DASTARDLY DADS FROM THE ARCHIVES (Rush Springs, Oklahoma - 1993)

Nobody in Rush Springs mistook custodial dad LONNIE DUTTON for a "nice guy." On the contrary, everbody in town knew he was a bully from way back who probably beat his kids. Even his own sister was fearful of him. It seems that at one time or another, he had threatened nearly everybody in town, sometimes with violence. Yet people were afraid to press charges, though Daddy was little more than an unemployed deadbeat (on welfare no less) who lived in a rundown trailer with no phone, electricity, or running water. Given what was known about Daddy Dearest, CPS shouldn't have been surprised when the boys refused to verify the abuse allegations. But they backed off anyway--six freaking times. Maybe they were afraid of Daddy too.

And what about the authorities that granted custody to these kids to Daddy? Why in the hell would anybody have believed him when Daddy accused his ex-wife, the mother of these children, of being abusive? It seems to me that this guy didn't have a shred of credibility. I suspect that the authorities didn't really believe Daddy either. They were just afraid to cross him, so they caved in and granted him custody. I suspect that a lot of abuser dads get custody in this way--the court whores and judges are simply afraid NOT to capitulate to their demands.

The truth is that this father was quite abusive, and was also sexually abusing a daughter. They boys eventually shot their dad to death in order to protect their sister from further trauma. Too bad it was left for these boys to act decisively, when all the authorities in their lives were cowards.

This is the kind of case where you wonder what ever happened to these kids. I hope they eventually found the happiness and stability they so richly deserved.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/25/us/town-rallies-behind-boys-who-killed-father.html?pagewanted=all

Town Rallies Behind Boys Who Killed Father
By SAM HOWE VERHOVEK
Published: July 25, 1993

RUSH SPRINGS, Okla., July 22 — Rush Springs is the kind of place, as people say about countless small towns across America, where people know about it when you're born and care about it when you die.

Except when Lonnie Dutton died last week. People here seem to care a lot more about gaining freedom for his accused killers -- his son Herman, who just finished the eighth grade here, and his son Druie, who finished the fifth.

There are blue ribbons tied to every lamp post on Main Street and to countless mailboxes in this farm town of 1,400 people in southwestern Oklahoma, all stitched by a group of mothers who want the authorites to drop murder charges against the boys.

Just after dawn today, dozens of cars and pickup trucks sporting blue bumper stickers reading "Friends of Herman and Druie Dutton -- We Support You!" formed a caravan and drove 18 miles to Chickasha, where the occupants rallied outside a closed court hearing for the boys.

The two slight, blond-haired youths shot their father with a deer rifle on July 12, when he was four days short of his 40th birthday, as he lay dozing on a sofa in the family trailer at the edge of town. After calling for an ambulance and reporting that someone had shot their father, the boys quickly broke down and told neighbors that they had done it because they were tired of his beatings and of watching him sexually molest their 10-year-old sister, Alicia.

Authorities Are Faulted

While there have been a growing number of cases of children killing parents who they say abused them, what makes the Dutton case so unusual is the town's extraordinary show of support for the boys.

Many residents say the boys were simply too frightened to tell the authorities what was happening. At the same time, family counselors and the school principal say the boys' action points up a failure of the authorities to provide them with a way to free themselves from abuse.

Mr. Dutton, who had been known as a bully since his high school days here, had long been suspected of beating the children.

"One of the things that needs to be brought out is that a lot of people were very afraid of my brother, including me," said Linda Munn, Mr. Dutton's sister, to thunderous applause at a town meeting several days ago at which 200 people turned out to vent their feelings about the incident.

She said that nobody should blame the boys for all the times they had denied that their father was hurting them, even when teachers asked about their bruises or agents of the State Department of Human Services came to investigate.

"They learned, 'If I cry, I get hurt,' " Mrs. Munn said. "They dared not tell. They knew better than to say anything to anybody."

6 Official Visits to Home

On at least six occasions, officials said, investigators with the county sheriff's office or the human services agency went to the Dutton trailer but did not find sufficient evidence of abuse to remove any of the children.

"How could the boys expect a fair shake from D.H.S. if they kept getting thrown back," one man shouted at the recent town meeting.

