Toddler in Harm’s Way: Abused Boy Returned to Parents, Abused Again

Eight days after he sent a bright-eyed toddler home to the parents accused of breaking his bones two years earlier, a distressed Judge Gregory Holder stood at the boy’s hospital bed.

Eric’s limbs were marked with burns. He had been punched or kicked in the gut so hard that doctors feared they might have to do intestinal surgery. On his scalp there was a baseball-size bald spot--the place where his hair had been yanked out.

Police now believe the 2-year-old was being abused and tortured from the day Holder sent him home from foster care.

“Thank God the child survived,” the judge said.

But why was the little boy, who spent weeks in a body cast to heal the bones that were broken just months after his birth, returned home after spending most of his young life with foster parents?

And why couldn’t he be protected once there?

Holder, a Hillsborough circuit judge, ordered those involved in the case to explain what had gone wrong. But he then canceled that hearing and removed himself from the case, saying his hospital visit prevented him from being impartial.

For now, the only answer is that no one followed the commands the judge gave Jan. 15, when he returned the boy to his parents, who now face torture and child-abuse charges.

Check on the boy daily, he said he told caseworkers.

“Love this child,” Holder ordered the parents.

Eric’s father, 20-year-old Eric Shumpert, and mother, 21-year-old Tammy Lynn Kidder, have been charged with willful torture, aggravated child abuse and child neglect. Shumpert is being held without bond. Kidder remains in jail in lieu of $200,000 bond. Both have pleaded not guilty.

“Call it intuition, call it a gut feeling. I certainly had concerns about sending Eric home,” Holder said.

“But the experts all agreed the boy would be safe. There was no legal reason, no factual basis, upon which to deny reunification.”

Little Eric and his 9-month-old brother are now with the foster parents who cared for Eric for two years. The children’s court-appointed guardian ad litem, who argues for their best interests at hearings, has asked the court to terminate Shumpert’s and Kidder’s parental rights. The foster parents hope to seek adoption.

Eric’s case dates back to October 1994, when he was an infant with a broken leg and three broken ribs. Police suspected abuse, but they couldn’t prove it. His father said the leg snapped while he was changing the baby’s diaper. A doctor couldn’t rule out the possibility that Eric had brittle bone disease.

Social workers took custody of Eric and placed him in foster care. Shumpert and Kidder were sent to counseling and parenting classes. They were allowed visitation while they tried to regain custody.

From one unsupervised visit, Eric returned with a black eye and a bruise under his chin, but no one could prove abuse. However, his foster mother told the court that after the visits, Eric cried, had trouble sleeping and was “not his normal self.”

She opposed the move to reunite him with his parents. So did Eric’s guardian, who warned at the Jan. 15 hearing: “The child would not be safe in this home.”

But Holder said the parents had completed all the requirements to regain custody and there was no legal reason to deny their request.

And he gave the boy’s parents this stern warning: “If this child gets hurt, I will come after you, if I have to hunt you down myself.”

A social worker saw the boy the day after he returned home. When a caseworker tried to see Eric on Jan. 21, Shumpert said the boy was sleeping. The next day, Kidder called and canceled a visit, saying the boy had the flu.

By the time anyone saw Eric, on Jan. 24, his 30-pound body was covered with burns and bruises. Police believe his mother burned him with cigarettes and his father beat him from the day he arrived home. Eric was hospitalized and his parents were arrested.

In one interview with a police detective, Shumpert described a fight with his girlfriend the day before the two were arrested. Shumpert told the detective he followed her outside their mobile home and took away her cigarettes because she was supposed to quit smoking.

“She became mad, and when little Eric came out of the house, she burned him with a lighter,” the detective quoted Shumpert.

Shumpert told the detective that in another instance, he punched Eric in the stomach because Kidder was “getting on him” about going to the video store for a movie.

Then, Shumpert told the detective, “Tammy came over to him and said, ‘Oh yeah, watch this,’ and she too hit the boy in the stomach.

At the hospital, Eric captured the hearts of detectives who photographed his injuries. The blond, blue-eyed boy repeatedly interrupted them to ask for hugs, Holder said. Three police officers later brought him a teddy bear.

The hospital visit ended when the boy asked the officers and the judge to leave, saying it was time for “night-night,” Holder said.

“He’s a lovely little boy, and we can only be thankful that Eric is recovering extremely quickly,” Holder said. “I’m not certain if it’s a miracle, but certainly there were a lot of prayers for him.”