🚀 go-pugleaf

13-year-old's death is the result!

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"Disabled Girl Described Beatings, Neighbor Says"

By Jonathan Mummolo and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, January 16, 2009; B01


About six weeks before a 13-year-old girl was found dead in a
Woodbridge area creek bed, the developmentally disabled child showed
up outside a neighbor's home with a gash on her head, wearing only her
underwear and wrapped in a tarp, the neighbor said.

With temperatures hovering near freezing, a shivering Alexis "Lexie"
Glover told Wes Byers and his wife Dec. 2 that her mother had hit her
with a stick, causing the quarter-size wound on the back of her head.
Inside their home, she ate anything they could muster -- Ramen
noodles, toast, peanut butter sandwiches -- and pleaded with them not
to send her back home, Byers said.

"She said she had been beaten numerous times," said Byers, 51. "She
had to earn her clothes; she had to earn her food. She mentioned her
mother hitting her with a stick . . . because she put on a shirt and
she hadn't earned it."

Lexie was found dead in the creek bed Jan. 9, two days after her
mother, Alfreedia Gregg-Glover, told police she had run away again.
Gregg-Glover, 44, was charged Tuesday with felony neglect and lying to
police. Police announced at a news conference that Lexie's mother had
put her in the creek, and, according to court documents, she
"confessed" that her story to police was false. Police have not said
whether Lexie was dead when she was placed in the creek but are
investigating her death as a homicide.

Byers said he wondered whether Lexie's death could have been
prevented. He had spoken to someone with Prince William County Social
Services on Dec. 2, and a county police officer came to his home, he
said. But Byers said he was told that Lexie would be allowed to return
home with her mother after receiving treatment for her head wound.

First Sgt. Kim Chinn, a Prince William police spokeswoman, declined to
comment yesterday about Byers's account, citing an ongoing
investigation and pending court proceedings. Deborah Carter, a
spokeswoman for the county's social services, said she also could not
comment because of confidentiality rules. A call to Gregg-Glover's
court-appointed attorney, Barry A. Zweig, was not returned.

Because of her habit of running away, Lexie was fitted with a radio
tracking bracelet, and Prince William sheriff's deputies said they
began receiving requests to help find her in December. Once, she
managed to take off the bracelet and was found hiding in a nearby
doghouse. Another time, she was found in a neighbor's home.

In late November, Lexie was withdrawn from PACE West School in
Haymarket, where she was enrolled in the seventh grade, said Ken
Blackstone, a Prince William schools spokesman. PACE West is a
regional special education program for students with serious emotional
and behavioral issues. Blackstone said PACE teachers and
administrators declined to comment, as did officials at Lexie's day-
care program for special-needs children.

It could not be determined yesterday whether Lexie was enrolled in a
home-based education program in December or was not in school at the
time.

Byers said his wife saw Lexie, wrapped in the kind of tarp used to
cover a barbecue, while warming up her truck to go to work about 5
a.m. that day last month. Realizing her condition, she invited Lexie
inside and gave her some clothes.

Lexie told the couple that her mother had used a stick she kept in the
garage to reprimand her for wearing a piece of clothing.

"She didn't want to tell me her name or where she lived, because she
said they kept sending her back and her mother had hit her numerous
times," Byers said.

Byers said he was reluctant to call police because he feared they
would send her home again. After a couple of hours, Lexie mentioned
the name of a counselor she had met with at a psychiatric hospital,
whom Byers then tried to contact. He was referred to a child
protection hotline, which he called, and then received a call from
someone at social services.

"The woman said, 'We're going to protect your privacy, and we'll show
up with police when they get to your door,' " Byers said. "Not quite
an hour after that, the police showed up with no social services."

The police officer told Byers that Lexie had a history of running
away. He called for an ambulance when Byers showed him the gash on her
head. Before leaving for a nearby hospital, the phone rang, he said.
It was Gregg-Glover, who somehow had gotten Byers's number, and asked
to speak to the officer, he said.

"I hand [the phone] to the officer, and he had this real perplexed
look on his face and he mouthed to me, 'It's her mother,' " Byers
said. "Even the officer was flustered about that. He said, 'That's
wrong. [Social services] shouldn't have" shared Byers's phone number.

Paramedics treated Lexie's wound at the house, and the officer drove
her to Prince William Hospital, said Byers, who also went to the
hospital. Later, a frantic Gregg-Glover rushed into the waiting room
and over to Lexie, Byers said.

"Sure enough, she comes blowing in, right to her daughter, and starts
pulling the socks off of her and putting on other socks," Byers said.

After meeting with police and a social worker, Byers was told that
Lexie would be allowed to leave with her mother. Gregg-Glover said
that her daughter had injured herself and that she had a video of her
doing so in the past, Byers said.

"I was floored," Byers said. "I said, 'She's very upset, very
distressed about going back to that house. Whether she's manufacturing
that or not, these emotions are real. You need to do something there.'
"

In the days after Lexie was reported missing this month, Gregg-Glover
gave several interviews to the media, imploring the public for help
finding her daughter who she said was autistic, acted well below her
age and suffered from sickle cell anemia.

Byers said yesterday that he found Lexie to be articulate and more
than capable of describing the circumstances under which she was
living.

He said that Lexie told him that " 'people call me stupid.' I said,
'You're not stupid. Whatever's happening with your life, I'm sorry. I
wish there was something I could do.' "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/15/AR2009011504096.html?hpid=moreheadlines