LANDON PAYNE - 4 yo (2009) - Minden (South-Central) NE

Three Minden residents have been charged in the December death of a 4-year-old boy.
Katie Payne, 19, Sharon Turnell, 36, and Charles Turnell, 37,
all of Minden, were arrested Thursday and charged with felony
aiding and abetting child abuse resulting in death in the Dec. 22,
2009, death of Landon Payne, said Kearney County Attorney Dave Wondra.
The charge is a Class IB felony punishable by 20 years to life
in prison, and being an accessory to a felony, a Class III felony
punishable by one to 20 years in prison, a $25,000 fine or both, Wondra said.
Landon Payne was the nephew of Sharon Turnell and Katie Payne is
Sharon Turnell's adult daughter who lived in the same house, said
Deputy Kearney County Attorney Bryan McQuay.
Wondra said when the boy died, there were seven other children
living in "a sort of a group household."
All the children were taken into emergency custody by law
enforcement and the state Department of Health and Human Services,
and placed in foster care. Payne and Sharon and Charles Turnell
were arrested at a juvenile hearing for the children Thursday,
Wondra said. The investigation is ongoing.

The suspects accused of child abuse that caused the
death of a 4-year-old Kearney County boy say his injuries were
caused by a fall from a bunk bed.
Sharon and Charles Turnell and Katie Payne were arraigned in Kearney County Court Monday.
All three have been charged with aiding and abetting child abuse
that caused the death of Landon Payne, Sharon Turnell’s 4-year-old
nephew. The charge is a Class IB felony.
They also are charged with being an accessory to a felony, a Class III felony.
Landon Payne died Dec. 22 at Good Samaritan Hospital in Kearney,
according to court records. He had been living at the Turnell’s
rural Kearney County home since August along with an older sister
because his father was in jail in South Dakota.
According to the court records, Sharon Turnell’s husband,
Charles, her daughter, Katie Payne, and Payne’s husband, Dustin
Scoville, also were living at the house along with eight children.
According to interviews officers conducted with Sharon Turnell,
Payne and Scoville, Scoville was left alone with Landon and two
other children for at least two hours on the morning of Dec. 21.
When the women returned to the home, they said, they fed the
children lunch then watched television.
Later that afternoon Sharon Turnell went into the boys’ bedroom
and found Landon unresponsive. He was taken to the hospital in
Minden and on the way, he stopped breathing.
Dustin Scoville, Katie Payne and Sharon Turnell said a fall from
a bunk bed caused the injuries that resulted in Landon’s death,
according to the records.
Landon was transferred by AirCare to Good Sam, where medical
staff alerted the Nebraska State Patrol that his injuries were suspicious.
The other children in the home were removed and placed in the
custody of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services.
The records say Dr. Susan Greenwald from Good Sam observed
Landon at the hospital and saw significant injuries, including
scabs on his left ear, a bald spot on his head, a fresh red-purple
bruise on the head, an older brown bruise on his forehead, many
large bruises in various shades on his back, what appeared to be a
rectangular pattern injury on his right flank, bruises on all
surfaces of his legs and a large healing scabbed injury to his abdomen.

I just heard about little Landon today. I can't believe I never heard about it when it happened. My heart and prayers go out to the little guy who is now in heaven. NO-ONE should have to go through the "hell" that this little guy experienced! WHY CAN'T I FIND AN OBITUARY FOR THIS LITTLE GUY? DID NO ONE HAVE A FUNERAL FOR THIS INNOCENT BABY?

Hi Shealyn! I was able to bring up the first part of his obit. It's truncated as it is now in the archive which you must register and pay for.

Payne, Landon - Rural
Minden resident, 4 KEARNEY - Landon J. Payne, 4, of rural Minden died
Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2009, at Good Samaritan Hospital in Kearney. Services
...


Published in the Kearney Hub on 12/29/2009

I am so disgusted with abuse like this. It shouldn't have taken the death-under suspicious circumstances and so many shown injuries-to have those children removed from the home.

I live in Kearney, NE, 20 miles from Pleasanton, and 30 from Minden. The newspapers and people here are outraged! The amount of times CPS, HHS, and the police were called to these peoples' homes (over several addresses and cities) shouldn't have been as plentiful and should have been taken care of loooong ago.

Welcome Azraili. It's heartbreaking. I'm glad local people are outraged as it puts pressure on authorities and any mistakes that were made in this case will hopefully never be repeated.

Police in Kearney and deputies in Buffalo County have
been responding to calls involving Charles Turnell and Sharon Payne
Turnell for 15 years.

According to Buffalo County Sheriff and Kearney Police Department
records, since at least 1995, officers have responded to an array
of calls involving the Turnells and their children. The family has
lived in Elm Creek, Pleasanton and several locations in Kearney.

