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DYFS workers could get immunity in family starvation case
More articles on this topic: Raymond and Vanessa JacksonCOLLINGSWOOD — As Raymond and Vanessa Jackson stand accused of starving their four adopted boys, prosecutors are considering granting immunity to Division of Youth and Family Services employees intertwined in the family’s lives for years, a state official said.
One year has passed since Bruce Jackson, a gaunt, ghostlike 19-year-old, was found eating from a neighbor’s trash can near his White Horse Pike home in this Camden County borough. When authorities found Bruce, he weighed 45 pounds and stood only 4 feet tall. The situation for the three younger boys was equally grim — combined, the four weighed 136 pounds.
Even more shocking, authorities said the boys’ adoptive parents, Raymond and Vanessa Jackson, were responsible for their condition. They were charged with aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of children, and are out on bail.
Six adopted children, and a girl they were in the process of adopting, were placed in new foster homes. Besides those seven children, the couple have four biological children.
Bruce, now 20, was hospitalized, and now lives with a foster family.
All the boys have gained substantial weight and height since last year, with Bruce showing the greatest growth: He now weighs 109 pounds and is 57 inches tall, the state official said.
Vanessa Jackson would not comment for this story; Raymond Jackson couldn’t be reached. The couple haven’t seen the children since they were removed from the home, said Richard Josselson, a Haddonfield attorney representing Raymond Jackson.Political fallout
Since the discovery of the boys’ condition, Gov. McGreevey has signed legislation overhauling DYFS, and the state’s Office of the Child Advocate has released a report on the Jackson case that said DYFS managers failed to communicate procedures and caseworkers failed to implement them.
Nine DYFS employees were suspended days after the arrest, including one caseworker who made monthly visits to the Jackson home. In January, 11 DYFS workers declined to testify before a grand jury in Camden. At the time, Steven Weissman, an attorney for the union representing the workers, said they invoked the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination. Outside the courthouse, a throng of fellow employees and union officials rallied to show their support for the suspended employees.
Bill Shralow, a spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office, said the investigation against the DYFS employees in the Jackson case continues.
But a state official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the prosecutor’s office is seriously considering granting the workers immunity in the case in exchange for their testimony.
Hetty Rosenstein, president of Communication Workers of America Local 1037, said the DYFS workers she represents were wrongfully vilified by the legal system and the public for problems that stemmed far higher up the department’s ladder.
“The management did exactly what it always does — find the lowest people on the totem pole and lay all the blame on them,” she said.
But officials have said DYFS workers visited the home 38 times in four years with no reports of abuse.Suspects defended
While the public vilified the couple and sent thousands of dollars to a fund created by the borough of Collingswood to help the children, friends, family and fellow church members of Raymond and Vanessa Jackson immediately rallied behind them.
“Vanessa and Raymond would never want to hurt a child or anybody for that matter,” said Josselyne Jackson, a family friend unrelated to the couple. “They have gone through all this humiliation, but they have the confidence that good will prevail.”
The couple’s staunchest supporter was their pastor, Harry Thomas, of Come Alive! New Testament Church in Medford. It was Thomas who posted $10,000 of his own money and offered his home as guarantee for the couple’s bail.
In interviews and testimony at a congressional hearing in November, Thomas touted the couple’s virtues and portrayed the boys as untruthful, attributing their appearance to a variety of medical conditions. As the boys made rapid weight and even height gains, Thomas maintained that controlled environments were the reason for their improvement.
But Thomas issued an apology shortly after making his critical remarks about the boys, particularly Bruce.
A Web site operated by the church, www.savethejacksons.org, continues to solicit contributions for the couple’s defense.
Thomas and several other Come Alive! members declined to comment.
But Josselyne Jackson said the church is still a major factor in the couple’s lives, both spiritually and financially.
“They have a lot of people helping them out,” said Jackson, who recently spoke to Raymond Jackson by phone.Other factors cited
Included in the Jacksons’ Web site are photos of the children at restaurants, links to newspaper articles and a medical Web site that discusses fetal alcohol syndrome and pica, an eating disorder in which individuals eat inedible items such as wood or dirt.
In prior interviews, Thomas said he believed Bruce in particular suffered from pica, noting that investigators found chewed wallboard and window sills when they searched the home.
In a June 2003 visit, a DYFS employee noted that the family’s 18-year-old adopted son (Bruce) “has an eating disorder and depression, he never fully developed physically or mentally from being bulimic his whole life.”
But no action was ever taken by DYFS workers or officials.
Josselson, the attorney representing Raymond Jackson, said the pictures, videos and sentiments of friends, family and church members on the Web site are not part of an agenda, but simply the truth.
“Just forgetting the fact that they took them to Disney World and have pictures at restaurants and parties, all of these people supporting them would have to be in on a vast conspiracy,” Josselson said. “A lot of people jumped to conclusions before they had the evidence.”
The Camden County Prosecutor’s Office declined to comment on the case.
Vanessa Jackson and her biological daughter Renee also declined to comment, as did Raymond’s brother, William Jackson.
Josselyne Jackson says blame may fall somewhere in the gray area between innocence and guilt for her friends.
“I blame them of having some bad judgment maybe,” she said. “There may have been some bad decisions made at times, but I blame DYFS more than anyone else.”
Pete DiMattia, who lived next to the Jacksons for four years, helped sell the house the Jacksons had been renting in Collingswood. DiMattia said spending time in the home was therapeutic.
“It was an eerie feeling and kind of therapeutic. I look at the house every day, and I still think about the kids.”
While they have received substantial support, Raymond and Vanessa Jackson garner little sympathy with DiMattia.
“I think those people were very deceiving toward the public. I don’t think they were loving parents to those kids,” he said. “From what I saw for those four years, I could never see how they cared for those kids.”
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