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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 2016
Roden: Doctors describe the childrens’ injuries as torture
Continued from Page 1A
move the case forward to trial
in September, and to allow
the prosecution to present the
gruesome evidence.
“It’s all systems go in Sep-
tember,” Brown said.
Traumatized children
Roden, 28, who is facing
the death penalty if convicted,
is already serving an eight-
year prison sentence for violat-
ing probation from a previous
domestic violence conviction.
He is accused of tortur-
ing and murdering Evange-
lina Wing in December 2014.
An autopsy found the toddler
apparently died of battered
child syndrome with blunt
force trauma to her head.
Roden is also accused of
abusing the two brothers, Pat-
rick Wing, now 3, and Peydon
Kahclamat-Harding, now 7.
The boys are living with fam-
ily in California.
Doctors describe the chil-
drens’ injuries as torture. A
pediatric doctor testiied in
April that Peydon is one of the
most traumatized children she
had ever seen.
Prosecutors believe Evan-
gelina Wing and her broth-
ers were tortured, burned,
bitten and caged in the Sea-
side apartment their mother,
Dorothy Wing, shared with
Roden.
Wing, 26, pleaded guilty in
January to irst-degree man-
slaughter and two counts of
irst-degree criminal mistreat-
The Daily Astorian/File Photo
Defense attorney Conor Huseby leads Randy Roden away
after a hearing at Clatsop County Courthouse.
ment. She was sentenced to
more than 15 years in prison,
contingent on her truthfully
testifying at Roden’s trial.
Attempts to dismiss
Roden’s defense lawyers
attempted to dismiss the case
by claiming doctors never
tested the children’s tissue for
a dangerous lesh-eating virus
known as methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus infec-
tion. The defense has an expert
— Janice Ophoven, a pedi-
atric forensic pathologist —
who claims the toddler likely
died from complications of
the infection, rather than from
blunt-force trauma. The two
brothers also showed signs of
the infection, she said.
“(The doctors) acted in
good faith,” Brownhill con-
cluded. “Moreover, it was
not apparent in December
2014 that testing more tis-
sue for MRSA would pro-
duce evidence favorable to the
defendant.”
The defense lawyers tried
to claim Roden does not
qualify for the death penalty
because he is intellectually
disabled. Brownhill denied
their request, concluding that
Roden illustrated a history of
bad behavior, not intellectual
disabilities.
Throughout his school years
in Georgia, Roden threaten to
kill himself, threatened to kill
teachers and other students,
hit and slapped other students,
threw things in class and used
foul and vulgar language.
“He was in special educa-
tion services in school because
of his behavior, not his intel-
lect,” Brownhill wrote. “He
earned good grades when he
wanted to play football. His
poor grades were due in large
part to absenteeism and his
refusal to work.”
Photos by Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Andrew Gonzalez zips up his graduation gown while get-
ting ready for his graduation ceremony at South Jetty
High School, Thursday in Warrenton.
Greg Slate, right, puts on his graduation gown alongside
his fellow graduates before the South Jetty High School
graduation ceremony begins Thursday in Warrenton.
Demetreas Watier, left, is congratulated by his cousin Re-
zell Brandon after his graduation ceremony Thursday at
South Jetty High School in Warrenton.
Grads: Students thanked teachers and staff who cared
Continued from Page 1A
Herrera said he was ill-
ing in for a neighboring county
when he met Johnson-Fleish-
man, a young man with a cap-
tivating smile who he promised
to work with during his time in
the system.
“Am I conident he will stay
clean and sober? Yes,” Herrera
said about his client’s immi-
nent return to his old stomping
grounds. “Will he have bumps?
Yes.”
Herrera compared sending
kids back to their old neighbor-
hoods and temptations to send-
ing them out to walk through the
mud. His job, he said, is helping
them learn how to stay clean.
A learning experience
Along with friends and fam-
ily, graduates Thursday gave
thanks to the teachers and sup-
port staff who cared, stayed
after-hours to help and pushed
them in the right direction.
Heading the educational pro-
grams at South Jetty is Richard
Glinert, a former principal in
Warrenton’s other schools who
was transferred to the correc-
tional facility in 2013. Glinert
estimates that South Jetty has
graduated 65 students out of
about 400 who have come and
gone during his 3 1/2 years,
including 28 in the last year.
It was intimidating at irst,
he said, checking in behind the
security walls, hearing about the
worst-case scenarios that could
unfold and keeping that in the
back of his mind. But like other
educators at South Jetty, Glinert
said the worst-case scenarios
never happened.
