Foster Mother Charged With Dumping Girl

By SAMUEL MAULL
.c The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) - A woman accused of dumping her disabled foster child's
shriveled corpse into the trash kept the girl in a ``despicable'' home that was
scattered with garbage, feces, vomit and maggots, prosecutors said Thursday.

The alleged living conditions were described at an arraignment and bail
hearing for Renee Johnson, 50, who is charged with tampering with physical
evidence, improperly disposing of a human body and falsely reporting an incident.

The charges relate to the disposal of 9-year-old Stephanie Ramos, whose
remains were left in a plastic bag amid garbage sacks lining a Manhattan sidewalk.
Detectives found the ``broken and crushed body of Stephanie'' in a Bronx
sanitation facility after sifting through garbage trucks, Assistant District
Attorney Joan Illuzzi said.

Judge Robert Stolz set Johnson's bail at $50,000. She could face up to four
years in prison if convicted of evidence tampering, the top charge. She did not
enter a plea at the hearing.

Johnson's lawyer, Murray Singer, complained that the bail was too high. He
said she had lived in the same house for 20 years and had no previous police
record, adding that Johnson had shown no homicidal intent in Stephanie's death.

``She (Johnson) obviously didn't handle the situation well,'' he said.

Illuzzi said Johnson initially lied about what happened to the child and then
claimed she forgot where she dumped the body. Illuzzi said this caused her
office to halt all garbage collection in Manhattan.

Before Stephanie died, the prosecutor said Johnson kept the blind and
disabled girl and two other foster children in ``the most despicable, horrible,
filthy situation that a human being can imagine.''

At her house, investigators found dirty hypodermic needles, garbage strewn
about, maggots, bags of clothing and beds covered with feces and vomit, Illuzzi
said.

Singer said outside court that child welfare officials had regularly
inspected Johnson's home and he was not aware of any problems there.

Johnson had been a foster mother to disabled children for three years and had
no history of abuse or neglect, said Maclean Guthrie, a spokeswoman for the
Administration for Children's Services.

Authorities have said Stephanie, who used a wheelchair and weighed only 28
pounds, had cerebral palsy, diabetes and other ailments.

Johnson, a retired nurse who was paid thousands of dollars a month in public
money to care for the children, told investigators that Stephanie died at her
home in Queens after being sick the previous three or four days, Illuzzi said.
The girl had been in her care for two years.

The prosecutor said Johnson was apparently worried that if she called 911 or
took the child to a hospital she would lose custody of all three children.
``Instead, she let her linger and die in her home,'' Illuzzi said.

After buying two garbage bags, Johnson shoved Stephanie into one of them and
left her body on a trash heap, Illuzzi said.



07/10/03 21:44 EDT