How Knox County Citizens Were Wronged One Year Ago Today

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One year ago tonight – on May 10, 2010 – I was reeling in shock.

My painfully shy teenage son, hospitalized for the previous 13 days had earlier that afternoon summoned every ounce of courage in his battered body and mind, and had revealed something horrible, dark and evil that had been done to him, and was likely still being done to other young people struggling with drug addiction.

Haltingly, through tears of terrible shame, but in graphic detail, my son Henry explained to me from his wheelchair that the two middle-aged drug dealers who had nearly succeeded in killing him were also dealing in teenage boys. Henry shared with me that these two people were preying on kids in Knox County who were sick and desperate, and were pimping them out to men.

They had done it to him.

I want all of you reading this to understand the horror of that moment for me, when my son – a senior in high school – looked me in the eyes and told me something so mortifying and painful. He ended his incredibly brave revelation by explaining his motivation for coming forward – saying that he wanted to tell law enforcement everything he knew because HE DIDN’T WANT THESE PEOPLE TO HURT ANY OTHER KIDS.

That’s what he said. That’s why he came forward. He wanted to make sure these people were stopped. He wanted to step up and do the right thing.

After he finished telling me all he could, and answering my painfully graphic questions, I spent some time just holding his hand and assuring him that he was whole and good and worthy, and that whatever these bad people had done to his body could never touch his mind, heart, soul, or who he really was. I also promised him – never imagining how hard this promise would be for me to keep – that I would make certain that law enforcement did everything they could to honor his bravery in revealing this for all the right reasons. I promised him that he would be heard and listened to. And I told him that nobody would EVER hurt him like that again.

I wheeled him back to his hospital room – located in the same hospital where I’d joyfully given birth to him 18 years earlier – and I got a nurse to help me get him settled in his bed. I rubbed his back until he drifted to sleep. He was exhausted by the telling, and by going out in the wheelchair around the hospital grounds.

After my son was asleep. I slowly walked into the bathroom attached to his hospital room. I shut the door. And I cried like I had never before cried in my life, imagining what he’d endured from these people, the same two people who had tracked him down by text and phone him midday on April 26th so they could hand deliver a giant dose of methadone to him – providing it free, urging it on him, and encouraging him to trust in their expert knowledge of this drug. Later that day, the two drug dealers took my son back to their home, at a time when he was already so incapacitated by what they had given him that his friends say he could barely walk. These people took him back to their nasty hellhole of a residence, located in a remote location of Knox County, and then they watched him suffer without enough oxygen over the next 15 hours, calling at least five different people during that time span to report Henry’s blue lips, purple toes, inability to breathe, the way he was aspirating his own vomit. But they never called 911, not until they were threatened with police involvement, and not until so many hours had passed. Learning on that afternoon one year ago today that these same people had also been sexually expoiting and violating my son in the most horrible way possible was almost more than I could bear.

But I knew what I had to do. I knew that the Knox County Sheriff’s Office would be just as horrified by what Henry had disclosed to me that afternoon as I had been. I had 100% confidence that even though no one had yet come from KCSO to interview my hospitalized son in the 10 days since he’d awoken from the coma, and even though the detective was saying he didn’t want or need to look at all the explicit evidence contained in the texts on my son’s phone, I knew he was one of the good guys. I trusted him. I trusted the Knox County Sheriff, Jimmy “JJ” Jones. I trusted the system to protect my son, our family and the rest of this community.

So after I finished crying in the bathroom, I immediately dialed the KCSO Detective assigned to my son’s case. If I recall correctly, I left a voicemail, and he called back relatively soon that afternoon.

I explained everything Henry had just told me. About the pimps. And the men who were paying them for kids to provide sex. About the cars and the local parks. About the specific sexual acts Henry had bravely discussed with me, so I could tell this detective. About how addicted local teenagers were paid in pills rather than money. About how the woman would set up the “jobs,” and then call or text Henry to arrange to come pick him up so she could drive him where she wanted him to go, since Henry didn’t have a car of his own. I told the detective all of this as clearly as I could. I told him that Henry had asked to speak to him directly, so he could tell him these painful things. I explained how Henry had said that he wanted to be sure that NO OTHER KIDS WOULD BE HURT.

