How Could You? Hall of Shame-David Fahey

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 Wrightsville, Georgia, David Fahey, adoptive father and owner of The King’s Cleft Ministry, was arrested in March 2022 for “criminal allegations of using handcuffs, leg irons and cloth restraints on a 14-year-old boy who ran away about a half dozen times. Arrest warrants issued earlier this year accuse Fahey of beating the boy with a wooden rod, a belt and a golf club, and making him go hungry by only providing one meal per day.”

“Fahey faces three counts of cruelty to children in the second degree, one count of cruelty to children in the first degree and three counts of false imprisonment. A Johnson County grand jury is scheduled to meet June 22 and could consider indictments in the case.

Fahey, who is free on bond, gave multiple interviews to the AJC for this story. He said he and his wife looked out for the children long after their adoptive or biological families had given up. He said he only did what was necessary to control a house packed with children, some of whom had severe behavior problems and could be a threat to themselves or other kids.”

“Fahey denies starving any child beyond making them go to bed without supper, but he admits to handcuffing and shackling some of the teens to their beds to keep them from leaving the house at night.

“People don’t understand the kind of children that we were dealing with here,” Fahey, 62, said. “It’s a lifetime commitment to take care of children like this, and you don’t always know what you’re getting into until you’re knee deep in it.”

He said he used restraints while trying to prevent the adopted siblings who ran away in 2014 from sneaking out to have sex with each other. He also described using handcuffs on a boy with Down syndrome who would go into fits of rage and hit, kick, bite and scratch.

He said he and his wife used corporal punishment only on the children who weren’t physically disabled. He cited Bible passages from Proverbs that say, “He that spareth his rod hateth his son,” and, “The blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil.”

“Sometimes I used my open hand,” Fahey said. “Sometimes I used my belt. Sometimes I used a piece of a dowel rod.”

What happened at King’s Cleft reveals the circumstances children can land in when they’re abandoned and re-adopted through private channels and how agencies charged with ensuring their safety can look the other way.

“It sounds like no one ever acted in the best interests of these children,” said Joe Sarra, an advocate with the Georgia Advocacy Office, which looks out for people with disabilities.

‘We dropped the ball’[No Sh*t, Sherlock!]

The AJC started investigating the ministry in February based on a tip that mentioned alleged abuse and referenced the graves located on the farm.

Following Fahey’s arrest in March, the newspaper asked the GBI about the 2014 case. That prompted the agency to conduct a review of the case file. GBI Director Vic Reynolds acknowledged in an interview that his agency bungled the case — badly. He relayed what the command staff told him.

“They were very candid and just said, ‘We dropped the ball. We didn’t do what we were supposed to do,’” he said.

The assigned case agent did such poor work, Reynolds said, that he would probably fire her if she hadn’t already resigned a few years ago.

That former agent, Kendra Fitzgerald, had worked out of the Eastman regional office. After being assigned to the King’s Cleft case, the agent appears to have done no more than read a DFCS report, which said DFCS had visited The King’s Cleft and didn’t see or hear anything of concern, Reynolds said.

The agent never talked to the teens who made the allegations and there’s no indication she took any other investigative steps, Reynolds said. None of the sheriff’s office reports in the case are in the GBI file, including a page where a sheriff’s investigator said “there may be some validity” to the teens’ claims of being restrained, the GBI said.

“It was a case where we should have done more, and we didn’t,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds said it’s the only time since he became director in 2019 that a case review determined an investigation had been mishandled. A lingering question now, he said, is whether what’s happened at King’s Cleft could have been prevented if the GBI had done more.

“That’s certainly the fear that I have sitting where I’m sitting now,” said Reynolds, a former Cobb County district attorney.”

“There was a financial benefit, too. The ministry’s nonprofit status meant it didn’t pay property taxes on the farm. Fahey said they collected federal disability payments for the special needs children. IRS filings show tens of thousands of dollars annually from Social Security.

Fahey said they probably shouldn’t have taken in so many children with emotional problems who created chaos in the household.

Crowded

“The house was crowded, at one point holding as many as 16 children, many of whom had been traumatized by past abuse or repeated rejections by other families. The Faheys adopted many of the kids and imposed their strong religious views on the household. They kept the family mostly isolated on the farm and homeschooled them.

The Faheys said they were nondenominational, but their conservative beliefs were rooted in the Mennonite faith. They dressed the girls in long dresses and head coverings.

David Fahey said DFCS case workers visited their home roughly 10 times over the years, mostly in response to anonymous complaints of abuse.

They saw the Posey restraint beds, enclosed by netting, but never raised objections, Fahey said. Those were necessary to keep the developmentally disabled children who couldn’t walk on their own from rolling onto the floor during the night, he said, but they were also used for “time outs” when kids misbehaved.

“They’d walk through,” Fahey said of DFCS case workers. “They’d see where they sleep, they’d see where they eat. Make sure there’s plenty of food in the house. Make sure they’re getting clean.”

The Department of Human Services, which includes DFCS, said it can’t comment on reported abuse or neglect cases, citing privacy laws.

“We take seriously every report or referral that might be made to the department and work with law enforcement when appropriate to ensure the safety of Georgia’s children,” the agency said in a written statement.”

DFCS

“The Faheys had run afoul of DFCS two decades ago over a disagreement about corporal punishment when they were foster parents in South Georgia, according to David Fahey.

He said they met with state social workers at the time after a girl in their care reported his wife had threatened to spank her. DFCS doesn’t allow foster parents to spank children in state custody, so the state disqualified them from fostering over that issue, Fahey said.

“We believe in biblical discipline,” he said.

DFCSs confirmed to the AJC that the Faheys had been foster parents from 2001 to 2003.

Two years later, the couple founded King’s Cleft.

The AJC reached out to several children who grew up in the ministry and have moved on. Only one agreed to speak for this story, but under the condition that they not be identified, citing fears of conflicts with the Fahey family.

The person, now a young adult, described the ministry as part family, part religious cult and part prison: Any rebelliousness or back talk was considered witchcraft, and punished accordingly. Children sometimes had to atone by “fasting,” going days with only water or milk.

Kathy Fahey regularly told the children they were too feeble-minded to live on their own and would never leave King’s Cleft, the former resident told the AJC. Both parents would beat the children, but Kathy’s brand of punishment could be especially cruel, the person said. If a child resisted, she would start her lash count over, the person said.

“They beat me bad enough to draw blood,” the ex-resident said. “They took my life away.”

On the day of his arrest in March, David Fahey said, he handed about a half dozen pairs of handcuffs and leg shackles over to a GBI agent. He said he hopes to prove his innocence, then bring home two of his adopted children who’ve been taken into DFCS custody and three disabled adults who were placed in a Wrightsville nursing home by Adult Protective Services.”

Kathy Fahey “died on Feb. 1 [2022] from toxic levels of acetaminophen, the pain reliever in Tylenol, which she took to treat degenerative hip disease. The coroner’s office ruled her death accidental. She is buried alongside the children’s graves.”

Georgia officials botched abuse investigation into children’s ministry

[The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 6/18/22 by Johny Edwards]

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