A Special Report/The Schmitzes

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A Special Report/The Schmitzes

By TONYA SMITH-KING
Aug 29 2004

The Schmitzes had 18 children, many with special needs. The state wonders how
they got them all. The Internet and 'child swapping' are suspected.

Melanie Schmitz doesn't remember where she and her family were in Illinois that
day, only that she was at a truck stop.

Her entire family - her parents, Tom and Debra Schmitz, and about a dozen
children - had piled into the family's motor home to make the trip from Green
Bay, Wis., where they lived. Melanie was 16 years old; the trip came about a
year before the family moved to Tennessee without her.

She hasn't forgotten why they went: to pick up a boy, about 6 or 7 years old,
so he could join their family.

''It was kind of a secretive thing,'' said Melanie, now 20.

Two months ago, Tom and Debra Schmitz were arrested on child abuse charges at
their home near Trenton by the Gibson County Sheriff's Department. The children
in the Schmitzes' care, now numbering 18, were placed in foster homes. The
couple now waits to see if a grand jury will hand down an indictment next month
on the child abuse charges. They also face a dependent neglect charge in
juvenile court.

Since leaving Wisconsin with 10 children three years ago for Gibson County, the
family has grown by eight. Many of the 18 children are characterized as
special-needs, with various physical and emotional problems, and thus qualify
for federal subsidies to help pay for their care.

As they await the grand jury date, many questions remain:

Why is the family so large and where did all the children come from?

Does the state track such children, their families and their movements?

Is it legal?

When the Tennessee Department of Children's Services removed the children from
the couple's home, it immediately tried to determine how the Schmitzes got the
children. It wasn't easy. As recently as three weeks ago, DCS had concerns
about eight of the children. Now, DCS has determined the rightful parents or
custodians for all 18. The breakdown of what DCS found:


Nine of the children have been legally adopted.

One is the Schmitzes' biological son.

But seven of the children do not legally belong to the Schmitzes. An eighth
child, in the process of being adopted, also does not belong legally to the
Schmitzes. These eight children were in the Schmitzes' home through some type
of private arrangement with parents or custodians, DCS spokeswoman Carla Aaron
said, and that is where many of the questions rest.
The children are from Florida, Wisconsin, New York, Tennessee, Michigan,
Louisiana and Texas.

The DCS has ''a lot of concerns'' about some of the private arrangements and
will let a judge decide if they were legal, Aaron said. Privacy laws prevent
her from discussing specifics about the children.

Respite or permanent?

DCS has said that the Schmitzes consider the eight private-arrangement children
as respite-care cases. Basically, respite care is where a child lives in
another home for ''a short period of time'' for reasons that might include a
foster mom who is sick, or a death in the family that requires a trip out of
town.

''It's a very short amount of time,'' Aaron said. ''It certainly wouldn't go on
for months and months and months. That would be a kind of placement. The plan
would be for the child to go back to the foster home once the crises passed or
the situation changed.''

But significant concerns regarding the Schmitzes and respite care remain:


The boy Melanie Schmitz remembers at the truck stop was a respite child.
However, the Schmitzes picked up that child four years ago. The child is still
with the family, according to documents obtained by The Jackson Sun.

According to Gibson County law enforcement, the Schmitzes sent a child to live
with another large Gibson County family, the Matthewses. The Matthewses decided
they no longer wanted the child, and the Schmitzes subsequently sent the girl
to Arizona, where she now lives with another family. Recently, DCS removed 16
children from the Matthewses' home on child abuse concerns, although no
criminal charges have been filed.
Last week, a Gibson County judge upheld the DCS action. The Matthewses will
have a full hearing on their dependent neglect case in October.


A Louisiana woman sent her adopted child to the Schmitzes as a respite-care
child. She later decided to let the Schmitzes adopt the girl, though they have
yet to adopt her, according to court testimony.
The DCS' Aaron could not comment on specific private arrangements.

''The Schmitz family referred to them (the eight private arrangements) as
respite,'' Aaron said. ''If the Schmitzes call it respite, that would be one
thing, but it does not fit the definition that we'd call respite.''

DCS policy gives foster parents in Tennessee up to 31 days a year for respite,
though there are exceptions for medically fragile foster homes and other unique
situations. The number of days a family gets for respite also may vary from
state to state.

When the state is involved with the children, DCS requires licensing for people
providing respite. But licensing is not required for a private arrangement
between two adults that involves their own children - adopted or biological.

''If two adults enter into an agreement, that's between them,'' DCS spokeswoman
Andrea Turner said. ''We don't have oversight as far as that's concerned.
People do it all the time. In Tennessee, there is no law that requires them to
come to us to do that.''

DCS also has no oversight over a family that moves into Tennessee with a large
number of children not in state custody. The only time it has oversight in
situations involving such children is when there is an allegation of abuse or
neglect, Turner said.

So, why are there ''concerns'' with the Schmitzes' private arrangements?

''We might not have any oversight, but that wouldn't preclude us from having
concerns about it,'' Turner said.

