THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 21, 1994 TAG: 9412210286
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JUNE ARNEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 162 lines
For five months, Audra Carr was afraid to do what other 9-year-olds like to do: Go outside and play. She was afraid that a neighborhood 15-year-old who had threatened to kill her would make good on his threat.
On Tuesday, the case that had brought Audra and her family to juvenile court five times was resolved when the boy admitted his mistake and said he'd never do it again.
``(My son) admits his guilt,'' his mother said after the hearing, which was closed to the public and press. ``He's a kid. He did something wrong. A lot of kids try to lie their way out of it, and (my son) didn't. The judge seemed pleased.''
Donna Carr, Audra's mother, said she is relieved, but concerned that the judge will be lenient beause the boy admitted his guilt.
The youth told Judge Lester V. Moore Jr. that he was forced into the behavior because neighborhood children had been taunting him about a mental illness from which he suffers, Carr said.
``He's been in treatment,'' she said. ``He's been in a psychiatric hospital. He's been on medication. He's still out there doing this kind of stuff. I wish the judge would make him take responsibility for his actions.''
Moore set sentencing for Jan. 27. The youth faces possible confinement in the Department of Youth and Family Services until age 21 for the two misdemeanor charges. However, the more probable penalties include probation and court-ordered participation in counseling andtreatment programs.
For five months, the Carrs say, they were not only the victims of the boy's threats, but also of a juvenile justice system that moved too slowly to protect Audra from her tormentor after her family filed charges against him.
The threats against Audra began Memorial Day, but the courts didn't intervene until October. Judge Moore directed the teen-age boy to undergo psychiatric evaluation and ordered the two families to stay away from each other while the case is before the courts.
The boy's mother says her son has been the victim of a social failure. If her son's mental disorder had been diagnosed properly and treated earlier, she says, he may never have come to this stage of his life: charged with indecent exposure and threatening to kill a 9-year-old girl.
On its face, the dispute between the Carrs and the boy's family seems a classic case of a neighborhood bully and his victim.
But a closer look reveals a story of two mothers battling to see their children get a fair shake, two mothers who believe the system let their children down - one mother trying to prevent tragedy, another who tried to get help for a troubled child before it was too late.
It all began on Memorial Day, when the 15-year-old ``mooned'' Audra and a group of friends as they sat on her front porch. When the father of one of the children complained to the boy's mother, the boy assumed Audra had tattled.
``I was outside with my friend and (the boy) just came by screaming, saying, `Next time you tell a lie like that it's going to be big trouble because I'm going to kill you,' '' Audra said.
He came back three days later, repeated the threat and raised his fishing pole as if to hit her, her mother said. That's when her parents decided to take out juvenile petitions for indecent exposure and threatening to kill - both misdemeanors. On Tuesday, he pleaded ``not innocent'' to both charges.
``The way he threatened to kill me, I kind of believe what he says,'' Audra said in an interview earlier this year. ``I think about it every time I see him.''
She remembers the time during the summer when he showed her a sharp-edged kitchen knife and told her that he was going to kill a boy who had stolen his bicycle.
Audra's parents told her she could play in the front yard only when other children were there.
As the boy's intimidation continued, Audra's parents sent her to the back yard to play. But eventually Audra didn't feel safe in the back yard any more - even in the company of the family keeshond, a shaggy, medium-sized dog named Keesha. She relegated herself to the house.
When two children allegedly were abducted in South Carolina, Audra's fears rose. The children eventually were found dead, and their mother, Susan Smith, was charged in their murder. But when Audra heard the first reports, she told her mother that children sometimes disappear and even the police can't find them.
Audra began carrying a stuffed rabbit everywhere she went, except to school, where it wasn't allowed.
During the summer, her mother stopped going to a night computer class on Thursdays - afraid to leave Audra and her older daughter, Shawnna, 13, alone.
