| State of Maine, Social Worker & the Brutal Murder of the Little Girl |
Washingtonpost.com: Live Online
Rachel Dretzin: Maine's sytem is comparably one of the
better child .... The case worker is guilty of murder also
because the little girl would still be ...
discuss.washingtonpost.com/zforum/03/r_tv_frontline01310
3.htm - Similar pages
Rachel Dretzin: Maine's sytem is comparably one of the
better child .... The case worker is guilty of murder also
because the little girl would still be ...
discuss.washingtonpost.com/zforum/03/r_tv_frontline01310
3.htm - Similar pages
| Frontline: failure to protect : the talking of Logan Marr PBS statement from the maine dhs on the marr case, photo of something ... The foster mother, Sally Schofield, a highly respected former caseworker. |
| CHRISTY MARR AND HER MURDERED DAUGHTER IN THE CUSTODY OF CPA BY THEIR SOCIAL WORKER (BELOW) |
| SALLY SCHOFIELD - COLD BLOODED MURDERESS SOCIAL WORKER OF 5 YEARS OLD LOGAN MARR IN MAINE |
On Jan. 31, 2001, 5-year-old Logan Marr was
found dead in the basement of her foster mother's
home in Chelsea, Maine. The foster mother, Sally
Schofield, a highly respected former caseworker for
Maine's Department of Human Services (DHS),
would later be tried and convicted of manslaughter
after police determined that Logan had died from
asphyxiation after being bound with duct tape and
strapped into a high chair in the basement.
found dead in the basement of her foster mother's
home in Chelsea, Maine. The foster mother, Sally
Schofield, a highly respected former caseworker for
Maine's Department of Human Services (DHS),
would later be tried and convicted of manslaughter
after police determined that Logan had died from
asphyxiation after being bound with duct tape and
strapped into a high chair in the basement.
Sally was the third foster
mother to take in Logan
since she was removed
from her birth mother,
Christy Marr, in August
1998. The teenaged
Christy had moved in with
her mother, Kathy Baker,
shortly after Logan's birth,
and the two had fought
constantly over how to raise
the baby. It was Kathy who
initiated Christy's first
mother to take in Logan
since she was removed
from her birth mother,
Christy Marr, in August
1998. The teenaged
Christy had moved in with
her mother, Kathy Baker,
shortly after Logan's birth,
and the two had fought
constantly over how to raise
the baby. It was Kathy who
initiated Christy's first
Logan Marr
contact with Maine's Department of Human
Services; in May 1996, she called the department
to report her concerns about Logan's safety.
According to DHS records, Kathy told an intake
worker that she had always worried "that Christy
is too immature and troubled to be a good parent
to Logan," and that "Christy can't or won't put
Logan's needs before her own. Kathy said that
Christy screams and hollers at the baby all the
time and handles her extremely roughly."
Services; in May 1996, she called the department
to report her concerns about Logan's safety.
According to DHS records, Kathy told an intake
worker that she had always worried "that Christy
is too immature and troubled to be a good parent
to Logan," and that "Christy can't or won't put
Logan's needs before her own. Kathy said that
Christy screams and hollers at the baby all the
time and handles her extremely roughly."
Logan & Bailey
Christy with Logan & Bailey
DHS sent caseworker Diane Sanborn to assess Logan's situation. Despite Kathy's allegations, she did not find
anything that immediately concerned her about Christy's parenting. She did believe that Christy should work on what
DHS considered an unhealthy relationship with her boyfriend, an admitted drug user.
The department told Christy that in order to maintain custody of Logan, she would have to begin living under a strict
set of rules: Any boyfriends or individuals allowed to stay over in her apartment would have to be cleared with DHS.
And she would have to cut off her troubled relationship with her mother.Kathy had married a man named Mitch,
whom DHS had been told, falsely, had been convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage girl years before. As long as
Kathy and Mitch stayed together, DHS warned, Christy would have to stay away or risk losing custody of Logan.
Christy tried to stay away from her mother, but she had few other sources of emotional support. Inevitably, she
ended up drifting back. One day, she left Logan with a babysitter at her mother's apartment. Mitch, who had
previously moved out, turned up and was seen by a neighbor, who called DHS. The department immediately sought
custody of Logan, citing Christy's failure to protect her from potentially unsafe people.
Hearing of the department's plan to remove Logan, Christy took her daughter and fled, heading south toward
Boston. But she soon realized her efforts were futile, and turned around and returned to Maine the same day. By
the next morning, two caseworkers had come and removed 2-and-a-half-year-old Logan into state custody. She was
soon placed in a foster home.
Now pregnant with her second child, Christy had to prove to DHS that she could change if she wanted to regain
Logan and keep her new baby. A new agreement was drawn up, requiring her to sever all ties with her mother and
to attend a variety of counseling services, including one-on-one counseling, parenting skills classes, and job
training. She was to stay in a group home until the birth of her child, and then locate appropriate housing for herself
and the children.
anything that immediately concerned her about Christy's parenting. She did believe that Christy should work on what
DHS considered an unhealthy relationship with her boyfriend, an admitted drug user.
The department told Christy that in order to maintain custody of Logan, she would have to begin living under a strict
set of rules: Any boyfriends or individuals allowed to stay over in her apartment would have to be cleared with DHS.
