On Monday morning, Wanda Larson, a child protection supervisor in a Charlotte suburb, made her first court appearance on charges of abusing five children--including a foster child who was found on Friday morning chained to a porch with a dead chicken around his neck. She is also accused of willful dereliction of her duties as a public official. Hours after she and her longtime boyfriend, Dorian Harper, left the courtroom, Union County formally asked North Carolina officials to look into the case.
Richard Matens, director of the county’s Department of Human Services, said Monday that officials will request a probe by the N.C. Division of Social Services into all aspects of the case, as well as how the county handles adoptions, foster care and child-abuse investigations.
A key target of the probe is the 11-year-old boy’s foster mother, Wanda Sue Larson, one of the county’s top employees combating child abuse. For the past four years, Larson has headed investigations by the county’s Child Protective Services division.
In Union County, the departments of social services, public health, veterans' services, nutrition for seniors and transportation for the needy are all under the purview of
the Department of Human Services. Good for Matens on being proactive with this. This comes on the heels of an already-announced investigation by Union County sheriff Eddie Cathey.
The investigators may want to have a chat with the chained-up boy's biological family. One of his relatives, Cindy Robbins, told WCNC-TV in Charlotte that her family has complained numerous times about abuse by Larson and Harper--but her complaints fell on deaf ears. Although the children came into Larson's care before she became a supervisor, Robbins thinks her post with DSS allowed those complaints to be swept under the rug. His biological mother, Maria Harris, told the Charlotte Observer that she hasn't heard from her son in a year, and that she doesn't buy Larson's claims that her son is severely disturbed. He reportedly destroyed property and was abusive to animals. Even if that is true, there is no defensible reason to leave a child chained up outside in the cold. Period.
Jeremy Bess, a children's advocate who has tussled with Union County DSS in the past, isn't surprised by claims that complaints about Larson were swept under the rug. He told WCNC that the department essentially acts as a "mafia," and that every single case Larson has handled over the years needs to be thoroughly reviewed. As ghastly as this case is by itself, if Larson was able to use her position to deflect suspicions about her, then an awful lot of heads need to roll.