How Could You? Hall of Shame-Paula Sinclair 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 Richmod, Texas, adoptive mother Paula Sinclair,54, is “facing serious charges after Fort Bend County officials discovered seven special-needs children living in concerning conditions at a Richmond-area house.

“I cannot think of a more deplorable situation than what we have learned in this case,” said Sheriff Troy E. Nehls. “These people are taking advantage of a lousy situation at the expense of children who cannot fend for themselves. It is absolutely heartbreaking.

Police said the seven children were adopted by Paula Sinclair, 54, and her husband, who does not live at the house and is not facing charges at this time. Allen Richardson, 78, also lived at the house and is facing charges.

The children, ages 13-16, were malnourished, locked in a room and struck with a wooden paddle, causing bodily injury, police said.

The children were transferred to the Fort Bend County Children’s Advocacy Center in Rosenberg to be interviewed before being taken to a Houston hospital for treatment.

All seven children would stay in one room at the house, detectives said.

When Sinclair needed to take Richardson to see the doctor, the children would be kept in a closet roughly five feet by eight feet in size. The closet already had clothes and boxes inside, so space was even smaller, and often, the adults were gone so long that the children would urinate on themselves, according to police.

Another room smelled of urine and feces and the children wore shabby clothes, police said. One of the children suffers from Down Syndrome and was wearing a dirty diaper when he was removed from the home, according to reports.

When interviewed, it was determined that none of the children had ever attended school, police said.

The home also operated as a group home, three disabled adults lived there in addition to the kids.

One resident told KPRC the adults lived on the first floor and the kids were kept in an upstairs bedroom.

They were not allowed to interact and he described the home as a “prison.”

“I have never been upstairs,” David Willard said. “I have never been upstairs in five months. Of course, I was told not to speak to anybody here.”

Willard said the kids were fed beans and rice three times a day and were forced to eat in their rooms.

“They’d go to the bottom of the stairs, the kids would wait and Coach would bring them a tray with beans and rice, three times a day. That’s how they were fed,” Willard said.

Some Neighbors who have lived in the neighborhood for more than a decade were stunned to learn kids were living in the house.

One woman told KPRC off camera she knew the family personally and had no idea they had children.

“I’ve never seen a kid living in that house or going to school or anything of that sort,” said Leena Mir.

Sinclair and Richardson are each facing aggravated kidnapping and injury to a child, both felonies.

They remain in the Fort Bend County Jail.

CPS released the following statement:

“Seven children, (five boys and two girls from age 13 to 16), were removed by Child Protective Services (CPS) from a home in Richmond on Wednesday, November 23, following a report to CPS that alleged possible physical abuse. The report was received Tuesday afternoon, November 22, and a caseworker responded immediately.

“The children, who were all adopted, are receiving complete physical examinations and will be placed in foster care. The affidavit to support the removal of the children was filed Wednesday, November 23 in Fort Bend County’s 505th State District Court and CPS was granted temporary custody by Judge Cindy Aguirre. A hearing on the removal has been set for December 6 at 9:30 a.m in that courtroom on the first floor.

“CPS is continuing a joint investigation with the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Department.”

2 charged after 7 special needs children found in ‘deplorable’ living conditions [Click 2 Houston 12/6/16 by Jennifer Bauer and Cory McCord]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Update:“The 16-year-old boy remembered his adoptive mother encouraging his stepfather to hit the children with a board.

Two 15-year-old boys say their brothers were told to use bleach to clean the bottom and genitals of another brother, who has Down Syndrome.

All of the children interviewed told of being bound with duct tape and locked in a closet when their parents left their home.

“It was tight … way too tight,” a 15-year-old girl recalled of the bindings on her wrists and legs.

The additional details of alleged child abuse were contained in arrest warrants obtained this week in the case of seven adopted special-needs children removed from their Richmond-area home in late November.

A caseworker found the children locked together in a filthy room, malnourished. A forensic interview with one child was described at the time in search warrants. Interviews with five other children, summarized in the arrest warrants filed in district court in Fort Bend County, add more horrific detail.

“This is kind of an extreme case, I think, for everybody involved,” said Juli Johnson, a detective with the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office who has worked on the case.

Both the adoptive mother, 54-year-old Paula Sinclair, and her husband, 78-year-old Allen Richardson, have been charged with aggravated kidnapping and child injury. They remained in the Fort Bend County jail on Wednesday on bonds of $200,000 each.

Each requested court-appointed counsel after their arrest Dec. 3, court documents filed Tuesday show. Sinclair’s request was approved, but Richardson’s was denied. Reached by phone, Sinclair’s court-appointed attorney, David Disher, declined to comment on the case.

Escape attempt fails

All seven children, now ages 14 to 16, were adopted in 2003 and 2004 through CPS by Sinclair and her then-husband, Larry Sinclair. The couple has since divorced.

An eighth child died in 2011 after suffering from bronchitis and an asthma attack, records show.

 

The child with Down Syndrome cannot speak, but his siblings detailed alleged abuse that the 14-year-old sustained, according to the arrest warrants.

The parents hit the boy with a broom or belt – so hard on one occasion that it left his head bruised and bloodied, the children alleged.