And she would have to cut off her troubled relationship with her mother.Kathy had married a man named Mitch,
whom DHS had been told, falsely, had been convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage girl years before. As long as
Kathy and Mitch stayed together, DHS warned, Christy would have to stay away or risk losing custody of Logan.
Christy tried to stay away from her mother, but she had few other sources of emotional support. Inevitably, she
ended up drifting back. One day, she left Logan with a babysitter at her mother's apartment. Mitch, who had
previously moved out, turned up and was seen by a neighbor, who called DHS. The department immediately sought
custody of Logan, citing Christy's failure to protect her from potentially unsafe people.
Hearing of the department's plan to remove Logan, Christy took her daughter and fled, heading south toward
Boston. But she soon realized her efforts were futile, and turned around and returned to Maine the same day. By
the next morning, two caseworkers had come and removed 2-and-a-half-year-old Logan into state custody. She was
soon placed in a foster home.
Now pregnant with her second child, Christy had to prove to DHS that she could change if she wanted to regain
Logan and keep her new baby. A new agreement was drawn up, requiring her to sever all ties with her mother and
to attend a variety of counseling services, including one-on-one counseling, parenting skills classes, and job
training. She was to stay in a group home until the birth of her child, and then locate appropriate housing for herself
and the children.
After the birth of her baby girl, Bailey, Christy moved into a new apartment. She
communicated with her mother only through videotapes that she made, showing Kathy
the new baby and the apartment. Her efforts to stay away from Kathy and fulfill the
requirements of the agreement reassured her DHS caseworker, and after seven
months the department returned Logan.But Christy had paid a heavy price to regain
her daughter -- she had cut herself off from the only lasting relationship in her life. Now
21-year-old Christy set out to reunite with her father, who lived a thousand miles away
communicated with her mother only through videotapes that she made, showing Kathy
the new baby and the apartment. Her efforts to stay away from Kathy and fulfill the
requirements of the agreement reassured her DHS caseworker, and after seven
months the department returned Logan.But Christy had paid a heavy price to regain
her daughter -- she had cut herself off from the only lasting relationship in her life. Now
21-year-old Christy set out to reunite with her father, who lived a thousand miles away
in Florida. Her father had become alienated from the family after an ugly divorce in which Christy had accused him
of molesting her, an accusation her father denied and that she later recanted.
Putting the past behind her, Christy and her girls moved in with her father and his new family. For a while, things
were good. With something approaching a normal family life, Logan appeared to thrive. But Christy chafed under
her father's rules, and her attempt at reconciliation soon failed. After nine weeks, she and the girls returned to
Maine.
With no job and no home, Christy moved back in with her mother, and attached herself to another boyfriend of
questionable character, a convicted burglar named Paul. Before long, they were
married. When DHS learned of Christy's trip to Florida -- which in the department's
view put the girls in jeopardy by exposing them to an accused sex offender -- and her
new relationship they reopened her case and assigned it to a new caseworker, Allison
Peters. Peters soon received a tip -- never confirmed -- that Paul had hit Christy in
front of Logan. Peters moved quickly, arriving unannounced at Christy's door with two
police officers and a court order to remove the girls. Logan and Bailey were driven to
a foster home two hours away. It would be the last time Logan would ever live with her
mother. Determined to get her girls back, Christy divorced Paul, worked two jobs, and
attended mandatory classes and therapy sessions, riding for hours in DHS vans to
get to them. Logan and Bailey were living with a new foster mother, Mary Beth
Anderson, and 4-year-old Logan was beginning to show the effects of separation from her mother. According to
Mary Beth's journal, Logan asked from the beginning when her mother would "get her back." That month, Logan
was seen by a therapist five times. The therapist listed the themes in Logan's play as "Mommy and Daddy fighting;
Mommy and Daddy losing their baby; Big sisters taking care of little sisters; and Someone took me away but I don't
know why." According to Mary Beth's journals, Logan began to have raging temper tantrums. She writes, "Logan's
outrage is still bad. The child has anger by the ton. Logan pushes and pushes and if I don't react, pushes further
with whining and screaming and punching with closed fists and kicking." Concerned that Logan might have been
abused some time in her past, Mary Beth brought Logan for an evaluation to the Spurwink Clinic, which specializes
in child abuse. Despite extensive examinations, counselors found no evidence of any physical or sexual abuse.
They did recommend, however, that Logan receive counseling to cope with the separation from her mother.
As Christy was struggling with the loss of her girls, and Mary Beth struggled with Logan's increasing tantrums, DHS
caseworker Sally Schofield had begun to think about adopting a little girl of her own. She had two boys: Derek, 14,
from a previous marriage, and 1-year-old Shaynen. But she had always longed for a girl. DHS discourages its
caseworkers from adopting children from within the system, but Sally was determined to be an exception. She
enrolled with her husband in a mandatory training program for adoptive parents, and began the process of getting
approved as an adoptive home.
