commentary by Patrick H. Moore
There’s little doubt that I could perhaps justly be accused of being an overly permissive parent. My beloved daughter is occasionally insubordinate and gasp may not always respect her dad and mom. On the other hand, she graduated from high school with an academic GPA of over 3.5 and will be attending a fine university in the fall. To my surprise, she even managed to pull a “B” in Calculus, which is more than her Dad could ever have done. She has a positive self-image and does not feel compelled to use drugs or go on drunken binges.
So although I would hardly claim to have been a model parent, I could probably have done much worse; in fact, I could have been like adoptive parents Johann and Kimery Jorg of Peoria, Illinois.
Johann and Kimery, who are 61 and 54 years old respectively, are apparently devout Christians of the “spare the rod and spoil the child” variety. They started out as foster parents before adopting their four children who range in age from 7 to 13.
Although the Jorgs reported favored their two younger children, they are accused of severely abusing their 11 and 13-year-olds.
Karen Brown of Arizona Family writes:
A Peoria couple are accused of abusing the children they adopted.
Police said over the last five years, the four girls, ages 7 to 13, had been fostered and then adopted by Johann and Kimery Jorg.
When Peoria police went to the home last week, they said they found a list of the punishments used on the two older girls, which allegedly included making the 13-year-old live in the backyard off and on since Christmas naked without even a bathroom.
The teen and an 11-year-old are reported to have been extremely malnourished and emaciated.
The fact that the Jorgs were abusing their two older girls came to the attention of Child Protective Services in a most curious manner. After several years of ladling out the abuse in a most appalling manner without much success (i.e., the girls still allegedly misbehaved), in desperation, these two model Christian parents consulted with a local behavioral health facility seeking help and advice on how best to discipline their two older daughters.
Here’s what the behavioral health facility learned, according to Peoria police spokeswoman Amanda Jacinto:
“The 13-year-old daughter was put in the backyard in what they call ‘deep prison’. She would live in the backyard. She would be forced to wear a diaper or sometimes not even a diaper. They would have bathroom facilities out there that involved a bucket. She would live out of a tent.”
Jacinto stated that one of the Jorgs’ creative punishments consisted of forcing the 13-year-old, who clearly got it the worst, to run for an hour or more barefoot in the oppressive Illinois heat and humidity. Another “winner” was swatting the poor child on the buttocks with a wooden paddle so often and so hard that she reportedly gradually grew a protective (and highly unnatural) leathery covering where she should have had normal skin. The couple also allegedly shaved the 13-year-old’s head as a punishment, reportedly telling her that she was so bad she didn’t deserve to have hair.
According to at least one report, the child was also forced to recite certain Bible verses ad nauseum.
Spokeswoman Jacinto informed that the punishments were mainly for stealing and lying. The 13-year-old admitted she had stolen some food because she was so hungry. One can hardly argue with her logic considering that although she stands nearly 5-feet tall, she only weighed 61 pounds when she was separated from her parents.
Fortunately, when the Jorgs told workers at the health facility how they had been disciplining the girls, the facility called Child Protective Services who then passed the “glad tidings” on to the police.
In a rather bizarre twist, when police went to the couple’s home to investigate, they found Post-it notes all over the kitchen reminding the suspects of what punishments still needed to be doled out to the girls.
The court documents state that Kimery Jorg explained to law enforcement that the girls have so many punishments she often doesn’t have time to apply all of them, so she writes the notes to remind herself of the remaining punishments the girls still “owe” her.
Are we getting sick yet?
“When we brought them in, they again stood by the fact that this was in the best interest of the girls,” Jacinto said.
As is so often the case with these demented types, the Jorgs played favorites and their two younger adopted daughters, ages 7 and 8, were not subjected to the same type of cruel treatment.
All four girls are now in the protective custody of CPS. The 13-year-old remains in the hospital due to severe malnutrition. Apparently in a case like this, the doctors have to be very careful to only re-introduce the victim to a normal diet slowly and carefully.
The Jorgs were arrested Thursday and are each facing four counts of child abuse. Each is being held on $100,000 bond.
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It would appear that the Jorgs will ultimately be serving pretty substantial stretches in jail or prison.
Naturally, my first response is to wish I could beat these fiends senseless and them beat them some more as soon as they regain consciousness. But then the rational function kicks in and I realize that the Jorgs almost certainly learned these inappropriate parenting techniques from their parents and/or guardians. The specter and lineage of child abuse is a violation of all that is sacred and, sadly, is as American as apple pie.