Christine Kids Told Police Dad Hit Daughter
05/01/2002
Brian and Ruth Christine's daughters told police that their father hit one of
them in the head, causing her to fall down steps in the converted city bus they
called home and cut her forehead, spreading "blood all over," a
detective testified Wednesday. Asked why he hadn't taken his daughter Lydia, then 3, to the hospital, Brian
Christine "told me he was an Eagle Scout and he knew how to treat an
injury," testified Grants Pass police detective Dan Evans. Brian Christine countered that he "swatted" Lydia on the back of
the head to discipline her for peeing the bed in an act of defiance, and she
lost her balance while kneeling on the edge of the bed, falling and hitting her
forehead on a step. Christine said he would have normally given Lydia a light spanking, but the
rest of the family was asleep and he didn't want to wake the family. He denied
Evans' testimony that he had lost his temper, characterized the cut as not
serious, and demonstrated the force of the blow by lightly slapping the hand of
his attorney. The testimony came during a hearing on a defense motion to suppress evidence
gathered when police first contacted the Christines in their bus on July 31,
2000, while it was parked at the library in Grants Pass in the course of their
travels around the country. The Christines, both 29, are on trial in Douglas County Circuit Court on
charges of kidnapping, robbery, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and
custodial interference. The state alleges that last August, a year after the Department of Human
Services took the three girls into foster care to protect them from their
parents, Brian Christine took the girls at gunpoint from a state social worker,
met up with his wife and a friend, and escaped to Montana, where they were found
within days. The defense counters that the Christines were rescuing their children from a
state agency that had gone out of control. Judge William Lasswell said he would rule Thursday morning on whether the
Christines were coerced into giving Evans permission to board their bus and talk
to their children. Jury selection was expected to beginafterward. Brian and Ruth Christine each testified that they only gave Evans permission
after he threatened to arrest Brian and drag their three daughters out
"kicking and screaming." Evans called their testimony "a lie." Defense attorney Edgar Steele told the judge the Christines are
fundamentalist Christians who home-schooled their children, but were thrown into
a desperate position by a rogue state agency that took their children without
justification and put them in harm's way, leaving the parents no choice but to
take their girls back by force. "They have seen their children taken to a hospital, stripped and
examined in a sexual way," Steele said. "The damage done to their
children far exceeds anything they have done." According to Evans, police initially contacted the Christines after receiving
an anonymous phone call reporting children who appeared malnourished near a bus
parked at the library in Grants Pass. The family had been traveling the country
in a city bus converted into a motor home, and had spent the past 45 days living
at parks in the Grants Pass area. Brian Christine sold computer software on an internet auction site, and
routinely stopped at libraries to use the computers to check on his sales, Evans
said. After getting permission to question the girls, Evans said he got on the bus,
where Brian Christine sat in the driver's seat, his arms on the steering wheel.
In the back of the bus, Miriam lay on her back, one arm over her head. Bethany
and Miriam sat against a bed. Bethany was reading a book. All the girls were very skinny, quiet and subdued, particularly Miriam, the
youngest, Evans said. Lydia had a bandage on her forehead that had bled through
and discoloration around one eye, he testified. "I asked Lydia how she got the ow-ee," Evans said. "She told
me she fell. Bethany was glancing at Brian. She said, `No you didn't.' Lydia
glanced at Brian sitting up front and said, `Babba did it.' She told me blood
was all over and it hurt very bad and she cried. I asked who Babba was and she
pointed to Brian," Evans said. "She said she was at the front of the bus and she peed. She said Babba
was real mad," he testified. Evans said when he asked Brian Christine if he had hit his daughter, he
nodded, adding that he lost his temper and "tapped" her on the back of
the head with his open hand and she fell. Evans said he arrested Brian Christine on an assault charge and social
workers took the three girls to a hospital, where doctors found they were
malnourished. Ruth Christine testified that she never saw her husband hurt any of their
daughters, the girls were never denied food as discipline, and they appeared fat
after they had been in a foster home for several months. (Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
"He told me his children were God's children, and if God chose to strike
them down with lightning, that was his choice," Evans said.
Brian
Christine, 28, his wife, Ruth, 27, and their three daughters. (AP Photo)
http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_0501_news_gunpoint_kidnapping.451f238f.html