PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. – Adoption is supposed to be a refuge – Stephen Wells entered a house of horrors.
Since his adoption roughly 15 years ago, Wells says he has been attacked with a stick and a can of evaporated milk. He says he was handcuffed and zip-tied, and forced to sleep on a cold tile floor in a locked hallway, where he soiled himself.
Scars mark his wrists from years of restraints. Police say he was denied education, medical care and food, and basically spent his entire life indoors. His home was his prison.
The warden? Judith Leekin, his adoptive mother and the one he refers to as “evil.”
Wells’ account surfaced in recently released court documents and interviews that provide a fuller picture of Leekin, the woman at the center of a lucrative adoption scheme that stretched from hardscrabble Jamaica, Queens, to sunny South Florida.
Leekin, 62, originally from Trinidad, used intimidation and violence to control her 11 adopted children while earning $1.26 million in subsidies, police said.
She has been charged with multiple counts of abuse and could face up to 190 years in prison. Leekin has pleaded not guilty and denies the allegations.
Much about Leekin remains a mystery. She had two Florida driver’s licenses under different last names, as well as two Social Security numbers. She had at least seven known aliases.
Authorities believe she used four aliases to adopt the 11 children in New York City between 1988 and 1996. She adopted only special-needs children, who brought the highest subsidies – up to $55 a day.
In Queens, Wells said he was forced to sleep on the basement floor, where Leekin also employed zip-ties. Once, Leekin left the house all day and Stephen, now 20, had to “pee-pee” himself, he recently told investigators. An enraged Leekin took the can of evaporated milk and cut his right hand, he said. Stephen, who still calls Leekin “Mommy,” and some of the others are severely developmentally disabled after years of isolation.
His sister, Tracey Wells, said Leekin once punished her by burning her hand on a hot stove.
According to accounts, she would threaten to shoot the children or cut off their heads if they ever revealed her dark secrets.
The children said the abuse went on for years until police say she abandoned Tracey, 18, 200 miles from home at a store in St. Petersburg. That led to a search of Leekin’s house and discovery of the other kids. Nine are now are in Florida state care – “amazed that they . . . could eat as much as they wanted to,” authorities said.
A 10th youth, a 19-year-old, was discovered living homeless.
Some continue to be fearful of Leekin, like Shawn Wells, who turns 28 today. A doctor described him as being brainwashed. An officer said in a police report that he had to “repeatedly reassure him that she could never hurt him again.”
Police are also searching for an 11th victim, an 18-year-old boy named Shane Graham who the children said died in 1999 or 2000. They called him “Mo.”
“Other than his name and date of birth and a nickname, we know very little about him,” Port St. Lucie Police Detective Stuart Klearman said.
At this point, not much is clear. Leekin’s life is a tangle. And the children are curious, too.
“They’re asking questions – ‘Who are we?’ ” Klearman said.