In February 1995, officials from Good Samaritan Hospital reported
to the sheriff's office that Sharon Payne brought a 3-month-old
child to the emergency room with slight swelling on the left side
of her head. An incident report said the child slid out of a child
seat onto the floor and "nothing seemed to be detected at that time."

The child, now 15, was held overnight for observation.

The case remains open, although the investigation was inconclusive,
said Sheriff's Capt. Bob Anderson.



The suspects ---- Charles Turnell - Sharon Turnell - Katie Payne

The Turnells and Sharon's daughter, Katie Payne, are each charged
in Kearney County Court with one count of aiding and abetting child
abuse that led to the death of Landon Payne, 4, on Dec. 22 at their
rural Kearney County home. They are also each charged with being an
accessory to a felony.

Landon Payne, Sharon Turnell's nephew, and Landon's older sister
had lived with the Turnells since August 2009.

According to a sheriff's office incident report, deputies went to
the Turnells' home in Pleasanton 59 times for issues such as child
abuse or neglect involving improper child supervision, poor living
conditions or a dirty house; credit card fraud; arrest warrants;
disturbances; follow-ups; suspicious activity; a liquor violation;
and assault.

The Turnells lived in Pleasanton from September 2006 to October
2009, when they moved to rural Kearney County.

When officers receive a report of child abuse, they
can interview the child outside the presence of their parent or
alleged abuser and try to corroborate the allegations, Buffalo
County Sheriff’s Capt. Bob Anderson said.

If police take a child into temporary custody, the state Department
of Health and Human Services and the Buffalo County Attorney’s
Office are involved in the process.“It can be very difficult at times; it can be subjective,” Anderson
said.

In the 59 reported Pleasanton cases involving Charles Turnell and
Sharon Payne Turnell, “The conditions were less than ideal, and
there was merit to the concerns. However, it doesn’t appear they
rose to the level that an emergency removal was necessary,”
Anderson said.

State law says, in part, police can take children into protective
custody without a warrant or court order when juveniles are
seriously endangered in their surroundings and immediate removal
appears to be necessary for the child’s protection.

A failure of the system.That's what former neighbors say contributed to the death
of 4-year-old Landon Payne of rural Kearney County.Landon's
aunt, Sharon Payne Turnell, 37; her husband, Charles Turnell, 38; and
her daughter, Katie Payne, 19, each have been charged with aiding and
abetting child abuse that led to Landon's death Dec. 22.The
family lived in Pleasanton, Neb., from September 2006 to October 2009.
During that time, neighbors say they called law enforcement and the
Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services numerous times to
report suspected abuse and neglect.“No one ever really watched
after them,” former neighbor Bernadine Dauel said of the children in the
home. “They just took care of themselves. You never saw affection like
you see with parents and children. They were just all there. They didn't
have a ball or anything. The kids' biggest pastime in the summertime
was just the hose and running water. That was their one thing to do for
fun.”She and her husband, Ed Dauel, lived across the street from the Turnells in Pleasanton.“I
would have just loved to go over there and grab those little kids and
steal them,” Ed Dauel said. “You could have done some good by them.
There should be no human being this day and age — a female animal treats
her young better than what they did.”According to Buffalo County
Sheriff's Office incident reports, deputies went to the Turnells' home
in Pleasanton 59 times in three years because of reports of child abuse
and neglect involving improper child supervision, poor living conditions
or a dirty house. Deputies also responded to calls about credit card
fraud, arrest warrants, disturbances, suspicious activity, a liquor
violation and assault.In some instances, Sheriff Capt. Bob Anderson said,
deputies couldn't substantiate the allegations.“I
think the welfare system and HHS has let the people down, our system in
general, and not only that, our law,” Ed Dauel said. “I'd say we called
the law, in the three years they lived here, at least six or eight
times and Social Services twice or three times.”The Turnell
family moved from Pleasanton to a farmhouse about seven miles southeast
of Minden in October 2009, three months before Landon's death. Living in
the house were Sharon and Charles Turnell, Katie Payne and her
then-husband, Dustin Scoville, 23, and eight children, including Landon
and his older sister.Earl Anderson, another former neighbor, said
he never called HHS, but he did call the Sheriff's Office once when
Charles Turnell and Dustin Scoville were fighting in the street.“(Sheriff's
deputies) would come, and sometimes they would go in the house and be
in there a while before they would leave. ... It wasn't one or two
times. It was lots of times. They couldn't go in that house without
knowing what kind of a pigsty and what kind of dysfunctional mess it
was,” Anderson said.Anderson said he never saw bruises or signs
of physical abuse but did notice the children didn't have proper
clothing in the winter, and he said he saw and heard many fights.“They
had some terrible verbal fights. You could hear them when they were in
their house fighting and going on. The ‘F' word was very fluent with
them. I think if you would have took that away from them, they would
have been deaf and dumb. You could hear just hollering.”Landon
and his sister began living with the Turnells in August 2009 when their
father, Clinton Payne, went to prison in South Dakota for forgery. He
was paroled in June and is now serving a sentence at the Nebraska
Diagnostic and Evaluation Center for unauthorized use of a financial
transaction device.Landon's mother, Samantha Head of Cuba, Mo.,
said Clinton Payne had partial custody of their children and took them
from their grandmother's home in Ponca City, Okla., in 2007 to live with
him in South Dakota. According to court records, when he went to
prison, Clinton's sister, Sharon Turnell, went to South Dakota and
brought Landon and his sister to live with her family in Pleasanton.“We
all thought they were still with their father. If I would have known, I
would have been up there, and I would have gotten them,” Head said. “I
would have not let it get this far. We were trying to find them and
couldn't find them at all.”Head said she is angry that HHS
never notified her of her children's whereabouts.“They
didn't bother calling us or anything. We were trying to get a hold of
everybody before all this happened, and nobody would tell us anything.
... If they would have notified me and my family, my son still would
have been alive,” she said.The Turnells and Katie Payne were
arrested July 15 in Minden. In addition to the charge of aiding and
abetting child abuse that led to death, each is charged with being an
accessory to a felony.Preliminary hearings have been scheduled for
Thursday for the Turnells and Katie Payne.

