The skanner., October 17, 2012, Page 14, Image 14

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Benette
continued from page 13
kid, maybe 65 lbs soaking wet.” He suffered from night ter-
rors that were so severe he begged to sleep on the floor in
her room.
“I have a lot of love in my heart for that child. No matter
where life has taken him at this point, I remember that child
who cuddled up and watched a movie, and wanted good
things in his life.
“I’m not saying he was a completely innocent child. He
was a product of his environment, and the sad thing is, he
was taken out that environment and he was thriving.”
It was at Stone’s home in 2006, that Parrish met two
friends of the family: Danielle Curtis and her future hus-
band, LD.
“LD was like an uncle to Madeline’s kids, and Parrish was
over there all the time,” Curtis said. “And actually, Parrish
called him his uncle.”
LD had grown up on the streets and had been in trouble in
his youth, Curtis says, but he had left that behind and built
a stable life as a construction worker. LD was drawn to Par-
rish. He took him fishing and brought him to family
gatherings.
Parrish’s sojourn at the Stone home came to an abrupt end
after his father reported him as a runaway. A caseworker
told Stone she couldn’t let him stay at her home any more.
“He said, ‘You’ve got to let him go. We have to take him.’
We stuck him back with his dad and it lasted one day. He
ran away again and showed up at my house.
“That’s the way his dad covered his butt. He’d beat the
crap out of him, then when he ran away, he would
call him in as a runaway to cover his butt.”
Stone says she had family foster children in her
home and felt she couldn’t fight DHS. So she told
Parrish he couldn’t stay any more. She still feels bad
about that decision.
“He had to have been mad,” she says. “If the one
person who believed in you the most walked away?
I think in his heart he knew I loved him. I’d take him
again today.”
Sometime during 2008, LD called Parrish’s moth-
er in Chicago and asked her to take her son to live
with her. But she refused. Curtis says she knows
because she was present when he made the call. LD
also reported abuse in 2008, she says, but Parrish was not
removed from the home.
“They had proof this person was beating this child –and
they put him back there saying, this is what’s best for this
child – they need to work it out.”
In early 2009, Parrish was expelled from Mt. Tabor Mid-
dle School. Schools can’t release students’ confidential
People who knew Yashanee
remember her magnetic
personality and million-dollar smile.
A Grand Jury indicted Parrish
Bennette Jr. on charges of
manslaughter and murder on April 8.
records so the reason is unclear. During his time at Mt.
Tabor, Parrish got into a minor scuffle with the son of this
reporter. And he once got into trouble, along with others, for
setting lighter fuel on fire in the parking lot of a nearby con-
venience store. But a friend from Mt. Tabor says the
expulsion came after he skipped school to go to the mall
and buy socks for his basketball game.
Now 14, Parrish enrolled in Open Meadow Middle
School. Principal Elizabeth Jensen says he was a good stu-
Parrish Bennette Jr.
saw Parrish as a boy who, “was
obviously seeking to be connected.
“We have a saying here at Open Meadow, that ‘hurt kids
hurt kids,’” she says. “And he was definitely hurting. I’m
not a psychologist, but I’d say, ‘What happens to a child
who is abandoned by his mother?’ We talk a lot about
absent fathers, but the trend I see is that we have mamas
who are missing, and that has much more impact on a
child.”
A former staff member at the school said the father
and son had similar ways of dealing with stress,
which led them to clash. Yet Jensen says staff at
Open Meadow never saw any signs of physical
abuse during Parrish’s five months at Open Mead-
ow. In fact, she says, Parrish Bennette Sr. was
committed to getting his son to school and working
with the school to help him succeed.
At the same time, Parrish made no secret of his
difficulties at home.
“I definitely saw him multiple times, coming into
the building with a duffel bag and saying, ‘I’m not
going back to my dad.’”
“He had lots of friends, and he was behaving,”
Jensen said, “But we’d see anger outbursts, coming in and
being distraught over where he was going to stay, because
he knew that going back to dad’s wasn’t going to be an
option for a while.”
Jensen is one of the few people who knew Parrish and
also Yashanee. Both went to Open Meadow. But their paths
never crossed at the school because they attended at differ-
ent times.
During spring 2009, Danielle Curtis and LD took Parrish
fishing. During the day, Curtis says, Parrish had called his
father periodically, but getting back they were half an hour
late.
“It was all fine on the phone, but then when we got there
to drop Parrish off, his dad was very hostile. He was very
mad. He grabbed Parrish and pulled him into the apartment.
He wouldn’t listen... He shut the door and we could hear
scuffling. So we hung around, and 20 minutes later Parrish
came out of the house. His dad had kicked him out.”
It was around that time, Curtis says, that Parrish began
staying with another school friend’s family in North Port-
land. But, according to Curtis that relationship turned ugly.
She says Parrish told her the mother accused him of threat-
ening her during an argument, after she found a box cutter
inside his backpack. He told Curtis he needed the box cut-
ter for protection.
“I’m not saying Parrish didn’t have issues,” Curtis said.
“He did. He didn’t trust anyone. And he was never taught
respect, although he did respect LD.”
The couple told Parrish they would try to get custody.
“The whole time he was asking us, begging, can we have
him,” Curtis says. “And we knew his case worker because
we had custody of LD’s nephew for a while. LD told him,
’Hold on Buddy. We’ve got to do this the right way. I can’t
just take you.’”
That dream ended on June 9, 2009, when LD had a mas-
sive stroke. He sank into a coma and finally died July 1.
Parrish attended the funeral, but then Curtis lost sight of
him. Her husband’s death crushed Parrish’s hopes for a bet-
ter life, she says.
“I know his death was really hard on Parrish, because he
was the only one sticking up for him. And he promised him;
he promised, ‘we’re going to work this out.’”
A friend of Parrish’s also pinpoints this moment as a turn-
ing point.
Parrish “went crazy” when LD died, he said. Before LDs
death he was loving, caring and scared of gangs. After, his
‘If the one person who believed in you
the most walked away? I think in his
heart he knew I loved him. I’d take him
again today’
dent who excelled in reading and met grade standards in
math.
“He’s definitely a smart kiddo,” she says. “He is really
very, very sharp. I was shocked when I found out he was
being of accused of this because that’s not the Parrish I
knew,” she says.
But Jensen also recognized Parrish had problems. She
We honor the many
accomplishments of
African Americans.
See TRAGEDY on page 15
Page 14 The Portland Skanner
October 17, 2012