Women in neglect cases appear in court

No criminal charges have been filed in a third instance of children living in filth.

Three Cape Girardeau children found living in a stinking, filthy home in April were with their parents Tuesday afternoon as they moved out of their North Street apartment.

Earlier in the day, Terri Marie Duncan, with her husband, Joshua, pushing her in a wheelchair, made a brief appearance before Associate Circuit Judge Gary Kamp and waived her preliminary hearing on a felony child endangerment charge. She will be arraigned in circuit court Oct. 17.

Duncan's court date came a day after another woman, Melanie Rose Brooks, was arraigned before Circuit Judge William Syler on like charges.

Melanie Brooks, 26, and her husband, Denver, 24, are charged with felony endangerment. In June, Cape Girardeau police and a Missouri Children's Division worker found them living with two children in a dirty, roach-infested home on Big Bend Road.

The Brooks case is the third with similar circumstances to arise in recent days in Cape Girardeau. As yet, no criminal charges have been filed in the other instance, involving a home at 215 Pearl St. Police and Missouri Children's Division workers found six children and their mother living in the house, which was piled high with garbage and had no gas or water service.

The Duncans were evicted in a civil court decision handed down last week. Landlord James Harris of Systems Property Management said the rent had been unpaid for months. Associate Circuit Judge Peter Statler ruled that the Duncans owed $2,475 in back rent.

In an interview, Harris reinforced descriptions of conditions that led to charges against Terri Duncan. "The place was in deplorable condition inside and out," he said. "It was hard for me to gain access to the place."

The incident that resulted in charges against Duncan occurred in April. She called police because a juvenile living in the home allegedly was fighting with Jeffrey D. Anderson, 26. Anderson was subsequently charged with three counts of statutory sodomy because of allegations he had molested a girl living in the home.

At the time, police found a filthy home that stank of animal feces. It was similar to the conditions discovered at the Duncans' previous address on William Street in 2003. Those conditions resulted in the children being taken briefly from their parents and three misdemeanor child endangerment charges against Joshua Duncan.

He was serving a 90-day sentence for violating his probation on those charges when the police visited the home in April.

In the Brooks case, patrolman Henry Voelker was called to a home at 1827 Big Bend Road by Missouri Children's Division investigator Donna Kuntze.

"There were food items rotting on the tables and counters," Voelker said Tuesday. "There were so many roaches that I put a form on the kitchen table and was going to use that to write and had more than one roach crawl up on my hand while I was writing."

Two small boys were living in the home at the time, Voelker said.

Kuntze evaluated the parents based on child abuse and neglect rules, he said. Although the children were taken from the home that night, the parents did not lose custody of the children, he said.

The division strives to keep children with parents whenever possible, said Deborah Scott, spokeswoman for the Department of Social Services. Children are not returned to unsafe homes, she said.

When children are returned, the homes are checked regularly, she said. "The main requirement for reunification is our ability to establish safety," Scott said.

These are not isolated cases, Voelker said.

"It is probably more than what people want to admit is out there," he said. "I have seen a lot of these. It is not just here in Cape. This is a problem throughout the state and throughout the country."

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126