the boy’s eye, because his mother and Harnsberger “let me take him out,” according to the court documents.

Murasky’s mother, who was not present, told investigators she believed her grandson was spanked, not beaten, and that the only way the boy would learn “is if someone is a bigger bully than he is,” according to the CPS investigation.”

4 adults accused of physically abusing mentally challenged boy in Weatherford
[Star-Telegram 5/2/12 by Deanna Boyd]

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