How Could You? Hall of Shame-Polish Re-Adoptive Parents John and Georgiana Tufts 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 Denton, Texas, a missing 2016 case comes to light. “In October of 2016, Denton police arrested John Tufts for using a Barbie doll to cause severe trauma to the private parts of his 5-year-old adopted daughter.

“It did require surgery.  There will be long term, last effects and require surgeries in the future,” said Kizer.

According to the warrant, the child told a therapist that daddy was a “bad guy” and “mean.” However, the Tufts were not this child’s original adoptive parent. News 5 has learned that in 2015 another family adopted the girl and her then 2-year-old sister from Poland.

“That adoption process didn’t work out… They decided they didn’t want to children anymore they were turned over to this family, the Tufts family” said Kizer.

It was EAC that processed the adoption. And when the original family no longer wanted the girl, Denton police say it took just days for Debra Parris to place the 5-year-old in John Tufts’ care. That’s because Tufts is Parris’ son.”

Strongsville-based European Adoption Consultants connected to disturbing child abuse case in Texas

[News 5 Cleveland 5/10/17 by Mona Kosar Abdi]

““I don’t want to talk about bad guy,” the 5-year-old told Cook Children’s Hospital psychologist Phillip Breedlove.   

Her adoptive parents, John and Georgiana Tufts of Denton, told one of her peer’s parents that she came from an abusive family in Poland. But in late August, police in Denton were interviewing her   as part of a child abuse investigation.

Nearly three weeks would pass before the adopted child trusted the licensed therapist enough to share her story of what happened the night John Tufts, 45, placed her in the shower. “Daddy is mean,” she told Breedlove. “He put Elsa in my booty and I cried.”

Elsa is a doll, the heroine from the Disney movie Frozen. Law enforcement authorities reported in an Oct. 6 arrest affidavit that the girl will require several surgeries and a colostomy bag to correct the injuries she received.  

Tufts was arrested on Oct. 10 for injury to a child causing serious bodily injury and taken to Denton County Jail where he remains on a $400,000 bond. His wife, Georgiana, was charged with serious bodily injury to a child by omission but later posted the $100,000 bond. Both charges are first degree felonies and carry a punishment of five years to life in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Georgiana Tufts told the Denton Record-Chronicle that she couldn’t discuss the case “because it’s current right now.” She also didn’t respond to requests from the Observer for comment.

Marissa Gonzales, the media specialist for Child Protective Services, told the Observer that the judge had issued a gag order related to this case. It’s unclear where the adopted child or the Tufts’ biological child, who is 6 years old, have been taken.

The gruesome allegations come as Texas’ Child Protective Services falls under scrutiny. A report by the Austin American-Statesman this month found that “more than 14,000 kids across the state had not been seen by child abuse investigators between 24 and 72 hours after a report of abuse, the state-mandated timeframe in which caseworkers must see children.” In the Dallas area, the average caseworker now lasts about six months. At that rate of turnover, it’s a challenge just to staff the agency with warm bodies, the Observer wrote in May.

But CPS is only one part of the effort to stem child abuse. Cases like the one in Denton show how the police and hospital officials are the agencies that detect and investigate extreme instances of abuse.

The 5-year-old adopted child had been only living in America for a year before her injuries tipped hospital authorities to the suspected child abuse. The Tufts had obtained custody of her on July 4, 2015, moved her into their two-story brick home on Blue Sky Lane and enrolled her in a local elementary school in Denton.

She was a quiet child who took some time to adjust to her new environment. But by the end of her pre-K school year, she began to open up and make friends, one of her peer’s parent recalls.

“They were happy to give her a better place here,” said the parent of one of her peers, who wishes to remain anonymous.

According to police records, the child abuse occurred on Aug. 9. John Tufts told Denton police that he was home alone with his adopted daughter and his biological daughter. He claimed he placed his adopted daughter in the guest bathroom to take a shower and took his biological daughter to the master bathroom to take a shower.

“John Tufts said he returned to check on [his adopted daughter] and found she had stuck a Barbie doll inside her vagina or anus,” police reported in the affidavit for an arrest warrant.

