On the Beat in the Bluegrass

By Ashlee Clark
aclark@herald-leader.com

WINCHESTER — Each social worker who testified Monday in the murder trial of Patrick and Joy Watkins played a role in granting the couple custody of Patrick’s 10-year-old daughter Michaela Watkins and keeping the child there.

Michaela Watkins

Employees with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services detailed Monday why they decided to place Michaela with her father and stepmother.

Michaela’s therapist and doctor also provided insight into Michaela’s short life, which they say was filled with abuse, neglect and behavioral problems.

Michaela was found dead on March 11, 2007, in the Winchester apartment she shared with Patrick and Joy Watkins. Investigators say the girl was held in scalding water and beaten with an object similar to a 2-inch by 4-inch

piece of lumber.

According to testimony, Michaela’s mother, Rachel Samuels, lost custody of Michaela and her younger brother after social services discovered the children had been left alone for several hours at a time. The two children had been in foster care for about a year when Patrick Watkins called the Cabinet for Health and Family Services and inquired about Michaela.

Patrick and Joy Watkins gained custody of Michaela and her little brother in 2006. Witnesses testified that the couple went through multiple court appearances, home visits, background checks and interviews while they sought custody.

“There was a lot of oversight in this case,” said Patrick Kelley, Michaela’s ongoing case worker with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services.

Ashley Clem, another Health and Family Services employee, conducted a home visit of the Watkinses’ apartment on Feb. 6, 2006. She testified that her only concern was that the children in the household would have to share rooms.

The cabinet discovered during a background check that Patrick Watkins had a charge of flagrant non-support and had obtained a domestic violence order against his wife. Kelley testified that the charges were “troubling,” but ultimately agreed with the decision to give Patrick and Joy Watkins custody of Michaela.

“Change your mind?” Johnson asked as he held up a crime scene photograph of Michaela.

“Yes, sir,” Kelley replied.

Medical personnel testified that Michaela was a troubled child when she went to live with her father and stepmother.

Michaela began seeing Debbie McCord, a therapist at Comprehensive Care, as many as several times a week after she moved in with her father and stepmother.

Michaela had previously been physically and sexually abused and neglected, and she “wasn’t adjusting to that family properly,” he said.

Michaela displayed “negative behaviors,” such as excessive masturbation and incontinence, McCord said.

The Watkinses told McCord that Michaela had slapped Joy Watkins and threw a lamp at her, he testified.

At one point, McCord said, Michaela was on anti psychotic and antidepressant medication.

On Jan. 29, 2007, Michaela Watkins had to visit Dr. Amina Shalash because social services were concerned about her weight loss, which officials feared was a potential case of anorexia, Shalash testified.

Michaela weighed 74 pounds, which was in the 32nd percentile for her age group, but she originally weighed 83 pounds before Patrick and Joy Watkins gained custody.

Joy Watkins told Shalash that Michaela used food as a “manipulation tactic,” Shalash said. The doctor told Joy Watkins that Michaela might act that way because the girl felt like food was the only thing she could control in her life.

The last time Shalash saw Michaela was six days before the girl was found dead. Shalash recalls that the girl was sitting very timidly that day and holding her side.

“She was different that day,” Shalash said.

Joy Watkins was concerned that Michaela was not able to sense pain. But Michaela’s reaction to pain “was not necessarily one of my concerns,” Shalash testified.

The trial will resume at 9 a.m. Tuesday in Clark Circuit Court. The jury will begin deliberations after the attorneys make closing arguments.