GUILTY TN - Linda Harris, 14, dies at home for troubled children, 18 Sept 2005 *civil suit*

mysteriew

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A Tennessee woman has told Suffolk authorities that the 14-year-old Amityville girl who died Sunday at a home there for troubled children was found by paramedics with scraped elbows, blood in her mouth, and in physical restraints when they arrived to try to resuscitate her.

Her story contradicts what the home's officials have said about the girl's death as a probe continues to determine the cause.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/l...ep24,0,7519465.story?coll=ny-linews-headlines
 
How awful Mysterview! It just incenses me to think about something like this, fighting for her life while in restraints. I hope they get to the bottom of this!


Scandi
 
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Home-made cages are what foster parents use illegally .....while 4 point restraints are perfectly "humane" & legal and used at children's group homes.........go figure.
 
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November 2007:

The Chad Youth Enhancement Center is a privately owned residential treatment facility nestled in the rolling hills off of a winding, two-lane road just southeast of Clarksville....

[Linda] Harris died only a few days after a New York judge sent her to Chad for emotional problems that had become too much for her father, a single dad, to handle. And either way, Tennessee medical examiner Dr. Bruce Levy ruled Harris’ death “natural.” After all, she was morbidly obese: Harris carried an estimated 400 pounds on her 5-foot-6-inch frame. Plus she was asthmatic.

While the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office investigated Harris’ death, they didn’t bring any charges against the Chad staffers who restrained her. Levy ruled that her death was a result of cardiac hypertrophy—an enlarged heart because of her chronic bronchial asthma. Harris’ weight was a contributory cause of her death, Levy found.

So life at Chad moved along...

Sue Marshall—not her real name—worked as a licensed practical nurse at Chad for roughly one year and recalls the effect that Harris’ death had on residents. “A lot of girls were having nightmares at night after that because probably none of them had seen another person die,” Marshall says. “And you know, of course the first thing they are going to assume is that the staff was at fault.”

According to one expert on restraint asphyxia, those girls may have been right. After reviewing Levy’s autopsy report and police files on Harris’ death, paramedic and author Charly Miller concludes, “It doesn’t fly that her death was natural.”

Though Levy says he stands by his original findings, he tells the Scene that “to some extent that we can’t quantify,” Harris’ death was caused by “the stress of the situation she was in.”

Miller says it’s quite possible that it was the restraint that killed Harris, especially because Chad staff held her on the floor—belly down...

Chad is where DCS sent Sharon Pruett’s 16-year-old son, John Boy, for rehab in 2004. It’s where Pruett says her son became a broken boy after a counselor pushed him up against a wall, kneed him in the groin and strangled him until three staffers pried the man off of the teenager...

Omega Leach came to Chad from Pennsylvania—one of several states that still sent its most troubled children to Chad after the death of Harris. Leach arrived on May 2, 2007. One month later, he would be dead...

[Medical examiner Dr. Bruce] Levy also found “scattered superficial blunt force injuries” and “hemorrhages into soft tissues and muscles of the neck.” They were injuries that Levy says were “certainly consistent with some kind of strangulation.” Because of those findings, Levy ruled the death a homicide.

The two counselors involved in the restraint, Milton Francis and Randall Rae, have been suspended from Chad pending the results of a Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office investigation. Neither has been formally charged in Leach’s death.

Much more here:
http://m.nashvillescene.com/nashville/handle-with-care/Content?oid=1195422
 
February 2010:

The family of a Philadelphia teenager who was strangled after being placed in a restraint hold at a Tennessee treatment center has settled a federal lawsuit against the facility for $10.5 million.

The family of Omega "Manny" Leach, 17, agreed to drop claims against the city and its Department of Human Services, which sent the troubled teen to the Chad Youth Enhancement Center despite warnings that it was dangerous...

A key piece of evidence, said family attorney Thomas R. Kline, was a photograph from a surveillance camera showing a Chad mental-health technician with both hands around Leach's neck as he pinned him to the floor.

Tennessee authorities ruled Leach's death a homicide, but the mental-health worker, Randall Rae, has not been charged with a crime.
Rae no longer works at Chad, and Philadelphia stopped sending emotionally troubled children there shortly after Leach's 2007 death...

