Anchorage Daily News

PALMER -- The old 911 tape played in a Palmer courtroom Friday took jurors back to 2004, to the beginning of a child abuse investigation that shocked the Valley.

"We have a slight problem at Misty Lake," George E. Long told the dispatcher on July 8 of that year. "They're having a big free-for-all."

Long told the dispatcher two girls and a boy were fighting with their mother.

"Their mom seems to have lost it," Long said of his daughter, Sherry Kelley. "We need some outside influence."

"They've lost control," he said at one point.

Long and his wife Shirley, 64, are charged with failure to report a violent crime against a child. George Long is also accused of fourth-degree assault. The charges are all misdemeanors.

The case against the Longs is an outgrowth of the Kelley case.

Sherry Kelley and her husband, Patrick Kelley, were initially accused of abusing their five adopted children at their home off Misty Lake Road between Big Lake and Wasilla. The Kelleys were state-licensed foster parents when the children were placed with them starting in 1998 by what's now called the Office of Children's Services.

A trooper affidavit filed at the time said the children -- three girls 15, 14 and 6, two boys 13 and 11 -- suffered abuse, neglect and violent, often bizarre punishments at the hands of the Kelleys, who were charged with dozens of crimes, including assault and kidnapping.

At times the 13-year-old boy was sealed naked in a coffin-like box, according to the affidavit. The other boy, 11, suffered burns in February that became infected, and maggots hatched in the wounds. He was eventually hospitalized.

The children told troopers of being struck with a shovel and other tools.

But further investigation cast doubt on whether the evidence would hold up in court, according to prosecutors, and a plea deal was cut.

Charges against the Kelleys were greatly reduced and in January 2007 Superior Court Judge Mike Wolverton accepted no-contest pleas and released the Kelleys, who had served about 17 months in jail.

The judge said the established facts weren't nearly as heinous as everyone had thought.

More than four years later, the Longs are defending themselves against charges that they ignored what was happening to the children at the Kelleys' place, just 200 yards up a wooded hill from their home.

In September 2004, the Longs were jailed on different misdemeanor charges that accused them of mistreating the same children, plus several assault charges. They got out when they agreed to testify against the Kelleys, before the plea deal closed that case.

Their trial continues next week, with both of the Kelleys listed as witnesses for the prosecution, along with the children.

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