Adam Herrman 11, missing since 1999 but never reported

[Nut44x4]

Shame on all of them.... 
http://www.kansas.com/news/story/699720.html

Posted on Sat, Feb. 14, 2009

ADAM HERRMAN'S BROTHER-IN-LAW REGRETS NOT ACTING

In hindsight, Adam Herrman's adoptive brother-in-law says, he feels guilty for not calling police about an incident he says he witnessed a year or so before the boy disappeared.

Back then, the brother-in-law said, he was upset and confused -- but did not call authorities -- over an incident at a Derby house where Adam lived with his adoptive parents before moving to Towanda.

Adam, who was 10 or 11 at the time, grasped his arm and asked for help, the brother-in-law said. His first name is Steven; he asked that his last name not be used to protect his children's privacy.

Late last year, Steven learned that Adam has been missing since 1999. The discovery that he has been missing for a decade has triggered an investigation in which the Butler County prosecutor has said that Adam's adoptive parents, Doug and Valerie Herrman, are suspects and that murder charges are possible, based on an underlying crime of a child abuse.

Doug and Valerie Herrman and their lawyers say they are innocent.

'Steven, help me'

Steven, now 40, said the incident occurred at a duplex in the 300 block of South Willow. He said he was visiting his in-laws' duplex and went to use a basement bathroom. But the light wouldn't turn on because the bulb had been removed.

As he was closing the bathroom door, from inside the bathroom, a small hand grasped his arm, he said.

"Steven, help me," the person said, in a flat tone, he said.

Steven said he realized it was Adam.

He said he had Adam move over to a lighted area in the basement and told him to sit in a recliner.

Steven said he saw a yellowish bruise around Adam's eye and scratches of more than an inch long on the boy's face. The scratches appeared to be healing.

He didn't visit the house very often and didn't remember seeing injuries on Adam before, he said.

Describing his feelings at the time, Steven said, "I just didn't understand. Why's he asking for help? Why's he in the bathroom" -- in the dark?

"Maybe I should have sat down and talked to him a little longer," he said.

Steven said he told Adam to stay there and went outside to talk to Doug Herrman, who was working by the garage.

Steven said he was upset. He said he told Doug Herrman something like, "You need to fix this, or I'm calling the police."

Days later, Steven said, Doug Herrman told him that he, Valerie and Adam were attending counseling sessions and that everything was OK.

Steven said that at the time he felt assured that the situation was resolved.

Later, when he saw Adam, "He looked fine."

'She's very caring'

Some of Valerie Herrman's close relatives have accused her of abusing Adam over the years.

She told The Eagle that she sometimes kept Adam in a bathroom, on the advice of a psychiatrist, after he threatened the family.

Her attorney, Warner Eisenbise, declined to comment on Steven's account of his visit to the Derby duplex.

Eisenbise defended Valerie Herrman, saying, "I've gotten to know Valerie very well. She's very emotional. She's very caring." He said he expects there could be character witnesses who would say that "she baby sat their children, and she was wonderful. She's not the evil person" that some of her relatives have described, he said.

Dan Monnat, whose law firm is representing Doug Herrman, also declined to comment on Steven's account but defended his client. "Doug Herrman is innocent of causing any harm to Adam Herrman," Monnat said.

At the storm shelter

Months after the incident at the duplex, Steven said that he and his wife, Crystal, who is the Herrmans' oldest biological child, moved to a Towanda mobile home park. The Herrmans had moved there from Derby, and Valerie Herrman managed the park.

Steven and his wife lived a few lots from the Herrmans.

Steven said he remembers tornado sirens sounding twice while they lived there. The first time, he saw Adam with others gathered in the park's storm shelter. The shelter sat next to the lot where the Herrmans' manufactured home sat.

Weeks later, when the tornado siren sounded again, Steven said he didn't see Adam at the shelter. He said someone asked Valerie Herrman where Adam was. She said Adam was at home because he was "being bad," Steven said.

Steven said it angered him because he thought Adam would have been at risk if a tornado hit.

In an Eagle interview, Valerie Herrman said Adam ran away in the first week of May 1999 after she spanked him with a belt. Adam was 11 at the time. The Herrmans have said they searched for Adam but couldn't find him. Valerie Herrman said they didn't report Adam missing because they feared the spanking would have caused authorities to take him and his younger siblings into state custody.

Relatives have said that the Herrmans explained Adam's absence by saying that he had gone back to state custody.

In late 2008, Steven's wife, Crystal, took her concerns about Adam's welfare to authorities in Sedgwick County. She had searched the Internet but had not been able to locate Adam. After authorities checked, they determined that Adam has been missing since 1999.

