AMY DYE - 9 yo (2011) - Trenton (NE of Fort Campbell) KY

Attorney: Kentucky teen to plead guilty in death of girl

Updated: Oct 20, 2011 9:03 AM CDT
ELKTON, KY (AP) - The attorney for an 18-year-old charged with killing his adopted sister says his client will plead guilty, but is unsure how long he will spend in prison.

Dennis Ritchie told the Kentucky New Era that Garrett Thomas Dye will enter the plea Friday in Todd County Circuit Court in the February slaying of 9-year-old Amy Dye. The girl was found dead Feb. 4 in a field in Todd County hours after being reported missing.

The plea will allow Dye to appeal a decision by Circuit Judge Tyler Gill to allow statements he made to police into evidence in the case.

Ritchie's comments came Wednesday after a hearing in which Gill ruled the statements admissible. Dye had been scheduled for trial Nov. 7.

http://www.wave3.com/story/15739467/attorney-kentucky-teen-to-plead-guilty-in-death-of-girl

Updated: 12:59 PM Oct 22, 2011
Teen Pleads Guilty to Killing Younger Sister
18-year Garrett Dye pleaded guilty in court to killing his 9-year old adopted sister Amy Dye.

18-year Garrett Dye pleaded guilty in court to killing his 9-year old adopted sister Amy Dye.

He will most likely be sentenced to 50 years in prison, and be up for parole in 20 years.

It happened in February, Dye says he was doing work in the yard, a punishment given to him and his sister by their father, when they took a break.

He hit her in the head with a hydraulic jack handle continuously until she was dead.

He confessed to intentionally killing her.

Dye is also charged with tampering of evidence, after he hid her body in a field then hid the weapon used to kill her.

He is also charged with resisting arrest.

His attorney Dennis Ritchie says, he will make an appeal after his final sentencing November 23rd.

The judge says a reverse is unlikely.

http://www.wbko.com/home/headlines/Teen_Pleads_Guilty_to_Killing_Younger_Sister_132360803.html

Poster's note: I know we have other older entries for this story but due to the 3 letter length of the victim's name the search engine isn't picking it up. If someone could please merge this with the existing I would appreciate it.




ELKTON — When Kimberly Dye was trying to adopt her
great-niece in 2006, she said her two sons were excited about a little
sister joining the family, according to state documents.