A memorial fund has been started to purchase a headstone for Landon Payne's grave.

Payne, 4, died Dec. 22 in rural Kearney County. His caretakers
have since been charged with child abuse that led to his death.

The fund was started Monday at Platte Valley State Bank by
Jacquie Harsin of Alma. Harsin said O'Brien-Straatmann Funeral Home
has agreed to donate the stone at cost, which she estimated to be about $800.

Any additional money given to the fund will be donated to the
Child Abuse Resource Education program at Community Action
Partnership of Mid-Nebraska.

"Purchasing the headstone for Landon, although fantastic, does
not end child abuse," said Nicole Billings of Kearney, one of the
organizers behind the headstone fund.

Billings said she is pleased to know the remaining money will be
donated to the C.A.R.E. program and supply resources and awareness for children and families.

Donations can be made at Platte Valley State Bank and Faith
United Methodist Church in Kearney or at Town and Country Bank in Pleasanton.

It's nice that this woman is raising funds for a headstone, but I get upset when I see hundreds of people having vigils and raising money for memorials and rocking up to funerals etc when it's too late. Nobody goes too much out of their way when the kids need it most.

A Kearney County Court judge determined that there is enough
evidence to try a husband and wife on charges of aiding and abetting
child abuse that led to death.Charles and Sharon Turnell are
accused of ongoing child abuse that led to the Dec. 22, 2009, death of
Sharon's nephew, Landon Payne, 4.Judge Robert Ide on Thursday
dropped a second charge against each of the Turnells of being an
accessory to a felony but upheld the aiding and abetting charges.“We
have a child who has accumulated an extraordinary number of injuries,
including a prior head injury. We have physicians that tell us these
could not have occurred from the accident that was suggested. And,
looking at the photographs alone, I don't know how this child could have
gotten this severely injured if he was in a cement mixer,” Ide said,
referring to photos of Landon's body taken after his death.Sharon's
daughter, Katie Payne, 19, also is charged with aiding and abetting
child abuse that led to death and being an accessory to a felony.The
attorneys for the Turnells argued that the aiding and abetting child
abuse charges should be thrown out because no one is charged as the
principal actor in the case.Charles Turnell's attorney also
argued for dismissal on the grounds that his client was at work in Elm
Creek Dec. 21, 2009, the day Landon was found unconscious in a bedroom
in the Turnells' rural Kearney County home.“Who struck, or what
caused, the initial or final blow that took the life of this child?
Certainly that is in question,” Ide said in his closing statement.“The
court sees this as a cumulative situation. How much abuse can this
child take before the body gave up? It appears to be a joint effort with
more than one person involved. The evidence I have certainly would
suggest that Charles is perhaps partially involved in participating in
the acts of abuse that ultimately led to this child's death. I'm seeing
this as a process, a course of abusive conduct that ultimately took the
last ounce of life the kid had,” Ide said.

