Carnation girl, 14, found starved to 48 pounds

This type of horror would be a surprise to most people.

I feel a kinship with this girl. I was starved and hated-but I could access the garden hose and because of a public life had opportunities to eat abroad.

What is the conspiracy?

I'm not sure. Is this a case of parental abuse or will she someday admit as well that those are not her parents and that she has slipped through the cracks of the adoption-slavery trafficking mill.

I have heard one purpose for starving children is to keep them young appearing for more miles on pornographic misuse. But I'm not finding a link or any data.

Is this the darker side of near death experience surveyors?

What drives people such as these to such madness unchecked by the world around them?

The state is going to say, "Oh, well, we couldn't see because she was homeschooled.."

I was not homeschooled. I was sent to my 'parents' to discuss problems with my 'parents'. I believe that people can not see because they are blind to children. Passing the buck. Every one seems to think that there is some social situation set up for these children, family, church, peers.

They don't understand that YOUR IT.

I would like to state that I've lived in washington state MOST of my years, the last 5 of which the counties of Pierce and King, with a fair bit of help from the feds have been tackling the unbelievable-the truth.

Imagine if you were that child and all of the grown ups around you are petting your parents pretty because of their doctorates or position in life-or sadly, just because that is the polite way to act. And imagine your sitting there watching all of this conflicting information for years, hungry, cold, kicked around, and worked. There is nothing like it in the world.

Sadest thing on earth when no one listens.

[edit on 15-10-2008 by HugmyRek]

how people get away with this crap really bugs me. but how someone could torture their own child?? they must be very mentally ill.

this is soo sad, that poor little girl.

Four years in jail?? FOUR YEARS? MAXIMUM?

They should receive exactly the same treatment that was given to this girl, for the same amount of time, and then executed at the end of their sentence.

There's no room in society for people like that. Never will be. Why keep 'em around? Why pay their way through incarceration? Why not just give them the good ol' eye for an eye, and then swing them from a tree?

reply to post by burdman30ott6


I can't believe that they are not facing attempted murder charges.

"What is certain is that the children were left in the home and the case was closed a month later"

I suspect that it is news like the statement above that keeps kids top of their survival game. If all they can expect is a more dangerous situation for having told and put back into the situation-what hope is there for them to talk?

25 years ago up here the heavily church involved child services thought it were best for children to reconsile. I remembering hearing the news of a child repeatedly abused by her dad being put back in the home under a "reconcile the child is better"

Applying it to my own situation-and KNOWING that no one would miss me under the wheels of the local dumps tractors.

That poor girl-they better put her somewhere safe!!!

The Dollars-another starvation story
The Dollars' twin 14-year-old sons weighed 36 and 38 lbs.—about the weight of a 7-year-old. "The children said they believed they deserved this abuse, that they were being punished" for lying and stealing food, says Rhonda Evan, spokeswoman for Florida's Citrus County sheriff's office.

Article on abuse statistics-general
Child Abuse - The Hidden Bruises

"It is estimated hundreds of thousands of children are physically abused each year by a parent or close relative. Thousands actually die as a result of the abuse."

Yet, everybody 'hears about it" afterwards..

The poster who says CPS is wack is correct. Especially if your parents are well liked or form social ties within any of the tiers of reporting. Favors for a friend.

I am *generally* suspicious of anyone who talks bad about their children or speaks of them in a manner as if they are evil plotting little things.

Some people really fall for that at it's word. Strange world.

It's a really tough line to try to draw.

On the one hand, I was beaten bloody as a child, and I know others who were starved, beaten, or severely neglected, and there was NO help for us. I even ran away once and went straight to the police. They listened to my story, looked at my bloody welts, sat me down with some milk and cookies, and called my parents to come and get me. NO help.

But the current system often goes overboard the other direction, taking away kids from parents who administer a few swats, have siblings sharing a room or a bed for lack of space (which is very common in other countries and cultures), or for other ridiculous reasons.

There needs to be a reasonable middle ground, but how do we find it and who gets to decide how to implement it? It's easy to blame CPS, but in doing so we lose sight of the fact that the real culprits are the families. Not just the parents, but the extended family and previous generations, too. The harried social worker who has twice as many cases as she should have and is often required to be as much or more of a detective as a social worker in order to figure out what's really going on with "her kids" is not primarily to blame for their troubles. Foster familes are easy scapegoats too, but you haven't had to deal with these kids! By the time the "system" gets hold of them, some damage is already done and they just aren't the nicest kids to have to cope with.

Whine about "PC" programs all you want, but the only REAL answer is to fix the families - and yes, most of them CAN be fixed. Fix this family so the kids are raised better, then the kids will grow up and be better parents to their kids. Shelters and foster care are emergency stopgaps, not a long term solution. Healing the families so the next generation won't NEED emergency intervention is the only real solution. Oh, and btw taking the kids away from the parents makes it much less likely that either the parents or the kids will learn anything about how to function as a healthy family.

Has it ever occurred to any of you that this woman is messed up enough in the head to think that what she was doing was the RIGHT thing, rather than thinking she was torturing the child? Just consider it.. somehow based on her own upbringing she may have a twisted enough view of how children and parents should interact that she thought she was trying to do what was best .... certainly my own mother went to her deathbed blaming me for all of our problems and insisting that she was only trying to make me be a good person .. somehow she never mananged to see that attempting to saw off my little finger with a butcher knife when I was around 6 or 7 because she caught me picking my nose with it (hey .. wanna see the scar??) was "abuse" ....

