The state of Kansas is paying out $1 million to the family of a little boy who was brutally tortured and murdered by his father and stepmother nearly a decade ago.
Adrian Jones was just seven years old when he died in 2015. He was living with his father Michael Jones and stepmother Heather Jones in Kansas City, Kansas. His death wasn’t reported to authorities — or even noticed by anyone — for quite some time. That is until cops responded to a domestic violence call at the Jones’ property in November 2015. There, officers learned the boy hadn’t been seen by anybody for months.
Detectives began digging into clues, and days later some of Adrian’s remains were discovered in a barn on the property where Michael and Heather had kept pigs and chickens. In the ensuing months, investigators descended on the property, questioned witnesses, and eventually charged Heather and Michael with murdering the boy. In 2017 Michael finally admitted to his involvement in the horrific abuse and murder prior to what would have been his trial. Now, both he and Heather are serving life sentences in prison.
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In the end, before Michael’s admission, authorities in Kansas brought a truly staggering case against the couple. They discovered the pair had abused the boy for several years in absolutely despicable ways before his death. As punishment, they would make him stand overnight in freezing water. He was regularly locked naked in a shower stall and left for hours. He was subject to beatings, zappings with a stun gun, and repeated strikes with various objects and weapons. He was even reportedly strapped to an inversion table at various points during his life. And he was regularly starved, which Michael’s admission acknowledged.
In the end, the abuse got so bad that the boy’s ankles were permanently bent out of shape. And after he finally died from the abuse at just seven years old, authorities claimed most of his remains were then fed to pigs on the family’s property.
OMG…
But while Michael and Heather have been in prison for years now for the horrific act, the case has been winding its way through civil court all this time. Adrian’s mother, maternal grandmother, and sister claim the Sunflower State’s social workers failed to intervene and remove the little boy from the home in which they knew he was being abused. Adrian’s maternal grandmother Judy Conway brought a lawsuit against the Kansas Department of Children and Families over the matter. The suit claimed social workers and state officials “chose to act like disinterested bystanders” instead of taking action to remove the boy from the home .
And last week, the state of Kansas agreed. Rather than go to trial on the civil case, they decided to pay out a massive settlement. Per The US Sun, Kansas Governor Laura Kelly and several top lawmakers in the Kansas Legislature approved paperwork to pay out a $1 million settlement to Conway, Adrian’s mother, and Adrian’s sister.
In the suit, per the AP, Conway and her family members had argued the state “carefully documented the abuse” for years but did exceedingly little to prevent it. The lawsuit’s most jaw-dropping claim? There’s proof family services knew — and did nothing. Instead of pulling him from the home, state officials asked Heather and Michael to sign a paper promising they would stop abusing the boy! The suit reads:
“Their idea of intervention was limited, almost exclusively, to having A.J.’s father and stepmother sign a piece of paper agreeing to stop torturing the child — the legal equivalent of a ‘pinky swear.’ As it turned out, that signed paper might as well have been A.J.’s death warrant.”
In their initial response to Conway’s suit, the state had argued Michael and Heather moved homes frequently — meaning it was difficult for them to track Adrian’s whereabouts and well-being. Thus, the state had argued, social workers weren’t able to physically observe Adrian, and couldn’t confirm his condition for at least the last four years of his life. Seriously?! What a lame excuse…
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But the state’s mishandling of this case was so egregious that lawmakers wanted to settle ASAP rather than go to trial. Kansas Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes straight-up told the AP the state “faced a lot of liability” over Adrian’s death. And in a frankly shocking admission, State Representative Susan Concannon — who also chairs the Kansas Legislature’s Joint Committee on Child Welfare Oversight — told the outlet she was “a little bit surprised” the settlement wasn’t for more than $1 million. Jeez…
As for Conway and her family, this part of the journey is now over. Their attorney Matt Birch spoke to the AP late last week about the settlement:
“This has been a long journey for Adrian’s family. The most important thing for the family was to hopefully make a change and make this less likely to happen in the future.”
Change has indeed come in Kansas, too. In 2021, the State Legislature signed “Adrian’s Law” into effect. That law requires all state officers and case workers to visually observe children who have been flagged as possible victims of abuse and neglect in order to physically see and confirm with their own eyes whether or not they are in need of intervention.
Hopefully, that will help prevent future cases like this. And the money now being paid out to Adrian’s family is at least some kind of solace for the family. But still, it won’t bring the little boy back. What a sad, terrible, heartbreaking case…
If you have sincere cause to suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org.
[Image via Kansas City Star/YouTube/Kansas City Police Department]