While surfing the
net looking for children to add to my site, I come across many sad
cases of children
being abused literally to death. Many of these children are not
remembered with
pictures, but with their stories being told. If you have a picture of
ANY of these children,
I will be more than happy to add it to these pages.
These pages are dedicated
to the children who I call "Faceless Innocence".
Charnae
Wise
September 19, 1991
- August 23, 2003
On September 16, 1997,
the 12lb remains of a 5 year old girl were found under a
pile of trash in
a basement in Philadelphia. This child was not put here by a stranger who
randomly chose to abuse and murder this child. Charnae Wise was abused
to
death by her own
mother.
Charnae was born
September 19, 1991 to a drug addicted mother.Charlene had
five other children
who had been removed from her care for drug related reasons, and all had
been placed in foster care. Social workers decided to place Charnae
in foster care as
well. The decision when she was 3 years old to return her to her
mother would prove
to be a devasting one. Eventually, social workers requested
that Charlene take
five of her children. When Charlene said she could not deal with
that many children,
she had just had her 7th baby, social workers said "You either
take them now, or
we put them up for adoption". Charlene took them back.
There were many signs
that things were not right in the Wise household. On February 23, 1996,
Charnae was taken to the hospital with a severe infection on
her scalp. The hospital
staff made notes in her records that they felt Charlene had
been abusing drugs.
In October of 1996,
Dhe Deptartment Of Human Services was made aware of the
fact that Charlene's
son, Donte, had gone to school with a black eye and upon being questioned
said that his mother had hit him with a broom.
A report made later
stated that Kadedra, one of Charlene's other daughters, caught her pants
on fire trying to keep warm using a hot plate. Kadedra suffered second
and third degrees
burns as a result.
On December 24, 1996,
Charlene's eldester daughter, now a mother herself, got
into an argument
with Charlene and left the house taking her son with her. This left
Charlene with 6
children to care for.
Charlene was able
to fool the Social Workers by becoming angry when the would
stop by for a surpise
visit. They started making scheduled visits instead which
allowed Charlene
to clean house and stock up on food before they got there. The
social workers would
compliment Charlene on her clean home. Having been asked
and after denying
the fact that she was using drugs, the social workers said they
were going to do
random drug tests on Charlene, they never did.
In the Spring of
1997, Charlene's drug use had become so bad that she started
refusing the social
workers entry into her home. Charlene case was referred back
to the city since
the The Juvenile Justice Center claimed they could not push their
way into her home.
They told the DHS department that they could not guarantee the
safety of the children.
On June 4, 1997,
a social worker visited and was told that Charlene was leaving
town. The rules
state that a case may not be closed unless it is verified that the
children are living
in a safe place. It was never verified that Charlene's children were safe
before the case was closed a short time later.
In June of 1997,
Charnae's mother, Charlene, banished her to the basement of
their home. Charnae's
5 brothers and sisters, would check on her from time to time
at the request of
their mother who also told them not to talk about her to anyone.
The basement had
no ventilation and Charnae, though she had previously been
able to come out
to use the bathroom, was now forced to use a bucket. Food was
given to her by
placing a plate at the top of the stairs. Many times the food was left
untouched.
On August 23, 1997,
Charlene went to a birthday party for her grandson and left
Charnae in the basement.
During the party, Charlene told her daughter that she
was sure Charnae
was not going to make through the week. The daughter asked
to see Charnae but
Charlene refused.
Charlene returned
home and went to the basement and found Charnae dead. The
thought occured
to her to call 911, however, she decided that her other children
needed her and she
did not make the call.
Just 3 days before
her 6th birthday, Charnae's remains were found by police. An
internal investiagtion
of the Department of Human Services was ordered and the
results were never
made public. The following year, a state review of the DHS internal investigation
found that the DHS had broken many of it's own rules when
stopping the investigation
and home visit of Charlene Wise. They issued this
statement:
"at no time was
there a determination that acts of commission or omission
by the department
or its agents could have predicted or prevented the
tragedy that
befell this child."
Charlene was convicted
of third-degree murder and was sentenced to 28 to 56
years in prison. |
