Ankeny couple charged with abuse increasingly called police for parenting help, records show

Lee Rood
The Des Moines Register

Explosive fights, tantrums, alleged abuse and profanity-laced yelling were reported to police dozens of times over the last decade inside the home of John and Joyce Bell of Ankeny.

A Reader's Watchdog review of more than 70 police incidents at the home suggests a couple who increasingly struggled to parent the disabled children they adopted from foster care.

In all, the Bells adopted nine children with disabilities from state care, according to two adopted daughters.

The increasing turmoil came to a head when the couple’s 21-year-old adopted daughter, Krystal, posted videos this month on Facebook of her 16-year-old brother with multiple disabilities being struck by both parents.

Joyce and John Bell

John Bell, 55, and his wife Joyce, 57, now face felony charges of child endangerment causing bodily injury after child-protective workers removed their 16-year-old and 17-year-old sons July 12.

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Jerry Foxhoven, the new human services chief named by Gov. Kim Reynolds last month, says confidentiality laws prevent him from speaking directly about the Bells' history with the agency.

And he said he had not seen the videos that prompted child protective workers to place the two teen boys in a shelter and police to arrest the Bells on Thursday.

But Foxhoven said any incident of alleged abuse captured on video needs to be considered in the context in which it happened. Generally, children with a range of disabilities, especially teenagers, can be challenging to parents.

Jerry Foxhoven

Foxhoven noted Iowa’s Department of Human Services already has made procedural changes because of the abuse deaths of Sabrina Ray of Perry last May and Natalie Finn of West Des Moines last October.

It’s also undergoing a review of its child-welfare practices by a private consultant and overseen by the state ombudsman.

Closer screening needed

But Foxhoven acknowledged that the agency needs to take a closer look at its early screening of foster and adoptive parents.

"One thing we need to look at is: Are we selecting the right people to begin with?" he said.

Screening tools have progressed in the years since some parents first were allowed to have multiple children placed in their foster and adoptive homes.

Today, income stability and the mental health of parents are under closer scrutiny, Foxhoven and Human Services spokeswoman Amy McCoy said.

But a national advocate for family preservation said Friday that recent tragedies already suggest more children in Iowa would be better off if child-protection workers removed fewer kids.

"We now have case after case after case where the accused are foster parents who adopted the children in their care," said Richard Wexler, who runs the Virginia-based National Coalition for Child Protection Reform.

"Yet I hear no calls … demanding that Iowa stop putting so many children in danger by tearing apart families at one of the highest rates in America."

Wexler said his analysis of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services foster care and child population data suggest Iowa has a higher rate of removal of children than the vast majority of states.

But Foxhoven said standards for placing children in foster care because of abuse are the same for birth and adoptive parents.

Foxhoven said fewer children are being removed overall in Iowa in recent years, and the children under state care present more serious challenges because they come from the most difficult homes.

National experts say no national standards exist guiding states on the appropriate size of families taking in adopted children, even those with disabilities.

The number of children in a family and any disabilities are supposed to be assessed every time a child is placed in foster or adoptive homes.

But states often make choices based largely on availability because of high demand, said Chuck Johnson, a spokesman for the National Council for Adoption.

“It’s a vicious cycle you see repeated over and over and over again … because you don’t have any other family, you place a child or children into the next available family," Johnson said. "It shouldn’t be that way."

Violence reported among kids

When police this month interviewed the two teenagers remaining in the Bells’ care, a 17-year-old told them his adoptive father recently pushed him so hard that blood came out of his nose.

That prompted one of the two felony charges of child endangerment causing bodily injury filed Thursday against John Bell, a criminal complaint shows.

The other counts against Bell and his wife stem from the abuse Krystal Bell caught on video, according to court records.

Ankeny police said many of the calls to the Bell household were in response to children assaulting other kids in the home, arguing with parents, mental health issues or running away from home.

Four of the reports were sent to the Department of Human Services.

When presented with information and circumstances such as these, officers are limited on the actions they can take, police Lt. Brian Kroska said.

Ankeny records show they took 16 reports just this year, discounting some of the most recent fights and disputes as “parenting issues.”

The Bells increasingly looked to police to calm their teenage boys or coerce them to take their medications, the reports indicate.

They also imply past disputes with two daughters, Makayla and Krystal, who no longer live in the home and who reported child abuse.

Calls from adults worried about the children in the Bell home dated back to at least 2007, police reports show.

Calls for a child in need of assistance date back to at least 2009.

Among them was a caller in May 2010 who said she heard a man screaming inside the Bell house, telling the children to “get their f---ing a---s downstairs now.”

The caller said several children were looking out the window as if they needed help. But police said everything in the home appeared OK when they arrived.

“Kids were not wanting to take their baths before bedtime,” the incident report said.

In March 2015, Krystal Bell called police and said her adoptive father pushed her and there was blood on her wall from being injured.

On Nov. 2 of that year, she called again and said her mother was hurting her brother.

In March of last year, Makayla Bell called to say her little sister had sent her a video of her little brothers “being beat on by their adoptive parents.”

There were also numerous calls from Joyce and John Bell, alleging their children were out of control, assaultive or in need of a transfer because of mental health or medication issues.

In the end, Krystal Bell’s Facebook postings triggered new reports of child abuse to Iowa’s child-protective hotline. Those reports helped lead to intervention by social workers.

The Bells were arrested Thursday and remained Friday in the Polk County Jail with their bond set at $50,000 cash.

DHS officials have declined to say how much the Bells, or other parents, have received in foster or adoptive subsidies over the years, contending the information is confidential.

But Sen. Matt McCoy, a Des Moines Democrat who has been spearheading efforts to examine the handling of such cases since the deaths of Sabrina Ray and Natalie Finn, said workers tell him the couple earned more than $1 million over the past decade for the children in their care.

A family adopting nine special needs children could be eligible to receive more than $110,000 annually.

Reporter Jason Noble contributed to this story.