They were teenage girls looking for excitement — anything, really, outside their locked-down lives as wards of the state.
On May 26 at their Cobb County group home, they saw their chance to escape. The girls suddenly burst through the front door and, ignoring an alarm and the yelling of the only staff member on duty, took off running. They asked strangers for rides, with no luck. Finally, they ended up at a Walmart in Powder Springs, where they met a group of men who offered food and a place to stay.
But for the next 18 hours, the girls later told the police, the men took turns sexually assaulting them at a house just around the corner from their group home. The oldest of the men let the girls go only after his younger companions left, intending to bring back their buddies.
The oldest of the girls is 16. The youngest is 14.
Cobb County police arrested Rubin Leavell III, 50, on charges that include aggravated child molestation. Leavell, who sports a tattoo of the Playboy bunny on his upper right arm, is being held without bond. The police obtained arrest warrants for five other men, who have not been publicly identified.
The girls were examined at a hospital, and then locked up in Cobb County’s juvenile detention center.
The case highlights the fractured manner in which Georgia deals with troubled children and teenagers. Like thousands of others, these girls had moved through a series of detention centers, foster homes, placements with relatives, and group homes. Many facilities are privately run and are, except for occasional state inspections, self-regulated.
“The parents are told they’ll be safe – they’re in a locked facility,” the 16-year-old’s mother said. “I just feel disgusted as a mother.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is not naming the woman to protect her daughter’s identity.
Two of the girls had been placed in the group home by the state Division of Family and Children Services, the other by the Department of Juvenile Justice.
DFCS has suspended placements while it investigates the escape, said Ashley Fielding, an agency spokeswoman. In a statement, Jim Shuler, a spokesman for the juvenile justice agency, said the group home is “not a DJJ secure facility. … The incident did not occur on state property or at a state facility.”
The group home is called Heritage House, operated by the Light of Hope and Love Ministry Inc. No one answered the telephone at the home Thursday; after several calls, the phone was switched over to an incoming fax line.
Heritage House has held a state license, allowing it to board as many as six children between 6 and 18 years old, since at least 2008. The ministry, registered as a nonprofit organization, apparently has not filed a federal income return since 2010. In that document, which covered 2009, the ministry reported losses of $41,128 on revenue of $59,718.
DFCS and DJJ reported paying the ministry $173,000 in 2014, according to state records.
State regulators most recently inspected the home, on a cul-de-sac in a Cobb County subdivision, in April. They cited the facility for one recordkeeping violation.
Last year, regulators said Heritage House had failed to provide required medical and dental care and had not documented at least one resident’s use of psychotropic drugs for five months. The facility resolved the citations by submitting plans to correct violations.
The three girls who escaped were the home’s only residents at the time, according to a report the facility filed with state regulators. One girl who had arrived earlier that day had a history of escapes, but the report does not indicate whether the home’s staff took precautions to keep her from leaving.
The 16-year-old had been at Heritage House since December, her mother said. In 14 months under DFCS supervision, the mother said, the girl has been assigned to five different caseworkers.
The girl has a diagnosed stress disorder and takes medication typically prescribed for bipolar disorder, her mother said. She has been under state supervision since getting into a serious fight with her older sister.
The girl needed more intensive therapy and supervision than a group home could provide, her mother said. “Something’s just off with her,” the mother said. “She doesn’t know how to act and be with people.”
She hated the group home, the girl’s mother said, and complained of bad food and verbal abuse. The day of the escape, her mother had asked a judge to release the girl from state custody. He delayed a decision until late this year, an outcome that devastated the 16-year-old.
“It was looking like she was stuck there another six months,” the mother said.
As the other two residents planned their escape that night, the 16-year-old decided at the last minute to go along, her mother said.
To distract the staff member, one of the girls claimed to have a headache and asked for a pain reliever, according to the facility's report. While the staff member retrieved medication, the girls ran to the front of the house and pushed open the front door. The report says an alarm sounded; the 16-year-old later told her mother the door was unlocked, and they streamed through with no resistance.
One of the other girls had said she knew a place they could go, but it turned out she had no plan. Unable to catch a ride, they made their way on foot to Walmart, nearly two miles from the group home.
There, they met a group of men who “bribed” them with an offer of food and shelter, the 16-year-old’s mother said. At a house less than a quarter-mile from the group home, the men gave the girls marijuana and alcohol, the mother said, before taking turns assaulting them.
It is not clear whether all six men assaulted each girl, said Sgt. Dana Pierce of the Cobb County police. Detectives are still investigating, he said.
The 16-year-old told her mother that the older man, who owns the house where the assault occurred, began to worry and let the girls leave about 5 p.m. on May 27. They ran to the group home and called the police.
The mother saw her daughter at the juvenile detention center on Sunday, four days after the assault. She said they hugged for nearly 10 minutes as the girl sobbed.
“She’s physically OK,” the mother said. “Mentally, I don’t think so.”
In Cherokee County Juvenile Court on Thursday, a judge ordered the girl’s release from the detention center. But she remains in DFCS custody. Just after noon, she walked out of the courthouse in Canton with a newly assigned DFCS caseworker, on her way to another group home.
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