Originally posted by Heike
Has it ever occurred to any of you that this woman is messed up enough in the head to think that what she was doing was the RIGHT thing, rather than thinking she was torturing the child? Just consider it. ....

I'm certain half the criminals in our prisons can say they thought they were doing the right thing robbing the Bank to feed their family or drug habbit, or raping the woman because god gave them the desire.

That behavior in unacceptable in a civilized society so we put people like this woman in prison because we don't have a better system to alter that behavior. It was up to her after her initial meeting with CPS to alter her behavior, now she will be punished for continuing it. It's up to her to get help and now the state is taking steps to steer her in the right direction.

Originally posted by paperplanes
The incompetence of social services around the world (no, it isn't just an American problem) is just mind-boggling. An article was posted the other day about the death of a 17-month-old boy in England who had also been the subject of an investigation previously. The state of Florida has also admitted to having lost track of several hundred foster children who were supposed to be under the auspices of the state's social services. These are just a few stories among many. I do not understand why there is such a problem with the child welfare services in the U.S. and abroad. Are the social workers underpaid and behaving carelessly as a result? Are they understaffed? I don't know what the hell is going on. I wonder if this is a new climate, or if child welfare services have always been this awful.

Unfortunately social services are understaffed, underpaid and horribly overworked. Some of them after a while become "dead" emotionally, but continue in their work, therefore making mistakes. They get disgusted with the system continuing to put some children back into homes that should not be getting their children back.

I used to be a foster parent, and had problems with the agency "letting out" our address to parents. I remember a bad case when this happened and the parents just showed up at our doorstep one evening. It was very disheartening that the agency could not even keep their foster parents addresses from these parents.

Originally posted by verylowfrequency
That behavior in unacceptable in a civilized society so we put people like this woman in prison because we don't have a better system to alter that behavior.

We don't? Why do you say we don't? How about taking her kid(s) away and giving her a choice to be sterilized instead of going to prison? She isn't going to harm anyone else's kids, just her own, so if she doesn't have any kids she's harmless to society and could just as well be a productive taxpayer as be a prison inmate supported by taxpayers.

Nice pic of the house... did they find the people under the stairs?

But your right about the system, it tends to swing from one extreme to the other, never even looking for the middle ground.

Damn it hurts reading these sorts of things.

It's truely amazing how cold and mean people can be. I makes me think that we, as a species, are in trouble.

reply to post by Heike


I can totally relate to you as well, but I went through much more, I unfortunately went through sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotinal abuse, neglect and spiritual abuse.

People like this make me sick, and while I should not be reading these articles, they usually rigger flashbacks and nightmares, I can't help it. Four years is not enough, a lifetime is not enough. Unfortunately this poor girl and even her brother are going to have messy lives, mistrust, and hate towards certain people. I totally understand as I too have no lack of trust or respect for certain people either. I have been tempted many times to beat the crap out of some Mother for saying horrible things to her child in public. I feel bad for the kid when they are behind closed doors and no one can see them.

I am sick and tired of reading about these cases, I hate the people who do them, and I hate the people who have to report them. As if the world isn't screwed up enough. Honestly i wish we could take all these messed up people and ship them off to another planet, and be rid of them once and for all. That's all i have to say!

Just to update folks on this story and provide a photo of the monsters from their first hearing.

seattletimes.nwsource.com...

Rebecca Long and Jon Pomeroy — accused of starving their 14 year old daughter in Carnation — walk out of their arraignment from King County Superior Court Monday morning.

They plead "not guilty".

reply to post by burdman30ott6


Wow. Although theycould have been primped up for court, it surprised me that they looked just like the average person you'd see at the supermarket!

It got me where it said the dad knew it was happening, but chose not to interfere.


And can somebody shed some light on whether "criminal mistreatment" is a easier/harsher conviction that child abuse? Or the same thing?

reply to post by asmeone2


Far easier max sentencing for criminal mistreatment. I believe that the prosecutor's office is seeking the lesser charges, rather than unlawful imprisonment, child abuse, neglect, (add in a slew of various crimes these two have committed in imprisoning, starving, and abusing this little girl) purely as a CYA for the state's CPS department. If they actually charged these two for all the laws they broke and abuses they committed, the state would essentially be put on trial as well for failing the little girl 2 years ago when these issues first came to light.

As has been said in other places in this thread, including by myself, if I locked up an adult and treated them this way, I'd be looking at spending a couple dozen years in prison. These two did this to an innocent defenseless child and are looking at 4 years.

(BTW, this ties in loosely with what I was saying about Ted Stevens in the other thread. I would have no issue with Ted Stevens serving 35 years IF we laid out sentencing/retribution that fits the crime in every case. It is grossly offensive to me that the max sentencing for just a single one of Steven's violations is 5 years whereas the max sentence these two are facing is only 4 years. I realize Stevens broke a public trust, but these two broke a child's trust & spirit and, at least from where I stand, recieving some new home upgrades for free in exchange for special consideration on future contract awards is so far away from abusing a child that the two crimes aren't even in the same town, let alone the same ballpark.)

[edit on 27-10-2008 by burdman30ott6]

reply to post by burdman30ott6


Yes, the whole thing is astounding, for all the hype about pedophiles, it's so often the biological parents that actually do the terrible things to their own children, and at least in this case, face almost no punishment.