Friday, November 16, 2007

Rowan Ford child service calls involved head lice

Calls made to Child Services about Rowan Ford involved head lice and not abuse, according to documents released by the Children's Division of the Missouri Department of Social Services Thursday:

The first of the two calls was placed in March 2000, when Rowan was living in Neosho with her mother, Colleen Spears, then Colleen McLeod, and her husband at the time, Adam Chicanowski. The second call was placed in January 2006, when Rowan, her mother and David Spears were living at the family’s current address in Stella.

After both of the hot-line calls, state investigators met with Rowan and her parents, and did not find evidence of any intentional neglect, according to the documents.

The names of the people who placed the calls were redacted for confidentiality purposes.

In the March 2000 report, the investigator attributed the presence of the lice in Rowan’s hair to the family’s “limited lack of resources” and limited “knowledge of existing services in the area.”

In the January 2006 case, the state was contacted because Rowan had “chronic head lice” and her last five absences from Triway Elementary School in Stella were because of lice. The person who made the report acknowledged that Rowan’s family usually had the problem resolved so that she could be back at school the next day.

The investigator also noted that the family was closely bonded, had good communication skills and two working parents. Both David and Colleen Spears worked at the Wal-Mart in Jane at the time, according to the report.


David Spears, of course, along with his friend, Chris Collings, are charged with raping and murdering Rowan Ford on Nov. 2.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:47 AM

    it should also be noted that Adam Chicanowski killed himself after the mother dumped him for another man ( not David Spears )So that makes the count at least 4 different men in Rowans short life ! I'm finding it harder and harder to have ANY sympathy for the mother at all !

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  2. Anonymous6:18 PM

    When I heard the child showed up at church at 6:30 am and also at school at 6:30 am, and was cared for by the cafeteria staff, my first thought was this mother was questionable. Thats putting it mildly. Of course DFS would never in a 100 years figure that out. Talk about a worthless state organization.

    We have dealt with them during adopting a child years and years ago, and they were slobs then. The judge that made the adoption final had a few choice words to a DFS lady. They were worthless than and apparently still are.

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