Gazette-Mail editorial: "No state or county agency, nor any law enforcement department, will ever be perfectly ironclad, preventing or at least stopping every incident of child abuse or neglect. But West Virginia has to do much better."

Gazette-Mail editorial: WV must aim higher in abuse, neglect cases

13 hrs ago

If one call had been heeded, if one of many reports had been connected, five children likely would have been removed from a Greenbrier County home before 25-year-old Oreanna Myers shot and killed them, burned down the house and killed herself in December 2020.

The system that should have protected the five boys, three of whom were Myers’ children, the other two her husband’s, failed them badly, with horrific results.

Sarah Peters, a dental hygienist, told the West Virginia Legislature’s Joint Committee on Children and Families that she observed large bruises on one of the boys, 4-year-old Kian Myers, during an appointment four months before the grizzly killings. Peters, who spoke before the committee Tuesday, said she also observed Kian being verbally abused by an adult male in the parking lot, and noted that the young boy seemed terrified of the man.

So, she made a call to the state Child Protective Services hotline to report suspected abuse. Peters said she relayed the information and was going to send photos and further explain her suspicions, but the hotline worker cut the call short. She was later told there wouldn’t be an investigation, because there was no suspicion of abuse or neglect. No one from the local division of child services or law enforcement ever contacted Peters about what she reported, she said.

Had state workers been more patient and thorough in handling just that one phone call, it might have uncovered further information about what was happening in the boy’s home, and could have prevented the tragedy on Dec. 8, 2020.

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