![]() Police were called to investigate more than a dozen reports of sexual abuse and physical abuse against children.ĭespite Wordsworth’s record, the state renewed the facility’s license repeatedly and children from across the country continued to be sent there, including David. Police records showed reports of 12 rapes, two cases of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, seven reports of indecent exposure, four cases of corruption of the morals of a minor, and one case of child endangerment, according to the Inquirer. According to an investigation by The Philadelphia Inquirer, police were summoned to Wordsworth more than 800 times for incidents ranging from minor disturbances and tripped fire alarms to rape in the span of a decade. Wordsworth closed shortly after David’s death. “My mother blames herself,” Elizabeth said. Tall and lanky with a baby face, he had severe mental health problems that not even his adopted parents could manage. In many ways, the 17-year-old was just a big kid, she said. ![]() He wasn’t happy there, she said, and complained during phone calls about witnessing abuse. “He knew he was loved.”Įlizabeth cringes when she thinks about her brother’s time at Wordsworth. If he hadn’t died on that October night in 2016, David would have been released a week later, Elizabeth said. “Every single kid is troubled,” she said. Elizabeth still questions whether the facility was fully equipped to meet his particular needs. As a result, David cycled in and out of residential care facilities for much of his 17 years. He suffered from schizophrenia and other mental health disorders that grew over time and proved too difficult for their parents to handle. "There was a murder."ĭavid was only a few years old when he came to live with his foster family in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, according to his sister. "Everyone should have been arrested that night," Elizabeth said. The Philadelphia Medical Examiner Office, however, said he died from lack of oxygen. ![]() Wordsworth officials then said he hit his head during a fight with staffers and died as a result of his injuries. First, they were told the teen died after falling out of bed and hitting his head. In the days following his death, David’s family was given different versions of what happened. Another youth reported that, a month before his death, an employee hit David in the face. In his death report - which included interviews with nine youths plus counselors, nurses and emergency responders - a student said that an employee who “did not like David" had “punched him in the chest” two weeks earlier. This was not the first time David was restrained at Wordsworth. A witness heard David cry out that he couldn’t breathe. ![]() They punched him in the ribs and put him in a headlock. Wordsworth employees used force to subdue him. “You had to learn him.”Īccording to his death report by the Pennsylvania Department of Health, David became agitated when staffers searched his room. “If you knew David, you knew that walking into his room, touching his stuff, was an automatic trigger,” Elizabeth said. The deadly skirmish started when several employees accused him of stealing another student’s iPod. It’s a government agency and the government doesn’t seem to care.”ĭavid was killed in October 2016 during an altercation with Wordsworth staffers. “That’s the pill we’ve had to swallow - people walk around and get away with it. “We’ve accepted that nothing is going to bring him back,” she said. Airports With Most Canceled Flights This Summer Madden could not comment on the open investigation but called it "a priority" for the office.įor Elizabeth and her family, it’s too little much too late. In the wake of abuse allegations at another Philadelphia-area residential care facility, Glen Mills Schools, the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General has launched an investigation into what happened at Wordsworth, OIG spokesman Clarke Madden confirmed. Now, Elizabeth Hess could get some answers. Why did David Hess die? Why has no one been charged or arrested even though officials ruled his death a homicide? Why did facility staff change their story twice about how David died? Nearly three years after her little brother’s death at Philadelphia’s Wordsworth Academy, Elizabeth Hess still sees him everywhere.
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