The detective listened to what I had to say, asked no questions, and then told me without a moment’s hesitation that he did not believe any of it. None. He was completely dismissive. He told me that he’d already spoken with the two adults in question, the ones in whose residence paramedics had found my son barely clinging to life 13 days earlier –  and that the in the detective’s opinion, these two adults were actually “good Samaritans.” (He also used that phrase other times in describing them to me) He told me that they had done nothing but try to help my troubled son, seemingly suggesting that I should really be grateful to these two people, rather than accusing them of anything. He also told me that Henry’s “story” made no sense to him, and that anyway, unless Henry could give him specific names of the men who had paid, as well as of the other kids involved, there was nothing to investigate. He referred to Henry as a “prostitution suspect,” and he told me that if something like this were going on in Knox County, his department would already be aware of it.

I was shocked and appalled by what he said to me, but I knew I could not show any displeasure or anger. I knew I could not make it sound as if I were in any way questioning his judgment or expertise. I could not make him upset with me because EVERYTHING was in his hands. He held all the power. I needed this man to like me, or at least to listen to me if I was going to have any chance whatsoever of getting him to come meet my son, talk to him, look at the evidence…  So I tried to be neutral sounding as I pressed a bit harder, asking whether he couldn’t please just look a little more deeply into the terrible and disturbing info my son had just disclosed to me. At that point, the detective became defensive and obviously irritated. He said that he could not investigate anything unless the District Attorney greenlighted it. I asked him how that could happen – how could we get the DA to give him permission to investigate the information Henry had revealed? Was there some kind of process to get the DA’s to call for an investigation into these specific allegations? Couldn’t someone at least come TALK to Henry, and hear what he had to say? At the point, the KCSO detective told me that I could call the Narcotics Division within KCSO and try to get someone in that department of the agency to take an interest in this issue, but as far as he was concerned, there was nothing further to talk about with regard to what Henry had disclosed.

And then we hung up.

I was in shock, but for the first time since Henry had been brought into the hospital on April 27, I no longer felt completely sure that KCSO was going to send someone to the hospital to take Henry’s statement, or interview our family. I had believed this detective during the previous two weeks when he had told me several times by phone that he definitely would be coming to interview Henry in person – just as soon as the detective felt like the time was right. But now, I suddenly realized that maybe he wouldn’t ever come. If he was so dismissive of what I’d just told him – of what Henry had shared in such painful detail only hours earlier – I wondered if maybe he just didn’t care about Henry’s case for some reason.

I want to be clear that this moment marked the very first time that this concept had ever occurred to me – - the idea that KCSO was not actually very interested in what had been done to my son, or in the info about drug dealing in Knox County that could be revealed via an investigation into Henry’s injuries and overdose.  Before this, it just never, ever entered my mind in any way, shape or form that KCSO would not do their very best work to investigate. But my naive and optimistic faith was diminished greatly in that one conversation. That day, I first began to have a small seed of doubt.

But in the meantime, I knew I had to get SOMEONE in authority to hear what Henry had told me that afternoon. I knew that I had to see that Henry was interviewed fully by real professionals (as opposed to his own mom).  And I had promised Henry that everything possible would be done to prevent other kids from being hurt in this horrible way. I intended to keep that promise.

Since the KCSO detective had told me that the DA would need to direct KCSO to investigate the allegations and information specific to the sex trafficking-for-drugs that Henry had disclosed, I decided that my next course of action should be to make sure that Knox County District Attorney Randy Nichols was provided with this information – clearly and immediately. I just knew that Mr. Nichols would take a proactive and productive interest in what Henry had told me. I knew that once he and his staff heard what Henry had disclosed, he would make certain that my son was interviewed as soon as possible, and that leads were followed in order to uncover potentially actionable evidence.

So I went home that evening, after Henry’s father came in to take over the night shift at the hospital with our son, and I drafted a memo to Randy Nichols.  This is what I wrote:

(NOTE: I have redacted names and certain very specific information of a highly sensitive nature from this memo as I’ve cut and pasted  it here. I also took out information that was too graphic. However, please be assured that these minor edits I’ve made in order to protect the integrity of the investigation I still want to see happen do not impact the tone, meaning, facts or intent of this document.)

——————————BEGIN MEMO————————————

05.11.10

Henry Louis Granju

DOB: 10.07.91

• Henry is 18 years old. He turned 18 on October 7, 2009. He has suffered from a serious drug addiction for the past 3 years. His father, Chris Granju (Knox County Stormwater Director) and I have worked as hard as we can to get our son help since this began.

• Henry attended the Episcopal School of Knoxville from grades 1-8, and he was a good, well-behaved student until late middle school. His drug use began in 8^th grade and escalated quickly at about the time he entered 9^th grade at Knoxville Catholic High School. He also attended West High School before we sent him to treatment out of state.

