Foster mom charged in girl's death

By JOSHUA L. WEINSTEIN, Portland Press Herald Writer

Copyright © 2001 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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A former Department of Human Services caseworker who quit to become a foster parent was charged with manslaughter Tuesday in the death of her 5-year-old foster daughter.

Police say that Sally Schofield, who is 39 and lives in Chelsea, bound 5-year-old Logan Marr with duct tape and left the girl alone in the basement. An autopsy showed that the girl died from asphyxiation, and the Medical Examiner's Office ruled the case a homicide.

The girl's sister was removed from the house the day Logan died. Schofield's two other children, a 15-year-old and a toddler, remain in the house, said Kevin Concannon, the commissioner of the state Department of Human Services.

Schofield was released from the Kennebec County Jail on Tuesday afternoon on $500 bail.

The manslaughter charge comes after a recent federal report criticizing the state for the way it inspects foster homes. The Legislature is considering several bills to improve Maine's foster-care system.

Logan Marr died Jan. 31. Police immediately classified the death as suspicious. As their investigation went on, Schofield offered different accounts of what happened. At first, she claimed that the girl died in a fall, even though there were no signs of head trauma.

According to a police affidavit, Schofield initially told Trooper Jeffrey Mills that Logan "was in time-out in the basement for about an hour prior to her death."

The affidavit says that Schofield told police "that Logan had gotten herself stuck in some duct tape at some point prior to falling over in the chair."

State police Detective William S. Harwood wrote that on Jan. 31, Schofield told him that "Logan had woken up from a nap in a rage and she strapped Logan in a high chair in the basement for time-out."

She told him that she left Logan in the basement for about an hour, and that she checked on the child several times.

She claimed that at one point, "Logan called up to her and stated that she was stuck. Ms. Schofield told me that she then found Logan covered with duct tape . . ."

She said she carefully removed the duct tape and stepped away.

Three minutes later, she said, she returned to find the child unconscious on the basement floor, still in the tipped-over high chair.

Experts at the state Police Crime Laboratory determined from tiny hairs and blood specks that the tape was wrapped around Logan's mouth.

The affidavit says that Schofield eventually acknowledged leaving Logan alone in the basement, bound with duct tape, but she said she could not remember whether the tape covered the girl's mouth.

"Ms. Schofield stated that she taped Logan to the chair as an attempt in reverse psychology to convince Logan that this was not what she wanted to do," the affidavit said. "Ms. Schofield indicated that she left this out . . . because of the way it sounded. Ms. Schofield denied that she left Logan alone while taped. She stated that she knew better than to leave her, because Logan hates to be confined and it puts her in a rage."

Concannon, the DHS commissioner, said that Schofield left the department in December "to spend more time with her family."

He said she was a licensed social worker who worked for the department for eight or nine years.

Schofield had never before been a foster mother, and received Logan and her sister Sept. 9. A DHS caseworker last visited the house that same month.

"There should have been more," Concannon said. "The argument from the staff side is, well, we had e-mails and communications and other people saw the child informally and we are of the belief that the child was OK. Well apparently, she wasn't."

He said that "There is no denying the fact, no getting away from the terrible fact of this child basically being killed by virtue of the way the child was apparently handled . . .

"I said today to my own staff here that I sort of felt . . . the way the FBI must be feeling these days about (accused spy and FBI agent) Mr. Hanssen – that we had somebody who we may have imputed more capacity than was deserved."

Concannon said the children had been placed in state custody because of substance abuse problems in their family.

He said Logan had behavioral problems and a difficult life. "In one year, she moved 16 times," he said.

"It's just tragic," he said. "Tragic with a capital T . . . Terrible things can happen to kids in their own biological homes, and now, in cases like this, something terrible has happened to a child in a home that had, I don't want to call it the Good Housekeeping seal, but had the coloration of a home approved by the state."

He said he is conducting an investigation, and that "our most basic responsibility is to protect children."

A recent federal report said that nearly half of Maine's foster-care homes failed to get timely licensing reviews as required by state law, and that fire code violations and allegations of abuse sometimes went unchecked for years.

In February, Concannon acknowledged the problems. At the time, Gov. Angus King said that the backlog had been eliminated through "blitzes" by fire and health inspectors.

Concannon said Tuesday that fire and health inspections are different from visits by caseworkers.

State Rep. Marie Laverriere-Boucher, a Democrat from Biddeford and a foster parent, said that state caseworkers "are given too much work to do. It's humanly impossible. . . . Right now, seriously, they are not able to, with 30 or 40 kids on a caseload, see them on a weekly basis. There is no way."

Staff Writer Joshua L. Weinstein can be contacted at 791-6368 or at: jweinstein@pressherald.com

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