What About The Baby, Chad Taylor?

Chad Taylor, prosecuting attorney in Topeka, Kansas, pretends that he is really fighting crime by ignoring student safety issues and other problems in Kansas schools, then charging seventeen year old Brendan Steven Moore, of Topeka, with four counts of solicitation of first degree murder as an adult. When a baby actually died last year, in a Topeka home daycare, he could not even bother to read the reports and statements made about the incident. To this day, anyone who calls Chad Taylor's office in Topeka Kansas and asks about the investigation of the death of Caleb Stewart will not get an answer. His secretary generally hangs up on anyone who asks that question. If Chad Taylor really cares about crime, why doesn't he find out why Caleb died, shut down all daycares and schools that do not take child safety seriously, and question the last adult to have any contact with Caleb before he coded and was rushed to the hospital?

Why is one Topeka child's death important enough for legal action, while another's is not? Where does Chad Taylor draw the line? Does he only care about the children of parents whose jobs are white collar? Is it college graduates, but no one else, who elicits his concern when a baby dies? Does it matter how long the baby's parents have lived in Kansas, or how likely they may or may not have been to vote for him? Because other cases, involving similar deaths, have been investigated, and tried in court. According to information that is courtesy of the Kansas Child Death Review Board, daycare deaths of children in Caleb's age group usually occur because of sleeping arrangements. Caleb was sleeping in a dog bed, which had, according to one witness, been placed in a closet! Has Chad Taylor even taken an afternoon to sit down with Caleb's parents and discuss the opinions of the Kansas Child Death Review Board with them? It's really starting to look as if he is only willing to jump on whatever bandwagon will net him the most publicity. A child creating a ruckus at school with threats faces Taylor in court, tried as an adult, on charges of solicitation of first degree murder, because this type of case has been in the eye of the media, nationwide, lately. Not quite as many cases involving babies who do not survive daycare while both parents work become photo ops for folks like Chad Taylor.

At least sit down and talk to the other children who were at the daycare that day, Chad.

What Do Joaquin Rams And Russel Morris Have In Common?

Slow investigations, multiple deaths, judicial harassment of victims and family members of victims, and perpetrators....whoever they may be....are left to repeat their crimes and continue to prey on others. That seems par for the course when a crime victim is too young to testify on his own behalf. A new angry troll has discovered this site, and has made his presence known because he did not like what I wrote about the untimely death of little Caleb Stewart, the baby who died in the home daycare of Tara Johnson, near Topeka, Kansas, this past February. Caleb was dropped off for daycare one morning, when Tara Johnson didn't feel like  providing daycare. She left Caleb with a male "friend" of hers, Russel Morris, after Caleb's mother went to work. Over the course of the day, and after conflictingly related events which have not been properly investigated, Caleb died. His parents have yet to hear the explanation. Chad Taylor, prosecutor of Topeka, Kansas, is not interested in the case. Caleb's mother works to provide for her family and needs daycare in order to work every day, and that puts her in a class that is obviously is not the type a Kansas prosecutor would even worry about. Right, Johnson-McNish? This case seems to compare to the Northern Virginia case of Joaquin Rams, who has been charged in the drowning death of his infant son, Prince.

Before I continue musing out loud about the two cases, let me just say that Joaquin Rams has not been found guilty, and Russel Morris has not been charged with anything and is not a suspect. The only reason he attracted my attention was his angry dialogue on my site, and his outrageous demeanor toward a mother who just lost her child.

Caleb's case already reminded me a bit of the case against Joaquin Rams in Northern Virginia, where
he awaits trial for the drowning death of his fifteen month old son, Prince. Prince's mom, Hera Mcleod, begged Judge Michael Algeo, of Montgomery County, Maryland, to keep Joaquin's visits with Prince supervised. Algeo didn't care. In fact, he demonized Hera. Joaquin lied about everything from his intentions to his financial situation. Prince mysteriously ended up drowning on the third unsupervised visit. Because Prince did not die immediately, but died later on, in a hospital, Joaquin got away with smoke-screening all the facts and circumstances and blaming Hera; creating as much confusion as possible in the hospital. He did not get charged with murder immediately, and it took over two months for Hera to even get a complete report from the medical examiner. The other day, when I heard that there was no actual cause of death reported by the medical examiner in Caleb's death, I was not surprised. But I was surprised to hear about another detail that has not been publicized: the boyfriend of Caleb's daycare provider, Russel Morris, had a death in his family the very day before little Caleb died. His former wife died, "mysteriously". Undetermined causes. No one thinks this warrants further investigation, and when the mother of Joaquin Rams's oldest son, (Prince's older brother) Shawn Mason, died in March of 2003, her death was not initially connected to Rams. His own mother's 2008 death was ruled a suicide. After Prince died, it took the medical examiner at least two months to rule on a cause of death and also determine that the death was an homicide, but after law enforcement determined that Rams had bought insurance on all three of the victims, the Commonwealth of Virginia took a closer look at the three deaths. Joaquin has now been formally charged in Shawn Mason's death, and in Prince Mcleod Rams's death, and awaits trial behind bars. What an unusual parallel!

