Fighting to save grandson

Western Slope family campaigns for release of 14-year-old boy from
Louisiana preacher's harsh detention compound

By Lou Kilzer
News Staff Writer


¯1998, Denver Rocky Mountain News

ARCADIA, La. -- She is a 70-year-old Colorado cancer victim
determined to see her grandson one more time.

He is a fiery Louisiana preacher who has incarcerated children for 27
years.

In the middle is a popular Western Slope honor student who has
disappeared inside an American gulag.

Fourteen-year-old Matt Grise of Rifle is being held behind the
10-foot-high barbed-wire fences of the New Bethany Baptist Church
juvenile detention compound in northern Louisiana.

He has not been charged with any crime. No court supervises his
detention. The boy's father, other family members say, has decided Matt is
"evil" and must be subjected to the Rev. Mack W. Ford's stern brand of
corporal punishment.

No one on the outside, except for Matt's father, Vincent Russo of
Independence, Mo., is allowed to communicate with the boy.

Joan Grise says she won't rest until her grandson is freed.

But Ford appears in no hurry to release Matt.

This has set the stage for a confrontation in the same rural Louisiana parish
where lawmen gunned down desperadoes Bonnie Parker and Clyde
Barrow in a roadside ambush in 1934.

For three months, Joan Grise has done everything she can think of to free
Matt. But lawyers in three states told her she has no standing to act on
Matt's behalf.

Now, she plans to travel to Arcadia and approach Ford, hoping to
convince the preacher to back down.

As the weeks have dragged by, Joan Grise says she has become
increasingly worried, unable even to verify until recently that Matt is still
alive.

Ford angrily declined to be interviewed by the News. He ordered a
reporter off the property Oct. 22 and threatened to call the police.

Deputy Sheriff Bob Stewart of Bienville Parish, where Arcadia is located,
says there's no way of knowing the conditions inside what he calls Ford's
"private jail."

"It's a money-making deal," Stewart says. Ford gets children "down here
and works the heck out of them and spanks the heck out of them and
does what he wants to."

Ford has said relatives need not worry. What the kids have called
"beatings" were merely "paddling" and "licks," he once explained.

No child receives more than 10 "licks" for any infraction, he said.

The kids need this type of punishment, Ford told a Baton Rouge
newspaper in 1985.

"When a boy is placed here, he is not a Sunday school dropout," Ford
said. "When a boy is placed here, this is the end of the road for him. We
take boys no one really wants or cares for.

"We feel this is the goal of the New Bethany Home -- to reach the
unwanted with the love of God."

'A gentle spirit'

If there's one thing Matt Grise is, it's wanted.

Not only by his grandmother, but by uncles, aunts, teachers, counselors
and dozens of friends.

They uniformly describe a youngster bright and respectful, an athlete in the
best circles at his school in Rifle and then after moving to live with his
father in Independence, Mo.

In his last semester at Rifle Middle School in 1996, Matt earned six As
and one B, in band. In the standardized comment section of the report
card, most of the teachers used No. 3 to describe Matt -- "a pleasure to
have in class."

Sandy Playter, a guidance counselor at the middle school Matt attended in
Kansas City, even offered to adopt him.

"I truly loved Matt," she says. "Just like he was my own son."

"I've been in the people business a long time," said Connie Roman, another
counselor at Matt's middle school in Kansas City. "Matt has a sweet soul
and a gentle spirit."

Adds Grandma Joan:

"I'm crazy about him. We were great buddies."

Money was tight

Matt Grise was born Nov. 9, 1983, in Aspen, the son of Joan's daughter,
Sarah Elizabeth "Libba" Grise, and Vincent Russo, a laborer who soon left
the scene.

The Grises were not part of the Aspen jet set. In the late 1970s, Libba
and Joan worked together as domestic servants in Snowmass. Joan,
whose husband died in 1970, eventually started a caretaking business and
worked at the local rodeo.

Libba took a second job as a guide at Snowmass Village, giving her time
to ski with her son.

However stretched the Grises were for money, they were close. Matt,
Libba, Joan, Libba's brother Payson and his wife Sharlene, a teacher in
Rifle, saw each other all the time.

The star of the family was precocious Matthew, who shortly after learning
to talk began making up fantastic stories about duck kings and talking
dogs.

