This morning I followed a link from the Drudgereport that'd been removed by about 11am Eastern U.S. time. It's a jailhouse interview feature with the father who chained his teenaged sons and may have killed a third child.

The article reads as if the man had been living with two women, one of whom is his legal wife while the other is also a wife that U.S. law doesn't recognize.

Read the last paragraph wherein Davis says he could "talk about things" that would get him killed, claiming, however, that those things have nothing to do with the instant case.

Interesting to note also that Davis is on medication of some sort, possibly treated by V.A. doctors as a Vietnam veteran who'd been defoliated with some Agent Orange.

This story is probably about an abandoned science project attempting to replicate itself.

vM

Boys' father defends chaining

By Guy McCarthy
The Press-Enterprise

John Davis says God and the Bible instructed him to be strict with his children so they wouldn't grow up to kill him and his wife.

"Proverbs tells you to discipline your children, or else they will grow up and kill their parents," Davis said. "All I did was discipline them."

Davis, who is accused of torturing his two sons in an isolated High Desert community called Wonder Valley, discussed his beliefs Sunday during an jail interview in Rancho Cucamonga.

Davis said his eldest son, Yahweh, 17, became unruly in the past few years and tried to hurt himself and his 12-year-old brother, Angel.

"We didn't chain him every day," Davis said. "Sometimes we did it at night so he wouldn't come after us."

Davis, 53, who calls himself Rajohn Lord and has claimed to be an ordained minister, also said he cremated the body of another son in 1991 after the boy ate some drywall and died before he could be taken to a doctor.

"The drywall blocked him up and he died right after," Davis said. "We didn't have time for a doctor."

John and Carrie Davis, 41, were arrested Oct. 16, two days after one of their sons told police that he and his brother were held captive for years, chained at times in their bedroom.

Investigators said Yahweh and Angel were underfed, under-developed and scarred on their backs from repeated, ritualistic beatings. The boys also had marks on their wrists consistent with being restrained, investigators said.

Evidence showed that Yahweh and Angel were isolated from the outside world since birth, a supervising prosecutor in Joshua Tree said last week.

The deceased child was named Rainbow, and he was about 5 or 6 years old when he died, authorities said. The child's death is not being investigated as a homicide. Prosecutors and police said the boy probably died of neglect.

Detectives unearthed two bone fragments last week near a home where the Davises lived about 10 years ago. The fragments have not been proved to be human remains, and officials don't view them as significant.

What happened to Rainbow is important factor in the torture case against the Davises and a second woman, Faye Potts, 46, police and prosecutors say. The three are being held separately at West Valley on $2 million bail each.

On Sunday, John Davis declined to discuss his relationship with Potts, who police originally identified as the boys' aunt. Authorities said Friday they were unsure of Potts' relationship to the Davises.

Davis did say he misses his wife and Potts, and that he loves them both.

"We are all brothers and sisters in God's eyes," Davis said.

"They are good women," he said. "They don't deserve to be in here. I think something is going to happen with the case, and they're going to let us out."

Frowning at times, half-smiling on occasion, Davis avoided some questions and answered others indirectly as he tapped a finger absent-mindedly at the base of a thick pane of glass between himself and his visitor.

He says his shoulder-length braids have been trimmed because jail officials fear he could hurt himself with his own hair.

He wore a blue-green outfit to signify he is in protective custody, because he told his guards he might have suicidal tendencies.

Displaying religious and martial arts tattoos on his forearms and shoulders, Davis said he has been falsely accused -- as he did a week ago when he invited reporters into his home before he and his wife were arrested.

"I don't have anything to hide, and I don't regret anything," Davis said. "If I could change one thing, I would have spent more time with the boys, starting about three years ago."

His religious beliefs did not prevent him from sending Yahweh and Angel to doctors: Neither child ever received medical attention because they never got sick, he said.

"We were going to take them to the dentist," Davis said. He also said he was making plans to let Yahweh live his own life in the near future.

"I was looking forward to getting him a place of his own and a car when he turned 18," Davis said. "He wanted to get out."

Yahweh and Angel were removed from the Davis home the day of the 911 call that led to their parents' arrests. They were examined last week at Loma Linda University Medical Center and are in San Bernardino County child welfare custody.

If Davis could see Yahweh and Angel, he would tell his sons he didn't blame them for telling the police about their treatment in Wonder Valley.

"I'd tell them I still love them," Davis said.

He's been at the West Valley Detention Center since Thursday, and he's tired of life behind bars.

"I'm accused of torture, but they're torturing me in here," Davis said. "I had to sleep two nights on the floor without a bed. I'm kept in a cell with no one to talk to, even about God.

"They didn't give me the right medication at first," he said. "I'm supposed to take a drug to keep me from having flashbacks from Vietnam. I told them if I don't the right medication, I don't know what I'll do to myself."

Most of Davis' complaints stemmed from his treatment at the jail Thursday and Friday. On Sunday, his cell had a bed, and he was being given a medication that seemed to keep his "condition" in check, Davis said.

Davis served in Vietnam and was exposed to the defoliant Agent Orange during the war. He was receiving disability income before he was arrested, according to military records.

Davis said he could talk about "things that could get me killed." But the "things" have nothing to do with his family's case, he said, and he declined to elaborate.

Guy McCarthy can be reached at gmccarthy@pe.com or 909-656-3339.

 

Published 10/23/2000

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