About 200 flickering candles were mirrored by one
shooting star in the sky above Kearney Friday night.
People gathered at Yanney Heritage Park for a candlelight prayer
vigil for Landon Payne, 4, a victim of alleged child abuse who died Dec. 22, 2009.
Many said they saw a shooting star cross the eastern sky
directly in front of the assembly just after a prayer by Rev. John
Gosswein of Kearney and before the song “Borrowed Angels” by
Kristin Chenoweth began playing.
“That was just so cool,” Taryn Tracy of Kearney, one of the
organizers behind the vigil, said of the star.
“A vigil is actually an opportunity for us to shine a light in
darkness, and it’s an opportunity to come and look at the darkness
square in the face, and for us to be able to look together, to hear
together and to gather together,” Gosswein said before reading Psalm 27.
“In the midst of the darkness, we light a candle and the candle
invites us, in spite of the darkness itself, to be able to look
forward with hope,” he said.
As the vigil ended, one woman shouted out, “God bless Landon
Payne,” and several people responded, “Amen.”
Lola Schall of Kearney said she connected personally to Landon’s story.
“I know the family that did it, and I have a niece who died from
abuse, too. I’ll be following this as it goes on to see what happens,” she said.
Organizer Jacque Shepard of Kearney said she was “thrilled” with the turnout Friday.
“The reason we’re here is because we’ve all heard a really
horrendous story that has got to all of us,” she said while addressing the crowd.
“We heard a story about a little boy who suffered abuse at the
hands of people that were supposed to take care of him, and the
little guy died nine days before his fifth birthday, just before Christmas.”
Shepard said she remembers reading Payne’s obituary and feeling
sympathy for the family. When Landon’s aunt, uncle and cousin were
arrested in July and charged with child abuse that led to his
death, she said she felt sick.
“I just felt horrible. I couldn’t believe this happened in this
place I call home. I thought, ‘We have to do something.’ I don’t
know what we have to do, but we have to do something. We can’t let
little ones just go like this. We can’t let little ones that can’t
stand up for themselves — this little guy died with nobody. I’d
like to be his family,” Shepard said.
“I think we’re moms and dads, brothers and sisters. We’re aunts
and uncles, grandmas and grandpas, and we’re Landon’s family now.
We’re his family. We’re Landon’s Legion. A legion is an army of
thousands, and I hope that gets to be us someday.”
When he died, Landon had been living with his aunt, Sharon
Turnell; her husband, Charles Turnell; Sharon Turnell’s daughter,
Katie Payne; Katie Payne’s former husband, Dustin Scoville; and
seven other children in a home in rural Kearney County. The
Turnells and Katie Payne are charged in Landon’s death.
Before Landon was living with the family, police in Kearney and
deputies in Buffalo County had been responding to calls at the
Turnells’ Pleasanton home for a variety of issues.
In the three years the Turnells lived in Pleasanton, the Buffalo
County Sheriff’s Office responded to nine calls there regarding
possible child abuse or neglect. Officers also responded to the
house other times for poor living conditions or a dirty house,
credit card fraud, arrest warrants, disturbances, follow-ups;
suspicious activity, a liquor violation, and assault.
Lisa Goetz of Kearney said she came to the vigil because she was
“infuriated” by Landon’s story.
“When I read the article I immediately was thinking, ‘We’ve got
to do something,’” she said. “I just know that if there was that
much activity going on, they should have investigated way before
this happened. It just breaks my heart to think of that poor boy.”
Shepard has said because of what she learned about Landon’s
case, she wants to see change in the child welfare system that she
is calling “Landon’s Law.”
“I’m asking you guys tonight to join us to be part of Landon’s
Legion,” she told the crowd. “We would like to work on changing
laws in some form. Exactly how we’re going to do that, we don’t
know yet. We’re still trying to pull things together. We only heard
about this a couple weeks ago, but we want to do it as quickly as we can.
“You want to know what you’ve got to do to be part of Landon’s
Legion? You say, ‘I’m part of Landon’s Legion,’” Shepard said. “I
want to be sure our children are OK. I don’t want to know a little
child is crying somewhere because he or she is getting hurt and we
didn’t do anything.”

Two of three family members turned in "pleas of abatement" at the
Kearney County District court Monday in what a lead Nebraska State
Patrol investigator called the most extensive bruising of a child he's ever seen.
Married couple Sharon and Charles Turnell are charged with aiding and abetting child abuse leading to death.
Four year old Landon Payne died at Good Samaritan Hospital back in December.
He was Sharon Turnell's nephew who had been living with the family.
The couple says the boy was injured in a fall from a bunk bed... but
doctors who treated the boy say he had numerous injuries in various stages of healing.
Sharon's 19–year–old daughter, Katie Payne is also charged in the case. She is not being held.
The Turnell's next court dates won't be scheduled until next month.