"He has such a quick mind," Joan says. "I'm a slow poke."

Just before Matt turned three, Libba contracted throat cancer and
underwent several surgeries to try to save her life. To stay off welfare, she
moved to Grand Junction and opened a day care center.

"She was the nicest person in the world," says Grand Junction attorney
Martelle Daniels. "She cared for my own kids."

To help pay the bills, Libba commuted to Snowmass during the weekends
to work in a grocery store.

But as the disease began to consume her, Joan, Payson and Sharlene
pitched in to help raise Matt.

Matt was living with Payson and Sharlene in nearby Silt. They were
protective, trying to spare Matt from watching his mother waste away.

In September 1995, Joan was diagnosed with lung cancer. A month later,
his mother died. Matt was 11.

Vincent Russo came to Libba's funeral. Relatives say it was the first time
Matt had seen his father in years.

Family troubles didn't visibly affect Matt's performance at Rifle Middle
School. He made the honor roll and once was named Student of the
Month.

But those around him knew there was a hole in Matt's life. He wanted a
father.

For Christmas 1996, Sharlene and Payson agreed to send Matt to
Independence to visit Vincent.

He never came back.

A sudden descent

Exactly what was happening inside the Russo home outside Kansas City
while Matt was there isn't known.

Vincent Russo refused to discuss it, saying: "This is a personal affair of a
family. It's ridiculous for the public to get involved and embarrass my son."

Tami Russo, Vincent's wife and Matt's stepmother, told the Grises the boy
was "a pathological liar."

Those on the outside picked up clues from comments made by Matt,
Vincent and Tami.

Sandy Playter says Vincent Russo converted to a strict fundamentalist
Christian theology and thought Matt had gone astray. He began carefully
monitoring Matt's diet, at one point reducing it to peanut butter carefully
weighed on a scale, she said.

Matt got along well in school but told classmates that things at home were
very tough. He tried to stay away from home as much as possible but that
only got him in further trouble. Matt told friends that his father and
stepmother grounded him frequently.

Jay Playter, a friend of Matt's, says that when Matt was home he was
usually confined to a small room in the basement of the Russos' small
one-story house. Other friends say he wasn't allowed to watch TV.

But as in Rifle, the problems at home didn't seem to affect his school
work. He remained on the honor roll and placed third in a regional math
competition. He was also a star pitcher on a local youth baseball league.

Four of Matt's friends say they wondered why he couldn't just run away.

"Everybody suggested that," Jay says.

Some even suggested that Matt get physical with his father.

But Matt rejected all the suggestions, saying they would only get him in
deeper trouble.

Matt, his friends say, also became more religious, carrying a Bible and
reciting verses. His relatives say he was fond of his new friends in Missouri
and liked livikng in a metropolitan area.

Sharlene Grise, Matt's aunt, says that Vincent called early this year and
said things weren't working out. He was going to send Matt back to
Colorado.

That was fine with Sharlene and Payson, but they insisted that Vincent
formally surrender custody to them.

Vincent did not sign the legal papers, and soon the plan to send Matt back
to Colorado unraveled. Sharlene said Vincent began refusing her requests
to talk to Matt.

In early June, things deteriorated sharply. Apparently angry that the
Playters had treated Matt to ice cream, Vincent confined his son to his
room, Matt's friends said.

Worried, they started calling, but they couldn't get through.

On July 7, Sharlene says, Vincent told her that Matt was no longer there
-- but at a "really neat place" in Louisiana with "horses and pigs and a
swimming pool."

After hiring an attorney in Missouri, the family tracked Matt to New
Bethany.

'What are you doing?'

New Bethany is located in a remote, heavily wooded region 60 miles east
of Shreveport. Arcadia, pop. 3,079, is a few miles to the east.

Barbed-wire fences ring two areas in the compound -- one on the east
containing the church and boys' facilities and one on the west a school and
rooms for staff and their children, according to two young girls interviewed
10 days ago by a News reporter.

As the girls talked, a line of boys walked single file from one of the locked
compounds to the other. The swimming pool Vincent Grise mentioned
wasn't visible from the narrow dirt road separating the two areas.

