Teen charged with murder at group home

Associated Press

CINCINNATI

A southwest Ohio prosecutor Thursday charged a 17-year-old boy with murder after a youth he is accused of assaulting at a group home died from his injuries.

Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser said 16-year-old Anthony Parker’s death “resulted from a brutal, unjustified assault.” He said an autopsy showed Parker died from blunt force trauma to his head.

The Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center said Parker died Wednesday night. He had been taken to the hospital Dec. 19.

Fairfield Township police have said Parker was body-slammed to the floor and hit his head in a dispute over a flashlight.

Gmoser said the death resulted from an attack against Parker, not from a fight.

The older boy had been held in a juvenile detention center on a charge of aggravated assault.

Gmoser said the next steps will be to have the youth’s case moved to adult court, and then to take it before a grand jury. He didn’t release the boy’s name because he is still in the juvenile system.

Gmoser said he applied the murder charge because the death resulted from a felonious assault. With a conviction, the murder count carries a potential sentence of 15 years to life in prison.

The boys were at One Way Farm, a nonprofit group home for children who have been abused, neglected, have disabilities or are otherwise troubled. Officials there said it was the first time an altercation has resulted in death; nearly 9,000 children have been cared for in the home’s 34 years of operation.

“Everyone from our staff to our board has been horrified that something like this occurred,” Jody Canupp, the home’s development director, said in a statement. “We care about these children and youth as our own, as we are all grieving this loss.”

The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, which licenses the home, began investigating “shortly after this tragic incident,” spokesman Ben Johnson said Thursday. “It is difficult to say when that investigation will conclude, because the criminal investigation takes precedence.”

Canupp said the home respects that “the police and other agencies are looking carefully into what happened.”

She said staffers responded appropriately to the fight and said “reasonable people, especially parents, know that this was an event that could have happened anywhere — in a parking lot, a gymnasium or in a neighborhood.”

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