‘I don’t like this, mommy.’ Boy with cerebral palsy abandoned for weeks, MO cops say

A Missouri couple abandoned a 12-year-old with cerebral palsy for weeks after moving to a new house, only returning to their previous home periodically to drop off food for the boy, cops say.

Janine Allen, 30, and Brendon Luke, 29, are charged with felony abuse or neglect of a child after police learned the boy was left by himself in a Blue Springs home while they monitored him with an in-home video system, according to court records. The parents are accused of attempting make it appear they stayed overnight with the boy while living in a new home a couple of miles away, police say.

“I want out,” the boy said in home-surveillance video later obtained by police. “I don’t like this, mommy.”

Allen’s attorney P.J. O’Connor told McClatchy News there is more to the case than what is in the arrest affidavit.

“I’ve just entered my appearance on the case and there is a lot more to the story than what’s been presented in the probable cause statement,” O’Connor said in an email. “Until I’ve viewed all the evidence I don’t want to comment any further.”

Luke does not have an attorney listed in court records.

In early June, concerned residents told Blue Springs police the wheelchair-bound child had been left in the home for weeks, prompting the investigation.

When a police officer went to the home, Allen told him through a doorbell camera that the boy was OK and she could see him on camera, according to court records. Later, Allen explained to investigators that she and her husband monitored the boy with a two-way radio and camera that provides alerts of movements and noises inside the house, police said.

She told the officers her son knew how to call 911 and her phone number in an emergency. Video shows Allen rehearsing with her son before investigators arrived, instructing the boy to tell them he can use the bathroom and walk, according to court records.

“Because someone called them and said I wasn’t taking care of you and wasn’t feeding you, but I’m doing those things, aren’t I?” Allen said to her son, according to police.

A Children’s Mercy clinic told investigators the boy is “medically complex” and shouldn’t be left unsupervised, police said. In September, the boy was at the clinic for a “suspicious” broken arm following an altercation with his mother, according to court documents. A school resource officer said the boy needs help using the bathroom and eating and also with mobility.

A Children’s Division worker involved with the family since October told a detective he was not aware the family moved and left behind the boy until the police investigation began, according to court documents. The worker said the child was “increasingly violent” toward the family and believed he needed residential placement, but his mother hadn’t completed the required paperwork.

Inside the home, investigators reported finding feces and it smelled of urine. There was a telephone with no dial tone.

The family’s new home was “extremely large in size” with a basement large enough for the boy and other children to have their own rooms, police said. Witnesses say Allen told them she did not want the boy to damage the walls of the newly built house, according to court records.

According to police, video shows the child attempting for more than 20 minutes to get out of his locked room with a small piece of wire, which Allen later searched for in footage seen by investigators.

Another video shows Luke “throwing food on the floor” in the boy’s room before leaving the house within six minutes, police say.

On June 11, Allen told investigators the boy was left in the home since Mother’s Day, which was May 10, according to court documents. She said leaving her son in the house was the best option to protect her family from violence, police say.

Jackson County Family Court obtained emergency custody of the boy. Luke took him to a residential facility in southern Missouri a day later, despite the custody order, police say.

This story was originally published June 19, 2020 at 4:25 PM with the headline "‘I don’t like this, mommy.’ Boy with cerebral palsy abandoned for weeks, MO cops say."