Parents Found Guilty of Abusing Daughter

An Antelope Valley couple accused of using a burglar alarm and motion detector to keep their 9-year-old daughter prisoner in her bedroom were found guilty of child abuse Thursday by a Lancaster Superior Court jury.

The girl’s stepmother, Donna Lynn Fell, 35, was described by a prosecutor as a “Jekyll and Hyde” character who repeatedly beat the girl and deprived her of food. She was convicted of two felony charges: corporal punishment resulting in injury and child abuse.

The jurors found that the girl’s father, Fred William Fell, 41, was less involved in the punishment. He was convicted of a single less serious offense: misdemeanor child abuse.

The verdicts came after the seven-man, five-woman jury listened to the girl, Amy Michelle Fell, now 12, testify about her experience. They also viewed a videotape of Donna Fell harshly questioning her stepdaughter about misbehavior and heard several visitors confirm reports of nightmarish abuse and confinement in the family’s remote Antelope Acres house.

“We had a little girl who was so fearful that she defecated in her room,” jury foreman Ed Schilling said after the trial. “It showed the mental anguish the child was under.”

Donna Fell wept as the verdicts were read. Judge Kenneth R. Freeman ordered her jailed in lieu of $150,000 bail. At her sentencing May 11, she faces up to seven years and four months in state prison.

Fred Fell, who showed little emotion during the trial or the reading of the verdicts, was released on his own recognizance to await sentencing June 1. He faces up to one year in County Jail.

“He was more upset about his wife’s conviction than his own,” said Fred’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Michael Allensworth.

Donna Fell’s attorney, Nancy Kelso, said her client “is understandably very upset. She believes she never did anything intentionally to hurt that child.”

The Fells, who now live in Rosamond, were arrested in February, 1993, after a school nurse noticed Amy’s bruises. That triggered an investigation by county officials and sheriff’s deputies. At the time, the girl weighed only 63 pounds, and a deputy described her as “extremely malnourished.”

Investigators alleged that the Fells often deprived Amy of dinner as punishment and installed a burglar alarm on her bedroom door to make sure she did not leave at night, even to use the bathroom.

A motion detector, connected to a light in the Fells’ bedroom, activated if someone walked through the living room at night, and the refrigerator was sometimes padlocked.

In interviews at the time of their arrest, the Fells asserted that Amy’s room had an alarm because she often sneaked out of her room at night to spy on her parents. They said the motion detector was set up because they were worried about nighttime intruders.

During the trial, one of Amy’s school friends testified that the girl was always hungry and frequently ate carrot sticks and other food that her classmates were about to throw away.

Others witnesses testified that Donna Fell punished Amy by striking her with a fly-swatter, a belt, a pan and her hands. The witnesses included two people who lived in a trailer on the Fells’ property and one of Donna Fell’s sons from a previous marriage.

Fred Fell was also accused of striking Amy occasionally and of being aware of the abuse inflicted by his wife. “As her father, he had care and custody of the child,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Kelly Cromer said. “He had a duty to see that she wasn’t abused.”

But Fred Fell chose not to testify at the trial, and several witnesses said he spent much of his time eating and watching television alone in his bedroom, leaving his wife to take care of Amy.

“We believed that Fred knew a lot more than the testimony showed,” said Schilling, the jury foreman. “But the physical evidence was very small to show he knew what was going on.”

Donna Fell did testify, however, tearfully telling the jurors that she was a loving stepmother who used reasonable measures to control a child with behavior problems. But, Schilling said: “We discounted all of Donna’s testimony as unbelievable.”

The foreman, an air traffic controller from Lancaster, said a child-abuse trial is emotionally draining. “It pulls at your heart,” he said. “Almost all of us on the jury have children. It’s hard to separate your heart from what the law says.”

Cromer, the prosecutor, described the Fells’ verdicts as fair and said she hopes they send a message to other parents who carry discipline too far.

“It isn’t unusual for parents to get angry,” she said. “But there are limits on discipline. If there are parents who cannot control their anger, there are parenting classes, and they can learn methods of discipline that are effective and don’t involve physical harm to the child.”

Cromer said Amy Fell is now living with her biological mother in another county and appears to be recovering from the abuse.