When he learned that a reporter was asking about Matt Grise, an angry
Ford approached one of the fences with another man. Dressed in overalls,
Ford stood with his face almost pressing against the fence.

"What are you doing down here trying to start trouble?" Ford asked.

He refused to discuss Matt's situation, loudly repeating, "Ask the daddy.
Ask the daddy. Ask the daddy."

After the reporter produced a camera, Ford walked away quickly,
shouting, "I'm going to have the law on you."

Later, Ford walked in front of the reporter's car on a nearby public road,
forcing the car to stop. He then walked to the driver's side and tried
unsuccessfully to force open the door.

Beyond state control

Louisiana state officials have tried but failed to close down Ford's
unlicensed private compound. State courts have upheld Ford's contention
that his compound is a church protected by First Amendment guarantees
of freedom of religion and exempt from state control.

Ford repeatedly has rebuffed the attempts of state regulators to inspect the
facility. Even the state fire marshal is not allowed on site to assure the
safety of the approximately 50 children housed there.

Ford has a long history of run-ins with state authorities in the South.

In 1981, the state closed a Ford-run boys home in Longstreet, La., amid
accusations of child abuse. A year later, Ford opened the New Bethany
Baptist Church Home for Boys in Walterboro, S.C.

Within a year, abuse charges again swirled around Ford.

Hearing tales from runaways of savage treatment, South Carolina
authorities raided New Bethany, uncovering a logbook for beatings.

Boys there told of being hit with a plastic "rod of correction." Some said
they were confined to a tiny cell. Handcuffs and ropes allegedly used to
restrain the children were recovered.

In 1988, officials raided Ford's Arcadia compound, freeing 28 children
aged 12 to 17. An affidavit in the case indicated that several children had
severe bruising of the buttocks.

Some parents, however, returned their kids to Arcadia, some bringing
them in handcuffs from as far away as California, deputy Stewart said. A
state legislative committee later said it could find no children who told of
abuse and cleared Ford.

In 1992, the state removed three girls and a boy from the Arcadia after
renewed allegations of abuse.

In 1996 child welfare workers were turned away when they arrived to
investigate further complaints. They were told the children they had come
to see were no longer there.

When seriously challenged, Ford has closed his compounds, then
reopened them when the presure is off. He has also released children
when official interest in specific cases surfaced, said former Louisiana
probation officer Jim White.

While that gives some hope to members of Matt's family, it doesn't end
their confusion about how such a facility has existed for so long and how
their own relative vanished into Ford's private universe.

"Kids are taken down there against their will," complains Payson Grise,
Matt's uncle. "It's like you woke up one day and what was right isn't right
any more. And what was wrong is right."

Deputy Stewart has no illusions that the New Bethany Baptist Church is a
pastoral boys ranch.

"It's nothing but a juvenile jail," he says. But this juvenile jail isn't run by the
state or governed by local laws.

"Everybody's afraid of him," Stewart says of Ford. "I've been working for
the sheriff for about 18 years and I've tried every way (to stop Ford's
operation), and I've just about given up.

" ... I say if these people are ignorant enough to bring their child down here
or send their child down here, then they deserve what they get.

"But, see, the kids are the ones getting the punishment, not the adults."

Campaigning for Matt

Deputy Stewart said almost all the children incarcerated in Ford's
compound are from outside Louisiana. The few parents who change their
minds about the facility and ask for their child's release don't press any
complaints against Ford.

Most parents give Ford power of attorney over their children and leave
their kids there -- with no contact with the outside world -- for a year or
more, he said.

The family and friends of Matt Grise do not fit that pattern.

Sandy Playter sits at the kitchen table of her Kansas City home with a
six-inch stack of notes and documents she has collected during the Grise
family's three-month campaign to find help.

She has called welfare workers, attorneys, investigators, congressional
staffers and Louisiana state officials who possibly could influence Matt's
fate.

She has learned to surf the Internet to find anything she can about Ford
and his church.

She contacted Gregg Trusty Sr., a spokesman for the sheriff of Caddo
Parish, which includes Shreveport, La.

Trusty seemed sympathetic. She e-mailed him a detailed description of
Matt's status and his history in Missouri.

She described a kid who had no new clothes or shoes and the friends who
rallied around him and helped him buy some.