After a physical incident between Mary Beth and Logan -- an incident both Mary Beth and the department refuse to
discuss -- DHS moved quickly to get the girls into another foster home. Caseworker Allison Peters called Sally and
asked if she would be willing to take the girls temporarily. According to Sally, it was understood at that point that DHS
would pursue terminating Christy's parental rights, freeing the girls up for eventual adoption. The girls moved in with
Sally and her husband in early September 2000. Though she was concerned at what she saw as signs of neglect in
Logan -- her need to take care of her younger sister and her quick attachment to her new caretakers -- Sally says
she fell in love with the girls that first weekend. As Sally sought to bond with the girls, DHS cut back Christy's visits
with them. She would have to provide her own transportation, though she didn't have a car. She wasn't allowed to
know Sally's last name, address, or occupation. According to Sally, DHS said this secrecy was required because of
"safety concerns."
Discouraged, Christy began to falter. She missed classes and counseling appointments. In a fit of pique, she
remarried Paul, the man whose presence had led to the removal of Logan and Bailey. At one point, she stormed out
of a meeting with her caseworker and therapist. Her therapist wrote to Allison Peters: Christy's progress the past five
months has been slow at best. She has missed several appointments blaming transportation and oversleeping (our
appointments are at 2 p.m.). Recently when cut off from seeing her daughters Christy 'fell sick' not leaving the
apartment or calling me for help. Christy has on a regular basis blamed others for her problems. Can't pay the rent
-- no job. Can't get GED -- have to be available for my girls. Can't get a driver's license -- no one will lend me a car.
The bad guys have changed since [the beginning of her counseling], but little else has. I hate to think that her
relationshipo with her little girls will be on this yo-yo schedule for so long.
The girls, meanwhile, were settling in at Sally's. Though not rich herself, Sally was able to give Logan things that
Christy had not: swimming lessons and dance classes. But Logan didn't seem happy. Her rages continued, and
escalated. According to Sally, they were often particularly bad after visits with Christy. DHS notes from an October
visit read:
Logan kept telling mom throughout the visit that she was her favorite person in the whole world. As the visit was
ending, Logan ran to mom and said, 'I want to go home with you.' At one visit, Logan asked Christy if she knew what
Sally looked like. Christy said, 'Yes, I've seen her,' and Logan responded, 'I don't like her.'
As Logan's behavior deteriorated, Sally found herself at a loss. Logan would rage out of control, screaming, kicking,
and thrashing so violently that Sally was afraid she would hurt herself. Suddenly, all the confidence Sally had
accumulated as a parent and a DHS caseworker seemed to vanish. "I was supposed to be trained," she told
FRONTLINE. "I was supposed to be educated. How come I couldn't help her? How come I didn't know what to do?" At
her supervised visits with the girls Christy could see that Logan wasn't doing well. She was discouraged by DHS,
though, from discussing what was making Logan unhappy. At their videotaped Christmas visit on Dec. 18, 2000,
while a DHS supervisor sat listening, Logan stopped opening her gifts and told Christy that Sally had hurt her. She
squeezed her cheeks together with one hand, and said, "She did this to me, and I cried, and it hurts me. She did it to
my sister, too." When Christy tried to find out more about what happened, she says the DHS supervisor shook her
head, forbidding her from going into detail about the incident. In early January 2001, during another supervised visit,
Logan again told Christy that Sally had handled her roughly, wrapping her up in a blanket. Again, Christy was
signalled not to pursue the matter.
DHS rules require caseworkers to visit foster homes quarterly, and to promptly investigate any complaint of physical
abuse. Logan's caseworker, Allison Peters, did neither. Peters declined FRONTLINE's request for an interview.
By January, Sally had quit her job as a caseworker, and DHS had decided to pave the way for her adoption of the
girls, despite clear and repeated warnings that she was having a difficult time dealing with Logan. Discouraged,
Christy had begun to believe that she would never get her children back. She wrote them a letter, which she
planned to give them at their next scheduled visit, on Jan. 31, 2001:
Dear Logan and Bailey, my sweet little ladies. I think of you so much and often it seems hard to believe you girls
have been gone so long now. In a month or so from now, I stand the chance to lose the both of you forever. And it's
been no picnic, but this is not your fault. It's mine, and mine alone. I want the both of you to know that no matter what
happens, I love you, and will never stop fighting for you.
The girls never received the letter. The visit was cancelled because of a snowstorm. And that evening, Logan died
in Sally's basement.
According to Sally, Logan had been in one of her rages in the afternoon. "I asked her if she needed to scream and
she said yes," Sally said. "I said, 'OK, well then let's put you some place where you can scream.'" Sally put Logan in
an unfinished portion of her basement in a high chair. She left her there for over an hour, she says, periodically
checking on her. When she came down to check after starting dinner, she says she found Logan lying in a heap on
the floor, still confined to her high chair. She wasn't breathing. She was rushed to Maine General Hospital, where
she was pronounced dead. That night, the police came to interview Sally. She told them she thought Logan must
have knocked herself over in the high chair and hit her head. Although she claimed that Logan had not been
restrained in the high chair, in a subsequent search of Sally's house, the detectives found evidence that raised
doubts about her story. Strewn amid boxes in the dank basement were clumps of duct tape, some 40 feet in all.
Police tests revealed that the tape had been looped repeatedly around Logan's body and head, and across her
mouth. Tufts of her hair were stuck to the tape. And an autopsy revealed that Logan had not died from a blow to the
head, but from asphyxiation.