Tufts claimed that he asked her what she was doing, and his adoptive daughter dropped the Elsa doll and started flailing around in the bathtub. He noticed blood droplets in the tub and observed the lower portion of the dolls legs were covered in blood.

Instead of taking her to the hospital, he pulled out his cell phone, took pictures and sent them to his wife and his mother, asking them what he should do. (The report does not state their responses.) Tufts reported that he used a towel to stop the bleeding.

When his wife arrived home from work later that evening, she did not check on her adopted daughter because she was sleeping. In fact, the Tufts sought no medical treatment until two days after the incident.

Georgiana Tufts told Denton police that the day after the injury, she noticed blood and discharge coming from the girl, so she placed a maxi pad in the child’s panties to absorb the blood. She then made an appointment with Cook Children’s Pediatrics in Denton for the following day.

When the pediatrician examined the adopted child, he told the adoptive mother that her child had suffered a “very serious injury” and needed a higher level of care. She was immediately transported to Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth for evaluation.

At the Children’s Hospital, Georgiana Tufts told medical staff that her adopted daughter had woken up later that night after the suspected abuse occurred and complained about her pain. Those complaints continued the following day. Tufts simply gave her a Tylenol.

Both Tufts reported that their adopted daughter “masturbates all the time as a soothing mechanism” and also harms herself by banging her head against the wall and throwing herself backwards on the stairs.

The medical staff told Denton police that the adoptive child’s injuries were consistent with physical and possible sexual abuse. One of the doctors found that the “self-inflicted injury from masturbation with a Barbie doll is inconsistent with the surgical findings of significant trauma,” according to the arrest affidavit.

The doctor further stated it would take a significant amount of force to cause the type of trauma found to the adopted child’s vaginal and anal area.

Breedlove met with the adopted child and later told police that during their conversation, “she stated her daddy was a bad boy, and she did not like him; but she loves him.” She also told him that “her daddy pulled her down too hard, and she is mad at him.””

Horrific Abuse Allegations Shock Denton as Texas Falls Under Scrutiny to Protect Kids

[Dallas Observer 10/19/16 by Christian McPhate]

“John Tufts, 45, is facing a $400,000 bond after investigators say he was responsible for causing “severe trauma” to the private parts of a child.”

“But multiple staff at the hospital dispute that. One doctor told detectives that the injuries were consistent with “abuse” and were “unlikely self-inflicted.”

Tufts has not been charged with any type of sexual assault.

Kizer says the child has since been removed from the home and is facing a lengthy recovery.”

“Georgiana Tufts, John’s wife, was also arrested for injury to a child by omission. Her warrant indicates she waited two days to get proper medical treatment for the child.”

“Kizer said the couple’s explanation for what happened is “not at all” plausible. He said it took about two months to shore up their case because the child has been undergoing therapy sessions.”

Denton couple arrested in ‘severe trauma’ case

[WFAA 10/12/16 by Todd Unger]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Update:“John Tufts towers over everyone else in the courtroom at his Monday morning arraignment at the Denton County Courthouse. His adopted 6-year-old Polish daughter told police he is a “bad guy” and “mean.” The crime that the 6-foot-4-inch, 280-pound man stands accused of involves traumatic child physical and sexual abuse that strains the imagination.

It’s a full house inside Judge Brody Shanklin’s courtroom, but no one gathered in the wooden pews pays much attention to Tufts as he makes his way toward the front to check in. He’s facing a felony charge of serious bodily injury to a child after, as Denton police investigators said in his 2016 arrest warrant, he put his adopted child in a cage and sexually assaulted her with a Disney doll.

“Daddy is mean. He put Elsa in my booty and I cried,” police said the child told them.

Tufts and his wife, Georgiana, who was also arrested, have denied all wrongdoing.

The couple took their adopted daughter, then 5, to Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth on Aug. 11, 2016.  The ER staff discovered that she had a laceration of the hymen through her pelvic diaphragm to the anus with active bleeding. The injuries required surgery and led to the use of a colostomy bag. The staff also found bruising across the girl’s lower body, as well as to the head, back and hips.

