Baby-Sitter’s Ex-Husband Says Home Was Filthy

The home where a 14-month-old died when he and two other infants fell into a swimming pool Thursday was constantly “filthy and dirty,” the former husband of the woman who had been baby-sitting the children said Saturday.

But Carol Brooks, 24, who with her parents, Diane and Orvel Brooks, operated a day-care service at their North Tustin home, said her ex-husband and people who have complained to authorities about the condition of the home are making spiteful accusations.

“If it was so disgusting and dirty, why would he (her ex-husband) want to live here with me?” she said. “Why would people bring their children here for years if the place is so unsanitized and slummy? It seems pathetic on the part of parents that they would keep bringing children to a place that’s slummy and dirty.”

Pulled From Pool

Fourteen-month-old Arthur Matthew Griese of Orange died at Childrens Hospital of Orange County on Friday, a day after he was pulled from the algae-filled, back-yard swimming pool.

The other two children, Melissa Dianne Polsfoot, 19 months, of Tustin and Jonathon Derek Weston, 22 months, of North Tustin, remained in critical condition on life-support systems at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana on Saturday.

Liann Pettifer, a spokeswoman in Western Medical’s pediatrics intensive-care ward, said results of tests showing the extent of brain damage may be ready today.

Investigators with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department who have been questioning Carol Brooks and her parents about Thursday’s events said their investigation is continuing.

Kevin Youngblood, who said he was married to Carol Brooks from 1984 until 1986, said the couple lived at her parents’ home some of that time.

“It was a slum,” he said. “The whole place was filthy and dirty. Kids were running around naked all the time, in dirty diapers, unfed, un-napped.”

Youngblood, 29, who was unemployed when he lived at the house, said his ex-wife usually was the one in charge of the children and often left them unattended.

“He wasn’t there and he doesn’t know what happened,” she said of Thursday’s accident. “Our house is not disgusting and dirty.

“It’s not at all the way they’re saying it is. If it was so unsanitized and so unclean and such a poor place, none of the parents would have kept bringing their kids here for as long as we’ve been taking care of children, and that’s been 6 or 7 years.”

Cease and Desist

Officials from the county’s Social Services agency twice within the last year had ordered the Brooks to cease and desist child-care operations after the agency investigated complaints about conditions at their home.

In their visits, representatives of the agency found the yard inadequately fenced and littered with debris, according to Dianne Edwards, chief of licensing. Edwards said Friday that even after finding that the Brookses had ignored the order to stop operating the child-care business, her agency had not sought prosecution because the family appeared to be taking steps to meet regulations.

The Brookses’ next-door neighbor, Nancy Reed, said Carol and her sister Kimberly, who also lives at the house, were mowing the lawn Saturday, the first time she had seen them do that in years.

“I certainly don’t think they’re malicious,” Reed said of the family. “They’re just somewhat unconcerned. They just weren’t careful. They certainly didn’t want anything to happen.”

On Thursday, the three children and Carol Brooks’ own two children were playing in a fenced area behind the house when they somehow got beyond a 6-foot chain-link fence surrounding the star-shaped pool.

Carol Brooks said the children had just awakened from a nap and that she had been changing one infant’s diaper and getting a bottle when she heard cries from the outside.

“At first, when I heard them, I thought they were fighting over a toy,” she said.

She ran to the back yard, saw the three children in the pool and then grabbed her own two children and put them in the house. She ran back to the pool, she said, and grabbed Arthur Matthew Griese, the child closest to her, and began giving him cardiopulmonary resuscitation. She said she heard the dog barking, so she knew someone was coming up the driveway.

It was her father, and he grabbed the other two children and began trying to revive them after telling Carol to call 911, she said.

“It all happened in a matter of 5 minutes or less,” she said. “It was an accident.”

She said she has not been in contact with the parents of the three children.