His siblings changed his diapers and were forced to clean his private parts with bleach given to them by the parents, according to two 15-year-olds. One, who is blind, said he knew it was bleach because he smelled it.

The children reported receiving daily meals of rice and beans, which they say was sometimes withheld as punishment.

Several of the children reported mental anguish: One said her brothers couldn’t sleep due to worry. Another said that when they were bound with duct tape, sometimes crying, they talked about the future “so they wouldn’t have to ‘think about the pain.'” They used bags to defecate in when the toilet in their room broke.

Once, they tried to escape through the bathroom window of their second-floor room. The blind 15-year-old said the effort was unsuccessful and that the children were “whooped” when Sinclair and Richardson found out.

April report: No ‘neglect’

Johnson, the Fort Bend County investigator, observed interviews with the children, conducted individually at Memorial Hermann Children’s Hospital, on Nov. 28 via closed-circuit television, documents show.

Johnson had visited the home the day the children were removed, she wrote. There, she says, she saw what looked like red ticks climbing on the walls and floors, and black mold on the ceiling and air vent. Metal tacks protruded from the floor near the baseboards where carpet had been pulled away.

Windows were also boarded up in the room, Johnson said in an interview Tuesday. She said she saw dirty clothes everywhere. Doors to the children’s space were installed with deadbolts in the 4,000-square-foot house, part of which was also used for an adult group home.

Johnson, who has worked as a peace officer for 27 years, said she had never seen such a bad situation.

A Fort Bend County deputy sheriff did check on the home in April and reported findings to the state intake division, but the report was not passed on to CPS because there was “no specific evidence of neglect,” agency spokesman Patrick Crimmins wrote in an email last week.

The children were moved Tuesday from the hospital to a single foster home.

Sinclair and Richardson, who have not yet been indicted, are scheduled for a first court appearance on Jan. 9.”

Adopted children detail alleged abuse to investigators[Houston Chronicle 12/15/16 by Emily Foxhall]
Update 2:“The Fort Bend woman accused of locking seven special-needs adopted kids in a room and feeding them only rice and beans was sentenced Friday to 35 years in prison.

Paula Sinclair pleaded guilty to four first-degree felony charges of injury to a child causing serious bodily injury, more than a year after authorities removed malnourished kids from the 55-year-old’s Richmond home.

“The facts of this case are horrendous,” said Fort Bend prosecutor Melissa Munoz. “Paula Sinclair abused, exploited and starved her children for her own personal gain. She imprisoned them in their own home and treated them like animals. She deserves to spend every minute, every hour, and every day of the 35-year sentence she received in prison.”

The high-profile case started in November 2016, when Child Protective Services removed the seven malnourished children from the upscale Long Meadow Farms subdivision home that Sinclair shared with 78-year-old Allen Richardson.

The children, ages 13 to 16, were kept in a single room that reeked of human waste. They were sometimes hit with a wooden paddle or bat, authorities said at the time. Whenever Sinclair would leave, she’d lock them all in a closet, the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office said.

At least one of the children had Down syndrome and was wearing a dirty diaper when authorities showed up to remove the kids. Another recounted being bound with duct tape when her mother and stepfather left.

“I cannot think of a more deplorable situation than what we have learned in this case,” Sheriff Troy Nehls said at the time. “These people are taking advantage of a lousy situation at the expense of children who cannot fend for themselves. It is absolutely heart-breaking.”

Caseworkers interviewed the children – who had never attended school – and a few weeks later Sinclair and Richardson were both arrested, according to court records.

Initially, they were both charged with aggravated kidnapping and injury to a child, but prosecutors later added aggravated assault charges.

Paula Sinclair and her then-husband Larry originally adopted eight children between April 2003 and October 2004, according to CPS. Though the adoption process would have included a background check and a six-month trial period, CPS doesn’t typically check in on adopted kids again unless they get a tip about abuse.

In 2011, one of the adopted children – a 7-year-old boy – died of bronchitis. The  death didn’t prompt any investigation because a doctor ruled it natural causes.

By that point, the Sinclairs had already stopped living together and finalized their divorce.

Paula Sinclair eventually moved in with Richardson, at the Richmond-area home he owned.

Though a sheriff’s deputy stopped by in April 2016 for a welfare check, authorities didn’t find anything. Then on Nov. 22, a CPS caseworker responding to an abuse tip showed up at the home and found the children living in squalid conditions.

A judge granted CPS temporary custody of the children the following day. They are all still in foster care, spokeswoman Tiffani Butler said Saturday.

Previously, Sinclair’s attorney, Don Hecker, laid the blame at Richardson’s feet.

“Our position is that he’s responsible,” Hecker said in January 2017. He did not respond to a request for comment Saturday.

Sinclair’s criminal case would have gone to trial in April, and Richardson’s is still scheduled to go to trial this year. Online records show Larry Sinclair was also charged in connection with the case and is due back in court in April.

“Crimes such as these reveal the evil that exists in some individuals,” District Attorney John Healey. “Thank God this ugliness is countered by the humanity and compassionate dedication of all who worked tirelessly, and those who are still working, to protect these precious children.””

Fort Bend woman sentenced to 35 years for abusing 7 special-needs kids left in squalid room
[Houston Chronicle 3/10/18 by Keri Blakinger]