August 1, 2011
Despite numerous reports to child protection authorities for a period of many years, a tragically scarred girl, Lilly Manning, finally escaped a life of torture and imprisonment on her own at age fifteen in October of 2007.
According to reports, the girl was removed from her mother’s home and placed in the care of her great-aunt, Lillian Manning-Horvath, in the early 1990’s. Living in her aunt’s home, along with siblings, and her aunt’s new husband, the girl was subjected to deeply horrific acts of abuse and torture. When she was examined by authorities upon her escape, scars were found covering the majority of her 5’3″ body, reflecting hammer attacks, beatings, burns, strikes to the head with a 2-by-4 and a padlock swinging from a cord, among numerous other horrific acts of cruelty inflicted on the child by her adoptive mother and the adoptive mother’s husband. Lilly was generally locked in a 20 by 26 inch closet.
A 53-year-old woman, Brenda White, who had visited the family in August 2007 while dating Manning-Horvath’s brother, came forward to testify at the trial against Lillian. White testified that one Saturday morning, while she was on the patio of the Manning-Horvath house, she heard banging noises in the mobile home behind the house and saw it shaking. When she ducked inside to ask Manning-Horvath about it, the woman replied: “Joe is out there whipping that bitch’s ass.” White said she later saw Lillian’s husband emerge from behind the mobile home holding a two-by-four. White said the adoptive mother later took her inside the mobile home, where she saw a scared, frail girl, bloody, with patches of hair pulled out.
Another witness, Twyla Wilkins, 36, Lilly’s second cousin, said one adult family member observed Lillian strike Lilly so hard that a tooth flew out.
Neighbors had also reported the family for leaving horrible cockroach infestations when they moved.
In light of the removal, Lilly must have been exposed to abuse and/or neglect at the hands of her own mother previously, though her memory of those years is limited.
Significantly, issues at the Manning-Horvath home were reported to Sacramento authorities numerous times, yet all the reports led either to a complete lack of investigation or investigations which resulted in “inconclusive” findings. Child Protective Services (“CPS”) visited the home numerous times, each time finding no evidence of abuse.
This horrible story reflects the need to increase funding in this field, to prevent the problems of inappropriately high case loads for CPS workers and apparent inadequate training leading to desensitization.
Additionally, something was wrong when the dependency system placed this girl in the care of Manning-Horvath, who had a documented history of mental illness. According to Manning-Horvath’s own attorney, it was appalling that his client was allowed to adopt the children in the first place, in light of the fact that she had a “30-year history of mental illness” including hallucinations, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder.
To read a more complete description of these events, see article in the Sacramento Bee: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/07/31/3806037/california-texas-agencies-all.html#ixzz1TngrQeLI