‘I have not had a kid square
up to me in 3 1/2 years.
That’s because I treat
them with respect.’
Richard Glinert
he’s heading the educational programs at South Jetty
“They’re just kids,” he said.
“I know they’ve committed
crimes, but … I know a lot of
these guys would like to move
on with their lives, and I can
respect that.
“I have not had a kid square
up to me in 3 1/2 years. That’s
because I treat them with
respect.”
New operator,
uncertain teachers
The Northwest Regional
Education Service District will
take over the contract for South
Jetty from Warrenton-Ham-
mond in July.
Paul Peterson, deputy super-
intendent of the service district,
said the plan is to try and bring
back all the existing teachers,
who get irst dibs at the South
Jetty jobs, and keep things sim-
ilar. “We are carrying forward
the program that has been here
and has been very successful,”
he said.
But for reasons unrelated to
the service district, it may have
to ind some new staff.
Sam Ko, an educational spe-
cialist for the state’s youth correc-
tions and juvenile detention edu-
cation programs, said the state is
looking to standardize the edu-
cational programs between dif-
ferent facilities, trying to ensure
kids get the same quality educa-
tion wherever they go. Glinert
said educators around the state
are pushing back against the new
model of standardization, feeling
different schools with different
populations should not be treated
the same.
“Some of the teachers said
the process is chaos,” Glinert
said. “They didn’t want to be
a part of a program that was
largely computer work.”’
Glinert said one of the two
teachers and three of the four
teaching assistants are planning
to come back under the service
district, while he wants to leave
administration and get back into
teaching math.
Kate Licitra, a popular lan-
guage arts and writing teacher at
South Jetty and the longest-ten-
ured after four years, said that
although her salary would jump
signiicantly under the service
district, she is leaving to help
kids from the outside.
“I don’t believe in the prison
system,” said Licitra, a self-de-
scribed abolitionist.
Moving back to Portland,
she plans to open a coffee shop
employing recently released
inmates, helping people pass
their GED exams and provid-
ing a support network to avoid
recidivism.
ODOT: Union Paciic conducts a stress
test every 18 months on metal fasteners
Continued from Page 1A
Union Paciic conducts a
stress test of those metal fas-
teners, called lag bolts, once
every 18 months, using a
special vehicle that tests the
strength of the bolts, said Jus-
tin Jacobs, a spokesman for
Union Paciic.
“What that vehicle does is
it is designed to go down the
tracks and put lateral pressure
on rails so if there is a broken
bolt, it will detect it,” Jacobs
said. “That vehicle provides
equivalent pressure of a loco-
motive to the rails.”
That specialized equipment
is “above and beyond” what
the Federal Railroad Admin-
istration and the department
of transportation do in their
inspections, Garrett said.
Union Paciic now plans
to use that vehicle to inspect
the bolts four times a year
and plans to replace the older
South Jetty
High School
graduates
gaze outside
the windows
looking for
their family
and friends to
arrive at the
correctional
facility for
their gradua-
tion ceremony
Thursday in
Warrenton.
bolts with spiked bolts in the
Columbia Gorge by end of
year and across the state within
the next two years, he said.
The spiked bolts are eas-
ier for state inspectors to see,
Gard said.
State transportation ofi-
cials have requested Union
Paciic’s inspection records,
data on the last stress test on
the Columbia Gorge line and
construction plans. Gard said
he wants rail trafic to stop
until the Federal Railroad
Administration and his agency
can verify that Union Pacif-
ic’s plans are suficient to keep
people safe.
“I need to be able to stand
with straight face and say this
track is as safe as it possibly
can be,” Gard said.
The Federal Railroad
Administration plans to start
a technical investigation spe-
ciically into the bolts and is
conducting intense inspections
on both sides of the Columbia
River. Gard said he has yet to
receive word on whether the
federal agency will grant his
request for a moratorium on
train trafic until then.
Union Paciic has a his-
tory of violations in the state.
Nationwide, the company has
paid more in penalties in the
last two years than any other
railroad, according to The Ore-
gonian. None of the Oregon
violations concerned defective
railroad bolts, which caused
the Mosier derailment, the
newspaper reported June 10.
Several state leaders ear-
lier last week also requested a
moratorium on oil trains in the
state, including Oregon Sena-
tors Ron Wyden and Jeff Mer-
ley, Gov. Kate Brown, and
Reps. Earl Blumenauer and
Suzanne Bonamici.
In the meantime, Union
Paciic trains continue to carry
products through the Gorge.
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