Pool-Tragedy Figure Loses Custody : Her 2 Sons Temporarily Moved to Grandparent’s Home

Carol Brooks, the North Tustin baby-sitter at whose home one toddler drowned and two others suffered brain damage after falling into a swimming pool, has temporarily lost custody of her own two children.

Orange County Superior Court Commissioner Frank Fasel placed the children in the Yorba Linda home of their paternal grandmother, Connie Duplex, at the request of Brooks’ ex-husband, Ken Duplex, who also lives in the home. Permanent custody will be determined at a court hearing set for May 15.

Duplex, a 22-year-old plumber, alleged in court papers filed Wednesday that Brooks, from whom he has been separated for about a year and a half, “has a history of child abuse” and has kept the children in a “totally filthy” environment.

“He knows what kind of a mother I am, and he knows I would never hurt my children,” Brooks said in an interview Thursday. “So, he’s trying to use the pool accident.”

The two children, Alex, 2, and Daniel, 1, were inside the gated and fenced pool area when Brooks found the three other toddlers at the bottom of the murky pool on March 30.

The Orange County district attorney’s office has not yet decided whether to file charges against Brooks because of the swimming pool incident, in which 14-month-old Arthur Matthew Griese died. Melissa Polsfoot, 19 months, of Tustin is in a coma in stable condition; Jonathan Weston, 22 months, of North Tustin is reported in stable condition but not in a coma. Doctors have said that both children suffered severe brain damage.

“This emergency situation occurring at my ex-wife’s residence has made me deathly afraid regarding my boys’ living situation,” Duplex said in his declaration.

Brooks, 24, helped her parents run the unlicensed day-care home, which county social services workers had twice ordered closed.

Brooks’ alleged abuse of her own children stems from an incident that occurred at a gas station in Newport Beach last July. Duplex claims that Brooks, angry that her former husband was unwilling to try to reconcile their differences, grabbed Alex by the arm, whipped him over her shoulder and slammed him to the sidewalk.

Brooks disputed that account of the incident in an interview Thursday.

“I mean, think about it,” she said. “If I had done that on a busy street in Newport Beach, don’t you think we would have had a circle of people around us?”

Brooks’ version of the incident is that Duplex wanted to take Alex away from her and that, in the struggle, she ripped Duplex’s shirt. Alex was never taken out of her car, she contended.

Duplex’s attorney, John Balent, said the incident was included in Duplex’s declaration Wednesday to persuade Fasel to take the children away from Brooks.

“I know the judge well enough that he’s not going to move them just because she was watching children when they fell into a pool,” Balent said.

Brooks said she could not understand why Fasel placed the children in Duplex’s house, given his current legal problems.

Duplex was arrested April 2 on a warrant charging him with assault and battery and threatening a witness. He was held overnight in Orange County Jail and is now awaiting trial on the charge.

Balent said the charges were based on false complaints filed by Brooks. However, Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Lt. Richard J. Olson said details of the case were not immediately available.

Brooks further alleged that Duplex owes her $855 for about 3 months’ child support.

Duplex Thursday acknowledged that he is in arrears on child-support payments. “Right after I got the divorce, I lost my job,” he said. He earns less than he used to at his new job in Riverside County and so far has been unable to catch up on the $300 monthly payments, he said.

Duplex and Brooks met at a fast-food restaurant where both worked a few years ago, Brooks said. They married in September, 1986, and were separated about a year later.

“We were both unstable with the marriage. He was not grown up enough,” she said. “I was young and stupid.”

Brooks was granted visitation privileges three times a week, pending the May hearing.

“They’re too young to be involved in this stuff,” Brooks said about her two boys. “They don’t understand why there is all this upheaval and why they are . . . living somewhere else.”