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Warning: Depressing News Story
Father of 13 Arrested in
Baby's Death
Mon Feb 11, 5:49 PM ET By RON HARRIS, Associated Press Writer SAN RAFAEL, Calif. (AP) - A man and four women who shared a home with their 13 children were charged with murder and child neglect Monday in the death of one toddler and the malnourishment of the other youngsters.
All were severely malnourished and most suffered from rickets, a bone-softening disease almost unheard of in suburban America. It is caused by a lack of vitamin D or calcium. None of the children were enrolled in public school, said Marin County sheriff's Detective Fred Marziano. Neighbors rarely saw them emerge from the upscale rental home, where heavy white drapes prevent any view of the inside. "When they told us how many children were there, I nearly fell out of my shoes," neighbor Connie Williams told the Marin Independent Journal. "We hardly ever saw them." Because the adults refused to cooperate, it took three months for police to unravel what went on inside the modest beige house. Winnfred Wright, 45, and the women, Carol Bremner, 44, Mary Campbell, 37, Deirdre Wilson, 37, and Kali Polk-Matthews, 20, were arrested Friday and held without bail for an arraignment Monday afternoon. Because none of the defendants cooperated with police, it took DNA tests to determine that Wright fathered all the children. It was not clear who gave birth to the child who died. "We don't know exactly what their affiliation is together other than they are cohabiting and producing children," Marziano said. Wright, Bremner, Campbell and Wilson each face charges of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. Polk-Matthews faces one count of involuntary manslaughter. All face child endangerment charges. Jail officials said the defendants were declining all requests for interviews. Neighbors along the tree-lined street in the upper-middle-class Marinwood neighborhood declined to speak with reporters Monday, and no one answered the door at the house. White T-shirts hung from a clothesline, and children's toys and a plastic tricycle sat on the grass. Malcolm Sullivan, who lives next door, told the Independent-Journal that their rent must have been expensive. "Spending that kind of money and not feeding kids is perverted," he said. Rickets is extremely rare in the United States since the advent of vitamin D-fortified milk. Also, as little as 15 minutes of sun a day helps the body generate enough vitamin D to utilize calcium for bone growth. "The profile of the child who would be at risk to rickets would be a child who's not being fed dairy products and doesn't have adequate exposure to sun," said Gerald Combs, director of the Agriculture Department's Human Nutrition Research Center in Grand Forks, N.D. Children can begin to show signs of rickets within six months to a year after being denied adequate sunlight and food. It was several years ago that the family moved into the home, and neighbors got only fleeting glimpses of the people inside. Whenever they went out, they would back a black Suburban with dark windows up to the garage, and neighbors could not see who got in.
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