How Could You? Hall of Shame-Hunter Payton case-Child Death UPDATED and Lawsuit
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 Radcliffe, Kentucky,”Billy Paul Embry, 33, is being held at the Hardin County Detention Center on one count of murder.
An arrest warrant says that on May 8, 2017, Radcliff police were contacted by Norton Children’s Hospital after a child arrived unconscious and not breathing. The child, who the parents have identified to WAVE 3 News as 4-year-old Hunter Payton, had been brought to the hospital from a home in the ….
Hunter died on May 10 [2017]. On Dec. 27, a final diagnosis from the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office said Hunter’s death was from an “inflicted closed head injury.”
Authorities said the original information they were given that Hunter fell is “inconsistent” with the results of their examination and that Embry was the only person there when the injuries occurred.
In June 2017, an exclusive WAVE 3 News investigation by anchor and investigative reporter John Boel raised questions about Hunter’s death. He was one of three children taken away from their parents earlier that year and placed in the Radcliff foster home.
Ryan and April Payton told Boel they had complained to the state about bruising on their son while he was in foster care. The Paytons said they were told several different stories about how Hunter died in an accidental fall.
Bond for Embry was set at $250,000 cash.”
Hardin Co. man charged with murder in foster child’s death
[Wave3 1/12/18 by
REFORM Puzzle Piece
Update:“A Radcliff man, charged and indicted in January as a suspect in the death of a 4-year-old boy in his care, will appear Tuesday afternoon in Hardin Circuit Court.
Billy Paul Embry-Martin, 33, a foster parent to Hunter Payton, is charged in his May 10 death inside their home.
According to an arrest citation, Payton died from a head injury. Court records indicate there was a “substantial” injury to the back of the child’s head.
Embry-Martin, who was arrested Jan. 11, has been free on bond from the Hardin County Detention Center since Feb. 6 when an Elizabethtown couple posted a $200,000 cash bond and $100,000 property bond, according to court documents.
As part of the bond conditions, Embry-Martin is to have no contact with any person 18 or younger and not consume alcohol.
Embry-Martin was arrested after a final report from the state Medical Examiner’s Office in Louisville determined the boy died from an inflicted head injury, according to an arrest warrant. He is charged with murder and could face life in prison, if convicted.
Radcliff Police Department was contacted May 8 by Norton Children’s Hospital in Louisville in reference to possible child abuse after Hunter was transported there from Hardin Memorial Hospital. When Hunter arrived at the hospital, he was unconscious and not breathing, according to the warrant.
He was pronounced dead at 8:15 a.m. May 10. An autopsy was performed the next day and final findings from examinations were completed Dec. 27.
Hunter was one of three children under Embry-Martin’s foster care. He was the only child at the Black Ravens Court home in Radcliff when he sustained the injury, according to the warrant.
The other children were removed from the home shortly after Hunter’s injury. One of the children — a 4-year-old — was a foster child. A 2-year-old in Embry-Martin’s care had been adopted, according to court records.
According to court documents, Hunter also suffered a bruise over his left eye, a knot on his head and facial bruising. Embry-Martin reportedly told authorities the child had fallen from a chair that court documents indicate was 26 inches from the floor to the seat.
Elizabethtown attorney Ron Hines, who is representing Hunter’s family, said he had been in foster care since March 6 at the home of Embry-Martin and his husband. Hunter was from Caneyville.
Radcliff Police Chief Jeff Cross has said it is with Embry-Martin “where we believe the responsibility lies.”
Foster parent due in court in murder case
[The News Enterprise 3/19/18 by Jeff D’Alessio]
Update 1:“A wrongful death lawsuit filed this week in Hardin Circuit Court is seeking to recover damages for a 4-year-old boy who died last year in foster care.
Hunter Payton died May 10, 2017, in Radcliff while in the care of two foster parents. The Kentucky Medical Examiner’s Office in Louisville determined the boy died from an inflicted head injury.
Billy Paul Embry, one of the foster parents, has been indicted on a murder charge and is one of the defendants in the lawsuit along with his husband, Travis Embry-Martin.
Necco, the foster care agency that placed Hunter with the couple, also was named as a defendant. Officials from the agency could not be reached for comment.
The lawsuit said the negligence of each defendant caused Hunter’s death.
“We believe Necco was extremely negligent in its selection of foster parents,” said Ron Hines, an Elizabethtown attorney representing the Payton family.
According to the lawsuit filed May 8, “Hunter was subjected to corporal punishment, including but not limited to physically violent punishment, physical abuse, and denial of food,” while in the men’s care.
Alton Cannon, the court-appointed administrator of Hunter’s estate, is the plaintiff in the lawsuit.
Hines said he expects to amend the complaint to include more plaintiffs.
“Somebody has to do something to stop it,” he said.
Hines said the Cabinet of Health and Family Services also was negligent as they relied on a private organization for foster care. However, at this time, he said he’s not suing the cabinet.
“The state took the children and killed one of the children,” Hines said.
Hunter and two other older children were removed from their Caneyville home in March 2017.
