Thursday, September 16, 1999
Eight kids taken from bug-infested house
Pair face charges of endangering
BY TANYA BRICKING
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Dozens of roaches crawled across the red carpet in the living room of a Price Hill home Wednesday afternoon, moving around like jumping beans.
Piles of clothes filled a bare mattress in the downstairs bedroom. Dirty dishes and food spilled over the kitchen sink and stove as bugs crawled everywhere.
A stained bathroom with leaky faucets was bare of linens, soap or even a shower curtain. A foul smell permeated the house, and outside, a dirty diaper rested on an unsteady porch next to a doll face-down in the dirt.
This is where eight children lived — four boys and four girls, ages 18 months to 11 years.
Eric Binford crunched over the roaches without flinching.
His main concern, he said, was that his pregnant wife was in jail and their children had been split up because the parents are accused of neglecting them.
Mr. Binford, 34, posted bond Wednesday on eight misdemeanor charges of child endangering.
He pushed a tire in a baby stroller to his van, which was up on blocks in front of the house. Then he walked back inside the cluttered two-story on Lehman Avenue and tried to explain his situation.
“I was embarrassed to be handcuffed in front of my kids. Ain't nobody robbed no bank or done something big,” he said. “I'm sad. You come here, and your family ain't here no more.”
Cincinnati police arrested
Mr. Binford and his common-law wife, Carrie Poff, 28, Tuesday night after officers responded to a complaint that the children were living in filth. Ms. Poff also faces eight misdemeanor charges of child endangering. She has not yet posted bond.
It is one of hundreds of child-neglect cases Cincinnati police respond to each year, though most neglect cases are for children left alone.
“This one is pretty bad,” said Mindy Good, spokeswoman for the Hamilton County Department of Human Services, which placed the children with relatives while the case is pending in municipal court.
The house has no electricity, only a utility cord running outside to a generator. A bedroom window has been busted for months. Cracks in the front door are taped.
Inside, an open cereal box rested next to a bottle of fingernail polish on the ledge above the frame of the kitchen door.
The mother, a former runaway, is unemployed. Mr. Binford works for a temporary service. He said they pay $475 in rent and want to buy the place and fix it up.
“I knew it was bad,” said Mildred Smith, Mr. Binford's aunt in South Cumminsville who has temporary custody of two of the children. “We saw it coming.”
She is trying to get shoes for the children and to make sure they make it to school.
“They're doing all right,” she said. “But the baby's just hollering. He knows I'm not his mama.”
A minister and his wife across the street moved in two years ago and began sending over food, offering the children library books and knocking on the door to wake the children for school. They let the family use their telephone and even made a van payment for them.
“I just hope they do get help,” said Ellen Read, whose husband is a minister at Community Christian Church in Florence. “It was sad to watch. I just felt sorry for those kids. My heart ached for them. These are kids that have hopes and little dreams, too.”
Mr. Binford said he doesn't know how things got out of hand. He insists life there isn't that bad.
“Why separate a family because of negligence?” he said. “We can straighten it out.”
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