The police returned and confronted Sally with the new evidence. At first, she maintained that Logan had tangled
herself in the duct tape, but her story soon crumbled. Sally was arrested and charged with depraved indifference,
murder, and manslaughter. A prosecution affadavit alleged that she had taped Logan into her high chair, and taped
her mouth shut. Sally waived her right to a jury trial, and a judge concluded that she had not intentionally killed
Logan. But he found her guilty of manslaughter and sentenced her to 20 years in prison.
Caseworker Allison Peters testified at the trial, but was never asked about her failure to respond to Logan's
complaints about Sally. She was placed on paid administrative leave for a month, and has since left DHS. No formal
disciplinary action was taken against any DHS employees in connection with Logan's death, although the case
prompted the state legislature to initiate two investigations of the department.
Bailey was moved to a third foster home after her sister's death. For the next year, Christy battled with DHS to get
her back. Finally, in February 2002, she was returned to Christy for good.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
of molesting her, an accusation her father denied and that she later recanted.
Putting the past behind her, Christy and her girls moved in with her father and his new family. For a while, things
were good. With something approaching a normal family life, Logan appeared to thrive. But Christy chafed under
her father's rules, and her attempt at reconciliation soon failed. After nine weeks, she and the girls returned to
Maine.
With no job and no home, Christy moved back in with her mother, and attached herself to another boyfriend of
questionable character, a convicted burglar named Paul. Before long, they were
married. When DHS learned of Christy's trip to Florida -- which in the department's
view put the girls in jeopardy by exposing them to an accused sex offender -- and her
new relationship they reopened her case and assigned it to a new caseworker, Allison
Peters. Peters soon received a tip -- never confirmed -- that Paul had hit Christy in
front of Logan. Peters moved quickly, arriving unannounced at Christy's door with two
police officers and a court order to remove the girls. Logan and Bailey were driven to
a foster home two hours away. It would be the last time Logan would ever live with her
mother. Determined to get her girls back, Christy divorced Paul, worked two jobs, and
attended mandatory classes and therapy sessions, riding for hours in DHS vans to
get to them. Logan and Bailey were living with a new foster mother, Mary Beth
Anderson, and 4-year-old Logan was beginning to show the effects of separation from her mother. According to
Mary Beth's journal, Logan asked from the beginning when her mother would "get her back." That month, Logan
was seen by a therapist five times. The therapist listed the themes in Logan's play as "Mommy and Daddy fighting;
Mommy and Daddy losing their baby; Big sisters taking care of little sisters; and Someone took me away but I don't
know why." According to Mary Beth's journals, Logan began to have raging temper tantrums. She writes, "Logan's
outrage is still bad. The child has anger by the ton. Logan pushes and pushes and if I don't react, pushes further
with whining and screaming and punching with closed fists and kicking." Concerned that Logan might have been
abused some time in her past, Mary Beth brought Logan for an evaluation to the Spurwink Clinic, which specializes
in child abuse. Despite extensive examinations, counselors found no evidence of any physical or sexual abuse.
They did recommend, however, that Logan receive counseling to cope with the separation from her mother.
As Christy was struggling with the loss of her girls, and Mary Beth struggled with Logan's increasing tantrums, DHS
caseworker Sally Schofield had begun to think about adopting a little girl of her own. She had two boys: Derek, 14,
from a previous marriage, and 1-year-old Shaynen. But she had always longed for a girl. DHS discourages its
caseworkers from adopting children from within the system, but Sally was determined to be an exception. She
enrolled with her husband in a mandatory training program for adoptive parents, and began the process of getting
approved as an adoptive home.
After a physical incident between Mary Beth and Logan -- an incident both Mary Beth and the department refuse to
discuss -- DHS moved quickly to get the girls into another foster home. Caseworker Allison Peters called Sally and
asked if she would be willing to take the girls temporarily. According to Sally, it was understood at that point that DHS
would pursue terminating Christy's parental rights, freeing the girls up for eventual adoption. The girls moved in with
Sally and her husband in early September 2000. Though she was concerned at what she saw as signs of neglect in
Logan -- her need to take care of her younger sister and her quick attachment to her new caretakers -- Sally says
she fell in love with the girls that first weekend. As Sally sought to bond with the girls, DHS cut back Christy's visits
with them. She would have to provide her own transportation, though she didn't have a car. She wasn't allowed to
know Sally's last name, address, or occupation. According to Sally, DHS said this secrecy was required because of
"safety concerns."
Discouraged, Christy began to falter. She missed classes and counseling appointments. In a fit of pique, she
remarried Paul, the man whose presence had led to the removal of Logan and Bailey. At one point, she stormed out
of a meeting with her caseworker and therapist. Her therapist wrote to Allison Peters: Christy's progress the past five
months has been slow at best. She has missed several appointments blaming transportation and oversleeping (our
appointments are at 2 p.m.). Recently when cut off from seeing her daughters Christy 'fell sick' not leaving the
apartment or calling me for help. Christy has on a regular basis blamed others for her problems. Can't pay the rent
-- no job. Can't get GED -- have to be available for my girls. Can't get a driver's license -- no one will lend me a car.
The bad guys have changed since [the beginning of her counseling], but little else has. I hate to think that her
relationshipo with her little girls will be on this yo-yo schedule for so long.
