Couple acquitted in ‘caged children’ case

Jurors took just four hours Tuesday to acquit a couple who
had been charged with unlawful imprisonment for keeping
two young autistic boys in a dark room with a cage-like
door.

The Clark County Superior Court jury had been asked to
decide whether John Eckhart, 31, and Alayna Higdon, 27,
confined Eckhart’s sons for convenience or to keep them
safe.

The boys were 5 and 7 during the period in question. The
older child is now in foster care while the younger lives
with his biological mother in Tillamook, Ore.

Eckhart collapsed in his lawyer’s arms at the verdict and
Higdon began weeping, The Columbian reported. Although they are
no longer a couple, the two embraced.

The prosecution contended the children were locked up for
convenience while Eckhart played video games and took long
smoke breaks. Prosecutors alleged the couple kept the boys
in the room at least 16 hours a day at times between
October 2010 and April 2011.

For its part, the defense presented expert psychologists,
who testified that the restraint was appropriate to keep
the children safe because of their severe autism.

“The only side that everyone was hearing was the side that
was being produced as a result of the initial police
reports, and that’s a shame because it’s a little tiny
slice that wasn’t accurate,” defense attorney Jon McMullen
told KOIN TV.

Eckhart and Higdon both took the stand and testified that
the boys were kept in the room far less than the
prosecution contended.

Photos showed Eckhart blocked the room’s entry with wire
shelving bolted so that it covered the entire doorway and
locked in the middle with a carabiner-type lock. Police
described it as a cage-like door.

Juror Michael Simonson told The Columbian outside the
courtroom that most jurors had decided to acquit as soon
as they began deliberating; one holdout juror eventually
agreed with the others.

“I guess what distresses me is that this went this far,
that this couldn’t be resolved earlier,” Simonson said.

“We are obviously elated that in a lengthy, big trial the
jurors came to a conclusion we came to a long time ago,”
McMullen said, adding his clients didn’t want to speak to
reporters. The trial started May 21.

Higdon’s 10-year-old son, James, was the chief prosecution
witness. He testified that he fed the boys breakfast
through slits of the wire shelving. He said they weren’t
let out of the room much of the time.
The defense presented evidence the boys were let out for
dinner, games and special occasions, and questioned James’
testimony.

On the stand, Eckhart disagreed with the older boy’s
estimate of how long the younger children spent in the
room.

McMullen earlier told jurors that Eckhart understood how
hyperactive his sons were, so he constructed the gate to
cover the door so they weren’t at risk to harming
themselves and wandering from the apartment. He described
his client as “an overprotective, caring father.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.