Family Left Shaken in Molestation Case

Debbie Blair says her husband is a hero.

Sheriff’s deputies agree that Warner Blair acted heroically, that he single-handedly captured a man who stands charged with molesting one of the Blairs’ daughters.

“He should be congratulated,” Debbie Blair said of her husband, “not condemned.”

But before the Blairs laid a trap to catch the alleged molester, child-welfare officials suspected that someone within the family had sexually abused several of the children.

In August, when Debbie was out of town and Warner at work, county officials took four of their seven children into protective custody. A fifth was taken away when the child and Debbie returned from a trip, and all five were held for three weeks, even after the alleged molester was arrested.

Was it an abuse of power, as the Blairs allege, or prudent action by an agency sometimes criticized for failing to protect children from dangerous situations? Or was it a little of both?

The answers depend on how one views a case filled with odd coincidences, strange late-night events, some untidy family history and even a little girl’s dream that made investigators wonder what had been going on in the two-story Saugus tract house the Blair family have called home for 17 years.

Betsy Azariah, a children’s services administrator, said she has reviewed the Blairs’ case and found no irregularities in the department’s procedures. She declined to discuss specific details but said, “I believe our involvement is proper. . . . We have legitimate concerns.” The Blairs, despite their embarrassment and fear, have been very public, taking their case to lawmakers and the talk shows. “The fact that a sex pervert came in and molested the children is nothing compared to what we have gone through,” Warner Blair said.

News of the Blairs’ ordeal has shaken many in this north county region. If it happened to the Blairs, the thought goes, it can happen to us.

The family’s tale begins three years ago when an intruder climbed through an unlocked upstairs window from the patio roof into a bedroom where three of the Blairs’ children slept. He covered the mouth of one of the girls, but she yelled for dad, waking her sisters, and the man fled.

The experience traumatized the youngsters, who complained of bad dreams. The Blairs began using a window lock, never leaving an opening more than 6 inches wide. They bought a border collie for protection.

No suspect was caught, but the fears began to mellow over time.

The incident was at odds with the comforting atmosphere of the Blairs’ neighborhood. A shady park across the street is a handy playground for the children, ages 7 to 20. A few doors down is Saugus High School, where the three oldest have served on the student council. The family’s Mormon church is at the end of the block.

The blue family van has the license “7 4 US.” Four hearts on the front door carry the message: “Love is spoken here.”

Then on Aug. 9, two of the Blair children decided to sleep on the living-room floor with a friend. Another of the young daughters went up to her room alone. For the first time since the break-in, the Blairs left the window open. “We felt that this was a safe community, that we were over-paranoid,” Debbie Blair said.

The next morning, the child went to her parents’ room, quiet and withdrawn. She had alarming news: “A man was in my room last night.”

The girl amazed investigators by relating explicit details about the intruder, including drawing with crayons a picture of an insignia on his shirt, the color of his backward baseball cap and his long brown hair and mustache.

Here the case takes an odd turn, one the Blairs say they can’t explain.

During the following Sheriff’s Department investigation, one of the children related a nightmare of a naked intruder in her room. It could have been her father, she said. Child-welfare workers were called, and without the parents’ knowledge interviewed the children at school.

Debbie Blair and a son were in Utah on the afternoon of Aug. 29, delivering the two oldest daughters to college. Warner Blair was at his Van Nuys copier business when county officials took away the couple’s four other children.

Child services officials said their policy is to leave a card on the family’s door, giving them a telephone number for information.

But Warner Blair says there was no card, no note. He was angry and frantic, searching for the children for hours, finally learning through a school principal that the children were with a caseworker.

After the son returned home, welfare workers on Sept. 4 took him away too.

Desperate for a solution, the couple plotted ways to capture the molester, thinking that, once caught, they would be vindicated and their children returned.

They began leaving the upstairs bedroom window open, hoping to lure back the intruder. They said they rigged a tripwire in a hallway and readied a camera, planning to at least snap a picture if the intruder got away.

Late Sept. 5, Debbie Blair said she broke down emotionally, grieving over her children. The couple was still up at 2 the next morning when Debbie heard a sound--a plunk on the patio roof, then the pop of the window screen. The dog growled.

