Conn. says it erred on boy

An agency didn't wait for checks, thinking it was taking a 3-year-old from an abusive home. But now he's dead.

By TAMARA LUSH

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 3, 2000

Connecticut officials thought they were saving Alex Boucher from an abusive foster parent when they allowed James and Jennifer Curtis to bring the 3-year-old to their home in New Port Richey.

But in their haste to get Alex to safety, the officials acknowledged Monday, they unwittingly put him in harm's way. James Curtis is charged with murdering the boy he wanted to adopt.

The foster parent, an aunt who had looked after Alex since he was 8 months old, asked officials two months ago to take the child out of her home. She said she could no longer care for the mentally and physically disabled boy who sometimes forced himself to vomit and smeared around his own feces.

James and Jennifer Curtis of New Port Richey had previously provided respite care for Alex's foster parents. In late August, the couple told Connecticut officials that they saw the aunt, Michelle Harmon, strike the boy.

So when the Curtises expressed interest in adopting Alex, it looked to Connecticut like a heaven-sent solution.

"Alex loved the Curtises and did not want to go back to the relative's home in Maine," Kristine Ragaglia, the commissioner for the Connecticut Division of Children, Youth and Families, said Monday.

But Connecticut officials did not wait for their Florida counterparts to complete the usual extensive background checks. Connecticut allowed the Curtises to bring Alex to their New Port Richey apartment, where they arrived Sept. 19.

Less than a week later, on Sept. 25, police said, James Curtis got so angry when Alex soiled himself that he wrapped the boy tightly in a blanket. The boy suffocated and died two days later. Curtis was charged Friday with first-degree murder.

On Monday, Connecticut officials acknowledged they had acted too quickly.

"Our staff should have waited," Ragaglia said. "We should have waited before we let Alex go down to Florida. This ... put the child's safety at risk."

Had background checks been completed, Connecticut officials would have learned that James Curtis was under investigation, accused of brandishing a handgun in front of a group of minors during a neighborhood dispute. On Sept. 26, the day after doctors said Alex was brain dead, Curtis was charged with improper exhibition of a firearm.

Officials also would have discovered that James Curtis was disabled and unemployed. Also, the couple had been evicted from a Port Richey apartment complex in July because James Curtis repeatedly started fights with other residents, officials said.

But Connecticut officials had thought the Curtises seemed "willing and available" to care for the boy.

"Clearly, the child needed a placement," said Stacey H. Gerber, the Connecticut Division of Children, Youth and Families deputy commissioner. "The hope was the Curtises would be a permanent placement."

Trouble from the start

On Jan. 25, 1997, Diane Boucher gave birth to Alex in Connecticut. Two days later, state officials took the boy from her.

Connecticut officials said Alex may have been born with fetal alcohol syndrome.

Boucher, when reached at her Hartford, Conn., home Monday, told the Times that state officials took the boy -- and two other children -- because they thought she was an unfit parent. She had suffered a "brain fracture," she said, and was also heavily medicated.

Alex was in a foster home in Connecticut, Boucher said, until he was 8 months old. Then, she said, Connecticut officials placed the boy with her brother and his wife in Maine. Diane Boucher said her parental rights were terminated last year.

Alex lived in Maine with his foster parents and their three children, one of whom has Down's syndrome, a Maine official told the Hartford Courant.

Alex had many problems, officials said. He was born with cerebral palsy and had an eating disorder: He would eat a lot of food, then force himself to vomit.

He also hated to be touched, and had a troubling habit of smearing his feces.

At some time when Alex was living in Maine -- officials are unsure when -- James and Jenny Curtis came into his life as respite caregivers. A respite worker is like a babysitter, giving a foster parent a break from the demands of a disabled child.

Connecticut Deputy Commissioner Gerber said Maine officials did a criminal background check on the Curtises before allowing them to do respite care in their state.

The Curtises in Florida

The Curtises moved to Florida from Maine in 1999, public records state. After a short time in Spring Hill, the couple moved into Chasco Woods, an apartment complex in Port Richey.

James Curtis had told neighbors that he suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome because he had been beaten when he was a child.

On June 26, James Curtis got into a fight with his neighbors at Chasco Woods because he said his car had been vandalized, according to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office.

Five children, age 10 to 17, told deputies that an angry Curtis pointed a gun into an apartment and threated to shoot.

On July 12, Curtis and his wife were evicted from Chasco Woods, said the apartment complex's business manager.

That's when they moved to an apartment in Lasalle Court in New Port Richey.

On July 27, the couple contacted the Children's Home Society in Clearwater, asking to start the adoption process for Alex. They took three of 10 required parenting classes, said Jim Hess, the society's executive director, who added that the group had started background checks on the couple.

On Aug. 28, a caseworker for the Clearwater agency told Connecticut officials that the Curtises would make "excellent adoptive parents" for Alex. Two days later, the same caseworker sent a registered letter to the Florida DCF, notifying the department that the Curtises intended to bring Alex to Florida and that "there was no supervision in place."

In early September, Connecticut officials asked the Florida DCF to begin background checks and paperwork, said Brenda Porter of the Florida agency.

Leaving Maine

About two months ago, Alex's aunt, Michelle Harmon, asked to have the boy removed from her home, said Bobbie Ames of the Maine Department of Human Services. Harmon said she was going to hurt him, Ames said.

Child welfare officials did remove Alex from the home temporarily, Ames said.

A month later, when the Curtises were visiting in Maine for two weeks, another problem arose, Ames said. One night when the couple were returning Alex to Harmon's home, Alex lashed out at his aunt.

"He said, "I hate you. These are my new mommy and daddy. I don't want to be here,' and (Harmon) slapped him, grabbed him by the arm and threw him on the bed," Ames said.

Alarmed, the Curtises contacted Human Services officials, and the child was removed again, she said.

Connecticut officials, who still had custody of the child, said the Curtises could take Alex to Florida on a "visitation," in hopes of an adoption.

But Florida officials said they didn't know Alex was even living in New Port Richey until they received a call from police, saying the boy was in the hospital with grave injuries.

Alex died Wednesday. After lengthy interviews with a New Port Richey police detective, James Curtis, the man who wanted to be Alex's father, was charged with the boy's murder.

- Elizabeth Hamilton of the Hartford Courant contributed to this report. Times staff writer Cary Davis and Times researcher Kitty Bennett also contributed.

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