``He'd find a reason to be by our house constantly - waiting, watching, stalking,'' Donna Carr said. ``For the past three weeks, it was like he was camped out in front of our house. I only called the police when he had the weapons.''
Donna Carr said she kept a log, at the judge's request, of when the boy showed up at their house. He came by with his fishing pole in early June when he made the threat, walked up carrying a golf club on Sept. 29 and approached the house twirling a metal pipe on Oct. 6, she wrote.
She said she called police a half-dozen times when the boy or his sisters showed up at her house. But police told her that they could do nothing without a restraining order telling them to stay away from Audra. And Carr couldn't obtain a restraining order until the boy came to court.
``A kid shouldn't have to live in fear growing up,'' Carr said. ``I've been trying since Memorial Day to get someone to listen. I've been to the courts. The courts don't care. This kid is going to be so self-confident that he's going to do something to someone. Who is going to be held accountable for this?''
The boy's mother tells a different story. She says her family has been the target of verbal abuse and prank calls she blames on the Carrs. She considered taking out her own warrants but decided against it.
She claims that, on four occasions, the Carrs violated the judge's November order that the families stay away from each other.
The boy's mother says her son, a ninth-grader, is not violent. He suffers from a mental illness that she would not identify, and takes three types of medication for the illness. But she said he has never been charged with other crimes and is not considered by psychiatrists to be a danger to himself or others. Juvenile records are closed to the public, so this cannot be confirmed.
``He can be loud and boisterous and act childish for his age,'' his mother said. ``But you can't tie him to the house every day. (The Carrs are) making him out to be a monster.''
His troubles first became evident when he was a baby, his mother said. At nine months, she couldn't keep a babysitter for him because he was so fussy. He suffered from a variety of allergies and cried continually.
When he was 2 1/2, he was dismissed from a Montessori preschool, his mother said. ``Do you know how hard it is to get kicked out of a Montessori preschool?'' He was so bright that he could hold his own in an adult conversation even at that age, his mother said.
By first grade, experts had decided he was hyperactive.
``I still to this day think if I could have gotten help faster or sooner, it wouldn't have been as hard on (my son),'' she said.
As he got older, he had episodes of psychotic and suicidal behavior, but insurance only covered three days of treatment at a time before releasing him to come home. During one four-year period there were 10 such hospital visits, his mother said.
``No one can diagnose someone like that in three days,'' she said. The results were conflicting diagnoses by a variety of doctors.
Caring for her son has been a constant challenge, she said. Once she even removed all his clothes but underwear and pajamas from his room to keep him from going outside when he was supposed to stay in the house.
On Nov. 2, Moore ordered that the boy be examined to determine whether he is competent to stand trial, and ordered all parties in the case to stay away from one another.
The boy failed to show up for three earlier court hearings. On Aug. 2, the boy didn't come to court because he was in Central State Hospital receiving psychiatric treatment. On Sept. 29, the case was continued when he again did not show up. There apparently was confusion over where court papers were served. The Carrs say they saw him on their street carrying a golf club about 7:15 that night.
On Oct. 14, the judge issued papers asking the boy to explain why he shouldn't be held in contempt for failing to come to court. The boy's mother said that charge was not pursued when the boy's lawyer explained that the family never received orders to come to court because of an incorrect address. That information could not be confirmed.
The boy's mother said she only knew about the first and most recent court dates. She never received a notice to appear the other times, she said.
Stanley Carr, Audra's father, said the repeated continuances illustrate a breakdown in the justice system.
``We're law-abiding, hard-working people, and the judicial system doesn't seem to work for us anymore,'' he said. ``The system won't do anything to convince him that he's got to live in society by rules and regulations. He's just going to get more bold and brazen.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color staff photo by MOTOYA NAKAMURA/
Donna and Stanley Carr, here with their daughters Audra, 9, second
from left, and Shawnna, 13, say they are frustrated with the
juvenile court's handling of a case they filed against a 15-year-old
neighbor whom they accuse of threatening Audra's life.
by CNB