Another trait these two men have in common is the use of bullying tactics and intimidation against family members of victims. Both men were obviously witnesses in the subsequent cases, and the family members initially only wanted answers. When Joaquin refused, Hera persisted. He not only lied about his son's cause of death, (a possible reason the medical examiner kept quiet) but trolled Hera on the internet, almost to the point of harassment, in an attempt to dissuade others from believing her or from encouraging her to seek justice for Prince, and in a pathetic attempt to make her feel as badly as possible. Russel Morris, has treated Misty Durham, Caleb's mother, in much the same way. He not only acts in a trollish manner online, but has appeared on television, specifically the Steve Wilkos show, forcefully trying his best to intimidate Misty and stop her from any further efforts to determine why her son died. He is also on a campaign to blurt out anything he can remember about Misty's past, in an ongoing effort to dissuade the general public from caring about what happened to Caleb. It's a little like what Joaquin Rams did to Hera Mcloed. Bullies often do this to keep their victims from snitching on them. This behavior is curious in Russel Morris's case, however; why is it so important to him that Misty hurry up and find closure and move on with her life? And why is he so ready to disparage Misty? Most of us do not express sympathy for grieving mothers by intimidating them or insulting them.

 

Kansas Allowed Daycare To Kill A Baby

On February 27, five month old Caleb Stewart, of Scranton, Kansas, died at the home of his daycare provider, Tara Johnson. He died, somehow, while sleeping on a dog bed on the floor, but an actual cause of death has not been established by the coroner. Many complaints had already been filed against Tara Johnson with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, and Child Protective Services. The complaints ranged from dirty surroundings to lack of supervision of children and Tara's boyfriend (not an employee of the daycare or a licensed childcare provider) caring for the children while Tara shopped and ran other errands. Caleb's mother, Misty Durham, has been met with evasive answers and denials from everyone involved, from those at the home where her son died to Chad Taylor, the District Attorney, to whom the case has been assigned.

This seems to be the practice in Kansas inasmuch as regulating daycares, schools, and other institutions that have contact with children. There's a daycare in Frankfort, Kansas where the spouse of the proprietress cares for the children on a semi-regular basis, although he is not licensed to do so. Their adult children also consume alcohol and other drugs while the children are present. There's another daycare in the same town which allows it's charges to run about, unsupervised, between the pool and the library. Not only are these indiscretions an invitation to liability; they create a tragedy waiting to happen, yet nothing is done. Frankfort High continues to employ a guidance counselor who abandoned a female high school freshman alongside the highway four miles away from the school, all by herself, and when she got lost, he told no one. He looked for her a little bit by himself, but when it was time for him to go home, he went home for the day, not even bothering to tell the student's parents or make a police report. Child Protective Services have actually removed children from the homes of parents who treat their children that way, yet a teacher who does the same thing is allowed to continue. Is this because it is less dangerous for a child to get lost, wandering around four miles away from town, after being abandoned by a school employee, rather than a parent? Or is it because the only action Child Protective Services could take in a situation such as that would be to insure that the school employee is fired, with no removal of the child, and therefore no money to be made via an ongoing case or a questionable adoption pending the termination of parental rights? It seems, also, that the same possibility exists in the case of the daycare: a caucasion  baby who could be taken from his parents and put up for adoption, or sold to the highest bidder after parental rights had been terminated would be a prime target for Child Protective Services, but since most judges will not go along with removals of children from the homes of the parents over bad choices of daycares or schools, Child Protective Services ignores violations and crimes of daycare providers and teachers, focusing instead upon individual parents who make easier targets. Grim.

Sadly, Caleb's case did not get much attention from the media. The most complete information about it seems to be a piece from WIBW, written in May of this year. Caleb's case has gotten even less attention from law enforcement and the District Attorney, and now, almost eight months later, there have been no arrests, and Tara Johnson is still caring for children in her home! Apparently, no one who was in the home at the time of Caleb's death has agreed to a polygraph, and when concerned voters and taxpayers in Northeast Kansas call law enforcement and the District Attorney with questions about this case, both agencies respond by hanging up! What an amazing message to send to voters! The lead investigator in this case is Erin Thompson, who can be reached at 785-368-2242; and the district Attorney, Chad Taylor, can be reached at 785-233-8200.