A supervisor with the Department of Social Services in Monroe, North Carolina--a southeastern suburb of Charlotte--is in really hot water this weekend after she allegedly helped abuse her own foster child.
Dorian Lee Harper, 57, an emergency room nurse at CMC-Union in Monroe, and Wanda Sue Larson, 57, a Union County DSS supervisor, are charged with intentional child abuse inflicting serious injury, false imprisonment, and animal cruelty, because of the conditions of animals found at the home.
Larson faces an additional charge of failure to discharge her duty as a public official, based on her job as a DSS supervisor. She wasn't home when the deputy found the boy, but was "complicit" in mistreatment of the children, according to a sheriff's statement.
The couple has four other adopted children.
Early Friday morning, a Union County animal control deputy was trying to corral a loose pig when he saw an 11-year-old boy cuffed by the ankle to a porch rail and shivering. The boy had a dead chicken around his neck. According to Union County sheriff's deputies, Harper came out and asked why the deputy was there. While Harper was digging for his driver's license, several large dogs came out of the house and chased the deputy back to his car. When backup arrived, they found conditions that were so squalid that they took all five kids living there from the home and arrested Harper. Watson was arrested later that day. They're both in jail right now on over $1 million combined bond. Larson's bond is slightly higher, apparently because of her role as a DSS supervisor. The kids are in the care of a social services agency in another county--SOP when there's a case of child abuse involving a DSS employee.
According to the Charlotte Observer, Larson is a supervisor with the child protective services division and makes $54,500 a year. Those facts make this case even more ghastly if true.
A lot of neighbors are wondering why no one looked in on the kids before, especially with as many animals they had. One neighbor put it bluntly--"Anyone who takes children should be supervised. I don't care who it is."