Parents facing criminal charges want their troubled adopted teen from Panama back
Published by Panama Guide at 8:30 pm under Panama News
By Nancy Cambria ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH EDWARDSVILLE ? The mother said her daughter hid the steak knives everywhere: under sofa cushions, in the folds of curtains, between mattresses, in the piano bench, the dog's toy basket. She found them about the same time her teenager ? once a tiny 3-year-old they adopted from a Panamanian orphanage ? carved an obscenity in her wrist and concealed the wound under a sweatband laced with safety pins. The girl harbored other secrets. Kathy Rhoten, of Edwardsville, said she realized that her daughter, then 13, had been hoarding hundreds of pins and needles in her pillowcases, threading them in the hems of her clothes and lining her pockets. (more)
"You name it, if it had a sharp edge, I found it hidden in my house," said Rhoten, who coped with her daughter's increasing disobedience and rages: lashing out with fingernails, pricking herself and classmates with tacks, stealing and lying. Rhoten had already packed up boxes of gifts and heirlooms because her daughter was destroying them during arguments. Her daughter poured cleaning chemicals on carpets and loosened the slats on the ceiling fan, causing one to fly, Rhoten said.
"We were frightened, very frightened," Rhoten said.