Candice Raynor
Police identify teen who was
electrocuted
October 3, 2006
Richmond police identified a teen
who was electrocuted in a North Richmond power substation as
15-year-old Candice Raynor.
Her body was found Saturday evening
inside the fenced-in substation at the old Richmond Memorial
Hospital site at 1325 Palmyra Ave.
Raynor lived at a nearby group
home, said Richmond police Capt. Roger Russell.
Police said the victim was so badly
injured that authorities had trouble determining the age and sex of
the body.
* * *
Mother says social services
failed :
Mother of teen killed in accident here says social services failed
By Mark Holmberg
Oct 4, 2006
Lynn Raynor of Harrisonburg said
she's been trying to get her 15-year-old daughter back ever since
social services there took her away a year and a half ago.
When she picked up a voice message
early Saturday that her daughter, Candice, had disappeared from her
North Richmond group home, Raynor and a friend rushed here to look
for her.
"I had a sixth sense that something
wasn't right."
Late that evening, Raynor said, she
got another call.
A body had been found,
electrocuted, in a fenced-in electrical substation beside the old
Richmond Memorial Hospital, just down the street from the group
home.
The injuries were such that police
couldn't say whether it was a man or woman, adult or child.
It was Candice Raynor, a medical
examiner determined Monday. Police and social-services
investigations are continuing. Police called the death accidental
pending the medical examiner's final report.
"My daughter was the most precious
thing in my life," Raynor said yesterday.
She is furious that the system that
took her only child, supposedly for her well-being, didn't keep her
safe.
"This is so wrong," she said.
Dick Randel, daily operations
manager for Children In Peril, a Virginia-based support group for
parents who have lost custody of their children, said he had worked
with Lynn Raynor for more than a year to get Candice back. "Every
time she would make a move to get her daughter back, they would put
another hoop in her path."
"A horrible Catch-22," Raynor said.
Candice Raynor had been placed at
the Magnolia home at 1410 Westwood Ave., a group home for young
people with behavioral problems operated by Cumberland Hospital for
Children and Adolescents in New Kent County.
Richard Shelton, director of
business development for Cum- berland, said he couldn't talk about
the case due to patient confidentiality.
"We offer our condolences to the
family for this unfortunate situation," Shelton said. "We will be
working with the authorities on an investigation" into the death.
Elizabeth Hutchens, assistant
director of the Harrisonburg-Rockingham County Department of Social
Services, said she also couldn't discuss the case.
"Right now our concern is with the
family," Hutchens said.
Richmond police Capt. Roger Russell
said the high chain-link fencing around the power substation was
secure and posted. He said young people, including skateboarders,
hang out at the old hospital property, which developers had been
rehabbing.
Lynn Raynor said she had worked as
a private park ranger and river guide in central Florida. The latter
was a passion she shared with her daughter, who loved canoeing and
kayaking, she said.
Candice's father lives in
Pennsylvania and is not involved in the custody case, Raynor said.
She said Hurricanes Ivan, Francis
and Charles disrupted her ability to do guide work, so she moved
back to Virginia "to see if I can get back on track."
More problems caused her to lose
her Harrisonburg apartment. Raynor said the state claims she is
bipolar, which she disputes.
As for her daughter, Raynor said,
caregivers were giving Candice a cocktail of psychiatric drugs that
left her glassy-eyed in the weeks prior to her death.
Hutchens, speaking generally, said
children removed from homes are given a lawyer to serve as guardian
by the juvenile court. The parents are also assigned a lawyer to
represent their interests, she added.
A service plan for the child is
reviewed by a judge and monitored, Hutchens said.
Shelton said Cumberland Hospital
group home is state-accredited and is inspected annually.
Randel, the parents' rights
activist, said the state would spend far less money by buying new
homes for people like Raynor rather than enmeshing them in a costly
and convoluted system.
Raynor said she will do everything
she can to make sure the system is held accountable for her
daughter's death.
"I just hope we can save other
children" like Candice, she said angrily. "I can't believe this."
Contact staff writer Mark Holmberg
at
mholmberg@timesdispatch.com or
(804) 649-6822.
* * *
Teenager's death prompts
changes:
Group home where she lived and utility take preventive steps
October 14, 2006
Candice Raynor died at age 15 in
North Richmond two weeks ago from an estimated 7,000-volt jolt three
times the current used during electric-chair executions.
Repercussions from the accident
have spread far beyond the Dominion Virginia Power substation where
she died and the group home for troubled girls where she lived.
That group home, Cumberland
Magnolia House on Westwood Avenue, was cited last week by the state
licensing agency for a violation involving her supervision this
summer.
The violation stemmed from an Aug.
7 visit by Raynor to the Cumberland Barton House for boys on Moss
Side Avenue that led to an alleged sexual assault, said Leslie
Anderson, director of the office of licensing for the state
Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse
Services.
Richmond child-protective-service
workers investigated the assault and could not verify that it
occurred, Anderson said.
She said her agency also couldn't
verify the allegation because of too many conflicting stories. But
the group home "failed to supervise resident activity as required by
the [state] regulation and the provider's own policies," according
to the citation.
Richard Shelton, director of
business development for Cumberland, said actions have been taken to
prevent similar incidents in the future.
Richmond police spokeswoman Cynthia
Price said police are still investigating how Raynor came to be
inside the substation at the old Richmond Memorial Hospital site,
which has been criticized by some neighbors for attracting young
trespassers.
"There's so much we don't know,"
said Lynn Raynor, Candice's mother. She has a lawyer looking into
her daughter's death.
Cumberland Magnolia House is one of
five group homes in the Richmond area operated by Cumberland
Hospital for Children and Adolescents of New Kent County.
Candice was living with her mother
in Harrisonburg when she was taken by child-protective-service
workers there a year and a half ago, said Lynn Raynor.
The girls at Magnolia House
typically have emotional problems but aren't involved in the
criminal-justice system, Shelton said.
There were five girls living at the
house on Sept. 30, with two staff workers per shift, Shelton said.
Raynor walked off the property that
morning. A Richmond police spokeswoman said they were called and
were told she was missing. House workers were combing the area when
Dominion Virginia Power workers found her body about 5 p.m.
Power company spokesman David
Botkins said workers were responding to a "momentary power fault"
likely caused by the electrocution.
Since then, guards hired by
Dominion Virginia Power patrol day and night -- the substation's
enclosure and the roof above it, Botkins said. Spotlights have been
added, and barricades now block the roof above the substation.
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