The girls, meanwhile, were settling in at Sally's. Though not rich herself, Sally was able to give Logan things that
Christy had not: swimming lessons and dance classes. But Logan didn't seem happy. Her rages continued, and
escalated. According to Sally, they were often particularly bad after visits with Christy. DHS notes from an October
visit read:
Logan kept telling mom throughout the visit that she was her favorite person in the whole world. As the visit was
ending, Logan ran to mom and said, 'I want to go home with you.' At one visit, Logan asked Christy if she knew what
Sally looked like. Christy said, 'Yes, I've seen her,' and Logan responded, 'I don't like her.'
As Logan's behavior deteriorated, Sally found herself at a loss. Logan would rage out of control, screaming, kicking,
and thrashing so violently that Sally was afraid she would hurt herself. Suddenly, all the confidence Sally had
accumulated as a parent and a DHS caseworker seemed to vanish. "I was supposed to be trained," she told
FRONTLINE. "I was supposed to be educated. How come I couldn't help her? How come I didn't know what to do?" At
her supervised visits with the girls Christy could see that Logan wasn't doing well. She was discouraged by DHS,
though, from discussing what was making Logan unhappy. At their videotaped Christmas visit on Dec. 18, 2000,
while a DHS supervisor sat listening, Logan stopped opening her gifts and told Christy that Sally had hurt her. She
squeezed her cheeks together with one hand, and said, "She did this to me, and I cried, and it hurts me. She did it to
my sister, too." When Christy tried to find out more about what happened, she says the DHS supervisor shook her
head, forbidding her from going into detail about the incident. In early January 2001, during another supervised visit,
Logan again told Christy that Sally had handled her roughly, wrapping her up in a blanket. Again, Christy was
signalled not to pursue the matter.
DHS rules require caseworkers to visit foster homes quarterly, and to promptly investigate any complaint of physical
abuse. Logan's caseworker, Allison Peters, did neither. Peters declined FRONTLINE's request for an interview.
By January, Sally had quit her job as a caseworker, and DHS had decided to pave the way for her adoption of the
girls, despite clear and repeated warnings that she was having a difficult time dealing with Logan. Discouraged,
Christy had begun to believe that she would never get her children back. She wrote them a letter, which she
planned to give them at their next scheduled visit, on Jan. 31, 2001:
Dear Logan and Bailey, my sweet little ladies. I think of you so much and often it seems hard to believe you girls
have been gone so long now. In a month or so from now, I stand the chance to lose the both of you forever. And it's
been no picnic, but this is not your fault. It's mine, and mine alone. I want the both of you to know that no matter what
happens, I love you, and will never stop fighting for you.
The girls never received the letter. The visit was cancelled because of a snowstorm. And that evening, Logan died
in Sally's basement.
According to Sally, Logan had been in one of her rages in the afternoon. "I asked her if she needed to scream and
she said yes," Sally said. "I said, 'OK, well then let's put you some place where you can scream.'" Sally put Logan in
an unfinished portion of her basement in a high chair. She left her there for over an hour, she says, periodically
checking on her. When she came down to check after starting dinner, she says she found Logan lying in a heap on
the floor, still confined to her high chair. She wasn't breathing. She was rushed to Maine General Hospital, where
she was pronounced dead. That night, the police came to interview Sally. She told them she thought Logan must
have knocked herself over in the high chair and hit her head. Although she claimed that Logan had not been
restrained in the high chair, in a subsequent search of Sally's house, the detectives found evidence that raised
doubts about her story. Strewn amid boxes in the dank basement were clumps of duct tape, some 40 feet in all.
Police tests revealed that the tape had been looped repeatedly around Logan's body and head, and across her
mouth. Tufts of her hair were stuck to the tape. And an autopsy revealed that Logan had not died from a blow to the
head, but from asphyxiation.
The police returned and confronted Sally with the new evidence. At first, she maintained that Logan had tangled
herself in the duct tape, but her story soon crumbled. Sally was arrested and charged with depraved indifference,
murder, and manslaughter. A prosecution affadavit alleged that she had taped Logan into her high chair, and taped
her mouth shut. Sally waived her right to a jury trial, and a judge concluded that she had not intentionally killed
Logan. But he found her guilty of manslaughter and sentenced her to 20 years in prison.
Caseworker Allison Peters testified at the trial, but was never asked about her failure to respond to Logan's
complaints about Sally. She was placed on paid administrative leave for a month, and has since left DHS. No formal
disciplinary action was taken against any DHS employees in connection with Logan's death, although the case
prompted the state legislature to initiate two investigations of the department.
Bailey was moved to a third foster home after her sister's death. For the next year, Christy battled with DHS to get
her back. Finally, in February 2002, she was returned to Christy for good.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| TELEVISION REVIEW; Good Intentions in Maine Leave a Girl Dead & a Mother in Prison |
By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN
Published: January 30, 2003
The cases of failed foster care that make headlines are chiefly stories of caseworkers who, overburdened and
inattentive, overlook child abuse. In 2001, however, Maine's Department of Human Services was grossly
overattentive when, for scattershot reasons, the department took a beautiful, furious 5-year-old girl named Logan
Marr from her mother and consigned her to the custody of Sally Schofield, one of its former caseworkers.
