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January 31, 2005
Father faces charges of child abuse
A father whose alleged abuse forced six children into foster care faces child sex abuse charges and could lose custody of his remaining four children.
Next month, Edwin Sevrence, 44, goes on trial in Washoe District Court on allegations he sexually abused his 10-year-old daughter when she was 7 or 8 in their Reno home.
Sevrence and his wife, Dolores, also face a February parental rights termination hearing in Washoe Family Court. They said they expect to lose their four remaining children — ages 12, 10, 5 and 3 — at that hearing.
“This is the most heinous case of sexual assault I have ever seen in my career as a prosecutor,” said Deputy District Attorney Tammy Riggs. “(Sevrence) is a serious threat to any child he comes into contact with, especially his own.”
The Sevrence deny the allegations and said their daughter was manipulated by social workers into making the claims.
“I hope the jurors are open-minded and consider those who have been falsely accused,” Dolores Sevrence, 46, said. “If anything physical happened to her she would tell me. I’m in the nursing profession and I would have surely seen some evidence of this.”
Before the couple moved to Reno in 1998, they had lost custody of six children during the past two decades after family court judges in Washington state and California determined social worker allegations were valid, court records show. Most of the allegations were sexual in nature against Edwin Sevrence, while his wife’s neglect was related to her drinking, records show.
They have not been convicted of any crime related to their children.
The couple said most of those children reached age 18 while in foster care and they have little or no contact with them.
“They believe therefore you did it,” Edwin Sevrence said in an interview before his last arrest. “There’s no jury in family court or proof needed. The charges are so severe and heinous, but wouldn’t we have been convicted of something already if they were true?”
Their four remaining children have been in Washoe County foster care since the couple’s March arrest related to dangerous living conditions in their West Second Street home.
Dolores Sevrence said she’s not going to her upcoming parental-rights termination hearing.
“After 20 years of dealing with the state and the courts, I just don’t want to deal with it anymore,” she said, adding she loves her children. “Even if I did get them back, I’d be walking on eggshells all the time thinking they’d be taken again.”
Edwin Sevrence has been in jail since June on the sex charges. A grand jury later indicted him on two counts of sexual assault and one count of lewdness with a child. If convicted, he faces two life-in-prison terms.
Delores Sevrence still faces a charge of child neglect related to her March arrest. She is free on bail and working full-time at a Reno nursing home. Her husband said he worked from home as a self-employed computer technician.
Authorities said the girl disclosed the alleged abuse during her most recent stay in foster care. A subsequent forensic exam revealed evidence of repeated sexual abuse, authorities said.
Washoe County grand jury transcripts of the child’s testimony stated the alleged abuse occurred when her mother worked the night shift. The child testified that her father told her not to tell anyone or “he was going to hurt me again,” according to the transcript.
Edwin Sevrence said a “hereditary spiraling of the anus” was to blame for why many of his children’s medical exams seem to indicate sex abuse occurred.
“We fully anticipate he will be convicted,” Riggs said.
Since the couple moved to Reno from Ohio, their children were removed four separate times for reasons of parental neglect or abuse, records show. There were also multiple investigations by social workers that did not result in removal, records show.
Authorities said the impetus for the children’s last removal and ultimately Edwin Sevrence’s sexual assault charge was a phone call he placed in March to the county’s Child Protective Services.
“I told them I know how it feels when people say they want to blow away their family and then kill themselves,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to do it.”
While police determined Sevrence was not serious about the threat they found conditions in the home to be unsafe for children. The couple was booked into jail and their children placed in emergency foster care.
Records show that Sevrence has been diagnosed as suffering from Anti-Social Personality Disorder and has a violent temper.
When he was arrested in March police seized three guns from a safe propped on a shelf above the couple’s bed.
Dolores Sevrence said their past issues with Child Protective Services is to blame for their latest legal troubles.
“It’s a snowball effect,” she said. “It’s based on this and that and really has little to do with reality. It has more to do with unfortunate circumstances.”
Posted by Nealus at January 31, 2005 10:38 PM
