Charlie Bothuell V May Have a Very Sharp Axe to Grind

by Starks Shrink

Last month, a 12-year-old boy named Charlie Bothuell V vanished from his home in Detroit. His father and stepmother appeared on national television pleading for help in finding him. The police and FBI got involved and Charlie’s parents cooperated with them fully when their home was searched for evidence that might lead to the missing boy. After about a week, the FBI searched the home again using cadaver dogs but to no avail. After several more searches, a final search was conducted, again using dogs, eleven days after the boy first went missing. This time they found Charlie Bothuell V hiding behind a makeshift barricade in the storage basement of the very home from which he had been reported missing. He was alive and well.

What was odd about this discovery was that right when he was found, his father was appearing live on Nancy Grace appealing for any news of his son’s whereabouts. Nancy took great delight in telling the man, on the air, that his child had been found, and after a long pause, that he was alive. Much was made of Charles IV’s reaction to the news that his son had been located. Many called it “bad acting” despite the fact that they knew nothing about the man or what a “true” or “valid” reaction might consist of. According to Charles Bothuell IV, he had been told that the authorities were considering his son’s case to be a homicide, so his shock at the news he had been found was not surprising, at least not to me.

Charlie had been residing with his father and stepmother for the past couple of years, having moved there when his father and mother, who were separated, agreed he needed more attention and a more rigidly structured environment than his mother could provide him with due to his poor grades and errant behavior. The senior Bothuell has explained that Charlie had been home-schooled after the move and was apparently still have issues and that Bothuel IV was considering military school for the 12 year old. Considering the neighborhood in which Charlie had been living with his mother, it’s not exactly surprising that he might have been finding trouble (or that trouble might have been finding him). It’s an economically depressed part of downtown Detroit characterized by boarded up windows, abandoned properties, and bars on on the windows of occupied dwellings. In contrast, his father’s neighborhood is comprised of upscale condos with tree-lined streets, clean playgrounds and parks, and presumably far fewer ways for a boy to get in trouble.

I was very curious when I first heard about Charlie Bothuell V, and I have to say that I am still not sure whether Charlie is an abused child, a devious runaway or somewhere in between. You see, much of Charlie’s tale does not ring true to me. I’ve heard many a tale of woe from children his age designed purely to thwart restrictions that the child views as too draconian. Some say that the fact that the state petitioned for removal of parental rights is proof enough of parental wrongdoing, but I beg to differ. In their petition, the state makes it clear that the abuse is “alleged”, and they would be remiss not to act in the event the allegations prove to be true. There have been too many instances of reported child abuse in which child services did not act promptly, resulting in dire consequences for the child. No state social services department wants that sort of press.

Here are the facts that give me pause:

Charlie went missing on June 14th after a verbal altercation with his stepmother over chores he had neglected to perform, or so she claims. Charlie claims that he was relegated to the basement for not finishing a physical fitness workout. These workouts, which have been described in detail by Charlie,reportedly included 5000 reps on an elliptical machine, 100 push-ups, 200 sit-ups, jumping jacks and more. According to Charlie, he had only an hour to complete the entire workout, which he was required to complete twice daily.

Completing such a demanding workout regimen in an hour seems a very difficult task, but one that Charlie might aspire to complete as an indication of his physical prowess, as opposed to one that was viciously enforced by his father. Charlie’s sister stated that their dad had concerns over the high rate of diabetes in their family and as a result, he “made (her) run a mile a day” because he was concerned and wanted her to stay healthy. A mile a day is a far cry from the workout Charlie describes, and his daughter claimed to be grateful her father had required it of her. She used the term “made me” not in the context of abuse or retribution for failure to complete obligations, but rather in the context of reasonable parental rules. Furthermore, one photo shows Charlie, shirtless, mugging for the camera and flexing his biceps whilst beaming from ear to ear. Charlie is seemingly quite proud of his physique and the beneficial effects of the workouts, which, of course, contrasts markedly with what we would expect his attitude to be if the workouts were a dreaded ritual of daily abuse.

Charlie also seems to like girls. A lot. According to his twitter feed, he even indicated that he is sexually active and is actively pursuing girls and perhaps will take a summer cross-country trip to visit Comic-Con International in San Diego. Based upon his twitter stream, which his parents were completely unaware of, he seems much more savvy than one would typically expect of a 12- year-old. This indicates to me that there is substance in his parents’ claims about his previous errant behavior and lack of discipline.

What’s most vexing to me, however, is the manner in which Charlie was found. First police said that Charlie could not have erected the barricade himself, which basically consisted of a pile of boxes and cast-off bags, but Charlie himself indicated that he was able to slip in and out of this fortress during the night to sneak food, since according to him, his stepmother who was keeping him imprisoned, neglected to feed him. He claims that he heard the searchers looking for him, but never uttered a sound because this stepmother had told him to keep quiet which he did because he was purportedly feared her wrath greatly.

Charlie had a cell phone, friends, access to the internet, the outdoors, the apartment in which he lived with his father, and even a basement lavatory which wouldn’t alert his parents when he used it. Someone reported to police that they had spotted Charlie playing basketball at a nearby park during the time when he was missing. In addition, the police searched the basement several times and Charlie was definitely not there during these searches. The dogs even tracked Charlie’s scent from the storage area to the park where he had been spotted before losing his scent. When police finally did locate him in the basement, he never called out to them to announce his presence.

To me, it seems quite obvious that Charlie staged his own disappearance. A 12-year-old street-savvy kid is not going to sit quietly if he was being held forcibly against his will, not when he hears policemen and dogs mere inches from his hiding place. He is also not going to head to the park and shoot some hoops before sneaking back to his prison. Charlie is not a slow child; he is a bright boy who, I believe, wanted more freedom to do what he likes. He pushed his mother to the limit which is why she sent him to live with his father, the stronger disciplinarian among the two of them, and when he tired of the rules at his father’s house, looking for some summer fun, he decided to grab it. Charlie may have thought this was the perfect plan — hiding out, shooting hoops and making his own rules. The search for the “missing” boy, however, mushroomed into something bigger than he had anticipated, and then he didn’t know how to get out of the mess he had created.

Whatever the exact circumstances, my intuition tells me he was not being held by force, which, in turn, makes me question the credibility of all of his claims. I imagine that there are seeds of truth in his stories; the best lies always contain them. Perhaps his stepmother really told him she could make him “disappear”, perhaps referring to military school or perhaps threatening to send his back to his mom’s house. Perhaps his dad did insist on a daily exercise regimen, which is not at all uncommon when dealing with children with behavioral issues. Perhaps his dad did employ corporal punishment as strict disciplinarians often do. But does that make Charlie’s tales of incredibly demanding workout regimens, and being held prisoner against his will, true, or are these vast exaggerations that bear little semblance to reality? Though Charlie was being home-schooled, it’s interesting to note that Charlie went missing the day after the public schools in the area closed for the summer. Perhaps Charlie was simply planning a summer vacation for himself. Certainly he would know that other boys, released from the “captivity of the classroom”, would be “hooping it up” at the local park.

I understand that the state has an obligation to protect children. It’s far easier to apologize to a wrongly accused guardian for acting on a false allegation than it is to apologize for a fatally damaged child. But we should not leap to conclusions about what Charlie’s father and stepmother may or may not have done; they too have the right not to be permanently damaged by false accusations. We’ve yet to hear their side of the story; they are scheduled to be back in court on Thursday of this week. Perhaps we will then peel away more layers of this very curious onion and hopefully shed very few tears in the process.