Judge: Parents who let son 'rot' have 'no right to go' to funeral

• State had investigated family before
• Bishop was afraid to go back to school because of earlier incident that left him injured
• Funeral set for Thursday at Ronald B. Jones Funeral Home in Ludlow

A Kenton County judge Tuesday scolded the mother and grandparents of a disabled Ludlow teenager who died from an infection caused by bedsores before she sent the manslaughter case to a grand jury.

“Three capable people could have easily taken care of one sick child and they let him rot,” said District Judge Ann Ruttle.

The court hearing came the same day the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services said Joseph “Joey” Bishop’s death prompted a state investigation of caretaker neglect. The cabinet’s comments came in a letter delivered in response to The Enquirer’s public records request for a closed neglect case involved Jamie Bishop and her son.

Jamie Bishop, 40, and her parents, Raymond Martin, 67, and Sharon Martin, 65, remain jailed on second-degree manslaughter charges in the death of Bishop. The 18-year-old had Duchenne muscular dystrophy. He had used a wheelchair for years and authorities have said it had been months since his caregivers removed him from his bed at the house they shared in the 200 block of Lake Street.

Kenton County Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Sanders said Bishop had multiple bedsores on his back, hands, wrists, ankles, feet, legs and arms. But the largest was a 2-inch deep bedsore that was about the size of a dinner plate on his lower back near his tailbone and exposed muscle and bone, Sanders said.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said.

Phone call from hospital and cleaning supplies

Ludlow police Detective Eric Love testified Tuesday that Jamie Bishop and the Martins knew about the sores and had made “a pact” to not call 911 or seek outside medical assistance, believing they could care for him.

They also told him they were afraid they would get in trouble for neglect, the detective testified. The mother called the Ludlow Fire Department late Friday after her son was slurring his words and could not eat or drink. A family friend told The Enquirer Jamie Bishop told her that her son also had a collapsed lung.

He died Saturday at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Love testified that he interviewed Bishop and her parents independently after the death and they each said: “We all should have called. We all messed up.” The detective added that only Raymond Martin showed remorse during the interviews.

The two public defenders representing the threesome asked Ruttle if their clients could attend Bishop’s funeral, which is set Thursday at Ronald B. Jones Funeral Home in Ludlow.

The judge shook her head, saying they had already asked her once and she had said no.

“They really have no right to go,” Ruttle said.

Each defendant is being held in lieu of $50,000 cash bond. Sanders has 60 days to seek charges through a grand jury. He will ask grand jurors to consider charges of evidence tampering because there were signs at the home that Bishop’s bedroom was cleaned after he died.

Love testified police found cleaning supplies, bagged bedding and sheets in the basement, as well one tube of ointment and some bandages at the home when they searched it Saturday evening. They also found two prescription bottles, Love testified. Both bottles, one filled in January and another filled in October 2014, still had pills in them.

In addition, Love testified that a friend at the hospital told him Jamie Bishop called her mother, saying to clean up the house because the police were coming.

Sanders said Jamie Bishop’s 14-year-old daughter was taken into state care last week, but he did not know if she was in foster care or in the care of relatives.

State had investigated family before

The Cabinet for Families and Children investigated the family beginning in February 2015 after Bishop had not physically attended school since 2011, documents released to The Enquirer showed. It closed the case three months later.

The family bounced between school districts during Bishop’s middle-school years. He last attended Tichenor Middle School in Erlanger as a seventh-grader, when the family moved out of Covington. Jamie Bishop had bladder cancer, but it was in remission and she had been working a full-time job, according to the records.

When they moved back to Latonia, Bishop refused to go back to Holmes Middle School because he had been hurt there before, records said.

“At Holmes Middle, their elevators were down and they convinced Joseph to scoot down the stairs out of his wheelchair. When they picked him up to put him back in his wheelchair, they dropped him and broke a bone,” the report said. “ ... The bus driver told (his grandmother) that she thinks Joey was hurt because he was crying the whole time on the bus.”

According to the report, no one from Holmes Middle School alerted the family to the injury. Those records also said the family sued the school district; the outcome of that case could not be determined Tuesday.

Holmes officials have previously declined to discuss Bishop’s attendance, citing student privacy laws.

Report: Injury left Bishop scared of school

A social worker first went to the home on Feb. 6, 2015. She talked with Bishop and his mother, both of whom told her that he was “scared that he was going to get hurt again especially since his muscles have weakened since the incident.” However, according to the state report, both agreed to go back to Holmes and a plan was put into place that included taking him there for an evaluation.

The worker followed up with Jamie Bishop a week later, but she said a snow day canceled the planned meeting. The social worker also interviewed Raymond Martin, who said “he works on subjects with Joey so that he is still learning. They know he should be in school but it is terrifying when there is a child with disabilities,” the report said.

The worker also talked with Children’s Hospital: “Children’s state that Jamie is cooperative and follows through with all recommendations with Joey,” the report stated. “They have no concerns.”

By April 7, 2015, Jamie Bishop told the worker that her son was to start a school program and was awaiting a letter from Children’s. She said Bishop was going to go back to Holmes, first part-time and then full-time beginning the fall of 2016: “He is going to be starting as a freshman and work toward credits for what he missed.”

It appeared the last interaction with Jamie Bishop was May 15, 2015, when she said she had all the necessary paperwork to get him in school. The case was closed May 25, 2015.

“Jamie followed through with educational services for Joseph. Jamie is utilizing family support and community support,” the worker wrote in the report. “There are no other concerns with Jamie and her children.”