Caught on video: Parents accused of abusing disabled son face November trials

Two Ankeny parents are set to stand trial in November on felony child endangerment charges for allegedly abusing one of nine children with disabilities they adopted.

John Elmer Bell, 55, and his 57-year-old wife, Joyce, are scheduled to appear in court at 9 a.m. Nov. 13 after videos taken by another adopted child showed the couple screaming and repeatedly hitting the 16-year-old boy, who is intellectually disabled.

John and Joyce Bell were both charged with two counts of felony child endangerment causing bodily injury and two counts of neglect or abandonment of a dependent person.

Both have pleaded not guilty.

"There's a lot more to this than meets the eye," said Wes Dunbar, John Bell's defense attorney. 

Several people asked Watchdog in July why the parents had not been arrested after 21-year-old Krystal Bell, the adopted daughter of the Bells, took four videos of the alleged abuse and posted them on Facebook.

Her posts triggered investigations by police and Iowa’s Department of Human Services. Two of Bell’s half-brothers, including the teen who was allegedly beaten in the videos, were placed in foster care.

Krystal and her sister Makayla claimed that children in the home had been abused for years while the parents collected thousands in subsidies.

The couple’s arrests came hours after Ankeny police turned over 68 police reports in response to an open records request from Watchdog.

One video turned over to Ankeny police showed John Bell and his 16-year-old mildly autistic son screaming and hitting each other in their living room earlier this month.

The teen wailed in a high pitch as his father restrained his flailing hands. Then John Bell repeatedly hit the boy with the back of his hand and a fist.

“I will hit you in the f---ing mouth,” John Bell said, rocking back and forth on the couch, clutching a knee and crying.

The Bells adopted children with disabilities who ranged in age from 16 to 38, according to the couple’s 24-year-old adopted daughter, Makayla.

Police were told about videos depicting child abuse at least as far back as March 2016, police reports requested by Watchdog show.

Polk County prosecutors have since obtained restraining orders preventing both parents from going near the two adopted children still in their care.

The parents have been released from jail on bond pending trial.

At least a third of children in foster care nationally have physical or mental disabilities. And those children are far more likely than other children to be physically abused, sexually assaulted and neglected.

A 2015 U.S. Department of Justice report shows that the rate of violence experienced by kids with disabilities is more than triple the rate for kids ages 12 to 15 and double the rate for kids aged 16 to 19 without disabilities.

Makayla Bell said abuse in the Bells' home was so bad she tried to run away.

But she said she returned out of concern for a birth-brother in the home and other siblings, who had a range of diagnoses from bipolar disorder to mental retardation to cerebral palsy.

“I used to pray when I was little that I could go to a family that would actually love me — that would actually care about me,” she told Watchdog.