Calista Springer
May 22, 1991 - February 27, 2008

Friends, neighbors and even teachers tried for years to get help for
her. They gave her food, they took her for showers and gave her 
clean clothing to wear. Reports showed that at least 15 complaints had been made on behalf of Calista:

Fred Upton did contact the Michigan Department Of Human Services
and was falsely told that Calista was being cared for in the proper
way. Apparently, Sue Gest was correct, Calista DID have to die in 
order for someone to pay attention.

Child Protective Services had warned Calista's father, Anthony and her stepmother, Marsha, NOT to tie Calista's to her bed, they even said "in case of fire". These two adults ignored the warnings and using a dog choke collar and zip ties, they changed her to her bed because they said they were tired of getting up every time the alarm went off to signal that she was leaving the house.

On her last night of life, Calista went to bed without sheets, blankets
or a pillow, sleeping in a t-shirt and thin sweat pants. Calista was a
special needs child, apparently living with parents who were not able
to handle her. So they kept her tied to her bed, to control her at night. 

As it turns out, in 2004, a Sheriff's Deputy had been told that Calista's parents were tying her to the bed using a velcro strap and a dog
chain. Deputy Dan Riggs had forwarded the case to The Michigan 
Department Of Human Services. A letter written in 2005 to a woman
who had made a complaint similar to the one the Deputy had already
forwarded, said that her complaint of abuse or neglect was not going
to be investigated because it was similar to a complaint that they
had already checked into.

It was reported that the woman, who had asked not to be identified,
filed the complaint after her own daughter had shown her letters and
pictures from Calista which told about and showed how she was tied
up and chained to her bed. The letter she received back in June said:

NOT investigating it again and putting a stop to it would have tragic
results when on February 27, Calista, 16, was chained to her bed in her second floor bedroom when she died Feb. 27 in a fire that heavily damaged the Springers' house which would later be demolished.

In 1999, Marsha Springer went to court seeking a personal protection
order against her husband, Anthony. Marsha told the judge that he
had threatened her and often took his anger out on their three girls.
In a letter to the judge Marsha said:

In her four page letter, Marsha said that her home life was dreary and that the atmosphere was one of anger and rage. She claimed that
Anthony was a husband who bounced from job to job and spent the
little bit of money the family had on his collections of model airplanes
and Civil War memorabilia. Anthony suffered from Bipolar Disorder, 
Attention Deficit Disorder and severe depression and Marsha said that he rarely took his Prozac and Ritalin which were prescribed to him:

Marsha asked the judge to prevent Anthony from threatening to kill
or physically injure herself and the three children:

Marsha said that there were violent instances in the home where he
had put his hand through a window in 1997 and then in 1998 he had
ripped the phone out of the wall after an argument they were having
about where to put a Christmas tree. In the letter she outlined times
when Anthony would force her to have sex when she didn't want to and said that he had told her if she ever tried to leave, one of them would have to die. Marsha noted in the letter that Anthony collected road kill and would boil the meat off of the bones and then reconstruct the skeletons:

The Judge, Thomas Shumaker, granted the protection order on June
28. Two months later, at Marsha's request, the order was terminated.
Marsha wrote another letter and said:

The protection order was terminated on August 20, 1999.

Records show that in 1997, Norma Swegles, the biological mother of
Calista, had tried to get custody of her. Norma had not been involved
in the life of Calista since she was an infant. In custody papers she
claimed that Calista was malnourished and that she had been abused.
Anthony denied the claims and a month later filed papers to have
Norma's parental rights terminated totally. A judge ruled in favor of
Anthony and in May of 1997, Calista was placed in his home as an
adoptee. 

Ten years later, Calista died in a fire while chained to her bed. Trever
Slater, the Trooper who had been there and assisted the investigators
from the fire department said that he had seen Calista's body, in the
bed, with a dog collar around her wasted and she was tied to the bed
railing with plastic ties:

Anthony and Marsha's other two children were taken away from them
and placed with family members. It was noted that though Calista had been sleeping in a bed with no sheets, blanket or even a pillow, the
other two girls had sheets, pillows comforters on their beds.

A hearing was held to determine if Calista's sisters, who were 12 and
14 at the time, were going to remain in the temporary custody of
family members. The result of the hearing could either be returning
the children to their parents or terminating their parental rights out-
right. The goal of the Michigan Department Of Human Services was
to reunited the children with their parents. I guess they didn't so much care that these parents had abused and caused the death of one child
already. They didn't care that Anthony had a bad temper and didn't
pay much attention to his children other than to yell at them and tell
them to shut up.

Annegret Remmert, a social services specialist with the Department Of Human Services said that the agency had been providing services to
this family since 1995 due to a high lead content in the blood of 
Calista and one of her sisters. Counseling, transportation to doctors
appointments and money was offered.

Anthony has admitted that the family has had at least five visits or
contacts with child welfare workers, he says though, that his children
have never been removed from their home, in the past. Anthony and
Marsha both had nothing to say at the hearing. The outcome and
further hearings were postponed in April of 2008, until May of 2008.

Judge Thomas E. Shumaker said there needed to be done before a
decision could be made:

The judge also ordered that the remaining children would have 
supervised visits with their parents, during two hour, weekly visits:

In August of 2008, Marsha Springer plead no contest to charges of
child abuse and child neglect. This plea was to be considered separate
from charges she could face in the death of Calista. After her plea,
her two other children became temporary wards of the state. That 
took care of the need for a trial to determine what would happen to
the two girls.

Judge Shumaker ruled that there was enough evidence to support the
claims that the Springer home is an unfit place for children to live. A
picture of Calista, in her bed, after the fire, was shown to the judge
as well as transcripts of testimony from a State Trooper:

The two sisters, who were not home when the fire happened had
been removed from the home and placed with family. They had been
moved to foster care and after court, the Family Court was given
custody over them.

