DCF destroying evidence, making false statements

From: kathleen (kathleen.dickson_at_snet.net)
Date: 03/25/05 

Date: 24 Mar 2005 16:22:01 -0800

http://hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/News/content.html?oid=oid:59322

Against a Parentīs Will
After a murder and arson, an East Hartford church family took in one of
the surviving children. Now, the DCF says the family is unfit to care
for him.

by Dan Levine - March 25, 2004

TRUTH BAPTIST CHURCH PHOTO

The Truth Baptist Church in South Windsor.

Nearly five years have passed since the Silk family home in East
Hartford went up in flames, the work of a mentally unbalanced mother.
Kelly Silk stabbed her husband to death, doused herself and her
daughter in gasoline, and then set the fire, apparently intending to
murder her entire family.
Two of the Silks' four children survived the June 10, 1999 inferno,
including the girl Silk drenched in gas. And just as the tragedy can
only be described as seismic, the legal ramifications of those horrific
events are still shocking the court system.

In their wills, the Silks left custody of their children to Chad and
Sara Prigge. Chad Prigge was a minister at Truth Baptist Church in
South Windsor, an independent evangelical group described alternately
as a congregation and as a cult, according to a December 13, 2001 civil
complaint the Prigges have filed against the state.

The Silks belonged to the church and lived across the street from the
Prigges, who rescued the children the night of the fire.

"Chad ... and Sara Prigge awoke to screams for help and a blaze of fire
coming toward their house," the complaint says. "Sara recognized the
person as Jessica, threw water on her, and had her roll on the front
lawn to put out the fire in her hair."

After the murders, the Prigge couple attempted to gain custody of the
youngest Silk child, 4-month-old Joshua (the older daughter went to
live with her biological father).

Despite the Silks' wishes expressed in their will, the state Department
of Children and Families ultimately awarded custody of Joshua to
another family who were not members of Truth Baptist Church.

That decision -- and the DCF's decision methods -- prompted an array of
legal challenges. First, the Prigges challenged the custody order
directly. Though a Superior Court judge harshly criticized the DCF's
methods -- including destroying evidence sought under subpoena -- he
upheld the agency's decision, saying the child had already formed a
bond with the adoptive family. That family had been awarded temporary
custody pending the court's decision.

The state Supreme Court decided against the Prigges, ruling that wills
are not ultimately binding when it comes to child custody.

But the DCF's actions prompted a separate civil suit from the Prigges,
claiming that former commissioner Kristine Ragaglia and other DCF
employees discriminated against the family due to their religious
beliefs. And a Waterbury Superior Court judge recently resisted the
state's attempts to have the lawsuit dismissed in its entirety, ruling
that many of the Prigges' claims are specific enough to be considered
at trial.

"We know the families we serve are very diverse," says Gary Kleeblatt,
a DCF spokesman. "We are very aware of the need to respect those
differences. We train for it, and we emphasize them."

But according to the couple's legal complaint, the DCF took a dim view
of the Prigges immediately following the fire. A DCF investigator began
interviewing witnesses, some of whom described the church as a cult
that reportedly did not believe in taking medication, and said the
Prigges employed corporal punishment.

The DCF based its custody decisions on these allegations, "despite
overwhelming evidence" that they were false statements, the Prigges'
complaint says.

Shortly after the fire, Prigge called DCF caseworker Kelly McVey and
declared his intention to pursue custody of Joshua, his complaint says.
McVey took notes of the conversation, but when those notes were
subpoenaed, she destroyed them, the complaint says. In their place, a
typewritten version stated that Prigge was unsure about whether he
wished to pursue custody.

"Neither the defendants nor any other DCF representative has ever
conducted an inspection of the Prigges' home or interviewed the
Prigges," the complaint says.

"Social service agencies cannot make placements solely on the basis of
religion," says Phyllis Bossin, a Cincinnati-based attorney who is
chairwoman of the family law section for the American Bar Association.
"They can't have a policy to refuse to send a Catholic child to a
Jewish home."

Nevertheless, every custody case turns on the best interests of the
child, Bossin says. And even though parents can express a preference
for who gets custody of their child -- as the Silks did in their will
-- it is still only a preference, she says.

That means the Prigges have no real rights to Joshua, making their
chances of prevailing against the DCF very difficult, Bossin says.

"I don't think they're going to win this suit," she says, adding:
"There's not a lot of law on their side."

danadvocate@sbcglobal.net

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