A person cannot move a child who is in state custody, in any state, to another
state without contacting what is called the Interstate Compact on the Placement
of Children, said Mickey Johnson, program director for West Tennessee Stepping
Stones in Memphis. Stepping Stones is an agency that contracts with DCS to
place children in state custody. The ICPC in both states must be contacted, and
the notification allows a state to know the child exists and is in state
custody. The state receiving the child then checks on the child on a regular
basis.

''What ICPC is all about is home studies,'' Arkansas ICPC Administrator Marty
Nodurfth said. ''We do a home study to identify if the home will be safe for
the child to go into.''

Those home studies are done by a certified social worker and involve factors
such as verification of income and a criminal background check, Nodurfth said.

The only situation that does not require ICPC notification involves the
transfer of children across state lines by a parent, close relative or legal
custodian to be placed with another close relative, according to Nodurfth. He
noted that all court proceedings involving a person becoming the legal
custodian of a child must have been completed for that person before the person
could move the child to another state to be with a close relative.

The parent, close relative or legal custodian may also place the child with
what the ICPC refers to as a ''non-agency guardian.'' This can be an individual
not related to the child. But in that situation, the non-agency guardian must
go through the ICPC to do a home study and be identified by a court as a
non-agency guardian before receving a child from another state.

DCS workers are not the only ones concerned about how the Schmitzes grew their
family.

''I don't know if it's legal or not,'' Gibson County Sheriff Joe Shepard said
of the private arrangements that are suspect. ''But if it is legal, it ought
not to be.''

State Rep. Chris Crider, R-Milan, said problems with large families in Gibson
County, such as the Schmitzes and the Matthewses, are new, and state officials
are still trying to learn as much as they can about them.

''This whole matter just confounds me,'' Crider said. ''You've got to wonder
why these larger families are coming into Gibson County. There might be
something that we're deficient in. This is new to us. It sheds new light on
what's appropriate and what's not.''

Mildred Lawhorn is a regional administrator for the DCS office in Jackson. She
said that while Tennessee handles roughly 1,000 adoptions each year, DCS does
not track the number of private adoptions. In most instances, DCS becomes
involved only if the child has been put in state custody or if there are
allegations of abuse, as in the case of the Schmitzes.

Lawhorn also said DCS limits the number of special-needs children it would
place in a home to three nonbiological children. The regional administrators
can issue waivers to that limit, Lawhorn said, although she didn't believe the
state would ever place as many special-needs children as the Schmitzes had in
one home.

Law enforcement documents show allegations of abuse by the Schmitzes, such as
beating children, locking them in a metal cage and forcing them to spend hours
in a dark cellar. They're also accused of forcing children to dig their own
graves and telling them they could be killed and buried in the back yard and no
one would care.

Earlier this month, a general sessions court judge reduced two of the child
abuse charges from felonies to misdemeanors. The judge also dismissed one
felony count against each of the Schmitzes regarding an accusation they held
down a 14-year-old girl and lanced a boil beneath her arm with a rusty box
cutter. The remaining charges have been sent to the grand jury.

Those charges stem from the grave-digging accusation and others accusations
that Debra Schmitz threw a ''butter'' knife at a 14-year-old girl, striking her
in the shoulder, and cut the girl's long hair to within 3 inches because she
wouldn't tell the name of a boy who'd sent her a note.

The alleged abuse problems are not unique to Tennessee. It was the Schmitzes'
daughter, Melanie, who accused her parents of child abuse in Wisconsin. That
resulted in an extensive investigation by Wisconsin child services officials.
No charges were ever filed.

A copy of the investigative report, obtained by The Jackson Sun, showed that
Melanie claimed abuse along with some of Debra's estranged family members.
Debra's biological son, Mitchell Schmitz, also claimed abuse, but later denied
it. Other children also denied abuse and questioned Melanie's motives.

Melanie eventually ran away from home at age 17, just before the Schmitzes
moved to Tennessee. The Jackson Sun spoke with Melanie and other family members
in an interview last month in Wisconsin, just weeks after the Gibson County
child abuse charges were filed.

The DCS' Lawhorn acknowledged that there appears to be a lack of coordination
between states regarding adoptions and foster care situations involving
special-needs children.

''We've got to find a way to track these kids,'' Lawhorn said. ''How a system
for people like the Schmitzes can be set up, I don't know.''

When the Schmitzes were arrested in June, the DCS had been working with the
family to get them the required licensing for having custody of a child
requiring respite care.

Jerry Hewitt, in charge of the DCS' licensing unit, said the DCS, in an
oversight, had placed a child needing respite care in the Schmitz home in
January. Hewitt said he drove to the couple's home in March and told them they
could not provide respite care for a child in Tennessee state custody because
they were not licensed to do so.

Dot.com kids

With numerous special-needs children, the Schmitzes needed home health care
nurses. One of those nurses was Brenda Filkel.

According to a search warrant on file in Gibson County General Sessions Court,
Filkel told authorities that Debra Schmitz introduced her to an Internet group.
Filkel said Debra told her that she - Filkel - could get a child through the
Web site in three weeks and would not have to go through DCS, the warrant said.