• Henry has no juvenile arrest record.

• Between March 2009 and October 2009, Henry was enrolled in two highly regarded,  back-to-back outpatient drug and alcohol treatment programs (with high school classes included)  in North Carolina and Montana. He returned to Knoxville from <School name redacted>  in mid-October, one week after his 18^th birthday in 2009. At that time, he appeared to have resolve to quite abusing drugs.

• Within 3 weeks of returning home, however, Henry was abusing drugs again, and we became aware for the first time that he was involved in selling drugs to pay for his habit.  Over the next 6 months, we became aware that his drug habit was escalating quickly, moving from marijuana to hallucinogens to pain pills and other pills like xanax and valium. He began injecting and smoking narcotics for the first time sometime in late winter or early spring of 2010.

• His father and I worked hard every day during those months following inpatient treatment to convince him to accept the help we were offering . We tried to get him to return to treatment. He repeatedly declined, although he did not completely withdraw from us. We spoke with him on a nearly daily basis. He accomplished very little productive during this period, although he did manage to complete his GED in November of 2009.

• In April of 2010, Henry was arrested while sitting in a parked car in a Knoxville subdivision. He was with another teenager, <Name redacted>  Henry was arrested for public intoxication and possession of a “legend drug.” He spent three days in jail. We did not bail him out. He now has community service responsibilities that he is required to complete before July.

• On April 27, I was at my office and at about noon, I received a phone call on my cell phone from a number I didn’t recognize. A woman identifying herself as “Y” told me that my son Henry had been taken to the hospital after an overdose and that “it didn’t look good.”

• I rushed to the hospital, where I met Henry’s father. We were told that our son had overdosed and aspirated, causing a loss of oxygen to the brain. The ER personnel working with him also told us it appeared that he had been beaten badly.

• Henry spent the next 9 days at UT Medical Center, five of those days in intensive care. For three days he was on life support (a ventilator).

• He has now been moved to the neurological and physical rehab unit at St. Mary’s Hospital where he will spend the next several weeks. After that, we are looking at months, if not years, of continued work to try to help our son recover physically and cognitively. He may next go to Johns Hopkins or the Shepherd Center in Atlanta for specialized therapy to help his severe brain injury.

• His medical problems include:
  • Hypoxic brain injury due to lack of oxygen to the brain from the overdose and aspiration. This caused terrible brain swelling and visible damage to the brain via brain scan/MRI. This may or may not leave Henry with permanent cognitive disability. Currently, our 18 year old son is in a wheelchair, is totally incontinent and has significant mental incapacity with processing and higher level executive functioning.. We have been told that the level of his recovery and remaining disability will not be clear for many months
  • He also suffered a heart attack, which his doctor believes was due to being kicked or struck really hard in the chest.
  • His jaw was fractured.
  • His eardrums were badly contused from being struck and remain bloody almost two weeks after the assault that he suffered.
  • 
    
• We reported the assault and overdose to the Knox County Sheriff’s Department the day it happened. We have been discussing the case with Detective H. We gave him the names of some of Henry’s friends whom we believe know more about the case and what happened. We also have given him the name and number of “Y,” the woman who called me to tell me he had overdosed. Detective H has apparently done some investigation but not much.
• It is apparently Detective H’s belief that Henry was beat up early in the day on April 26^th as part of a drug deal gone bad somewhere in a south Knoxville park. We gave Detective H <name redacted> as one of the potential assault suspects (we got the name from Henry’s friends). Det. H has confirmed to us that he spoke with <name redacted>  and two other suspects who report that they were present when Henry was beat up sometime in the day on the day of the 26^h. Detective H ells us that since each of the three suspects tells a slightly different tale about who actually struck Henry in the head and chest, it is not possible to make any arrests. He says he will speak to Henry about the assault soon – when Henry feels up to it. In the meantime, however, no arrests have been made, although Henry was badly assaulted.
• 
  
• Detective H has stated to us that he does not believe “Y” had anything to do with Henry’s injuries or overdose and that she is simply a “good Samaritan” who was trying to help Henry get off drugs. He says the fact that she called 911 around noon on April 27th when Henry was passed out on her couch is evidence of her good intentions.
• Something about this whole Y story seemed odd to our family, especially since she has been texting my sister up to 20 times per day to insist that she had nothing to do with what happened to Henry or how he became injured. In some of her texts, she has referred to an  <name redacted> who died on the same day Henry was taken to the hospital. She has also given first names of several people whom she blames for Henry’s overdose and beating.  We have generally refrained from responding to any of these texts.
• Since Henry began talking again, we have been very gently trying to encourage him to tell us who this Y person is and how he ended up overdosed in her house on the morning of the 27^th. She was apparently the person who called 911, but not until he had been passed out there for some time, and not until she had called a teenage girl named S (who came to the hospital the day Henry was admitted) intervened. On the day Henry was admitted to the ER, S  told us that she had to threaten Y before Y would call for help for Henry.
• 
  
• Very, very slowly, because he is very ashamed and his brain injury makes communication difficult, the story of this person Y’s involvement with our son has emerged. Henry says that Y and her fiancé R (I’m not sure if I have the spelling right) are pimps. H says that Y seems to be the mastermind behind the whole thing. He says most of the activity is in south Knoxville.
• Henry is ashamed, embarrassed and is still recovering physically, emotionally and mentally. However, he is willing to talk to the police about what he knows about Y’s activities. When he is interviewed by the police, I believe a sexual assault victim’s advocate should be present. I would also like to be present, because this is so difficult for him to discuss.
• I have all the texts that this Y person has sent us since Henry was admitted to the hospital, ready to turn over to the police. Also, since Henry says she called him on his cell phone, those phone records would probably be helpful in corroborating our son’s story.
• On May 10, I called Detective H with the Knox County Sheriff’s Department to discuss what we had found out from Henry regarding the prostitution-for-drugs ring, and the role of “Y”  in giving Henry the drugs that led to his overdose. Detective H seemed disinterested, and repeatedly told me that unless Henry could specifically identify and name younger teenagers working for Y, there would be nothing law enforcement could do.  During the discussion, he referred to Henry as a “prostitution suspect,” and he told me that before he could even investigate the situation, he would have to meet with someone in the DA’s office and get the greenlight. He said he was unsure when he could get such a meeting with the DA’s office. He also told me – because I made the request -  that he was not sure whether a sexual assault advocate could be present if he decided to interview Henry.
• I believe that this woman and perhaps the man she lives with are running a dangerous, drug-based prostitution ring in Knox County, preying on children and adolescents with drug problems. They represent a terrible menace.
• I also believe that if this woman gave my son the drugs that nearly killed him and may have left him with some level of permanent disability, she should be charged with assault or possibly with attempted murder.
• Our family is ready to cooperate fully in every way with the investigation, although we understand that our son’s drug addiction may lead to legal liability for him. Our goals are for him to recover fully from his addiction, to heal his physical and mental injuries and to see the adults who preyed on him and gave him drugs that nearly killed him brought to justice. We never want to see another Knox County family go through what we are currently enduring.

Please do not hesitate to contact me or Henry’s father, Chris Granju with your questions in order to get the ball rolling on this important investigation. We appreciate your attention to this matter and look forward to a thorough and timely investigation.

Sincerely,

Katie Allison Granju

—————————————————END DOCUMENT ————————————–

After I typed the memo up, I emailed it to Henry’s father so he could make any additions he wanted to include, and then I printed it out.

Within 48 hours of me writing up the memo, a friend of mine who has a longstanding professional  relationship with Knox County DA RandyNichols sat down for a private, one on one meeting with the District Attorney. The sole purpose of this meeting, requested by my friend on behalf of our family, was to hand deliver this memo, and to convey to Mr. Nichols that that he should be concerned with KCSO’s apparent lack of interest in our son’s case, and lack of interest in the alarming allegations Henry disclosed on May 10.

This meeting took place in Mr. Nichols’ own county office, and at the end of it, having been given the hard copy (and more explicit) version of the memo above, Mr. Nichols shook my friend’s hand and assured him that he was very interested in Henry’s case, and in the information in the memo. He promised that a thorough and highly professional criminal investigation would take place, and that he would personally make sure that this happened. He asked that my friend convey these reassurances to me.

My friend did just that. I was relieved that Mr. Nichols had the memo, and that he cared, and I waited for someone from his office or KCSO or SOME agency to come to the hospital. After all, the first step, the fundamental building block of any real investigation into any element of Henry’s case – the assault, the overdose and now, the allegations of sexual exploitation – would certainly begin with taking the victim’s statement. Right? Right?

I kept waiting.  Henry’s ability to communicate began to deteriorate as his brain injury worsened. But he never stopped wanting to give his statement to a criminal investigator.

