The state of Kansas will pay $1 million to settle a lawsuit over the death of Adrian Jones, who was murdered by his father and fed to pigs.
The lawsuit, filed in 2017 by the child’s mother and relatives, said the state child protection agency took him from an abusive home before starving and torturing him.
Police found the 7-year-old’s remains in a pigsty on the property of his father and stepmother Michael and Heather Jones in November 2015.
Both are serving 25 years to life sentences for his murder, after beating Adrian and locking him in a shower stall and watching him deteriorate on surveillance camera.
Gov. Laura Kelly and top leaders of the Kansas Legislature approved the settlement Tuesday during a brief public meeting.
Police found the 7-year-old’s remains, seen here, in a pigsty on his father and stepmother’s property in November 2015
Michael and Heather Jones are serving a prison sentence of 25 years to life for his murder, after beating Adrian and locking him in a shower stall and watching him deteriorate on surveillance camera.
The Kansas Department for Children and Families received reports that Adrian was being abused several years before his death.
Their last physical contact with him was nearly four years before his death, according to more than 2,000 pages of documents released by the agency in 2017.
The records showed that all three moved regularly between communities in Kansas and Missouri.
The lawsuit argued that the state and social workers “could have intervened at any time and saved Adrian,” but “chose to act as disinterested bystanders.”
The Kansas agency argued that frequent moves made it difficult to monitor the boy.
Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, one of the lawmakers who approved the settlement, said she believes the state bears “a lot of responsibility” for what happened.
Kelly said the problem wasn’t the potential harm in a lawsuit, but the lawsuit distracting from “the mission at hand” to improve the child welfare system.
“It really had to do with us wanting to get that settled and not spend time litigating in court for months, maybe even years,” she said.
Dainna Pearce, Adrian Jones’ biological mother, is seen here in Lawrence, Kansas, in 2017. She has now been awarded $1 million by the state
Adrian is seen here kissing his eldest sibling, half-sister Keiona ‘Kiki’ Doctor, in 2012
Matt Birch, a lawyer representing the family, said: “This has been a long journey for Adrian’s family.
“The most important thing for the family was to hopefully make a change and make sure this is less likely to happen in the future.”
Police had responded to the home in 2015 for a domestic violence call, with Heather Jones accusing Michael Jones of beating and choking her.
Once there, she blurted out that the boy’s father had fed him to their six feeder pigs two months earlier, in late September.
The investigation into her claims revealed harrowing evidence of years of abuse with Heather, sickeningly proud of the way she tortured her stepson and captured it in photographs.
He was locked behind a plywood door in a shower, forced to stand in standing water up to his neck for hours, chained, tied up, starved and beaten.
His stepmother called him “the boy” instead of using his first name. While she and Adrian’s father cared for their six girls, he was accused of abuse of the worst kind.
The injuries photographed included deep cuts to his face and lips, suffered while trying to fight his way out of the cardboard cell his parents had created for him in a shower stall.
The investigation into her claims revealed harrowing evidence of years of abuse with Heather, sickeningly proud of the way she tortured her stepson and documented it in photos.
He was locked behind a plywood door in a shower, forced to stand in standing water up to his neck for hours, handcuffed, tied up, starved and beaten.
Heather pleaded guilty to murder in November 2016 and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 25 years
He was also photographed with a cutting board tube taped to his chest and strapped to an inversion table.
The pair were arrested in 2015. Heather pleaded guilty to murder in November 2016 and was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 25 years.
In May 2017, Michael Jones received the same sentence after also pleading guilty in March that year.
In 2013, Adrian told a staff member at the Children’s Department in Missouri, where the family lived at the time, that his father kept hitting him in the head.
“My dad keeps hitting me on the head and punching me in the stomach and my mom keeps pulling on my ears and it really hurts.
‘Mom and dad lock me in my room alone. Mommy and daddy can’t feed me,” he said during the interview, which was promoted by an anonymous phone call raising concerns about Adrian’s well-being.
Shockingly, he was allowed to continue living with the couple and shortly thereafter they moved to Kansas City, Kansas.
When he died, Adrian was a little bag of bones and his last months were hell.
Instead of receiving a proper burial, the child was fed pigs purchased by his father, seen here, specifically for the purpose of getting rid of his emaciated body
Instead of a proper burial, the child was fed to pigs that his father had bought specifically to get rid of his emaciated body.
The boy’s death was followed by a multi-year overhaul of child welfare system laws.
In 2021, “Adrian’s Law” required officers and case workers to visually observe children suspected of being victims of abuse or neglect.
The state has also taken steps to improve training for doctors to recognize abuse and provide “wraparound” services to struggling families.
Birch said he and the family hope that with the lawsuit and the 2021 law, “more eyes will be on these children.”
Adrian’s relatives also filed a lawsuit in 2017 in Jackson County, Missouri, also in the Kansas City area, against officials in that state.
The case was settled in 2020, but details were not immediately available and Birch said he could not comment.