Filkel is now caring for at least two of the Schmitzes' children taken from
their home, according to law enforcement.

Additionally, an adoptive parent who sent her daughter to live with the
Schmitzes, Sharon Stepleton of Baton Rouge, La., testified that she learned of
the couple through a Web site called ''Disrupted Adoptions.''

Authorities were given a Web site address that Sheriff Shepard said has been
disconnected.

People normally go through the state or private adoption agencies to get foster
or adoptive children. They can look on the Internet to see children who are
available for adoption through the state and to read information about them,
Aaron said. But they can't adopt or get foster children from the state through
the Internet.

West Tennessee Stepping Stones has a Web site that allows people to get
information about children available for adoption. Johnson, of Stepping Stones,
said she had not ever heard of the ''swapping, trading and interchanging'' of
children that the Schmitzes have been accused of. However, she did recently
overhear some discussions about private individuals advertising on the Internet
to take in disabled children.

The discussion, Johnson said, was that someone with a disabled child goes on
the Internet to find people who advertise to take them in. A fee is paid to the
people taking in the child, to care for the child. Someone who worked in the
field had heard of it actually happening, she said. She added that she did not
know if it was legal, but said it would probably depend on the person's intent.

According to the warrant in the Gibson County case, Filkel ''advised she knew
and had observed records of swapped, traded and interchanged children in the
home and on the Schmitzes' home computers.''

Filkel said she is not allowed to discuss the case, although the judge in this
case, James Webb, has not issued a gag order.

Sheriff Shepard has been looking into some of the questionable private
arrangements the Schmitzes had with other families.

''They were swapping (children) between themselves,'' Shepard said. ''I know
it's legal to send your child to live with someone else. But when you get it
and you start passing it around, something's gone wrong with the system.''

Shepard's comment was based on the charge the Schmitzes gave the Matthewses a
child, age ''11 or 12,'' who then gave her back to the Schmitzes. The
Schmitzes, according to Shepard, then sent her to Arizona to live with another
family.

''There's no checking; nobody knows where this child is,'' Shepard said,
referring to officials. ''I've been checking to see how they could be swapping
kids on their own.''

Filkel's search warrant statement is not the only claim that the Schmitzes used
the Internet to get children. Melanie Schmitz recalled that her mother, Debra,
was a whiz at computers.

''That's where she looked for kids, on the Internet,'' Melanie said. ''It was
never-ending with her. If she couldn't adopt, she wanted to go on the
Internet.''

It was apparently through the type of private arrangement questioned by DCS and
investigated by the Gibson County Sheriff's Department, that the Schmitzes
obtained the young boy from the Illinois truck stop. He was one of the 18
children removed from the home.

Debra's attorney, Michael Robbins, said he didn't know anything about Melanie's
allegation and that it was difficult for him to comment about it. He said it
had nothing to do with the Tennessee case.

Tom Schmitz's attorney, Frank Deslauriers, had no comment.

District Attorney General Garry Brown also had no comment about that
allegation, saying it was out of his jurisdiction.

Melanie did not know under what arrangements the Schmitzes took in the child.
She believed it was supposed to be temporary.

''I know it was nothing involving an adoption agency,'' Melanie said. ''It was
something private, something through the parents. It was nothing written up. It
was kind of a private thing.''

Defense's explanation

Following the couple's preliminary hearing on Aug. 17, Michael Robbins, Debra's
attorney, said that there is no law prohibiting the swapping of children,
though he does not like the word ''swapping'' because it has a negative
connotation. He believes authorities are using it to make the Schmitzes look
bad.

There is nothing wrong with any ''private arrangements to transfer children
looking toward a possible adoption,'' Robbins said. There were children who
were in the Schmitz home who were in that category, though ''not many,''
Robbins said.

The Schmitzes were involved from time to time with other people who were the
legal parents or guardians of children they sent to the Schmitzes to see if the
children would ''improve or adjust,'' Robbins said.

There is a ''network'' of families on the Internet who share information about
their problems and how they solve them. He suggested authorities might be
looking for ''correspondences between people'' in their mining of the couple's
computers, which were seized after the arrest.

''I'm saying categorically if they did find that, it wouldn't be any violation
of any law anywhere,'' Robbins said.

What might be illegal are arrangements not involving a child's parent or
guardian, Robbins added. But all the children with the Schmitzes were there
because their parents or guardians wanted them there.

Earlier this month, at the preliminary hearing, one of those testifying in
support of the Schmitzes was Sharon Stepleton of Baton Rouge, La. Stepleton is
the adoptive mother of a 14-year-old girl taken from the Schmitz home.
Stepleton testified that she placed the girl in the Schmitz home because of
problems she was having with her daughter, problems that included the girl
going into long rages, banging her head on the wall and trying to kill an older
sister twice.

Stepleton's arrangement with the Schmitzes was initially going to be temporary
to see if the Schmitzes could help the girl. But Stepleton said she eventually
agreed to let the Schmitzes adopt her.

The girl, who also testified at the hearing, denied ever trying to kill anyone.



-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown