State alleges starved 10-year-old boy was victim of child torture

SHEILA A. MATHEWS :::

Authorities say the ten-year-old Griffin boy who nearly died of starvation was subjected to such severe abuse that it meets the diagnostic criteria to be classified child torture.

“He was evaluated by a child abuse pediatrician who specializes in cases of child abuse and neglect, and according to that child abuse pediatrician, he was subjected to child torture, which has a specific meaning in the medical community,” said Spalding County Assistant District Attorney Kate Lenhard.

It is also now known that what had previously been described as a “dental injury” required oral surgery to remove 15 of the boy’s teeth.

These are but some of many harrowing details Lenhard presented Monday morning in the statutory bond hearing for Tyler and Krista Schindley, the young victim’s parents.

She described to the court the circumstances in which the young boy was discovered and specific Griffin Police Department investigative findings.

GPD officers initially responded to a 911 call after a neighbor noticed the child walking down the street and thought he was lost.

“She then called 911 because she believed him to be lost, not realizing that she lived basically across the street from him,” Lenhard said. “She had never seen him before.”

According to Lenhard, it was immediately evident the child had been badly abused, and due to extensive systemic damages caused by starvation, he nearly died after being hospitalized.

“He was physically dirty, sunburned, had marks and bruises to his body from head to toe. He was taken to the hospital where it was found, as I indicated, that he had an extremely low heart rate. He indicated to law enforcement that he had not eaten in several days, and he remained in hospital care for a couple of weeks after that took place,” she said. “Since he has been placed into hospital care, he began to rapidly gain weight, though he had significant – significant – trauma to his systems including something that ended up in what’s called refeeding syndrome, which means that his body started to shut down when he actually had food given to him. It almost killed him because his body was in such a bad state.”

Identifying him only by the initials “E.S.,” Lenhard provided specific details of the victim’s ordeal.

“Basically, he had been subjected to nutritional neglect, physical neglect, dental neglect – in fact, he had to have surgery to remove 15 teeth. Physical child abuse, psychological maltreatment of multiple different forms including having the other children in the house isolate him, not speak to him, treat him cruelly, and he was for long stretches locked in a bedroom that was only opened by the outside. He was not able to open it. Being in the house itself, he was treated so significantly different that you could see in the way that he was treated that he was not considered a member of that family. All of the other kids had a very different life that E.S. did,” she said. “There were marks and bruises as I indicated that showed that he had been subjected to physical child abuse. He had cuts all over his feet from being required to do exercises for long periods of time barefoot, just multiple marks and injuries.”

The state further argued that Tyler and Krista Schindley intentionally concealed E.S. from public to ensure no one would notice when he died.

“Through the course of the investigation, it is definitely clear that both defendants participated in the neglect and physical abuse of this child, and it appears from evidence that their intent was to make sure that he was not known by the community, and that when he died, there would be no one that paid any attention to that. There would be no one that knew that he was gone,” Lenhard said.

She closed by summarizing the prosecution’s opposition to bond for the Schindleys.

“So, we sincerely believe that the defendants are flight risks. They do have multiple assets. There is a home, there are multiple businesses and they gained quite a bit of financial benefit from fostering five children and then adopting them, so they have access to uncounted funds that would give them the ability to flee the jurisdiction of the court,” Lenhard said. “As well, we would posit that they pose a risk to influence witnesses if they were able to contact any of these children, not just the victim, E.S., but the other four children who were in the home, as well. So, at this time, we would ask that the court deny bond.”

Superior Court Judge Ben Coker, who had twice continued the statutory bond hearing to allow the couple additional time to obtain legal counsel, said he found both Tyler and Krista Schindley to be flight risks, further stating that he believes there is a significant risk of witness intimidation and that they present “a significant risk to the community as a whole.”

Because of those determinations, Coker denied bond for both defendants.

Tyler and Krista Schindley, who remain without legal representation, will continue to be held in the Spalding County Jail. They each face charges of criminal attempt to commit malice murder, criminal attempt to commit second degree murder, false imprisonment, cruelty to children, battery and simple battery, all involving ten-year-old E.S.

Both face four additional counts of third-degree cruelty to children for allegedly committing family violence, specifically battery and simple battery, in the presence of the victim’s four younger siblings.

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