Calista Springer school pic

KALAMAZOO--Shocking testimony revealed today in the murder trial of Calista Springer.

According to a former Child Protective Services investigator of 18 years, Patricia Skelding, St. Joseph County was aware that Calista was being chained to her bed before they closed the case back in 2004.

During the investigation into those allegations of abuse in the Springer home Calista had reported that she was being restrained to her bed by a chain.

“I believed and trusted the people in my office and community mental health that they knew what they were doing when they diagnosed her and that the overall end was that she needed to be protected, she needed to be safe, and she needed to be restrained and that the parents couldn’t be up 24 hours a day supervising her,” said Skelding.

“And so it was accepted that everyone knew that and so during my investigation when my supervisor handed me the referral she didn’t say anything about the part of Calista being chained to her bed, as if we’d already known that.”

Skelding became involved in the case after allegations surfaced that Calista reported she was not only restrained to her bed but was also being under fed, unable to use the restroom at night, forced to clean her mess if she did soil the mattress and even claimed her mother had once awaken her after she fell asleep while reading by pulling her hair with such force that it left a bald spot.

These claims were later found to be unsubstantiated and the case was closed.

The trial continued into the afternoon, hearing testimony from Calista’s teachers and educational professionals indicating that she was performing at grade level, despite being two years older than most of the students in her grade. 

Several witnesses portrayed Calista as a quiet child, somewhat introverted, but eager to please and be praised. There was testimony that although there were some behavioral issues, mostly regarding petty theft or touching other student’s items, nothing was highly abnormal for a child her age at that time.

In regards to the stealing, Calista’s 5th grade English and social studies teacher, Stacy Sheehan, indicated that she was both open and honest about her wrongdoings when confronted and was “very willing to give items back.”

The prosecution seemed to end the day on a high note with the introduction of a 6th grade writing assignment of Calista’s from 2005.  Peggy Roach, a 6th grade teacher at Centerville Elementary, testified that as part of the first day of class she gives her students five minutes to write a journal entry about themselves, telling the students that it would only be seen by her. 

Calista wrote the following to Roach:

“I have a problem with stealing and lying. My birthday is May 22. I live in the Vincent house across the courthouse and diagonal to the Baptist church. I have a relative that was in your homeroom. I have two sisters, Courtney and Heather, two cats and a dog.”

            To which, Roach responded, “who’s your relative who’s in my homeroom. Thank you for being honest about stealing and telling lies. That is the first step to working on your problem. If you need to talk to someone let me know.”

Calista responded, “…I have problems with my family and I miss my old school. I’m tired of my family and I feel like doing these things; runaway, kill myself and hide, throw all the boys out of the school except TJ and Josh. I cannot stand my family at all. I need some time alone from my family. I need to talk to someone. I want to get out of this prison at home. I want to be free instead of being in a prison. I want to be free as possible like any other teenager.”

It was this response which may have been very telling of her state of mind back in 2005.

Testimony will continue tomorrow as Calista’s closest friends are expected to take the stand.