The couple had adopted their daughter July 4, 2015, but they weren’t the child’s first adoptive parents. She and her 2-year-old sister had been adopted and brought to the United States from Poland earlier in 2015. The adoption process, however, didn’t work out.

Denton police spokesman Shane Kizer told News 5 (WEWS-TV) in Cleveland that the first adoptive parents decided to keep the younger sister and gave the older one back to the adoption agency, European Adoption Consultants, where John Tufts’ mother, Debra Parris, worked as the Africa director.

Denton police said it took only days for Parris to place the child in her son’s care and nearly a year for him to be arrested for child abuse.

Earlier this year, the FBI raided the European Adoption Consultants headquarters in Strongsville, Ohio, in relation to accusations that include soliciting bribes, falsifying documents and adopting trafficked children.

James Angelino, John Tufts’ attorney, told the Dallas Observer that he was very annoyed that Denton police had a press conference to discuss his client’s case before the grand jury indicted him in May. He also said his client has received death threats and lost his job once word began to spread about the child abuse. He wasn’t sure if the judge’s gag order is still in effect and only wanted to be quoted saying, “I think he’s gotten a raw deal.”

John Tufts said the incident occurred at 7 p.m. Aug. 9, 2016, two days before the couple took their 5-year-old adopted daughter to the hospital. He said he had placed her in the bathtub in the guest bathroom to take a shower. Then, he said, he left the bathroom to check on his 5-year-old biological daughter, who was taking a shower in the master bathroom.

When he returned, John Tufts said, he found his adopted daughter had “stuck a Barbie doll inside her vagina or anus,” according to his arrest warrant affidavit. He noticed blood droplets in the tub and blood covering the doll’s lower legs, took a picture with his cellphone, and sent it to his wife and mother asking what he should do.

John Tufts used a towel to stop the blood and told investigators that this helped the bleeding to subside. When his wife came home from work later that night, she told investigators, she didn’t check on their adopted daughter because she was sleeping.

The couple sought no medical treatment for the child at the time of the injury.

A day later, the girl began to complain about pain, so Georgiana Tufts gave her a Tylenol. When she noticed blood discharging from her adopted daughter’s private area, she placed a menstrual pad in the girl’s panties to absorb the blood. She then contacted Cook Children’s Pediatrics in Denton and scheduled an appointment for the next day.

At the pediatric office, the doctor told the couple that their adopted daughter had a very serious injury and needed a higher level of care. She was immediately sent to the hospital in Fort Worth.

There, the John and Georgiana Tufts made a litany of claims regarding their adopted daughter, including that she “masturbates all the time as a soothing mechanism” and that she “also self-harms.” They also claimed they had never observed these behaviors, just the aftermath.

John Tufts claimed he watched his adopted daughter bang her head on the wall, and his wife claimed she saw her adopted daughter throw herself backwards on the stairs.

The Cook Children’s Medical Center surgeon told investigators that the couple’s claims don’t match the hospital’s findings of significant trauma. Doctors “stated it would have taken a significant amount of force to cause the type of trauma found to her vaginal and anal area,” the investigator wrote in the arrest warrant affidavit.

Denton police investigators spoke with Cook Children’s Medical Center psychologist Phillip Breedlove, who claimed that the couple’s adopted daughter told him that she did not like her father because her daddy “pulled down too hard, and she is mad at him and did not like him, but she loves him.”

John Tufts denied being involved in any of his adoptive daughter’s injuries when investigators interviewed him and reaffirmed what he had already said: that her injuries were self inflicted. He was arrested in early October 2016, but his bond was later reduced from $400,000 to $150,000.

Georgiana Tufts was arrested for injury to a child by omission in early October 2016 because she waited two days to seek proper medical treatment. She was also arraigned on Monday morning.

“This is a little bit higher up the ladder when it comes to controlling our emotions,” Kizer, the Denton police spokesman, told local news outlets at the time of John Tufts’ arrest.

The Tufts were both indicted by the grand jury May 1, and will be making their next court appearance in early July.”

Notorious Denton Child Abuse Case Makes its Way to Court

[Dallas Observer 6/6/17 by Christian McPhate]