NEWS
16-PAGE REVIEW ON MANWILL DEATH RELEASED Blue ribbon panel report on 8-year-old’s murder calls for investigative changes GEORGE PRENTICE No one is saying that the contents of a much anticipated 16-page review of the Robert Manwill case could have saved the 8-yearold boy from horrendous abuse, neglect and eventual murder in July 2009. But the report, completed on Jan. 10 and publicly released on March 5, is designed to serve as a foundation to prevent similar nightmares from happening again. In December 2010, Health and Welfare Director Dick Armstrong told Boise Weekly that he couldn’t reveal many details of the pending review. “Because this is a criminal trial, there will be other facts coming out,” said Armstrong. “And for us to convene a panel prior to the trial could jeopardize the legal proceedings.” But the trials of Manwill’s mother, Melissa Jenkins, and her boyfriend, Daniel Ehrlick, are now over. Both were found guilty of the systematic abuse of Manwill. Ehrlick is behind bars for life for the boy’s murder. Jenkins is in prison for 25 years, without parole, for aiding and abetting the crime.
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protected by the state Testimony during of Idaho. both trials revealed that “[Health and WelHealth and Welfare fare] should develop social workers had guidelines to assess the visited Jenkins’ home risks of abuse, neglect in the months leading or abandonment to a up to Manwill’s death contact child,” wrote because another son of the panel. Jenkins’ was the subject In a formal response of a separate childto the recommendation, protection case. Armstrong confirmed According to the changes would soon be report, Manwill was made in his agency: considered a “contact “By June 2012, the child,” because he residdepartment will modify ed in a household where its standard, in reference there was an active to service planning, to protective case involvRobert Manwill would have turned 11 years specifically address all ing his half-brother. The old on July 26, 2012. contact children who panel wants Armstrong may be present in the and his Health and household,” wrote Armstrong. Welfare colleagues to be armed with stronger The panel wants Armstrong to go a step furinvestigative authority for any and all children ther by convening a regular working group to in a household, even if only one is formally
review child mortality throughout Idaho. But such a review reaches beyond the current scope or legal jurisdiction of Idaho’s Department of Health and Welfare. “A child mortality review evaluates all children’s deaths, which includes deaths that are natural, accidental—such as car accidents or drowning—suicides, or from abuse or neglect,” wrote Armstrong, who said he would need a green light from the Idaho Governor’s Task Force on Children at Risk The chairperson of the Manwill panel was Elizabeth Brandt, associate dean of the University of Idaho College of Law. Also participating were doctors Kenny Bramwell and Paul McPherson, Health and Welfare managers Shirley Alexander and Jane Smith, Canyon County Prosecutor Bryan Taylor, Ada County Public Defender Annie Cosho, Gem County Coroner John Buck, Boise Police Det. Bill Bones, Lt. Erik Skoglund of the Nampa Police Department, attorneys Kirt Naylor and Nancy Thaemert, and Gary Harvey, a retired teacher from the Boise area.
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