Steven said that after his wife brought her concerns to authorities, he told investigators about the incident at the Derby house.

[Nut44x4]

Murder convictions happen even without a body

The investigation of Adam Herrman's disappearance has gone on for more than two months, and the Butler County prosecutor has said that murder charges are possible.

But so far, no one has uncovered any remains.

This Saturday, Butler County investigators plan to search a fourth time in woods near the Towanda mobile home park where Adam disappeared in 1999 at age 11.

Prosecutors say that even without a body, a case can be made if the state can present enough circumstantial evidence to convince jurors that a person is really dead.

Defense lawyers counter that in a murder case

involving a disappearance, it is difficult to show proof beyond a reasonable doubt without a body or bones that can be linked to the victim.

"All they have is a missing person," said Warner Eisenbise, the Wichita attorney representing Valerie Herrman, Adam's adoptive mother.

"They have conjecture. But conjecture doesn't rise to proof beyond a reasonable doubt," Eisenbise said. "For all we know, this young man is living somewhere. We can argue that there's no body, there's no crime....

"And then we can argue there's a body, (but) who did it?"

Unless investigators "are holding a card that we don't know about, they do not have any physical evidence... even trace evidence proving that the child was a victim of a homicide," Eisenbise said.

It's possible that Valerie Herrman could be charged with child abuse or not reporting Adam missing -- but not murder, he said.

Butler County Attorney Jan Satterfield has said that Doug and Valerie Herrman are suspects in Adam's disappearance and that the investigation could lead to murder charges, with the underlying crime being child abuse.

She could not be reached for comment on what Eisenbise said about the case.

Morrison's view

Paul Morrison, former Kansas attorney general and former Johnson County district attorney, indicated there are elements in the Adam Herrman case that could bolster the prosecution.

It is easier to prove that someone who disappeared was murdered if the person led a stable life, Morrison said. And the longer they remain missing, the easier it is to show they were victims, he said.

As the Johnson County prosecutor in 1990, Morrison obtained murder convictions against Richard Grissom in the deaths of three young women who disappeared in June 1989 and whose bodies were never found. According to court records, all three women were known to be reliable. They weren't likely to disappear unless they had been harmed.

Most children lead stable lives, but an exception is a chronic runaway, said Morrison, who now has a private law practice in Olathe.

Adam had a history of running away, Valerie Herrman said in an Eagle interview.

Convictions do happen

Despite the challenges of proving guilt in a bodyless case, it can be done.

At least four Kansas inmates are serving life sentences in bodyless murder cases. A fifth was paroled in January 2007 after serving more than two decades in prison.

Although Eisenbise has never defended someone in a bodyless case, he said his understanding is that such cases often end up with deadlocked juries.

"And for good reason," because the cases are "purely circumstantial," he said.

Butler County investigators have distributed a computer-generated photo of what Adam might look like now. They have conducted interviews and searched the Towanda mobile home park where Adam disappeared, along the nearby Whitewater River and in the manufactured home where he lived and have executed search warrants at the Herrmans' current home in Derby.

While Butler County Sheriff Craig Murphy said he has not ruled out that Adam is alive, he has consistently said that investigators are looking for remains.

Murphy has declined to say whether investigators have obtained physical evidence.

Even if investigators find Adam's remains, "that doesn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt my client or the husband did it," Eisenbise said.

Questions raised

In interviews with The Eagle, some of Valerie Herrman's close relatives have accused her of abusing her adoptive son over the years.

Valerie Herrman told The Eagle that authorities once investigated after she spanked Adam with a belt and someone saw bruises. She said she regretted using a belt.

She said Adam ran away in early May 1999 after she spanked him with a belt and that she didn't report his disappearance after he didn't return because she feared it would cause authorities to remove Adam and his two younger siblings from her custody.

But Morrison, the former prosecutor, said the case raises a question: "Why would any parent not immediately report a missing child?"

Court records show that the Herrmans continued to list Adam as a dependent in court documents years after he disappeared. Valerie Herrman said that they continued to accept $700 monthly adoption subsidy payments for Adam until his 18th birthday in 2005 -- six years after he disappeared.

Relatives have said that the Herrmans explained Adam's absence by saying he went back into state custody.

If the prosecutor can successfully argue that the Herrmans lied more than once, it could be used to challenge their credibility, said Morrison, who resigned as attorney general in 2007 after his affair with one of his former district attorney staffers became public.

Would take the Fifth

The Herrmans have suffered since Adam's disappearance and the investigation became known, Eisenbise said.

Because of harassing phone calls from strangers and relatives, the Herrmans have switched to an unlisted phone number, Eisenbise said.