Chad, [is] now [called] the Oak Plains Academy...

http://articles.philly.com/2010-02-12/news/25219258_1_dhs-documents-claims
 
Harris was a 14-year-old from Amityville, N.Y., whose developmental age was close to that of a 6-year-old. She lived with her father, a single dad—her mother, a reported drug addict and alcoholic, died when Harris was a girl. According to reports compiled by several New York state psychiatrists, in 2004 Harris struck up an Internet relationship with a 20-something man who later came to her home and raped her. While Child Protective Services and police became involved in the case after a doctor found evidence of the assault, one psychiatrist wrote that "there was no follow-up and the perpetrator was not caught."

Harris began to act out and "gained weight significantly" because of several medications prescribed to treat depression. Later that year, her disruptive behavior landed her in a New York treatment center. But in 2005, she ran away and was placed back at home with her father. At this point, psychiatric assessments describe Harris as a hopeless girl who felt that "no one would miss her if she was gone." When asked what she wished for most, Harris told one therapist that she just wanted a mother.

But Harris' father said he couldn't control her. A psychiatrist recommended that Harris be sent to a "highly structured residential treatment center," and a New York judge thought Chad was the answer.

A mere four days after arriving at Chad, Harris died.

Rest in peace, Linda Harris
Linda Harris[2].jpg

http://m.nashvillescene.com/pitw/archives/2007/11/12/more-details-on-chad-youth-death
 
Rayemonde, I just want to say I so appreciate your follow-ups on these older threads. These children mattered.

Maybe I'm deluded but I believe that every time one "hears" their stories with compassion, their souls feel it like a prayer. I hope they can gain some small measure of the comfort they did not receive in life.

I (and others, I'm sure) wouldn't be aware of many of their stories without your efforts. I think it must be hard-- and I KNOW that it takes great dedication.

In my opinion you're one of the true heroes on Websleuths.
:)
 
I see the point of the lawsuits of the other teens. Honestly, for whatever reason she got that morbidly obese, a 5'6" person weighing 400 lbs., with asthma and cardiac hypertrophy could have dropped dead at any moment. I am sure how the staff dealt with her did not help her stress level. But her body was predisposed to a much shorter life span than average. That said, RIP Linda.
 
I see the point of the lawsuits of the other teens. Honestly, for whatever reason she got that morbidly obese, a 5'6" person weighing 400 lbs., with asthma and cardiac hypertrophy could have dropped dead at any moment. I am sure how the staff dealt with her did not help her stress level. But her body was predisposed to a much shorter life span than average. That said, RIP Linda.

Speechless.....
 
Everyone of these teens deserved better and mattered, I don't care what the weight of one teen over the other even matters! Just applaud....
 
[I knew linda personally up until her untimely death... she def didnt have the iq of a 6 year old she def wasnt as obese as the media portrayed her to be... the mere fact chad had otber deaths under thier belt is makes her death even more suspicious... especiallh four days after arriving... so sad.. it still saddens me rest in peace linda!QUOTE=Rayemonde;12303077]Rest in peace, Linda Harris
View attachment 87759

http://m.nashvillescene.com/pitw/archives/2007/11/12/more-details-on-chad-youth-death[/QUOTE]
 
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I was at Chad when she passed. The staff were very abusive. They would slam us on the ground hands behind our back and lay on top of us. Angela Lee, Yovonn Wiley, and Mr Guthfrey were the worst staff. Mr Guthfrey pulled my wrist backfowards as punishment.
After I told my mom what happened with Linda I lost phone privalages. The staff were combative and made remarks like your nasty, Tina Turner, dirt all,ext...They didn't want to help anyone they wanted to hurt the kids. The day after her death all the girls screamed at the staff the staff threatened to put us on lockdown. Linda was not flashing the boys on the night she passed the boys unit was in a separate building the only time the boys came on the girls unit was for medication. I found out that they put a sheet over her door during the restraint. Linda was only there for a few days. She was a very sweet shy girl.Im terribly sorry for your loss. The staff made sure we couldn't speak with anyone.
 
Was there an actual trial regarding Linda Harris death? Because there is no guilty verdict in a civil trial.
 

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