But a Grady County deputy sheriff responded: "It all comes down to the child has to be willing to talk. We have gone out and investigated calls, but when we get out there and they won't tell us anything, there's nothing we can do. Many times when you talk to children, they're afraid you'll separate them from their family, people won't believe them, or when they get back they'll get smacked around even harder for telling."

An official with the human services agency in Oklahoma City, Winston Barton, said townspeople were trying to make a scapegoat of the agency. He said the agency's records showed there had been no formal report of abuse at the Dutton home since 1990, when a report was investigated and dismissed because the children gave no indication that they were being abused.

The temperament of Herman, 15, and Druie, 12, whom nobody calls by his given name of James, was totally different from their father's. "These were good kids," said Karen Goodwin, the editor and publisher of the weekly newspaper, The Rush Springs Gazette. "If these were thugs or troublemakers, the whole town wouldn't be supporting them like this."

They lived a confined existence, with their father and their sister and a younger brother Jake, 8, in a trailer without electricity, running water or a telephone. The father, an unemployed roofer, would not let them go anywhere but school. Their schoolmates could never come to the trailer, which is still surrounded by a pungent and cacophonous collection of chickens, turkeys, quail, pigeons and a goat.

As the police officers drove the two boys to Lawton, where they are confined in a juvenile detention center, they stopped at a McDonald's for a meal. The boys asked them how to order. They had never eaten at a McDonald's. Mother Departed Scene

Their mother, who lives in Texas, has not lived with the children since she and Mr. Dutton divorced several years ago. Several people here said that Mr. Dutton got custody of the children after telling the authorities that his wife had abused them.
For years, residents have noticed that Herman and Druie were extraordinarily protective of their sister and their younger brother, both of whom have been sent to live with a relative.

"Every day when those kids got on the school bus, they all got in the same seat," said Mary Smith, who lives down the gravel road from the Duttons. "First Sissy, right up against the window, then Jake, then the two other boys would squeeze right in and all four would sit together just like that."

Mr. Dutton, who received public assistance and food stamps, rarely went into town. When he did, he was often in a foul mood, the neighbors said, and he sometimes got into arguments in which he threatened to hurt people or even to kill them. In a dispute with a neighbor, he repeatedly drove his pickup truck through the neighbor's picket fence, destroying it. The neighbor, fearful of him becoming even more violent, declined to press charges with the police, residents said.

"He was basically always a bully," said Becky Fitzgerald, a first-grade teacher here, who had known Mr. Dutton since he was 4 years old. Making a Baby Cry

Mrs. Smith, whose 21-month old granddaughter was Mr. Dutton's great niece, told of the aggressive way he played with the baby. Saying he was playing a game called plinky, Mr. Dutton would flick his index figure against the baby's skull until it cried, Mrs. Smith said. She said that when she rescued the child, Mr. Dutton would laugh and protest he was not seriously hurting her.

Yet Mr. Dutton was never convicted of hurting anybody, and since he was shot while he was asleep, the notion of self-defense on his boys' part is arguable.

But about the only comment in a score of interviews here that could possibly be interpreted as a show of support for Mr. Dutton was an observation by Melvin Brumley, the owner of Melvin's Barber Shop. "I don't think most people here really know for sure what went on," he said. "We don't have all that facts and figures yet."

The principal at the boys' school, Bill Chambers, said they were "scared silent" by their father. He said he intends to press for changes in the law to make it easier for the authorities to act on allegations of child abuse. A Yearning for Normal

For now, some people here are hoping things will return to normal. Indeed, in some ways they already are. The Main Street remains a partly beautiful, partly haunting tableau out of the "Last Picture Show," complete with a large sign in the middle of town: "Help the economy of Rush Springs -- Buy Something -- Anything! Local merchants will love ya!!"

Next month is the annual Watermelon Festival. Rush Springs likes to call itself the watermelon capital of the world, a mantle for which it competes with President Clinton's hometown of Hope, Ark. And townspeople note proudly that Winston Churchill once ate a slice of watermelon from Rush Springs.

"That's what we need to focus our attention on now, is watermelons," said Justin Jones, a watermelon farmer. "It's time to move on."

But most people here say they will not move on until Herman and Druie come home and are reunited with their younger sister and brother. "They all really do love each other," said Haylee Golden, a 14-year-old who was a classmate of Herman's. "That's one thing I know for sure."