It is possible that Valerie Herrman could receive a subpoena to come in for questioning, under oath, by authorities, Eisenbise said. But so far she has not received a subpoena, he said.

"We would invoke the Fifth Amendment, (for) every question," he said. "We have a right not to say anything. That doesn't mean that we're guilty of anything."

The Herrmans have separate attorneys to ensure each has adequate legal representation, Eisenbise said. Still, they have a joint defense agreement -- allowing their lawyers to share information, he said.

Dan Monnat, whose Wichita law firm is representing Doug Herrman, said his client is "innocent of any harm to Adam Herrman."

"Prosecutors and courts should be very cautious in leaping to the conclusion that disappearance cases are murder cases," Monnat said. The risk, he said, is that an innocent person could be convicted.

Monnat said bodyless cases "usually amount to nothing more than ambiguous circumstantial evidence threaded together by sheer speculation."

Monnat helped to defend a couple in a Stanton County murder case involving a man who disappeared in 2005. The man's body hasn't been found. Murder charges in the case were dismissed last year.

'Dirty word'

Reno County District Attorney Keith Schroeder said defense attorneys typically refer to circumstantial evidence "as if it's a dirty word."

"Circumstantial evidence sometimes can be more powerful than many other types of evidence," Schroeder said. Direct evidence such as eyewitness testimony can sometimes be unreliable, he said.

Courts define circumstantial evidence "as evidence that tends to prove a fact in issue by proving other events or circumstances" and relying on "reasonable inference by the jury."

Schroeder said he uses an analogy when describing circumstantial evidence to potential jurors: "You didn't have to see it snow to know it snowed."

When prosecuting a case based on circumstantial evidence, he said, "You have to put together the pieces of the puzzle so that missing pieces are obvious."

Reach Tim Potter at 316-268-6684 or tpotter@wichitaeagle.com.

http://www.kansas.com/196/story/700600.html

[Nut44x4]

Sheriff: Enough evidence to charge parents of missing Kansas boy

EL DORADO, Kan. | The Butler County sheriff said Monday he thinks his office has found enough evidence to charge the adoptive parents of a boy whose disappearance went unreported for nearly a decade.

However, no one has been charged in the case of Adam Herrman, and Sheriff Craig Murphy stopped short of speculating what charges should be filed. Butler County Attorney Jan Satterfield did not immediately return messages seeking comment Monday.

Adam's adoptive parents, Valerie and Doug Herrman, could not be reached for comment. They currently live in Derby.

Valerie Herrman's attorney, Warner Eisenbise, declined to comment. However, Eisenbise previously has said that the Herrmans are innocent, that the boy was a frequent runaway, and that they didn't report his disappearance out of fear the state would take him and other children away from them.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/breaking_news/story/1115133.html

[Nut44x4]

Adam Herrman case goes to prosecutors
The case of a then-11-year-old Kansas boy whose disappearance went unreported for nearly a decade is now in the hands of a prosecutor.

The Butler County Sheriff's Office said Monday it has presented its investigation to the county attorney for review and possible charges.

"I feel there is enough to charge the parents....I see charges there," said Butler County Sheriff Craig Murphy during a news conference.

The sheriff declined to speculate about what charges might be brought against the adoptive parents.

Jan Satterfield, the Butler County Attorney, could not be reached for comment early Monday afternoon.

She has told The Eagle in the past that Adam's adoptive parents are suspects in an investigation that could lead to murder charges, based on an underlying crime of child abuse.

The Herrmans say they are innocent, claiming the boy was a frequent runaway.

Warner Eisenbise, the Wichita attorney representing Valerie Herrman, has said that it is possible that she could be charged with child abuse or not reporting Adam missing - but not murder.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/breaking_news/story/1114644.html

[Leroy]

what a sad story...wonder if they will ever find his body after all this time...

[Nut44x4]

1/4/2010
Investigation continues into missing Towanda boy

TOWANDA, Kan. (AP) -- The investigation into what happened to an 11-year-old Towanda boy not seen since 1999 continues and charges are possible sometime this year, Butler County Attorney Jan Satterfield said.

Adam Herrman's adoptive parents say he ran away from their mobile home park in Towanda in 1999. But his absence was not reported until his older sister contacted authorities about her concerns in December 2008.

Investigators said they could find no records or indication that Adam was still alive.

The boy's parents told authorities they did not report the boy's disappearance because they feared they would lose custody of Adam and other children.

His disappearance became public when Butler County investigators began digging in the mobile home park looking for human remains. Searchers found no remains and Butler County Sheriff Craig Murphy has consistently declined to say if any evidence was found.

Satterfield has said that the parents were suspects in the boy's disappearance. She said she expects to decide within a year whether to file charges or submit the case to a grand jury.