“My gosh, he’s back,” she told her husband.

Then they heard the man retreating.

Warner Blair bounded downstairs and out the front door in time to see the man leap over a high wall from the backyard. Blair caught him in a headlock and wrestled him to the ground.

Debbie Blair frantically dialed 911. She begged the deputies to come quickly, then laid down the phone, saying, “My husband’s calling me. I have to go.”

She grabbed the camera, firing off four shots of the two men struggling. Then, standing in the middle of the street, she yelled with all her might. Lights flashed on and people came out. One woman wielded a baseball bat.

Somehow, her call disconnected, but Debbie Blair called 911 again and the tape automatically recorded her panicked voice: “My husband’s got the man!” she said.

Arrested was David Afton Foster, 22, a former neighbor who was living in a trailer home on a mule farm in Newhall. Last week, Newhall Municipal Judge Alan S. Rosenfield ordered him to stand trial on one count each of a lewd and lascivious act with a child under age 14, burglary and attempted burglary. He is being held on $110,000 bail.

Deputies who searched Foster’s home found clothing they say is identical to the description given by the Blairs’ daughter. Foster is being held in the jail ward at County-USC Medical Center, where he underwent surgery Sept. 24 for a fractured ankle, apparently broken in his flight from the Blair home.

But the ordeal was far from over. Despite the capture, child-welfare workers told the Blairs they would not release the children.

Sources close to the investigation say even though Warner Blair was no longer a suspect--in fact, he had never really been a strong suspect despite the strange dream--social workers wondered if one of the Blairs’ children had sexually abused one or more siblings.

The sources also said the accusations were relatively minor, that the incidents allegedly occurred years ago, and were typical of pre-adolescent behavior. “Playing doctor” was how one source described the incidents.

But welfare workers believed the family needed counseling, sources said, and threatened to file criminal charges against the suspected child to intimidate the Blairs into signing a statement saying they failed to properly supervise their youngsters. No charges were ever filed, according to the district attorney’s office.

By signing the statement, Debbie and Warner Blair agreed that the entire family would undergo counseling. Jurisdiction over the children remains with social workers, who could take them away again at any time.

“We felt we couldn’t go another day without our kids,” said Debbie Blair, explaining why they signed an admission of guilt even though they deny any wrongdoing.

The children finally returned home Sept. 18 and found a new wall decoration hung by friends and neighbors--a welcome home banner.

Since they made their story public, the Blairs have been hounded by talk-show hosts and television crews for interviews. The family’s phone rings constantly as other parents relate similar stories.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who called for an investigation of the case, said it “raises questions with regard to the powers exercised by the Department of Children and Family Services.”

Meanwhile, Assemblyman Pete Knight (R-Palmdale) said he may reintroduce legislation to hold agencies such as the children’s services department responsible for improper actions.

The criticism leaves many social workers and the juvenile court system in a paradox.

Although the Blairs complain that their children were taken away too hastily, the county has also been lambasted for returning children to unsafe situations.

A stinging critique by the county counsel, published Sept. 8, cited 14 recent cases where Dependency Court commissioners ignored warnings of future abuse and sent children back to their troubled families. These commissioners often base their decisions on information from child welfare authorities.

For their part, Dependency Court judges labeled the report “outright fraud,” and about 180 children’s social workers protested to the Board of Supervisors that their high caseloads prevent them from giving each case the time it needs.

For children’s services, then, almost any action can prompt criticism. When asked if caseworkers might have overreacted in the Blair case, Azariah, the children’s services administrator, said, “We always err on the side of caution.”

The Blairs, meanwhile, have been unable to operate their mom-and-pop business since the nightmare began Aug. 9. They have no backup to weather the legal storm and losses. “Our money goes for kids and tuition,” Debbie Blair said.

Yet even their supporters concede that when it comes to child abuse there are no easy answers.

“I understand there’s abuse, and it’s tragic when that abuse goes undetected,” said Steve Krogh, a Blair family friend. “But it’s equally tragic when families are torn unjustifiably. Perhaps the pendulum has swung too far toward suspecting the parents and overprotecting children.”

Times staff writers Andrew Blankstein and Timothy Williams contributed to this story.