Agency sought order for children's custody

By Ellen Barry a Nd Corey Dade, Globe Staff, 7/21/2002

A year before LaVeta Jackson killed her young son and daughter, an investigator for the state Department of Social Services filed a court order for custody of the children, alleging she wouldn't take her antipsychotic medication and had become so paranoid she posed a danger to them.

The document, a care and protection order submitted to a Massachusetts trial court on June 15, 2001, also stated that Jackson hit her children, and that her eldest son - a 13-year-old who now lives with his father in Randolph and was not present at the time of the July 2 slayings - ''reports being scared to go home.''

The document, provided to the Globe by Jackson's family, calls into question statements made by the DSS in the wake of the killings.

Within days, department officials said a preliminary review of the case showed their investigators had monitored Jackson's mental health and had no way of predicting that she would become violent. A DSS spokeswoman said an evaluation by the Institute of Living, a Hartford psychiatric hospital that treated her, found that Jackson was neither homicidal nor suicidal.

Yet just a few weeks after regaining custody of 6-year-old Sydney Murphy and 3-year-old Scott Murphy, Jackson plunged into a steep psychological decline - staring vacantly, not eating, and sleeping during the day, according to Michele Slade, an aunt of the younger children.

On July 2, in the basement of Slade's home, where the family was living, Jackson slit the children's throats and opened a gash in her abdomen. She was still wielding the bloody knife when three policemen - dispatched to the house on a report of a double homicide - shot her to death during a confrontation. The care and protection order is used by the DSS as legal grounds for taking custody of neglected and abused children. It is written by a social worker who gathers information from relatives, neighbors, and caregivers; then, a DSS lawyer argues the petition before a judge, who decides whether to grant custody.

A DSS official said investigators did talk to relatives, school officials, friends, and neighbors, but could not corroborate the eldest son's accusations that his mother hit him and his siblings.

''When this child reported to us what he did about being hit, we took it very seriously,'' said DSS spokeswoman Carol Yelverton. ''Given the picture that we were looking at in relation to this family, our workers saw this allegation as an issue related to child management, given that we had received no reports of abuse and based on our knowledge that this child clearly wanted to be with his father.''

A source in the child welfare system familiar with the Jackson case said DSS decided the abuse allegation likely would not have withstood a judge's scrutiny in a custody hearing. Instead, the source said, Sydney and Scott Murphy were removed from Jackson's care based on her psychiatric breakdown.

The petition also indicates that DSS investigators had been informed that Jackson was resisting treatment for her mental illness.

The young siblings ''are in need of care and protection due to mother placing them in danger as a result of her paranoia,'' states the document, written by DSS investigator Leanne Leben and signed by a DSS lawyer. ''Mother refuses to take her medication prescribed to alleviate psychosis, and this results in her behaving in erratic ways.''

Yelverton said recent reports, including an evaluation performed in the Hartford hospital, show Jackson as a compliant patient making a strong recovery. Yelverton said DSS officials believe she was taking her medication, as prescribed, up to the time she killed her children.

Accounts of her mental health differ, though, and some family members said Jackson complained bitterly about her medication, which she said caused hair loss and weight gain.

Medical records from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where Jackson spent more than a month last summer, describe a patient who ''refused any and all medications'' while in the hospital, but who was neither disruptive nor violent.

Although family members had told hospital staff that Jackson was menacing them, her Beth Israel psychiatrists had a much more positive assessment by the time she was released: Stabilized on the antipsychotic drug Haldol - administered by injection to ensure her compliance - Jackson was ''notable for lack of suicidal or homicidal ideation,'' the report said.

Once Beth Israel released her into the custody of her mother, who lives in Hartford, Jackson soon lapsed again, family members have said. After she told her mother that she had found a hunting knife and ''was going to hurt herself,'' Jackson spent two weeks in a Connecticut psychiatric hospital, said her mother and sister.

After Jackson's release, DSS based its decision to return Sydney and Scott to her on an evaluation of Jackson's mental state performed by the Institute of Living, Yelverton said.

''This report stated that Ms. Jackson showed no homicidal or suicidal tendencies, and there were no residual symptoms that would cause concerns for her ability to parent,'' Yelverton said.

Still, relatives on both sides of the family have insisted that Jackson's erratic behavior - especially in the final weeks of her life - demonstrated she and her children needed more attention from DSS and mental health providers.

''DSS, to me, did not do a proper job,'' said Tish Jackson, LaVeta Jackson's older sister, who lives in Hartford. Mabel Graham, the children's great-aunt, complained that Jackson was still too mentally fragile to take on the intense responsibility of caring for a toddler and his 6-year-old sister.

''The DSS should have never, never thought about giving those children back to LaVeta before everything was in place,'' she said. ''They threw everything back on her.''

DSS would not discuss specifics about its involvement with Jackson once she was reunited with her children.

Still, the child welfare source said a DSS case worker visited Jackson ''regularly'' - though it wasn't clear how often. Jackson, the source said, seemed stable and her children were clean, well-nourished, and seemingly happy.

The case worker, the source said, also visited shortly before the murders.

This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 7/21/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.