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Alone, she fears boy's homecoming

A grandmother gives up pets to protect them from a violent child.

By MELANIE AVE
Published April 10, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: John Pendygraft] Barbara Morris, 61, hugs her chihuahuas, Pepper, left, and Odie, before turning them over Monday to the SPCA. Bay News 9 video Previous: A grandma's plea for help (3/12)

LARGO - Today is the day Barbara Morris dreaded would come.

Against Morris' wishes, her 9-year-old violent grandson is supposed to return home from a psychiatric center after her efforts to find him a group home failed.

And now the 61-year-old widowed housekeeper faces the homecoming without her companions, two chihuahuas who gave her joy with their licks and jumps and romps through the back yard.

On Monday, Morris sobbed as she reluctantly gave the dogs - plus five birds and one turtle - to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, to keep her grandson from injuring them.

Christopher Morris, who is mentally retarded and mentally ill, has killed several family pets, in addition to hurting his grandmother, counselors and other children during frequent Jekyll-and-Hyde mood swings.

After a St. Petersburg Times story ran about Christopher, SPCA humane officer Jill Purl persuaded Morris to sign over her rights to the dogs. Otherwise the agency would have sought custody of the animals through the court system.

"I'd cut my arm off to keep them from being abused," Morris told Purl, before the pets were taken from her tidy Largo home.

"You're doing the right thing," Purl assured Morris, who cried and hugged the puppies for the last time. "We will find them good homes, okay?"

As the SPCA seeks homes for the animals, Morris wonders why the state can't find one for Christopher.

- - -

Morris has been trying for months to find a group home or residential treatment center for the grandson she fears because of his increasing violence.

She feels he can no longer live at home and worries he may follow through with his frequent threats to kill her.

Christopher, who loves basketball, pizza and Star Wars movies, has been in and out of psychiatric hospitals about 20 times for violent tantrums, of which Morris typically takes the brunt.

He has squeezed the life out of a parakeet and thrown a gerbil and a guinea pig to their deaths. He has punched Morris, kicked her and called her every name in the book.

Her final straw was when Christopher tried to squeeze 6-month-old Odie, the male chihuahua, to death.

Morris broke down and called the St. Petersburg Times as a last-ditch effort to find help.

The story attracted a lot of attention - prompting numerous animal abuse calls to the SPCA and other animal protection agencies - but not much help for Morris.

Morris agreed to call the SPCA before Christopher returned home from the crisis center in Pinellas Park. He was placed there seven weeks ago after he tried to stab Morris with a pencil. He has been largely kept away from other children because of his tantrums, Morris said.

She called Purl on Friday to let her know of the homecoming today. Morris had hoped the SPCA would provide temporary care for the animals until she finds a group home for Christopher. But Purl said the SPCA only adopts out animals because it has so many in its care.

Morris paid $600 and $1,200 for the dogs, which will be available for adoption from the SPCA for a spring special of $25 each.

Kenny Mitchell, director of Pinellas County Animal Services, called Morris' case unusual since most animals are taken after abuse has happened - not before.

"She can't prevent what's happened to the kid," he said. "You have to be somewhat sympathetic to her. Hopefully the SPCA will have some compassion if they can."

Morris still hopes the boy will make a state crisis list that could fund his care in a group home.

"I'm not trying to get rid of him," Morris said. "I love him to pieces. I just can't do anything more for him.

"He's so violent."

The Tampa office of the Florida Agency for Persons for Disabilities is awaiting word on Christopher's status from the committee that decides crisis designation.

Regional director Carl Littlefield said the committee has met, but he has not heard whether Christopher qualified for extra services under Home and Community-Based Waiver Medicaid.

The state agency recently stopped enrolling new people into the waiver program in which 13,500 are waiting because of a funding deficit. Some families have been on the wait list for years.

"I hope we hear something this week," Littlefield said Monday. "There's a lot of competition throughout the state with a few number of crises that are accepted."

- - -

Morris has raised Christopher since he was 8 months old, after the state took him away from his mother because she was not feeding him.

She adopted the boy, her son's child, when he was 4 just as he was showing signs of mental illness. He has been diagnosed as bipolar with attention deficit hyperactivity, destructive, detachment and defiance disorders.

Both of Christopher's parents suffered from mental illness; his paternal grandfather suffered from schizophrenia.

Morris realizes she could renounce her rights to him and leave him in the state's foster care system. But she is afraid that he would end up in worse shape, bouncing from foster home to foster home.

"He knows he needs help," Morris said. "He even said, 'I can't come home. I need help for my anger.' "

Morris speculated that once home, Christopher would be involuntarily committed under the state's Baker Act by week's end.

On Monday as she pondered the loss of her pets, she remained perplexed about why it has been so difficult to get the boy into a group home, considering his history. But she did feel good knowing her beloved dogs will be safe from her grandson even if she may not be.

"At least," Morris said, her eyes bloodshot from crying, "they'll be alive."

Melanie Ave can be reached at (727)893-8813 or mave@sptimes.com.

[Last modified April 9, 2007, 23:16:46]