NORWALK, Ohio – These mini wooden torture chambers (facing page) were a sadistic couple’s idea of bunk beds for their adopted children – oversized chicken coops splashed in “Romper Room” pastels to conceal their brutality.
In this chamber of horrors in Wakeman, Ohio, Michael and Sharen Gravelle, imprisoned nine of their 11 adopted children – all of them with mental and health disorders including autism, Down syndrome, HIV and fetal-alcohol syndrome.
The windowless, second-floor kids’ room was like a summer camp from hell. The cages were brightly painted in kid-friendly colors – but they were so small that the children couldn’t stand up inside, these exclusive pictures obtained by The Post show.
The children were forced to sleep on thin mats or blankets instead of real bedding.
Most of the 40-inch-high, 30-inch-wide kinder-coops had chicken wire to prevent the kids from escaping. Another had two pieces of wood across the entrance door to prevent it from being opened without the Gravelles’ knowledge.
Investigators said the room smelled of urine when they showed up with a warrant after receiving an anonymous complaint that the children were being mistreated.
But yesterday, the Gravelles’ lawyer said his clients did not abuse the children – and, in fact, had them sleeping in the cages for their own good.
“These are special-needs children, who have very serious emotional disorders, including reactive attachment disorder, PICA [an eating disorder in which people eat things that are not food] and other conditions resulting in extreme behavioral problems,” lawyer David Sherman said in a statement.
“Because of these disorders, traditional methods of behavior control were unsuccessful. The children have been out of control and have caused serious harm to themselves and each other,” Sherman said.
“In order to prevent further injury, Mr. Gravelle constructed enclosures around their twin-size bunk beds to provide a secure space to keep them safe while the parents were asleep at night.”
Sherman objected to the term “cages,” saying “that was not their function.”
“There was no cruelty, excessive restraint or risk of harm,” he said. “The children were free to leave their beds anytime they wanted.”
He claimed that “a licensed social worker” as well as an adoption agency told the Gravelles to build the enclosures to prevent the children from eating “batteries, clothes, blankets, mattresses, wood, carpets, chemicals and anything they could obtain,” which they had previously done.
He claimed that the social worker has been visiting the children every day for the past five years – but added that she is “temporarily out of the country.”
“The Gravelles love and miss their children, and are devastated and broken-hearted with worry, since their children have been ripped away from them.
“Their motives and intentions were good. They would never harm a child. The children love their parents and want to come home.”
Local officials said the Gravelles received a subsidy of at least $500 a month to care for the children, a payment that is meant to encourage adoption by ensuring that foster families can maintain their standard of living.
“There’s no follow-up because you’re giving that family the money so they can incorporate that child into their life,” said Rhonda Abban, chief of adoption services for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
In 2001, the Gravelles adopted an infant born with HIV through the Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services, director Jim McCafferty said.
Before that adoption, private agencies gave the couple “glowing reports,” McCafferty said.
Sheriff’s deputies were called to the home twice in the last five years: once to settle a dispute with a neighbor in 2000, and last year, when a 12-year-old boy was upset and ran away for several hours. He was found down the road.
Nine of the children were removed by local authorities Friday on the grounds that they were neglected and abused.
The couple’s two other children – Abba, 8, and Sharen Jr., 14 – were also removed because they were living in the abusive environment, not because they were neglected or abused themselves, authorities said.
Huron County Prosecutor Russell Leffler said that Abba and Sharen Jr. were not forced to sleep in the cages, but he would not say why, citing the ongoing investigation.
Only two of the children – Michael Jr., who was in sixth grade last year, and Sharen Jr., who was in eighth – are known to have gone to school. They were both removed from Western Reserve Elementary last year, according to principal Mary Lynn Mahoney.
“Michael was popular. He had friends and you’d see him talking to them as they waited for the bus,” she said.
Mahoney said she saw no evidence of abuse, but told The Norwalk Reflector, a local paper, that “the parents were very strict and had disagreements with school administration.”
The paper reported that Mahoney was upset that the Gravelles barred their children from class trips if they had misbehaved in the home.
“We disagreed with [that] restriction,” she told the paper, saying that field trips are educational, not superfluous.
The children ranged in age from 1 to 14 and many have Biblical names such as Elijah, River, Jordan and Sampson. All are black, while the Gravelles are white.
Additional reporting by Gersh Kuntzman in New York