Pleading no contest meant that Marsha was not denying or admitting
to charges that she abused or neglected Calista. Anthony continued
to deny any allegations that he had abused and neglected his daughter at all. Police had already said that he was not home at the time of the
fire, which was around 8:30am. Police are not sure if he knew that
Calista was tied to the bed upstairs or how long she had been there.
Anthony said that Calista was a special needs child and she had often
wandered off in the middle of the night. The bed restraint was put in
place, for a short time only, according to him, because an alarm that
had been used to monitor Calista, was broken.

Michigan law says that if a court finds abuse and or neglect in the 
home, with even just one child, that is enough reason to remove any
other children who live in the home even if it is found that only one
of the parents was abusing or neglecting the child. The Judge set a
court date of September 9 for dispositional hearing in which St.
Joseph County Department Of Human Services are expected to talk
about services and other measures that are aimed at reuniting the
family. The proceedings within the family court had no connection at
all to criminal charges that could be filed against Anthony and Marsha
in the death of Calista.

The cause of the fire was listed as unknown, though speculation has
pointed to an overheated vacuum which was being used in the home
shortly before the fire started. Marsha said she had been vacuuming
when she smelled smoke. She stopped vacuuming and then started
up again, when she again smelled smoke, she stopped and went into
the kitchen. When she went back into the living room, she saw flames
where she had left the vacuum. She says she went to the kitchen to
get the fire extinguisher, but, she claims she couldn't remove the pin
in order to make it work. By that point, the flames had become too
intense and she had to leave the house. The police didn't find a fire
extinguisher and reports show that Marsha told at least one person
how she had tried to put out the fire with a pitcher of water and the
vacuum blew up in her face.

Calista was found upstairs in her room, by firefighters who said she
appeared to be small for her age. An autopsy showed that Calista
had died with long hair on her legs and under her arms. There was a
mark around her waist from the dog chain and she had soot in her
esophagus and trachea, she had died of smoke inhalation.

In September of 2008, Anthony submitted a paper in which he told the court that there was no abuse or neglect when his daughter had died in the fire. He claimed that in 1997, a therapist had said that Calista would never develop judgment and impulse control. He also
used a report from the state Children's Protective Services case worker who said that Calista had to be restrained in her room to prevent her
from causing injury to herself and to others. The report claimed that
she would destroy everything in her room and put nails and razor
blade into her mouth.

In December of 2008, it was decided that Anthony and Marsha would
face charges of manslaughter, and first degree child abuse. In January
of 2009, the Prosecutor John, McDonough, who had taken the office
on January 1, 2008 said that he brought the tougher charges after
reviewing the case with his assistants and Detective Sergeant Mike 
Scott of the state police. The new charge will be felony murder and
torture. If found guilty, they could both face lie in prison. The original
charges were filed by Prosecutor Doug Fisher and the original charge
of first degree child abuse will stand:

It is going to be left up to a jury to decide the fate of Anthony and
Marsha. They are both free on bond and are trying to regain custody
of their other two girls. It is expected that lawyers will try to blame
things on Calista by saying that she was a troubled child who had
injured herself in the past, lied about how her parents had treated her
and acted the way she did due to an eating disorder. Reports from
some case workers are said to support these claims.

A letter sent from Chris Kadulski, director of the DHS, in response to
the questions asked by Fred Upton, said that the department had been involved quite extensively with the family since 1995 and that Calista
suffered from a disease known as Pica, which caused it's victims to 
crave and eat things other than normal foods:

Fred Upton did nothing to check out the complaint he had received
based on that letter from Chris. Police interviews state the frustrations
of the people who had tried to help Calista when they contacted 
school officials, police and social service agencies. The reports hint
that the abuse Calista went through, started in the second grade:

People told police:

* Calista was forced to stand or sit in a square marked by tape in the living room; if she didn't, she was forced to place her nose on a piece of tape on a wall, sometimes having to stand on her tiptoes to reach it.

* She ate dinner sitting on the floor and, when fed, was given small portions. One friend said she was treated "lower than the animals." 

* Calista was rarely allowed outside of her home. When she was outdoors, she was often required to sit on her front porch with her head between her knees -- sometimes for more than an hour -- while her sisters and other children played nearby.

* Though teachers viewed Calista as a pretty normal girl, who could read and write, her parents said Calista was a special-needs child.

* Calista attended school outside of the home through sixth grade before her parents began teaching her at home. A police detective described the home schooling as a possible "ruse" to keep Calista "out of the public eye."

Preliminaries were set for March 24, 2009, for Anthony and Marsha.
Ironically, that is the same day I am finishing this page and loading
the story of Calista to my site.

Published : Tuesday, 23 Feb 2010

    * By Henry Erb

CENTREVILLE, Mich. (WOOD) - The jury in the murder and child abuse trial of Marsha and Anthony Springer reached a verdict Tuesday afternoon. The Springers were found guilty of child abuse and torture, but are not guilty of the murder charges.

Anthony and Marsha Springer were tried on first-degree murder and Anthony faced an additional charge for second-degree murder.

Torture carries a sentence of up to life in prison and first-degree child abuse carries up to 15 years.

Judge Paul Stutesman revoked the Springers' bond and they were taken into custody. The couple is set to be sentenced April 16.

Marsha and Anthony Springer stood in the courtroom hugging for a few minutes before deputies led them out.

The couple's 16-year-old daughter, Calista, died chained to her bed when the house caught fire. The Springers contend they chained her to keep her safe at night because she was a troubled child.

The jury made its decision in St. Joseph County on the ninth day of deliberation. Last week, jurors told Stutesman they were deadlocked.

Read About And See Pictures From Clarisa's 
Funeral And Memorial Vigil
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