Logan moved into Ms. Schofield's house in Chelsea, Maine, and her foster mother was later convicted of
manslaughter. Logan had been bound and gagged with duct tape and left in Ms. Schofield's basement, where she
had suffocated. Ms. Schofield was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Tonight, ''Failure to Protect,'' the first part of ''Frontline's'' two-part examination of the life of Logan and the
bureaucracy that contributed to her death, will be broadcast on PBS. This evening's program is both an activist
documentary and a harrowing murder mystery. In addition to foreboding home videos of Logan, whose vivacity on
camera is almost otherworldly, the program includes detailed interviews with both Sally Schofield and Christy Marr,
Logan's birth mother. These are women with heavy hearts, each perplexed in her own way about how motherhood
could come to this.
Logan was born in 1996 to Christy Marr, a teenager with a scapegrace boyfriend and a close if contentious
relationship with her own mother. Having quarreled with her daughter over how Logan ought to be raised, Ms. Marr's
mother made a rash call to the Department of Human Services, which sent a caseworker to examine Ms. Marr's
apartment and her relationship with Logan. The woman concluded that Ms. Marr's boyfriend (''who had admitted
using drugs,'' the voiceover reports) and her mother's troubled husband, a convicted sex offender, might be a
danger to Logan.
In the next few years Ms. Marr struggled to keep the men at bay -- along with her mother, who soon switched from
Human Services informer to someone it deemed a rogue acquaintance. With little money, companionship or child
care, however, Ms. Marr had a hard time rebuffing her boyfriend, her mother and her stepfather. Exasperated, two
caseworkers came to Ms. Marr's house and picked up her daughter, and the state took custody of Logan.
In the meantime, Sally Schofield, a distinguished Human Services caseworker, longed to adopt a baby girl. With two
sons, Ms. Schofield prided herself on her talents as a mother. She admitted coming across as a know-it-all in
preadoption classes. When she was asked in an assessment what she would do with an uncontrollable child, Ms.
Schofield told her interviewer, departmental notes say, that ''she couldn't imagine a situation in which a child of
theirs would be that far out of control.'' No one questioned the answer.
Someone should have. When Logan landed in the care of Ms. Schofield, she had indeed become that far out of
control. She punched, she shrieked, she pounded her head into the wall. She wailed: ''Do you think Mommy will get
me back?'' (''Maybe because she wanted to go home,'' Christy Marr now surmises.) Ms. Schofield grew frustrated,
having been told, in the enigmatic language of social services, that the child ''had no behavior.'' On visits to her birth
mother, Logan complained about her new home. One Christmas Ms. Marr caught Logan's worries on videotape.
Logan says, ''Mommy, just so you know . . . um, you know Sally, my birth mom?''
Ms. Marr answers: ''No, I'm your birth mom. You mean your foster mom?''
''She did this . . . to me, and I cried, and it hurts me.'' Here Logan presses her cheeks together to suggest
rough-handling.
An unidentified caseworker, who is present, signals to Ms. Marr that she should not probe further, so as not to
undermine Ms. Schofield's authority. Obediently Ms. Marr says to her own daughter, ''Well, why don't you sit down
and we'll have a good Christmas, and let's not think about that right now.'' By the end of January 2001, Logan was
dead.
In an effort to avoid accusations of prurient interest and sensationalism, PBS treats Logan's death as symptomatic
of larger failings by child-welfare agencies. The second part of the documentary (to be shown next Thursday), ''The
Caseworker Files,'' abandons the specifics of Logan's mistreatment in favor of a behind-the-scenes look at the
operations of the Department of Human Services. Where ''The Taking of Logan Marr'' is a dramatic cautionary tale,
''The Caseworker Files'' is a stiff, disorganized polemic.
This episode tracks an eclectic group of cases, most of which leave one rooting for family unity over state
intervention. Matthew, 10, is the son of a drunk whom he loves to distraction. Human Services seizes Matthew on
suspicion that he has been hit; the boy is uninjured but spends 10 days detained in a hospital, screaming for his
father. In Matthew's words: ''They're being cruel! I hate everybody in the world!''
Another case concerns Shirley, an apparently undernourished but eloquent mother of three sons and a daughter.
Her daughter, not altogether consistently, has accused Shirley's occasional boyfriend of abusing her sexually.
Shirley doubts the charge, and although both the boyfriend and the daughter are now out of the house, Shirley has
to go through an arduous course of parenting classes and therapy on pain of losing her children. Shirley's sharply
logical interrogation of her overseers about their intentions -- they stutter in reply -- is the best scene in ''The
Caseworker Files.''
Do children need more attention from the state or less? The answer may vary depending on the place. On ''Failure
to Protect,'' we see what happens when PBS goes to Maine.
Published: January 30, 2003
The cases of failed foster care that make headlines are chiefly stories of caseworkers who, overburdened and
inattentive, overlook child abuse. In 2001, however, Maine's Department of Human Services was grossly
overattentive when, for scattershot reasons, the department took a beautiful, furious 5-year-old girl named Logan
Marr from her mother and consigned her to the custody of Sally Schofield, one of its former caseworkers.
Logan moved into Ms. Schofield's house in Chelsea, Maine, and her foster mother was later convicted of
manslaughter. Logan had been bound and gagged with duct tape and left in Ms. Schofield's basement, where she
had suffocated. Ms. Schofield was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Tonight, ''Failure to Protect,'' the first part of ''Frontline's'' two-part examination of the life of Logan and the
bureaucracy that contributed to her death, will be broadcast on PBS. This evening's program is both an activist
documentary and a harrowing murder mystery. In addition to foreboding home videos of Logan, whose vivacity on
camera is almost otherworldly, the program includes detailed interviews with both Sally Schofield and Christy Marr,
Logan's birth mother. These are women with heavy hearts, each perplexed in her own way about how motherhood
could come to this.