Garrett
Dye, then 12, was asked to write what he would tell friends about his
new sister, Amy, who was 5, and what he hoped she would be like.
"I will tell them that she is the best sister ever," he wrote. "I would like her to be funny and happy wherever she goes."
Not
quite five years later, on an bitter evening last February, Garrett
beat Amy to death in the gravel driveway of their Todd County home with a
metal jack handle, then dragged her slender body about 100 yards behind
the house and hid it in a thicket.
Between the adoption and the
murder, the picture that emerges from records and interviews is of a
teen-ager who began having worrisome behavior problems — including
taking a gun to school — and a bright little girl dogged by abuse.
The record also points up what some people see as a failure of the state system designed to protect kids from abuse and neglect.
Years
before her death, a school nurse and others had reported concerns
several times that Amy was suffering rough treatment at her adoptive
home.
Caseworkers ignored or failed to properly investigate those concerns, however, a judge concluded.
The
case has added to calls by lawmakers and child advocates for reforms
and more openness in the state's child-protection system.
"I do
think there was a systematic failure that led to her death," said state
Rep. John Tilley, a Hopkinsville Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary
Committee.
A new life in Kentucky
Amy's move to a new home
amid the fertile farmland of southern Todd County was supposed to be a
better chapter in a troubled life.
She had been physically and
sexually abused as a toddler in Washington state, where she was born. By
the time she was 3, her father was out of the picture and the state had
taken her from her mother because of domestic violence in her home and
other problems, according to records in her adoption file.
Franklin
Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd opened records related to Amy earlier
this month in response to a lawsuit by the Todd County Standard
newspaper.
Amy was in at least two foster homes in Washington and
also spent a year with her father's parents, but one foster home
reported she was "a hand full" and didn't listen well.
Three other relatives, including Kimberly Dye, volunteered to take Amy in 2006, according to the file.
Dye,
a divorced mother of two who worked as an office manager, told a
Kentucky worker evaluating the potential adoption that she had always
wanted a daughter.
Dye completed 30 hours of required foster-care
training and said she would change her work schedule to be home when Amy
got home from school.
She mailed Amy a book with photos of her
home and pets, and sent her an Easter present. She said her sons Myles,
then 15, and Garrett had decided to share a bedroom so Amy could have
her own room.
Dye, a regular churchgoer and Vacation Bible School
teacher, described herself as friendly, patient and focused on whatever
job was at hand.
"She will be the best choice in the care of this
child, and this will prove to be the happiest of times for this young
child and Ms. Dye," a reference, Cindy McElroy, wrote in March 2006.
State
caseworkers had substantiated an allegation of abuse against the boys'
father, Chris Dye, in 2003 after he hit Garrett about 30 times with a
belt, but Kimberly and Chris Dye divorced in 2004.
Officials in Kentucky and Washington approved Kimberly Dye to adopt Amy and she came to Kentucky in August 2006.
Caseworkers
who followed up in December reported Amy had proudly showed them her
"adorable" bedroom. She was enjoying her toys, had a new kitten and
seemed extremely close to Dye and her sons.
"Overall, Amy has made
an excellent adjustment to her new family, and this appears to have
been an excellent placement for Amy," the caseworkers wrote.
Signs of abuse emerge
Within months, however, school officials began reporting concerns that Amy was being abused.
Starting
in March 2007, a nurse or others at South Todd Elementary made numerous
reports to state child-protective workers of suspected abuse or
problems, according to state records and Shepherd's ruling.
The school officials reported seeing injuries on Amy.
In September, for instance, Amy said her brothers had hurt her and there was a knot on her forehead and bruising around her eye.
In
other instances, Amy said one of her brothers had kicked her, shot her
in the arm with a BB gun, squeezed her face so hard the skin peeled and
hit her with a shovel, according to the records.
Caseworkers talked to Kimberly Dye about the reports, though apparently not in every case.
Dye,
who received a $551 monthly subsidy for adopting Amy, said the girl was
clumsy and bruised easily, and that there had been a problem with Amy
falling and blaming her brothers.
Dye also told caseworkers that
Amy often lied, and that she and her ex-husband Chris, who had moved
back in with her and the children by early 2007, had discussed sending
her to a relative who could get her therapy.
In some cases, state
caseworkers referred the allegations to an outside agency, but decided
not to offer other services or take further action to monitor the family
because Amy was allegedly hurt by a sibling, not a parent.
Shepherd
said in his ruling that the Cabinet for Health and Family Services
erred by claiming it had no duty to investigate the series of reports of
sibling-on-sibling abuse.
Shepherd said the cabinet discounted or ignored the repeated reports of abuse.
Caseworkers
also had other information that should have raised red flags, Shepherd
said, including that Garrett had taken a gun to school, that he had been
sent to a juvenile facility in 2008 in a drug case, that he had
admitted substance-abuse problems, and that Chris Dye, who had abused
Garrett earlier, had moved back in with his family after Amy came to
live in the home.
"No action was ever taken by the Cabinet to
protect her" despite that information and credible reports of abuse,
Shepherd said in his ruling.
Treated 'like a dog'
Other problems in the months before Amy was killed came to light during the investigation of her murder.
Kimberly
