Posted on: Friday, February 18, 2005

Big Island girl 'just wanted mom's attention'

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Big Island Bureau

KEA'AU, Hawai'i — She was funny, needy and sometimes very sassy. She was also old beyond her 10 years, and had been bounced from home to home too many times.

The 10-year-old severely injured girl who was removed from a Puna house on Feb. 7 was also described by neighbors yesterday as a troubled child who would act out to get noticed.

The Advertiser is not naming the child to protect her privacy.

Kathy Sanchez of Kea'au, a mother of three who took the girl into her home for much of 2003, said the girl wanted her mother and she wanted attention, Sanchez said.

"That's all she ever wanted that I could see," Sanchez said. "She just wanted the mom's attention."

Instead, people who know the family said, the girl's mother would often leave the child with friends, and police said the girl was most recently left with a family in 'Ainaloa for about three months.

Today the 10-year-old girl is unconscious in "very critical condition" at the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women and Children after police say she was "severely abused."

State Child Welfare Services workers have removed five other children from the 'Ainaloa home where the 10-year-old girl had been staying, but there have been no arrests in the case, police said.

The house where neighbors said the girl had been living was closed up and silent yesterday. Neighbors said four generations of a family had been living in the house, including a mother and daughter, the daughter's boyfriend, the daughter's four children and the daughter's grandchild.

Neighbor Bunny Lino, 20, said she has known the family her entire life. Lino said all of the children in the home always seemed to be clean, properly fed and clothed, and well cared for.

Jerry Miller, who has lived next door to the family for the past two years, said he doesn't believe the adults in the household would have deliberately hurt the child.

However, Miller said, his 8-year-old granddaughter reported that one of the children who lived at the house was a troubled older boy who would grab the head of the 10-year-old girl and pound her against the wall.

Mother's 'freedom'

The injured girl was well known at her mother's workplace, where her mother had been employed for two years.

Workers there recalled how the thin, bright little girl with long dark hair and bangs would wait in the back office for her mother to finish work. It was at the business where the girl's mother met Sanchez and one of the women from the 'Ainaloa house.

Neighbors in 'Ainaloa said the girl's mother had a boyfriend who apparently did not want the child around. Sanchez said it seemed that the mother "was more into her freedom and her old man."

Other workers at the business would babysit the girl for a time, but most would not want to continue to watch the child because she sometimes behaved badly, friends said.

Longer stays

Sanchez said the girl's mother initially paid Sanchez to watch the child, but later stopped paying and began leaving the girl for longer and longer stays with Sanchez's family.

Finally, after the girl was left to spent Christmas of 2003 with Sanchez and her children, Sanchez said she contacted the girl's mother and told her to come and get the child.

"I felt really sorry for (the girl)," Sanchez said. "I told the mom, 'You need to be there for her.' "

In 'Ainaloa, neighbors said that initially the girl was dropped off for temporary stays, then she began staying longer.

Healthy a month ago

Neighbors said they saw the girl running, playing and apparently healthy as recently as a month ago, but hadn't seen her more recently.

Miller, 60, said that at one point, there was talk that one of the adults in the 'Ainaloa house would adopt the 10-year-old girl, and she seemed to be living with a decent family.

"They lived with that little girl, and that ... festering and all that stuff didn't happen all of a sudden overnight," Miller said. "Everybody's going to have a little responsibility in this whole thing, the way I see it."

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 935-3916.