Hines told The News-Enterprise in January that someone reported to Child Protective Services that there was drug use in the Payton home. He said the couple was given less than 24 hours to take a drug test or the children would be removed. Hines said they didn’t have the money to pay for a test and the next day, CPS removed the two boys and a girl.
The plaintiff is seeking a trial by jury and punitive damages, though a specific amount is not listed.
Hines said he fought for eight months to get a copy of Hunter’s autopsy report, and he pledged to keep fighting.
“We’re not going to let this get swept under the rug,” Hines said.”
Lawsuit filed in foster child’s death
[The News Enterprise 5/11/18 by KATHERINE KNOTT]
Update 2:“Jurors acquitted a Hardin County foster father Wednesday of a murder charge in the death of a 4-year-old foster boy, two years after the child died from a severe skull fracture.
The verdict, after about five hours of deliberation, caused the defendant, Billy Embry-Martin, to collapse in tears of relief as he embraced his friends and family in the courtroom.
But across the courtroom, the grandmothers of Hunter Payton, the child who was injured in Embry-Martin’s home in May 2017, and other family members clutched each other and wept in sorrow at the outcome.
“I’m disappointed,” paternal grandmother Linda Payton said after the verdict. “I don’t see how they can do that.”
Willodean Cross, Hunter’s maternal grandmother, said she did not understand the verdict given the case against Embry-Martin.
“All the evidence against him, and he is still free,” Cross said. “I don’t understand how he can go home and be with his family. My grandson didn’t get to.”
James Hafley, the lawyer for Embry-Martin, said his client is grateful and relieved at the outcome.
“He’s maintained his innocence since this whole thing began,” Hafley said.
Hardin Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Teresa Logsdon said “the outcome is not what I had hoped for” but said she respects the process.
“My job is to do the best I can with the facts I am given and seek justice,” she said. “I can rest knowing I did the best I could for Hunter.”
Earlier in the day, during closing statements, Logsdon told the jury that Hunter Payton may be dead, but he is still speaking about his death.
Forensic science and an autopsy show the child died from a severe skull fracture, most likely caused by someone grabbing the child’s face, leaving bruises, and slamming his head into a hard object, Logsdon argued.
“Hunter Payton has been telling his own story the only way he knows how,” she said as the boy’s grandmothers and other relatives looked on, most of them in tears. “Hunter has been trying to tell you what happened to him.”
His grandmothers had described Hunter as a loving and playful child, adored by his large, extended family in the area.
The jury began deliberating around noon Wednesday on whether to find Embry-Martin, 34, guilty of the boy’s death. The boy had been living with Embry-Martin in foster care for about two months when he died.
In his closing statements, Hafley told the jury that his client, who testified in his defense, has consistently provided the same account — that the boy apparently fell from a bench in the kitchen while the foster father had turned away to put dishes in the sink.
Hunter, who struck his head in the fall, jumped up and said “Me OK,” before collapsing and suffering seizures, Hafley said. He was airlifted to Norton Children’s Hospital where he died two days later.
Embry-Martin, Hafley told jurors, had no reason to injure the child and, in fact, had a history as a loving caregiver through his work as a pediatric nurse.
“Why would this patient and gentle man commit this terrible act?” Hafley asked the jury. “How could anyone think he intentionally killed this child?”
Hafley said his client and his husband, Travis Embry-Martin, a member of the Army who works at Fort Knox, became foster parents because they loved children and wanted to bring them into their Hardin County home.
Logsdon explained that she doesn’t have to prove why Hunter was injured — just that the evidence showed Hunter died from an inflicted head injury the state medical examiner ruled a homicide.
“The defendant is looking for a way to try to explain his way out of this,” Logsdon said earlier Wednesday.
The injury occurred after Embry-Martin, who works overnight as a nurse, arrived home about 6 a.m. and got some older children in the home ready for school. His husband left for work and Billy Embry-Martin was alone with Hunter and a younger child in the home when the boy was injured, around 3 p.m., according to trial testimony.
Embry-Martin was charged with murder last year in the death of Hunter, who had been placed in the home by Necco, a private agency that contracts with the state to provide foster care.
The case went to the jury Wednesday after a six-day trial in Hardin Circuit Court that provided conflicting accounts of the child’s death.A defense witness, Dr. Marcus McGraw of Michigan, testified that Hunter could have died from the apparent fall described by Embry-Martin, but under cross-examination, acknowledged the death could have resulted from inflicted abuse, according to Logsdon’s closing statement.
Travis and Billy Embry-Martin married in 2013 and later became foster parents for Necco.
Hunter was removed from his parents’ care in March 2017 because of alleged drug abuse and neglect in the home. Both parents tested positive for drugs including methamphetamine and opioids, according to state social service records.
Hunter’s grandmothers say Hunter’s parents are devastated by the loss and are not attending the trial because it is too painful.
Cross and Payton were among about half a dozen family members attending the trial, all wearing matching blue T-shirts bearing Hunter’s name, his date of birth and date of death in a heart surrounded by angel wings.”
Jury finds foster dad not guilty in case of 4-year-old foster child’s death
[Louisville Courier-Journal 5/22/19 by Deborah Yetter]
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