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Witness says 7-year-old wrote only positive things about woman charged in her death
April 10, 2008 - 2:40AM
LINDELL KAY
THE DAILY NEWS
Life for Kayla Allen, a 7-year-old girl who spent most of her life at the center of a bitter custody dispute between her biological mother and her legal guardian before dying after ingesting insecticide in August 2003, was "being shuffled back and forth like cards," her psychological therapist remembers her saying.
Jessica Powell, a Wilmington therapist, was practicing in Jacksonville when she treated Kayla from September 2002 to April 2003. She testified for the second day Wednesday in the first-degree murder trial of Carolyn Futrell, Kayla Allen's legal guardian at the time of her death.
Kayla lived with Carolyn Futrell - the woman charged with murder in her death - since she was 2½ years old. Futrell was married to the brother of Kayla's biological mother, Nicole Allen. When Kayla was 5, her uncle divorced Futrell, who remained Kayla's legal guardian.
The court terminated Nicole Allen's parental rights in April 2003, according to Daily News reports.
Futrell brought Kayla to Powell after the girl's grandmother had taken her to Michigan for two weeks. The grandmother, now deceased and who was charged with kidnapping by law enforcement, said she was only protecting Kayla from abuse in the Futrell home.
Powell testified that Kayla said her grandmother poked at the girl's bruises to make them worse and told her to say it had been done by Futrell with a wooded spoon.
The therapist testified that she was supportive of Futrell adopting Kayla, but did not think it was in the girl's best interest for her to totally lose contact with her biological mother.
"Mom, I think you forgot something, you are my mom," Kayla wrote in a therapy exercise where the patient writes a letter to someone expressing their feelings, Powell testified.
Nicole Allen declined to comment on Wednesday's proceedings.
Powell said she asked Kayla to write down things she liked and did not like about Nicole Allen and Futrell. Powell also had the girl select words from a list.
Kayla did not write anything negative about Futrell, Powell said. But for the positive, Kayla wrote:
- nice
- never lazy
- had plans for her
- buys stuff
- never mean
- good cook
- had a pretty home
- had dogs
- always there
- had a job and money
When describing positive things about Nicole Allen, Kayla said her mother sometimes bought toys, fixed her make-up and did her hair sometimes. Kayla said the negative things about Nicole Allen were:
- lazy
- no washing machine
- no money
- money she has she gets from someone else
- hardly buys toys
- smokes
- has no plans for me
- goes out to a bar and gets drunk that's why she is lazy.
Contact crime reporter Lindell Kay at lkay@freedomenc.com or 910-554-8534.
http://www.jdnews.com/news/kayla_55954___article.html/therapist_allen.html
Emphasis added by H4K Editor |