Logan was born in 1996 to Christy Marr, a teenager with a scapegrace boyfriend and a close if contentious
relationship with her own mother. Having quarreled with her daughter over how Logan ought to be raised, Ms. Marr's
mother made a rash call to the Department of Human Services, which sent a caseworker to examine Ms. Marr's
apartment and her relationship with Logan. The woman concluded that Ms. Marr's boyfriend (''who had admitted
using drugs,'' the voiceover reports) and her mother's troubled husband, a convicted sex offender, might be a
danger to Logan.
In the next few years Ms. Marr struggled to keep the men at bay -- along with her mother, who soon switched from
Human Services informer to someone it deemed a rogue acquaintance. With little money, companionship or child
care, however, Ms. Marr had a hard time rebuffing her boyfriend, her mother and her stepfather. Exasperated, two
caseworkers came to Ms. Marr's house and picked up her daughter, and the state took custody of Logan.
In the meantime, Sally Schofield, a distinguished Human Services caseworker, longed to adopt a baby girl. With two
sons, Ms. Schofield prided herself on her talents as a mother. She admitted coming across as a know-it-all in
preadoption classes. When she was asked in an assessment what she would do with an uncontrollable child, Ms.
Schofield told her interviewer, departmental notes say, that ''she couldn't imagine a situation in which a child of
theirs would be that far out of control.'' No one questioned the answer.
Someone should have. When Logan landed in the care of Ms. Schofield, she had indeed become that far out of
control. She punched, she shrieked, she pounded her head into the wall. She wailed: ''Do you think Mommy will get
me back?'' (''Maybe because she wanted to go home,'' Christy Marr now surmises.) Ms. Schofield grew frustrated,
having been told, in the enigmatic language of social services, that the child ''had no behavior.'' On visits to her birth
mother, Logan complained about her new home. One Christmas Ms. Marr caught Logan's worries on videotape.
Logan says, ''Mommy, just so you know . . . um, you know Sally, my birth mom?''
Ms. Marr answers: ''No, I'm your birth mom. You mean your foster mom?''
''She did this . . . to me, and I cried, and it hurts me.'' Here Logan presses her cheeks together to suggest
rough-handling.
An unidentified caseworker, who is present, signals to Ms. Marr that she should not probe further, so as not to
undermine Ms. Schofield's authority. Obediently Ms. Marr says to her own daughter, ''Well, why don't you sit down
and we'll have a good Christmas, and let's not think about that right now.'' By the end of January 2001, Logan was
dead.
In an effort to avoid accusations of prurient interest and sensationalism, PBS treats Logan's death as symptomatic
of larger failings by child-welfare agencies. The second part of the documentary (to be shown next Thursday), ''The
Caseworker Files,'' abandons the specifics of Logan's mistreatment in favor of a behind-the-scenes look at the
operations of the Department of Human Services. Where ''The Taking of Logan Marr'' is a dramatic cautionary tale,
''The Caseworker Files'' is a stiff, disorganized polemic.
This episode tracks an eclectic group of cases, most of which leave one rooting for family unity over state
intervention. Matthew, 10, is the son of a drunk whom he loves to distraction. Human Services seizes Matthew on
suspicion that he has been hit; the boy is uninjured but spends 10 days detained in a hospital, screaming for his
father. In Matthew's words: ''They're being cruel! I hate everybody in the world!''
Another case concerns Shirley, an apparently undernourished but eloquent mother of three sons and a daughter.
Her daughter, not altogether consistently, has accused Shirley's occasional boyfriend of abusing her sexually.
Shirley doubts the charge, and although both the boyfriend and the daughter are now out of the house, Shirley has
to go through an arduous course of parenting classes and therapy on pain of losing her children. Shirley's sharply
logical interrogation of her overseers about their intentions -- they stutter in reply -- is the best scene in ''The
Caseworker Files.''
Do children need more attention from the state or less? The answer may vary depending on the place. On ''Failure
to Protect,'' we see what happens when PBS goes to Maine.
Thursday, August 5, 2004
Press Herald: Justices to rehear Schofield sentence
By GARY REMAL, Blethen Maine News Service
Copyright B) 2004 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
The 20-year prison sentence of a former state child-protective caseworker convicted of killing her 5-year-old foster
child is scheduled to be argued a second time before Maine's highest court.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court, which for more than 15 months failed to rule on Sally Ann Schofield's appeal of
her manslaughter sentence for suffocating Logan Marr, now has asked her lawyer and state prosecutors to argue
the potential impact of recent U.S. Supreme Court opinions on the case.
"It has been set for additional argument to see what if any effect the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Blakely v.
State of Washington has on the whole thing," said Maine Supreme Court Clerk James C. Chute.
"Blakely was the case that found the state of Washington's sentencing guidelines to be unconstitutional and, by
implication, any other guideline-based sentencing," Chute explained.