Dye's sister, Tammie Lopez, told a caseworker that Kimberly Dye,
apparently frustrated because Amy had been defecating on herself, had
made the girl put her toys and clothes in a shed sometime in the winter
of 2010.
Dye told Amy that "if she was going to act like a dog, she would be treated like one" Lopez said.
Lopez
also said Amy was told to stay outside one night with only a jacket for
warmth, and that Kimberly Dye scolded Garrett for letting the girl back
into the house.
Kimberly and Chris Dye also allegedly left Amy in
the parking lot of a Clarksville, Tenn., motel for a short time with
her suitcase.
The couple took the child back home after no one picked her up, but told her no one wanted her, Lopez said.
Kimberly
Dye said she knew nothing about the incident, but Chris Dye, an
emergency medical technician, admitted he left Amy at the motel briefly
to teach her a lesson because she'd been lying.
The week before
the murder, Kimberly Dye called for advice about putting Amy back with
an adoption agency "because she is bad and won't listen," Lopez said.
Attempts to reach Kimberly and Chris Dye were not successful.
Excelling in school
Krista
Stratton, Amy's teacher in the 3rd and 4th grades, said she didn't see
the incontinence or other problems that Amy's adoptive mother reported.
Amy
was a bubbly girl who got off the bus with a smile, Stratton said, a
gifted student who loved reading, poetry and art, and enjoyed science.
"She
was just radiant," Stratton said "She excelled in school. She loved
being there. It was almost like it was her bright spot."
Stratton said Amy was very talkative, but that she never saw any serious behavioral problems from her.
The day before she was killed, though, she took another girl's pudding and juice.
Stratton
didn't see taking the items as a major offense, but school officials
decided Amy would have in-school isolation the next day, Friday, Feb. 4,
and sent a note home to her parents.
Amy told people at school that her parents were sending her away because of what had happened at lunch.
"They reported that Amy appeared very upset on Friday," a state caseworker wrote.
Punishment at home
When Amy got home, Chris Dye sent her to shovel gravel into tire tracks in the driveway as punishment.
Garrett
Dye was with her, shoveling in the cold as punishment for taking his
car somewhere he wasn't supposed to, according to the state file.
State
police detective Lonnie Kavanaugh said that after awhile, Garrett told
Amy to go in the house because he felt they'd done enough.
But Chris Dye sent her back out with a directive to keep at it Kavanaugh said.
The
detective thinks Garrett, who was stuck at home on a Friday night, got
angry when he realized the chore wouldn't be over as soon as he'd hoped.
"That's when the anger starts to well up in him," Kavanaugh said.
"She's talking, he's mad . . . . He flies off the handle."
Garrett said he hit Amy because she wouldn't be quiet, Kavanaugh said.
Garrett
got the jack handle and beat his adoptive sister repeatedly. The
autopsy report listed injuries to her head, chest, neck, shoulder and
abdomen.
Amy, a bi-racial child with blue eyes who was 4 feet, 9
inches tall and weighed 76 pounds, died of trauma to the head and
asphyxiation.
Garrett hid her body, changed his clothes and told his parents he didn't know where she was.
Chris and Kimberly Dye looked for Amy, then called friends to help and reported her missing.
Firefighters, rescue-squad workers, police and others helped look for Amy, finding her body after midnight.
Stratton
had hugged Amy and told her she loved her at the end of school a few
hours before. In the early hours of Feb. 5, people came to get her so
she could talk to the police about her murdered student.
"Horrendous.
I just remember freezing. I don't even remember saying anything,"
Stratton said. "It was like losing one of my own children."
A quick investigation
The investigation focused quickly on Garrett, the last person to see Amy.
Police arrested him on Super Bowl Sunday, less than 48 hours after the murder.
Dye, now 18, pleaded guilty to killing his sister. Todd Circuit Judge Tyler Gill sentenced him to 50 years in prison Wednesday.
Gill
said Amy's murder was senseless, and criticized the Cabinet for Health
and Family Services for not doing more to protect the girl.
"This
crime has drawn a lot of attention, has left this community dazed,
confused and angry and searching for answers as to why this could have
happened and why this happened," Gill said.
Gill called the
state's child-welfare system dysfunctional, echoing the belief by some
lawmakers and child advocates that Amy's case is not an isolated
example.
Critics say the state could have done more to protect Amy, such as removing her from the home or monitoring the family.
Jill
Midkiff, Cabinet spokeswoman, said it appears the caseworker who
handled reports of abuse to Amy in 2007 did not violate any Cabinet
standards.
Midkiff noted that was during a prior administration, so the assessment was based only on the written record.
"As
with any report, the worker must evaluate the veracity of the parties
and judge the seriousness of the events at that time," Midkiff said.
"Since there were no more reports from or about Amy in the 3 1/2 years
preceding her murder by her brother, it seems the worker's actions were
not implicated."
The cabinet has since revised policies and put in
a new intake system for reports of abuse, "which ensures that there are
checks and balances to assist workers in their duties," Midkiff said.
But
State Rep. Tom Burch, D-Louisville, and Sen. Julie Denton,
R-Louisville, have said they want to hold hearings on whether the
Cabinet is being open on how it reports about children under its
supervision.
Tilley said many state case workers do a heroic job
and can feel overwhelmed by their caseload. If lawmakers conclude high
caseloads caused the failures in Amy's case, they need to fix that, he
said.
Ideas for changes vary, such as giving county attorneys a
role in monitoring child-abuse reports, but there is a sense that
lawmakers need to act, Tilley said.
"Something has to change," Tilley said. "We can't have another Amy Dye."

Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/11/25/1972957/kentuckys-child-protection-system.html#ixzz1el5ifGX0

(Editor’s Note: Newspapers have battled with state government for the past two years on behalf of the citizens of Kentucky. The fight is over the right of the people to examine whether the state has been negligent in protecting children under its care who died as the result of child abuse or neglect. The issue is government transparency and public. accountability.



The face of this fight has become Amy Dye, a nine-year-old in Elkton, in Todd County, few of us knew. A year ago, Amy was viciously murdered by her brother, who is now in prison. After Amy’s death, her hometown newspaper, the Todd County Standard and editor Ryan Craig sought the state’s investigative records so people who knew Amy and her family could learn whether the state had sufficiently protected her.



The Louisville Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader already were before Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd asking him to order the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to open its records in the case of the deaths or near-deaths of children under its protective care. The judge ordered the state to open its records. The state has appealed his decision on what information the cabinet can redact before records are released to the public.



No one should forget Judge Shepherd’s haunting words in his ruling opening the records of the cabinet’s investigation of Amy’s death. “This case presents a tragic example of the potentially deadly consequences of a child welfare system that has completely insulated itself from meaningful public scrutiny.”



In fact, the cabinet’s secrecy has obscured the fact that too many Kentucky children die every year (more than 270 between 2000-2009; the state had investigated reports of abuse or neglect in at least half of the cases before the child died. In one of those years, Kentucky led the nation in child abuse/neglect deaths with 41.)



The secrecy means citizens have no idea whether Kentucky has too few social workers, too little training for them, wrong procedures for identifying at-risk children, lack of support services for troubled homes, or contributing social and domestic issues that must be addressed.



The story of Amy’s death outraged a lot of Kentuckians, and already the state is making changes. The head of the cabinet and the commissioner over child protective services have resigned. The legislature has held hearings, and we have learned social workers have far too many cases to oversee. Gov. Steve Beshear has, despite the dire budget forecast, stopped cutting the cabinet’s budget and included $21 million more for social workers in his proposal for the coming fiscal biennium.



Journalists serve as watchdogs on behalf of citizens. That is what happened here. We would know none of this, and the Beshear administration would not be one step closer to addressing this horrific problem, were it not for journalists.



The heroes in this fight for government transparency and public accountability of the cabinet are Deborah Yetter, a reporter for the Courier-Journal who has persistently reported on the dire facts about at-risk children in this state; the newspapers who funded the efforts of their media lawyers to knock down the veil of secrecy, and Ryan Craig, a weekly newspaper editor in Todd County. It has been a fight waged in the name of Amy Dye and Kayden Branham, a toddler from Wayne County, and dozens of other children who died while under the protection of the state. It is a fight waged for the benefit of children who might yet be rescued if the state can protect them.



The following column, a letter to Amy Dye, was written on the anniversary of her death by Ryan Craig, the man who fought to find the truth, a newspaper editor, a husband and father of three children. It appeared originally in the Todd County Standard. — By Mike Farrell)



A Letter for Amy Dye: The world is a better place because of you



By Ryan Craig
Editor, Todd County Standard



Dear Amy:



We never met. Oh, I’m sure we were in the same building at your school at the same time or passed each other in the hall.



Still, though I didn’t know you then, I feel like I know you now.



I’m writing this letter on a warm, wet day, unlike the cold day you knew last Feb. 4.



It has been one year since …



Well, let me tell you a story. I was once at one of those church programs in Clarksville on Halloween where you walk through the building and they show you a bad thing that happened — this time it was a wreck — and then take you to room that looks like where the devil lives. It was a terrible, hot and dark place that seemed to take your breath away.



Then they take you across the hall and there is this beautiful garden and a small bridge across a little fake stream. It was cool. And I don’t know how they did it (it might have been because I just came from the other room), but I have never felt more comfortable in my life.



Then a man dressed like Jesus, and I knew it wasn’t Jesus, and I knew that everything in the room was there just to prove a point about the afterlife, but when it came my turn to hug the man dressed like Jesus, I hugged him so hard. It was like I had come home.



I wish I could ask you questions, Amy. I wish we could talk. I’d have so much to ask you about, but the first thing I would ask is, “How is the hug when you get there?”



I would also ask what it was like to go into the darkness. Were you scared? And how quick did the light come? How soon did you know that everything would be OK?



Amy, after you left us, there was a great disturbance back here. There was justice. There were questions asked in your name and the answers caused a shift all the way up to the governor of Kentucky.



A lot has been said and a lot has been done in your name. And maybe, with your help and the help of the one who gave you that welcoming hug, no harm will come to little girls and boys anymore. Oh, I know that is a lot to ask, but changing the hearts and minds of people had to start somewhere and it started with you, Amy.



It started with you.



You wouldn’t know this, but you have changed me. I took up something because of you that has caused some very important people to squirm mightily.



It has also caused a great number of people to look at what we can do about better protecting those who can’t protect themselves.



There was a great battle between the little newspaper in your hometown and the State of Kentucky, and eventually truth prevailed and we were able to put pressure on those who would not seek to help other boys and girls like you.



I’ve said this before, but a little girl (that’s you) from a little place went on to cause great things to happen, things that have never happened before.



Still, in the past year, I have often thought about you, Amy. I have thought about you when I see a great sunset. I thought about you when the spring came and the flowers bloomed and the birds really started to sing. I thought about you, Amy, when I saw children playing in the park. I thought about you when the leaves fell and the chill of fall came. I thought of you when I watched children try to build a snowman even though there wasn’t enough snow to make a decent one.



I thought of you then and many times more, but as much sadness that I have for you not being able to see or do such wonderful things again, I’m also happy that even without you here, the world is better because of you.



I’m also confident that all the confusion, all the fear, all the pain stopped and all things became new when you came to the garden and got your hug.



So, take care and thank you for treading softly across my old hard heart.



Your friend,



Ryan

http://www.kyforward.com/?p=8915