Medical Examiner: Blankets Killed Boy

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

(03/06/06 - RALEIGH) (WTVD) -- Eyewitness News has learned that blankes were used to punish and ultimately kill Sean Paddock.

The 4-year-old boy was wrapped in blankets so snugly that he lost consciousness, the state medical examiner said. Investigators said he was repeatedly wrapped up as punishment in the days before his death Feb. 26.

The boy's mother, Lynn Paddock, 45, is charged with his murder.

"The binding was a form of punishment and had occurred several times in the week leading to his death," Johnston County Sheriff Steve Bizzell said Friday. "This is the most extreme case of torture of a child I have ever seen."

District Attorney Tom Lock said he will consider whether to indict Paddock for first-degree murder, saying torture would merit pursuing the toughest homicide charge.

If convicted of first-degree murder, Paddock could be executed or would spend the rest of her life in prison with no chance of being freed.

John Butts, the state's chief medical examiner, reported Friday that he found bruises covering Sean's back and buttocks. Butts concluded those injuries did not kill Sean.

Paddock and her husband, Johnny Paddock, adopted six children and have one biological child, deputies said. The couple run a 12-acre farm outside Smithfield. Lynn Paddock taught the children at home, Bizzell said.

Sean's 8-year-old sister and 9-year-old brother told detectives last week that Lynn Paddock punished with beatings using a PVC pipe. The 9-year-old boy was beaten so badly he limped, a prosecutor said.

The beatings led prosecutors to charge Paddock with two counts of felony child abuse.

Sean's siblings, along with two other adopted children, were removed from the Paddock house by social workers.

Another adopted child and Johnny Paddock's 18-year-old daughter returned home with him after Sean's death.

Lynn and Johnny Paddock adopted Sean and his siblings in July 2005, seven months after their Wake County foster mother first raised concerns that the Paddocks inappropriately disciplined the children.

Sean returned from a pre-adoption visit in January 2005 with bruises on his backside. Lynn Paddock told Johnston County social workers that the boy fell from a bunk bed. The foster mother did not believe her and called a Wake County social worker.

Wake County responds Wake County Human Services is offering up explanations about how Sean Paddock went from one abusive home to another.

County officials released a report Monday, saying social workers paid monthly visits to Paddock's home leading up to the adoption of Sean and his siblings. Despite one bruise on the boy's body, social workers say they never found unsafe conditions.

No one denies that Sean was bruised during a pre-adoption visits to Lynn Paddock's home in Johnston County. Paddock told the boy's foster mother that Sean fell from the bed. The foster mother thought the bruise was more severe, and Sean's siblings said the boy had been spanked.

Warren Ludwig, the director of child welfare in Wake County, says social workers investigated the allegation, but never proved it.

"We do not think that these children had been abused by the adoptive parents," Ludwig said.

Wake County Human Services and a child-fatality review board are trying to see if more could have been done to save Sean. Investigators want to nkow if any of the other kids were abused and what the adoptive father may have known about it.

Meanwhile, Ludwig is defending social workers.

"I think the staff did their best to make the best judgment calls they could, given the information they have," Ludwig said. "We are not able to know for sure what another human being is going to do in the future."

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