"I observed that on Fridays he was not as excited as his peers; he would
be excited only when he knew that he was spending the night with a friend
so that he would not have to be at home," she wrote Trusty.

"Normally, kids return to school smiling and energized. Matt was neither;
he looked tired and depressed. I asked him if he enjoyed his time away,
and he became teary and said, 'No.' This is a kid starved for love and
appreciation."

Trusty said he was moved. But like everyone else so far, he didn't know
what to do.

"New Bethany has been a thorn in the side of the Louisiana juvenile justice
system for more than 20 years," he e-mailed Playter.

He said Shirley White, an official with the Louisiana Department of Youth
Services, told him the only way "to get a boy out of there is if he runs away
and goes straight to the Sheriff's Office. She said there is no way on God's
Green Earth that the Bienville Parish Sheriff's Office would EVER under
ANY circumstances return a boy to New Bethany.

"But that's a Catch-22. The only way to talk with Matt is to get him out,
and the only way to get him out is to tell him to run away."

Trusty offered Playter his condolences.

"I'm afraid, however," he continued, "that we can do little more than
sympathize with you. Heaven knows the entire state of Louisiana has been
trying to do something about these people for years."

'Bonded servants'

At Ford's former South Carolina detention compound, there were three
tiers of boys, according to a 1984 report by The New York Times.

At the bottom were boys "in bondage." These boys were not allowed to
laugh or talk. They were marched to the fields to work while tied together
with a rope.

Another group, called "bonded servants," also worked but were allowed
to laugh and talk.

Finally, there were the "sojourners," who were free of chores.

Although several boys cried with relief after South Carolina authorities
raided the school, others said the tough discipline had helped them.

"Most of the boys were brainwashed, just like Hitler did with kids," said
Ralph Murdaugh, the county prosecutor at the time.

Jim White, the retired Louisiana probation officer, said he believes he was
the last official to see boys inside Ford's Arcadia compound. He said he
tried several times without success to free a Florida boy sent there by his
parents.

White said he saw enough of the compound to make him deeply
suspicious of Reverend Ford. He said his visit to the lunchroom was
surreal.

There was no talking, laughing or jousting -- highly unusual for
8-to-16-year-olds, White said. The kids' heads were bowed.

But Ford's tough approach has found supporters in the Louisiana
legislature.

After the abuse allegations at Arcadia in 1988, Rep. Alphonse Jackson of
Shreveport visited New Bethany.

"I didn't see any evidence of anything abusive," he said at the time. "I didn't
see any reason for any investigation of the school while I was there."

Of the kids, he said, "the few that are left there appeared to be happy."

'What happened here?'

Grandma Joan -- her family calls her Jo-Anne -- last month left her
Glenwood Springs home and traveled to Independence to confront Matt's
father, Vincent Russo.

"He said the most ridiculous thing," she said. "He said, 'I loved Matt.' I
was just furious. I wanted to fight. I said, 'If you loved him, why did you
send him so far away to where nobody can speak or write to him?"'

Unsatisfied with the answers, Joan donned a sandwich board sign bearing
Matt's picture and the word "Missing!" and paraded in front of Russo's
home.

Police were called.

"The police got pretty macho with me," she says. "I just said, 'Look, I'm
too old to be intimidated. You just tell me what I can do and what I can't
do and I think that will work."'

The police told her she could carry the sign but must not set foot on
Russo's property.

Joan is posting "missing persons" fliers of Matt around Independence. But
she said she's getting frustrated.

She says her next stop is the compound itself in Louisiana.

She doesn't know whether Ford will order her to leave -- and she doesn't
care.

She feels she's living on borrowed time. Three years ago, doctors told her
she had six months to live. Now that she has taken up Matt's cause, her
cancer is in remission. That could be a sign, she says, that she's doing the
right thing.

A showdown with the preacher just seems right. Besides, it might be her
last option.

"I'm not wealthy," she says. "I cannot go to court and get Matt out."

Of one thing she is certain -- what happened isn't right.

"I call it kidnapping," she says. "I call it child abuse. I call it all the names
you're not supposed to say. And it's the truth."


November 1, 1998

This Rocky Mountain News story was syndicated nationwide by Scripps Howard wire service and The Associated Press.

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