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Austintown cops review 3 similar child-abuse cases
By Elise Franco
Austintown
Township detectives can only speculate on the reasons behind three similar child-abuse cases at Compass West Apartments in the past seven years.
Detective Sgt. Ray Holmes said when he investigated the 2003 abuse and death of 2-year-old Jesse Wolfe at Compass West, he didn’t expect two more children, just shy of 2 years old, to fall victim to the same types of crime there.
Jesse’s mother Jennifer Wolfe, 27, pleaded guilty in 2005 to involuntary manslaughter in the boy’s death. Wolfe, who lived at 853 Compass West, is serving a 10-year sentence in the Trumbull Correctional Institution in Leavittsburg.
Holmes said Jesse was severely beaten. The toddler’s hair was falling out because he was malnourished, and his ribs were visible.
The boy had new and old bruises all over his body, including his face, the back of his head, his legs, buttocks and genitals. He died with a bruise imprint of an adult hand on his face, according to the coroner’s report.
The most recent case is the April 6 death of 23-month-old Makenzie McBride.
Detective Sgt. Kathy Dina said when police and emergency medical personnel found Makenzie, she was unresponsive and had severe bruises on her face. She was taken to Akron Children’s Hospital where she died later that day.
Her mother Shannon McBride, 22, and McBride’s live-in boyfriend Shawn E. Davis, 25, both of 854 Compass West, are charged in connection with the girl’s death. They’re in Mahoning County jail awaiting their May 17 trial on charges that include aggravated murder.
Dina said apartments 853 and 854 are directly across the hall from one another.
“Obviously it’s very weird,” that the cases happened so close, she said.
“You expect one of these to happen maybe once in your career, and we’ve had several.”
Another abuse case happened at Compass West in November 2009. Timothy White, 30, was charged with felonious assault and child endangering in the beating of his girlfriend’s 23-month-old daughter. He is in the Mahoning County jail and scheduled for trial May 24.
The girl, whose name was never made public by police, suffered brain damage, a broken rib, stomach bleeds, damage to her liver and adrenal glands, second-degree burns on her genitals, foot and finger — and hemorrhaging in one eye that Holmes said is a potential sign of shaken baby syndrome.
“That night they told us she was touch-and-go, and they didn’t see her living,” he said. “She’s doing really well.”
The apartment complex is located at Compass West Drive, off Burkey Road. Management there said the policy is not to comment to the media.
Holmes said the apartment complex, which is designated Section 8 housing, isn’t crawling with criminals and bad parents. He said cases like these just bring those people to the forefront.
“There are a lot of good families down there, and mothers who are going to school and raising their children, trying to better their lives,” he said. “There are people there who see and hear things and just don’t put it together.”
Holmes added: “They have to start calling. Let us determine what it is.”
Holmes said the similarities of the three cases caught his attention.
“I don’t have a word for it,” he said. “It’s honestly not surprising to us as detectives ... But it’s like, ‘Wow, how can this be?’”
Holmes said a variety of factors explains these crimes against children of the same age in the same apartment complex.
“Looking at it deep down it’s really the economic situation,” he said. “You have the single mom trying to raise the kids, with a live-in boyfriend, and it’s almost like they’re desperate to have a companion.”
Dina said the problem with a cluster of cases of that nature is you might never come up with a real explanation.
“This isn’t a coincidence. You can’t call it that,” she said. “I don’t know what you call it, but it’s not a coincidence. It’s a totality of a bunch of stuff.”