08/29/2002

By kgw.com Staff

How the Oregon Department of Human Services sent a report detailing allegations of sexual abuse of Ashley Pond to the wrong agency will be the subject of an “internal review” by the state and Clackamas County authorities.

Governor John Kitzhaber announced Friday that a multi-agency investigation would be launched involving the Department of Human Services, Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office and the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office.

Governor John Kitzhaber says there will be an investigation into how abuse allegations involving Ashley Pond were sent to the wrong law enforcement agency. (KGW Photo)

“I think it’s important to get beyond the finger pointing and find out what happened to this particular case and to ensure that in the future, we have a system that will function without a flaw,” Kitzhaber said.

The mishandled report has touched off a spat between the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office and the Oregon Department of Human Services and prompted questions about how a cumbersome bureaucracy may have impaired the investigation of Ashley and Miranda Gaddis' missing person's cases.

The sexual abuse was allegedly commited by Ashley's neighbor and father of her best friend, Ward Weaver. Questions are being raised that if authorities had acted on the abuse report sooner, Ashley and Miranda may be alive today.

Ashley went missing in January and Miranda disappeared on her way to school in March.

Investigators found their bodies last weekend in the backyard of suspect Weaver, who now sits in Clackamas County Jail in Oregon City on an unrelated rape charge. Weaver has not been charged in the deaths of the two Oregon City girls.

Ward Weaver. (KGW Photo courtesy of the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office.)

A report that Weaver sexually abused Ashley was called in to Multnomah County about a year ago, according to the DHS. The hotline then forwarded the report to the Department of Human Service’s Office in Clackamas County, who then are supposed to forward it to law enforcement.

The DHS has said the report involving Ashley was sent to the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office when it should’ve been faxed to the Oregon City police department. Citing privacy laws, the DHS says it can’t show the report to anyone because it involves a juvenile.

Weaver and Ashley lived in Oregon City, which places the case in the police department’s jurisdiction, rather than the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office. Oregon City police have said they never received a report from either the DHS or Clackamas County sheriffs.

The Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office said it had never received a report from DHS.

“We were quite surprised that accusatory missile was launched at the sheriff’s office in this situation,” said Detective Jim Strovink.

The sheriff’s office receives about 30 abuse cases a month from the DHS. Because the sheriff’s department is the largest law enforcement department in Clackamas County, some cases that should’ve been sent to Milwaukie or Oregon City police, for example, are instead faxed to deputies, Strovink said.

When a report is misdirected, the sheriff’s office faxes the report to the proper authorities and makes a copy of the case for documentation in the sheriff’s office.

The report was allegedly faxed to Clackamas County in September 2001, Strovink said. But Strovink says if the mistaken report was received by the sheriff’s department, deputies would’ve made a copy of it before faxing it to the proper authorities.

“We nothing in our files to indicate that we ever received a report from the Oregon Department of Human Services,” he said. “We do not have that, and we are not going to accept responsibility for that.”

Strovink said in September 2001, the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office received two, misdirected reports. One was forwarded to Portland and the other was directed to Milwaukie via fax, he said.

Strovink said he’s asked the DHS to produce either a hard copy or a facsimile of the report detailing the abuse against Ashley.

“We have asked for that correspondence,” he said. “We have asked for that documentation, and since that point in time, we’ve asked for it on several occasions, and they have not provided that to us. We contend that we have not received that report.”

To Strovink’s knowledge, the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office has never crossed its signals before with the DHS.

He did, however, say he did not know if the sheriff’s office follows up to make sure that police agencies receive forwarded, DHS faxes from his office.

“We have to be accountable,” Strovink said. “We’re asking for some accountability from the Oregon Department of Human Services, and they aren’t able to provide that documentation to us. We are going to work with them in bolstering the system and trying to identify that soft spot.”