Of the thousands of stories I’ve covered in Livingston County, two haunt me. Time has done little to blunt my emotions about these stories, both of which involved horrific child abuse; after all these years, I still feel my blood pressure rise over what happened to these kids. The senseless loss of these young lives is heartbreaking and maddening, and I often wonder what could have been had someone stepped in.
The first is a 1998 case of stomach-churning child abuse and neglect in Marion Township. Three of the 10 special needs children Karen Simpson had adopted — Christopher, 9; Nicole, 7; and Jordan, 5 — perished in what firefighters said was the worst fire in Livingston County history.
The second is the 2009 torture and death of Dominick Calhoun, 4, at the hands of his mother’s boyfriend over a period of a couple days.
The pervasiveness of child abuse is startling and frightening, and unless something or someone steps in to break the cycle, it winds its way far into the future. That’s why the work of LACASA — the independent local organization that works with the victims and survivors of child abuse, domestic violence, and sexual assault — is so important.
Consider these two statistics: they are horrible when considered separately, and when taken together, they explain the immensity of what we are up against in breaking the cycle of child abuse: 85% of all prison inmates report being abused as children, and an estimated 1.25 million American children are abused and neglected every year. What we have before us is a vampiric cycle of abuse.
Here in Livingston County, the prosecutor’s office issued charges in 19 child abuse cases in 2024, down from 26 in 2023. But those numbers don’t tell the whole story, according to Livingston County Prosecutor Carolyn J. Henry.
“Every investigation is not always submitted to our office for review and charging consideration,” Henry said. “Our current case management system is also unable to track to how many child abuse cases were submitted to us and either charged as alternate charging theories (i.e., domestic violence, felonious assault, criminal sexual conduct, etc.) or denied.”
What we do know is that 154 forensic interviews were conducted in 2024 by LACASA’s CARE (Child Abuse Response Effort) team. The project preserves the interviews of abused children, saving them from having to share their stories multiple times to different professionals. With the CARE project, these young victims tell their story just once to a trained interviewer while professionals in the legal and social service communities involved in the case observe through a two-way mirror.
Those 154 interviews in 2024, extrapolated out, mean that nearly 13 times a month — or three times a week, each and every week — children referred by social service agencies, the Livingston County Prosecutor’s Office, and all nine Livingston County law enforcement agencies are sharing details of their abuse.
I reached way back to statistics from 20 years ago to compare. I found that while the number of interviews fluctuated a bit each year, the nature of them remained constant.
In 2005, there were 139 interviews conducted with 131 children (99 girls and 32 boys) through the CARE project. Nearly all of the children — 91% — reported sexual abuse. Two-thirds of the children interviewed were under the age of 12, and in all but two of the cases, they reported assaults by people well known to them, from biological fathers to family friends, biological mothers, siblings, stepparents or parental partners, other family members, and neighbors.
For things to change, the cycle of abuse needs to be broken.
And that’s why I can’t let April — National Child Abuse Awareness Month — slip by without thanking LACASA and its CARE project for the respectful, sensitive work they do with their young victims. LACASA even has canine advocate Ember to provide support during interviews, as well as during testimony in court.
LACASA does so much more in the battle against child abuse. A recognized Children’s Advocacy Center accredited by the National Children’s Alliance, LACASA provides a host of services, from parenting classes to counseling to trauma assessments. You can read more about what LACASA offers by clicking here.
If you’d like more information about LACASA’s CARE project, click here.
One of the amazing things about LACASA is that it provides its services to all victims AT NO CHARGE. No one is ever turned away when seeking help.
I urge you to consider a donation to LACASA. It’s an independent agency, without the support of a state or national organization behind it. It is also the only one of its kind in Michigan (and one of only a handful in the nation) to provide all its services under one roof. And every donation it receives, no matter the size, is put to good use.
To me, a donation to LACASA is a vote for a better, more hopeful future for kids.
To donate to LACASA, click here.
