[StBernard] Injured St. Bernard teen's home had no food, no running water

[Westley Annis]

Injured St. Bernard teen's home had no food, no running water
by Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune 
Friday September 11, 2009, 9:18 PM

Daniel Ballard has been booked with cruelty to a juvenile.The injured,
malnourished 14-year-old boy found in a rural St. Bernard Parish trailer
park this week was living with his father and six dogs in a cramped,
foul-smelling motor home that had no running water, no food and limited
electricity, according to a police report detailing the incident.


With only scant details from the boy and his father, the St. Bernard
Sheriff's Office on Friday continued to piece together the bizarre discovery
of the teen by Constable Tony Guerra, who stumbled upon him Wednesday while
serving an eviction notice at the eastern St. Bernard trailer park. Deputies
said the boy, who is in the custody of the state Department of Social
Services, was still at a hospital receiving treatment for a foot infection
but is recovering quickly.

The boy weighed only 60 pounds, and police said he has not attended school
or received medical treatment in more than four years. The father, Daniel
Ballard, 30, was arrested and booked with cruelty to a juvenile.

The Sheriff's Office is expecting the boy's mother to arrive from Arizona
sometime next week. It's unclear whether she has custody documents to claim
legal guardianship of the boy.

"Until we look at documents and see some facts, we can only go by what the
boy and the father are telling us, " said Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy
James Pohlmann.


The boy gave detectives his mother's phone number, and she told police that
she has been in contact with the boy on and off over the past few years. The
woman, whose name was not released, told the Sheriff's Office that she put
the boy on a plane from Arizona in 2005 for a short visit with his father.


>From that point forward, Ballard kept the boy with him, although the mother

told deputies over the phone that she has tried to get him back but could
never track him down. She told police that Ballard often tightly restricted
phone conversations and would never reveal their whereabouts.

The boy's name is not listed anywhere as a runaway or a kidnapping victim,
Pohlmann said.

Both Ballard and the boy told deputies Wednesday that the swollen,
discolored foot came after the boy had dropped a speaker on it earlier in
the week at a storage building Ballard had on the West Bank.

Guerra, the constable who initially discovered the boy, said he also noticed
what appeared to be an untreated fractured arm. Detectives in the juvenile
division said the boy told them the injury was the result of a motorcycle
accident.

Police said the boy told them he was not taken in for medical treatment, and
they said the bone was never set properly.

When asked why he had never taken his son to a hospital or enrolled him in
school, Ballard told police his son didn't want to go, according to the
initial police report of the incident.

The report from Ballard's arrest Wednesday sheds light on the living
conditions inside the RV. The report details a "very strong, foul odor
emanating from the inside of the trailer" and "numerous pieces of what
appeared to be animal feces throughout the trailer floor." Deputies also
noticed that "there was no food in the trailer, no running water and only
the air conditioner had electrical power, " according to the police report.

Ballard and his son were living with six dogs and one cat inside the cramped
motor home. The pets were taken to St. Bernard's animal shelter.

The owner of the mobile home park where the RV was located, Charles Fanz,
said Ballard had only been living there for about a month. Bruce Jackson, a
local justice of the peace, said he was told by Fanz that Ballard's living
conditions were unacceptable.

Jackson later issued the eviction notice that prompted Guerra's discovery.

For now, detectives are still patching together Ballard's transient
lifestyle throughout the New Orleans area for the past four years. Ballard
said he made a living by cutting grass.

Detectives know the boy has lived in the New Orleans area since the summer
of 2005, right before Hurricane Katrina. From initial conversations with the
boy while at the hospital, detectives believe Ballard had only recently
gotten the RV.

The two had lived in a trailer park on Airline Highway in Jefferson Parish
before they moved to the Fanz Mobile Home Estates park last month.
Detectives said the boy mentioned that Ballard had a girlfriend they lived
with in a Metairie apartment at some point.

They also lived for a time in a vacant building on the West Bank, the boy
told detectives.

Ballard has an outstanding warrant in New Mexico for possession of
marijuana, but criminal searches have turned up no warrants alleging
kidnapping.