Homeschooling’s 

Invisible Children

Child of Dendra Patrick and Reginald Carr

Content note: Case narratives include descriptions of severe violence inflicted on children, including abuse and neglect, sexual violence, torture, and murder, as well as mentions of suicide and domestic violence. They also include photos of victims and perpetrators of violence.

A 12 year old boy was brutally abused at the hands of his mother, Dendra Patrick, 43, and her boyfriend, Reginald Carr, 42. When the police arrived after a tip from a neighbor, they found the boy laying on the floor, his skull fractured and nose broken, surrounded by feces and dried blood. Carr had beaten the boy and had burned his arm by holding it against a hot stove burner. Scars on the boy indicated that the abuse had been going on for some time. Carr and Patrick had also kept the boy locked in a room with only a plastic bucket for a toilet, and Carr had regularly whipped him with an extension cord and beaten him with fists. The boy had been in school until he was withdrawn to be homeschooled a year before. School officials said they had not noticed any signs of abuse at the time. The boy’s only allowed reading material was a Bible, and it doubtful what, if any, actual education was taking place. The family lived in Florida.

Date: September 2007
Location: Pinellas Park, Florida

Documents: Date:
Brutalized Boy Rescued 2007-09-29