"There is no statute of limitations on murder," she said. "And for every year that passes, I think it only strengthens our case, especially given the extent of publicity.

"There's simply no trace of him anywhere. Time's our friend in bodiless cases. Another year's passed -- no Adam Herrman, no sight of Adam Herrman."

Investigators turned the case over to Satterfield last spring. She had hoped to present the case to a grand jury by last December, but said her office has been busy with three homicide cases in which charges have been filed.

Warner Eisenbise, who represents Adam's adoptive mother, Valerie Herrman, said, "My only comment is all that's been said is certainly conjecture and nothing more ... Common sense isn't sufficient to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."

Laura Shaneyfelt, representing Adam's adoptive father, Doug Herrman, agreed.

"I think prosecutors should always be careful in bodiless cases and not jump to conclusions," she said. "Just because someone has disappeared does not mean they have been murdered."

The lawyers say the Herrmans continue to say they have committed no crimes in the case.

Valerie Herrman told authorities that Adam ran away in early May 1999 after she spanked him with a belt. Relatives said that Herrman explained Adam's absence by saying he had been returned to state custody.

Adam's biological father, Irvin Groeninger, said he is frustrated that the case continues to be unsolved. But he said he thinks authorities are doing what they can and charges will eventually be filed.

Asked whether he thinks his son could be alive, he said, "I feel he would have been heard from by now."

Satterfield said she expects to meet this month with child abuse experts to discuss the case. She said she has obtained a number of statements and sheriff's investigators have gathered extensive information.

"Too much has been invested in this case, professionally and personally, to just forget about it. I just think it is chilling when kids can disappear without a trace."
http://www.hdnews.net/apksstory/k1019-BC-KS-MissingBoy-Annive-1stLd-Writethru-01-04-0659

[MuffyBee]

  

<snip>I just think it is chilling when kids can disappear without a trace."

[Nut44x4]

Parents of Adam Herrman charged with fraud

Last Update: 5:27 pm 

BUTLER COUNTY, Kansas – He vanished from Towanda more than a decade ago and now the adoptive parents of Adam Herrman have been arrested an charged for fraud.

Adam Herrman literally vanished back in 1999 and authorities say his adoptive parents, Doug and Valerie Herrman, never reported him missing.

In fact, Adam’s disappearance wasn’t discovered until 2008. Now, his adoptive parents have been arrested and stand accused of continuing to accept money for Adam’s care.

The Butler County attorney has charged each of the parents with one count of theft for accepting more than $50,000 in government assistance for Adam’s care after he had gone missing.

The couple has maintained that Adam, who was 11 at the time, ran away from their Towanda home in May 1999 after Valerie hit him with a belt. But they never reported him missing or as a runaway.

Authorities learned about the case only after Adam’s adoptive sister told authorities. The Butler County Sheriff’s Department began digging in the mobile home park where the family had lived, searching for human remains. Those remains were never found.

Butler County Attorney Jan Satterfield says the homicide investigation continues and that prosecution for murder could begin at any time.

Doug and Valerie Herrman have posted bond and are out of jail.
http://www.ksn.com/news/local/story/Parents-of-Adam-Herrman-charged-with-fraud/w84ouBQDykmR88rE2pDSCg.cspx

[cartfly]

Doug and Valerie Herrman get prison time 

By Jessica Seibel
El Dorado Times
Posted Aug 01, 2011 @ 05:35 PM
Last update Aug 01, 2011 @ 05:39 PM

 ::snipping2::
Judge David Ricke sentenced Doug Herrman to nine months in prison and Valerie Herrman to seven months in prison, both to be followed by 12 months of probation, at a hearing Monday.

The Herrmans appeared in the district courtroom for sentencing after pleading guilty to felony theft charges on June 17.

Prior to giving the Herrmans their sentences, Ricke listened to Mike Brown and Chris Pate, lawyers for the defendants, explain that jail time should not be part of the sentences because only theft charges were involved in the case.

Pate also argued that prison should be reserved for people who pose a threat to society, not for people who are convicted of theft.

Pate also said the Herrmans are caregivers for their 22-year-old daughter who has special needs, and that prison time would jeopardize her care.

Carrol Christian of the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services disagreed with Brown and Pate.

"We would request the Herrmans receive the maximum penalty," he said.

In explaining the sentence he handed down, Ricke called Doug and Valerie Herrman callous and noted they were receiving a harsher penalty than they would have if the case had been solely about theft.

"The court finds that this case is about much more," said Ricke. "The failure to report a child who has disappeared is undeniably a significant part of this case."
 ::snipping2::

http://www.eldoradotimes.com/highlights/x1158632031/Doug-and-Valerie-Herrman-get-prison-time