My son died 3 weeks to the day after the sunny May afternoon – one year ago today – when he showed courage, strength and honor in opening up about the sexual exploitation he had endured.  On May 10, 2010, my son told me that he wanted to tell his story to someone in authority, SO THAT NO OTHER KIDS WOULD BE HURT.  I assured Henry that an investigator WOULD come. I promised him.

But no one ever did. No one from the Knox County Sheriff’s Office ever came. No one came under the direction of the Knox County District Attorney’s office. No one from any agency with the authority to protect the children in this community EVER ONCE LAID EYES ON MY SON. Not during the two weeks between the day paramedics pulled him out of the drug dealers’ residence and the day he told me these terrible things, and never once during the next 3 weeks until he died.

Additionally, no one from any agency has ever asked me one single question about anything my son told me that day, even after I told the KCSO detective about it, and even after I provided the Knox County DA with that memo on May 11, 2010. When I tried to bring this issue up in one of the very few conversations I had after May 10, 2010 with the KCSO detective assigned to Henry’s case, he told me that because Henry’s girlfriend was “so pretty,” that if these people had wanted to pimp someone out, it would have been her, not my son.

THEY NEVER CAME.  THEY NEVER EVEN MADE THE EFFORT TO MEET HENRY. AND THEY NEVER INVESTIGATED ANY OF THIS.

Henry’s girlfriend was finally interviewed by KCSO after Henry died. She says they did ask her if she had ever worked as a prostitute. There was no female officer present – only two men – and the detective assigned to Henry’s case asked her pointedly graphic questions about whether she had ever engaged in specific sex acts for money or drugs. She was embarrassed, and felt vaguely threatened. She also didn’t understand why they were asking her these kinds of questions, because she did not yet know what Henry had disclosed to me. And he clearly never told her. What teenage boy is going to tell his girlfriend about something like this? So I believe her that she didn’t know. And that’s what she told the KCSO detectives when they asked her.

As far as I know, that interview with Henry’s girlfriend is the only “investigating” KCSO ever did specific to Henry’s disclosure to me on May 10, 2010.

It’s been a year. I did not keep my promise to Henry to make sure everything possible was done to protect other kids. Not yet anyway.

And the two men who who promised to serve and protect everyone in Knox County when they were sworn in to lead KCSO and the DA’ s office (and when they began collecting their taxpayer-funded paychecks) have not yet kept their promise to all of the citizens who elected them.

So this is what happened one year ago today. It happened to a terrified and guilty teenage boy who was humiliated beyond belief to be sitting in the diaper required by the violence done to his brain by criminals. A boy who could no longer walk, or dress himself, or play his guitar, or read a book – a teenager sitting in a wheelchair outside the hospital where he was born. It happened to a young man trying desperately to do the right thing by telling, even as he dealt with his own critical physical injuries and his brutal, soul-crushing shame. And it also happened to that teenage boy’s mother, to me, as I heard those heart stoppingly painful words come from my child’s mouth.

And now, all of you who live, work, raise families and pay taxes in Knox County know exactly what happened to you starting one year ago today. You know exactly what was done by way of the shocking lack of any real investigation in this case by the very people who hold all the authority to protect your own kids – or not.

Henry’s willingness to disclose the sexual exploitation he endured at the hands of bad, bad, dangerous criminals should not have been rewarded with what I am being forced to do here. I am violating my son’s dignity, even after his death by publicly discussing these brutally private violations he endured. He was not only denied the right as a victim to give his statement to law enforcement before he died, he has also been denied the the relative privacy around these issues that a professional criminal investigation would have offered him. This is appalling and wrong.

PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION ASKING KNOX COUNTY AUTHORITIES TO FINALLY LAUNCH THE INVESTIGATION MY SON’S CASE DESERVES, AND THAT YOUR CHILDREN’S SAFETY REQUIRES.  PLEASE ALSO SHARE THIS BLOG POST AND THE PETITION WITH YOUR FRIENDS, NEIGHBORS, COWORKERS AND OTHERS.

Thank you,

Katie Allison Granju, Henry Granju’s mother and Knox County citizen

Please note that all comments on the Justice for Henry Granju website are moderated and thus, may take a little time to appear. Thanks for your patience.

UPDATE: A new report from the TBI indicates that Knox County law enforcement and prosecutors have an alarmingly poor record in successfully investigating and prosecuting human trafficking cases involving minors.