Robert Moon did not die over spilled milk.
Labrina Brown, the 13-year-old girl accused of fatally stabbing her grandmother's husband this month after he poured some milk down the sink, was abused and neglected for years, court records show. Her young relatives were victimized, too.
And though by all accounts Labrina is a volatile and angry child, the adults responsible for protecting her and her relatives - those in the child welfare system, in the courts, and in their own family - all failed.
Just last month, social workers asked Milwaukee County Circuit Judge William S. Pocan to send Labrina to a foster home or group home outside Milwaukee County for her own protection. The judge declined. He planned to review the decision at a hearing in the fall.
(Clarification, Oct. 7, 2009: Although the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare filed a motion to send Labrina Brown out of the county for her own protection, a bureau case worker did not argue that position in court, transcripts show. The case worker did not speak during a hearing July 27, a week and a half before Labrina allegedly killed her step-grandfather. No one who spoke at that hearing objected to Labrina staying in her grandmother?s home. Judge William S. Pocan did not*approve or deny*the written motion to send Labrina out of the county before ordering her placed at her grandmother?s home.)
Instead, Robert Moon is dead and Labrina is in jail, charged with first-degree reckless homicide.
Juvenile court records usually are not open to the public. Children's court judges allowed the Journal Sentinel access to the files of Labrina and the adolescent boy accused of molesting young girls in her family because of the serious nature of the crimes for which they are charged.
Pocan said he could not discuss the case because it is pending. The transcript of last month's hearing was not available Friday.
Half a decade of horror
Labrina's troubles began at least five years ago, court records show.
She was sitting on a couch at her grandmother's house with Robert Moon's son, then 10.
Her grandmother, Thelma Moon, saw the boy touch Labrina inappropriately and did nothing, according to court records. Labrina, the oldest of five sisters, soon began to spiral out of control.
The girls were sent to school dirty, disheveled and wearing clothes that smelled bad and didn't match.
Sometimes they brought extra outfits to school. They hoped someone would show up there to take them away, they told a family friend. Labrina scratched out suicide notes. A sister didn't want to go home.
After school and during the summers, Labrina, her sisters and their cousins spent a lot of time with Thelma Moon, who works at a day care. Sometimes, while she was away, Robert Moon's now teenage son would baby-sit.
According to court records, Oct. 27, 2007, was one of those times.
Labrina was not home. When she returned, a young relative told her the teenage boy had sexually molested her and four other girls between the ages of 4 and 7.
When Labrina told her mother and an aunt, they accused her of lying and sent her to bed.
The next day, Labrina's school principal asked if their mother had been whipping them again. Labrina said yes, and told the principal about the sexual assaults.
The principal called the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare, which along with the Milwaukee Police Department, opened an investigation.
Less than two months later, while that investigation was ongoing, the bureau got another call about the family, according to bureau records filed with the court. A victim in the earlier crime was bleeding into her underwear. Labrina's mother told an investigator the child had fallen off a bed.
Despite the earlier sexual assault report to the bureau, the new allegation was ruled unsubstantiated and the case was closed, the records show.
Bureau spokeswoman Angela Russell said the bureau could not release additional records or discuss the case because of state law.
The signs of abuse
Two weeks after the girl was found bleeding, Labrina and her sisters spent the weekend with a family friend. When the woman got the girls undressed for a bath, she discovered scars on their legs and scabies.
The woman called the bureau. This time, the bureau substantiated the allegations of mistreatment. Rather than remove the children from their mother's home, the bureau provided the family with Safety Services, which allow parents to keep their children if they agree to close supervision by social workers.
The same day, Moon's son was charged as a juvenile with six counts of sexual assault in the October incident. He was never charged with molesting Labrina. Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Marshall Murray allowed the teenager to return to the home he shared with his father and Labrina's grandmother. The judge ordered him not to have contact with the girls.
The Moons promised they would not allow it. It was a promise they did not keep.
On Jan. 6, 2008, when Thelma Moon went to the store, leaving one of the victims alone with her husband's son, he molested the girl again, criminal and bureau records show. She told her teacher, who again called the bureau. Another felony charge was added to the teenager's case.
Bureau social workers removed Labrina and her sisters from their mother's custody. The social worker asked if there was a relative with whom the girls could stay.
To the worker's amazement, their mother suggested Thelma Moon.
Home after home . . .
The juvenile court records released to the Journal Sentinel were redacted to protect the identity of Labrina's sisters; it is unclear where they were placed.
Labrina spent time in two group homes and in the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex. She ultimately was sent to live with her father, whose home was near the Moons'.
The Journal Sentinel is not naming Labrina's parents to protect her sisters' identities. Both parents, who do not live together, as well as Thelma Moon, refused to comment for this story.
When Labrina moved in with her father, Moon's son was no longer living in the neighborhood because of the sexual assaults.
As part of a plea agreement in juvenile court, he admitted responsibility for two counts of second-degree sexual assault of a child. Murray ordered him to serve at least a year of probation, with the first five months in a residential sex offender treatment center, followed by four months in a halfway house. He was allowed day passes to visit his dad.
The teenager now lives with an aunt and is planning to attend high school in the fall. His probation has been extended through May 2010.
Friends and family members say Labrina frequently ran away from her father. They say she was not welcome at her mother's home, and often ended up staying with the Moons.
"She fought with everyone," said Denitra Alridge, Robert Moon's stepdaughter from a previous marriage and his son's half sister.
"She ran back and forth. She's very defensive. She beat up a neighbor who told her she needed to be more respectful. She broke out our window.
"I kept my distance once I saw what she was like."
After a January fight with her mother that ended in Labrina's arrest, bureau social workers filed a petition to have her sent out of Milwaukee County.
"The grandmother did nothing to protect the children who were sexually assaulted and did not believe it happened," the petition says.
"If there is no intervention, (Labrina's) safety is in jeopardy."
The fateful day
As it turned out, Robert Moon's safety was in jeopardy as well.
Early on the afternoon of Aug. 8, Labrina poured herself a bowl of cereal in the kitchen of the Moons' second story flat, according to the criminal complaint and witness accounts.
Robert Moon and Labrina began to argue about milk. There was only a little left in the gallon container, and Moon insisted on giving it to Alridge's two young children. Labrina swore at him. Moon poured the rest of the milk down the sink.
Moon was walking from the kitchen into the living room when Labrina stabbed him with a small kitchen knife three inches below his left ear. The blow, which sliced open Moon's carotid artery, bent the knife's two-inch blade.
When police arrived, Labrina was standing outside. She was covered with blood.
A police officer asked for her name.
"I'm Labrina Brown," she said. "And I killed him."
A hearing scheduled for Aug. 24 will determine if Labrina will stand trial in adult criminal court or if her case will be returned to Children's Court.
If she is tried as an adult, Labrina faces up to 60 years in prison. Juvenile court would yield much lesser penalties.
Her friend and neighbor, Jewel Gordon, hopes Labrina will by tried as a child.
"She didn't want to be like this," Gordon said.
"She wasn't a bad person. She wanted to get right. She wanted to collect her thoughts. I guess she just got tired."
But Wavey McDowell, Gordon's father and Robert Moon's friend of 40 years, said he feels no mercy for Labrina.
"She took my friend away from me forever," he said. "I wake up every day and think: 'I've lost my friend.' "
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