In a troubling case out of Ohio, a nine-year-old boy has been allowed to return home after being accused of the rape and brutal assault of a five-year-old girl. Despite the mother’s passionate pleas for justice and safety for her daughter, the boy has been permitted back with his family.
During a recent appearance in Juvenile Court, the young boy, whose identity remains confidential due to his age, denied the accusations. His attorney sought a competency evaluation and requested his release to home, according to a report by News 5 Cleveland.
The boy, dressed in a green Batman hoodie and black pants, initially missed a scheduled court appearance, prompting Judge Kristen Sweeney to consider issuing a warrant. However, he did attend the session on Thursday, where he remained largely silent as the charges from the September incident were read out.
Prosecutors presented a harrowing account of the alleged attack, describing how the five-year-old victim was left in a field, naked, beaten, and subjected to further indignities for hours. WOIO reported that the prosecution strongly argued for the boy to be placed under home detention with an ankle monitor as a minimum safeguard.
‘This case results in a five-year-old being left naked, beaten and urinated upon in a field and left for hours,’ prosecutors argued at the hearing, according to WOIO.
‘At a very minimum, the State is requesting home detention with an ankle monitor.’
But the young victim’s mother argued that the child does not even deserve to go home – claiming that he learned his bad behavior there.
‘I do not believe that these kids should be able to return home,’ Antavia Kennibrew said of the boy and a 10-year-old girl who is an alleged co-conspirator. ‘Their behavior that caused them to do something so evil obviously started at home.’
A nine-year-old boy appeared in an Ohio court on Thursday to face charges accusing him of raping and attacking a five year old girl
The victim’s mom pleaded with a judge to not allow the child to return home
‘These kids being at home doesn’t give them a chance to think about what they have done to my daughter,’ she continued. ‘Obviously they are not held accountable for anything.
‘These kids did something horrible. They changed my daughter’s life, the way she talks, the way she acts, the way she thinks. They stole her innocence and it’s time for them to start facing the consequences of their actions, period.’
Kennibrew has previously claimed that the youngsters took her daughter ‘by her hand and walked her to a field that was far away from the residence.’
She said she then discovered her child severely injured and disfigured after she managed to leave a family member’s home in September.
‘I found my daughter unresponsive, bloody with her hair pulled from her scalp, her body covered in bruises,’ Kennibrew wrote on Facebook.
Her daughter had ‘signs of strangulation,’ a ‘big lump on her head,’ and appeared to have been beaten and raped.
‘I couldn’t believe what I saw in front of me. My daughter did not look like herself. She was traumatized,’ Kennibrew said.
Sweeney ultimately agreed to let the boy return home with an ankle monitor on Thursday, but had questions about his home life.
Antavia Kennibrew argued that her daughter’s life has been changed by the boy and his 10-year-old female co-defendant’s actions
The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor confirmed to WOIO that the nine-year-old showed up to court with two adults who are possible relatives, but not legal guardians.
Records obtained by the news station show the court was then unable to determine the validity of the familial relationship between the two adults and the boy, or the safety of the child, at which point Sweeney set an emergency custody hearing.
She has since learned that the boy’s mother is in the hospital and his father is deceased.
‘There have been threats made to the safety of the child and his family, and including family members beyond the parents, leading to an unstable living environment as the family moves from place to place in response to the threats,’ court documents say.
Sweeney ultimately concluded the court hearing on Friday by ordering the boy be placed in emergency temporary care and custody of the Cuyahoga County Division of Child and Family Services.
His order for home detention with GPS monitoring is now suspended while the child’s placement is in flux.
But his alleged co-conspirator is being held on home custody as authorities work to determine whether the two children are competent to understand the legal proceedings.
They are both charged with one count of attempted murder, four counts of rape, two counts of felonious assault, one count of kidnapping and one count of strangulation.
They have both denied the accusations, and are due back in court in January.