Schofield was sentenced under a Maine law - in effect for several years - that created a kind of two-tiered
sentencing formula for the most serious class of crimes. It suggests that sentences ranging from 20 to 40 years
should be reserved for the most heinous crimes.
The two-tiered system resulted from legislative action after the Maine high court ruled that the upper range of the
scale for all Class A crimes except murder should only be used for the worst crimes, said Assistant Attorney General
Charles K. Leadbetter.
Leadbetter, who argued the case on behalf of the state, said Schofield's is one of three cases in which the issue
arises.
Leadbetter said that whatever decision is made by Maine courts will affect only cases still being argued. He said the
Legislature earlier this year changed the Class A sentencing statute, dropping the maximum sentence to 30 years
and eliminating the two-tier provision.
"But it's a very important point, because it could profoundly affect Class A offenses in line for review," Leadbetter
said.
Chute said the recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions suggest sentences cannot be based upon facts not presented
at trial.
Schofield's lawyer, Augusta attorney Jed Davis, was out of state and unavailable for comment Wednesday, a
spokeswoman at his office said. Neither Leadbetter nor Chute would speculate on the reason for the long delay in
the Maine high court's review of Schofield's appeal.
"Blakely (v. State of Washington) has caused upheaval, especially in the federal system," Chute said.
Schofield waived her right to a jury trial and was acquitted of "depraved indifference" murder by a judge.
The judge later convicted her of manslaughter and sentenced her to 28 years, with all but 20 suspended. She
appealed her sentence, but not her conviction.
State police detectives say Logan Marr suffocated after Schofield, a former state child-protective caseworker,
wrapped the girl in more than 42 feet of duct tape, binding her to a high chair and wrapping her chest, arms, head
and parts of her face and leaving her alone in a storage room as punishment.
The youngster's death caused a controversy that received nationwide publicity and a shake-up of Maine's
child-protective system. It was learned later that the placement of Marr and her younger sister in Schofield's Chelsea
home violated the Maine Department of Human Services' own regulations barring employees of the department's
Bureau of Child and Family Services from accepting foster children.
Press Herald: Justices to rehear Schofield sentence
By GARY REMAL, Blethen Maine News Service
Copyright B) 2004 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
The 20-year prison sentence of a former state child-protective caseworker convicted of killing her 5-year-old foster
child is scheduled to be argued a second time before Maine's highest court.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court, which for more than 15 months failed to rule on Sally Ann Schofield's appeal of
her manslaughter sentence for suffocating Logan Marr, now has asked her lawyer and state prosecutors to argue
the potential impact of recent U.S. Supreme Court opinions on the case.
"It has been set for additional argument to see what if any effect the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Blakely v.
State of Washington has on the whole thing," said Maine Supreme Court Clerk James C. Chute.
"Blakely was the case that found the state of Washington's sentencing guidelines to be unconstitutional and, by
implication, any other guideline-based sentencing," Chute explained.
Schofield was sentenced under a Maine law - in effect for several years - that created a kind of two-tiered
sentencing formula for the most serious class of crimes. It suggests that sentences ranging from 20 to 40 years
should be reserved for the most heinous crimes.
The two-tiered system resulted from legislative action after the Maine high court ruled that the upper range of the
scale for all Class A crimes except murder should only be used for the worst crimes, said Assistant Attorney General
Charles K. Leadbetter.
Leadbetter, who argued the case on behalf of the state, said Schofield's is one of three cases in which the issue
arises.
Leadbetter said that whatever decision is made by Maine courts will affect only cases still being argued. He said the
Legislature earlier this year changed the Class A sentencing statute, dropping the maximum sentence to 30 years
and eliminating the two-tier provision.
"But it's a very important point, because it could profoundly affect Class A offenses in line for review," Leadbetter
said.
Chute said the recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions suggest sentences cannot be based upon facts not presented
at trial.
Schofield's lawyer, Augusta attorney Jed Davis, was out of state and unavailable for comment Wednesday, a
spokeswoman at his office said. Neither Leadbetter nor Chute would speculate on the reason for the long delay in
the Maine high court's review of Schofield's appeal.
"Blakely (v. State of Washington) has caused upheaval, especially in the federal system," Chute said.
Schofield waived her right to a jury trial and was acquitted of "depraved indifference" murder by a judge.
The judge later convicted her of manslaughter and sentenced her to 28 years, with all but 20 suspended. She
appealed her sentence, but not her conviction.
State police detectives say Logan Marr suffocated after Schofield, a former state child-protective caseworker,
wrapped the girl in more than 42 feet of duct tape, binding her to a high chair and wrapping her chest, arms, head
and parts of her face and leaving her alone in a storage room as punishment.
The youngster's death caused a controversy that received nationwide publicity and a shake-up of Maine's
child-protective system. It was learned later that the placement of Marr and her younger sister in Schofield's Chelsea
home violated the Maine Department of Human Services' own regulations barring employees of the department's
Bureau of Child and Family Services from accepting foster children.
| Maine social worker who killed foster child gets another hearing |
 | |  |
| THE CASE WHICH MADE BLANKA ILL! BLANKA HAD NEVER GOTTEN OVER THE TRAGIC FATE OF THE LITTLE GIRL. AND THEY WERE RUBBING TO US THE AUSCHWITZ MURDERESS IN OUR MAINE NEIGHBOTHOOD ( AUGUSTA ) |