SOUTH-CENTRAL : Operator of Closed Home Denies Abuse

A local group home operator last week denied allegations that she and one of her employees physically abused three boys in their care, including one who contradicted his abuse claims during a state administrative hearing.

Cammie Turpin, who ran Harmony House, at 1960 La Salle Ave., a facility for mentally disturbed boys, said Thursday that she and staff member Mary Pettway were only trying to restrain a violent boy during a Dec. 16 incident that led in part to a state Department of Social Services order to shut the home, pending the results of an administrative hearing.

“He was a kid who was out of control who was always yelling and screaming,” Turpin said during a break in the hearing Thursday, which was convened after three boys filed abuse charges against the home. “He is doing this just to have his way.” The five-page order suspending Turpin’s operating license, handed down by the Department of Social Services on Dec. 23, claimed that on one occasion between Oct. 1 and Dec. 18 Turpin slapped a resident and struck him with a cord from an iron. At Thursday’s hearing, the three boys who filed charges testified that between Oct. 13 and Dec. 16, Turpin and Pettway slapped one of them in the face, hit another in the head with a telephone and beat another with a leather belt.

But later in the hearing, the first witness said he had often threatened to call his social worker when he was punished for not following house rules. He also admitted that Pettway had not hit him with a telephone and said that he was pulling the phone from her during an argument and it hit him in the chest.

A social worker, who asked not to be named, said the state’s investigation of the case began after the Dec. 16 incident, in which police were called to restrain a violent 11-year-old boy who had broken a second-floor window and threatened to jump.

Turpin said that she and her staff repeatedly had to restrain the boy in several other incidents and that he had kicked, punched and slapped Pettway on several occasions. She denied all acts of physical abuse.

Turpin and her lawyer, Steve Bailey, said the decision to close Harmony House was made based on a single allegation with no corroborating interviews with other group home members. Bailey said the testimony of the three other residents contradict that of the three who brought the charges against the home’s staff.

“I don’t want to make any rash statements against the children,” Bailey said. “But there was little or no substantive investigation done before these drastic steps were taken.”

The state will decide within 30 days if Harmony House will be permanently closed or if the facility will be placed on two years’ probation.