The 24-year-old woman, pushed in a wheelchair, arrived at an emergency room in Baltimore with marks on her ankles and a swollen belly.
Kamryn Jones had been brought from a small group home in Maryland, where she lived because her neurological disorders required the constant presence of two caregivers. She was legally blind, could barely speak and, according to doctors, had the cognitive function of a toddler. At the hospital, according to medical records, a caregiver told the staff the swelling in Kamryn’s abdomen had been noticeable for months, but now she seemed to be in acute pain.
A doctor gently pushed Kamryn’s midsection. Ultrasound images confirmed his suspicion: She was seven months pregnant.
With no way for her to consent, doctors concluded that Kamryn had been raped.
That revelation, in the fall of 2024, is now at the heart of a negligence lawsuit that Kamryn’s parents recently filed against those they entrusted to keep her safe. The defendants include the operator of Kamryn’s group home, whom the parents say allowed access to someone who raped their daughter, a nurse and doctor who treated Kamryn and, according to the lawsuit, conspired with a caregiver to not report the pregnancy in hopes that it would “self-terminate,” and Maryland agencies responsible for overseeing the state’s 3,450 group homes for disabled residents.
“The whole system failed Kamryn,” said her mother, Marcia Williams.
At Sinai Hospital, after finding that Kamryn was pregnant, doctors admitted her for prenatal care, according to medical records that Kamryn’s attorneys shared with The Washington Post.
Seven weeks later, on Dec. 30, 2024, Kamryn gave birth by Caesarean section to a healthy baby girl.
Key questions
Staff at Sinai Hospital reported the rape to Baltimore social workers and police, according to medical records. A spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department said its investigation remains active but declined to comment further.
Two key questions in the case: During a roughly six-week period — from mid-March to early May, 2024, when Kamryn was impregnated, where was she and who had access to her?
The two-story group home where Kamryn resided, operated by Dominion Resource Center, had one other resident, her attorneys said.
Kamryn’s care plan required 24/7 supervision. Two caregivers were responsible for keeping her from wiggling out of her chair and crawling on the floor, changing her diapers, bathing her and managing behaviors such as grabbing or biting people. Because of Kamryn’s Pica eating disorder, which compels her to pick at loose clothing and ingest it, caregivers sometimes dressed her in a heavy smock that covered her shoulders and stomach.
As described in the lawsuit, one caregiver was supposed to remain within 10 feet of Kamryn in common areas. After putting her to bed, the lawsuit says, the caregivers were not required to stay in her room but had to be close enough to hear any noises and were to supposed check on her every 30 minutes.
Kamryn regularly left the group home under the caregivers’ supervision to go to Dominion’s day facility five miles away or to medical appointments. During those trips, according to the lawsuit, one of the caregivers was supposed to remain within five feet of her.
Dominion has operated in Maryland since 2003 and now runs 18 group homes and a day treatment program, serving a total of 60 clients, Executive Director Margaret Owolabi said.
She described the lawsuit as a series of false allegations by Kamryn’s family and their lawyers designed to force a settlement. “They’re just looking for money,” Owolabi said in an interview with The Post.
She said Dominion is not at fault and that six staff members have been cleared in the case. “I am very, very proud of what we are doing,” she said. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”
Owolabi said she didn’t know where Kamryn was impregnated. “I don’t know how it happened,” she said. “It really breaks my heart.”
Residents of Maryland group homes can leave without caregivers for periods of time — on their own if their disabilities allow it or with family members or others if they need constant supervision. During these periods, neither the group home nor state regulators are responsible for their care, Maryland Health Department officials said.
Kamryn’s mother and father, and their attorneys, said no family members took Kamryn from the facility in the spring of 2024. “We could have checked her out, but we never did,” Williams said. “I would never try to handle Kamryn alone.”
Kamryn’s parents place the blame on Dominion, also known as DRC, alleging that their daughter was raped when two caregivers were supposed to be protecting her.
“As a proximate result of DRC’s breaches and violations of its legal duties,” their lawsuit says, “Kamryn was raped, sexually abused, sexually tortured, and impregnated.”
Officials at the Maryland Health Department declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing confidentiality provisions for participants in Maryland’s Developmental Disabilities Administration Medicaid waiver programs.
Amanda Hils, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Health Department, one of Gov. Wes Moore’s Cabinet agencies, said in a statement that “investigations of complaints regarding care for Marylanders who participate in Developmental Disabilities Administration (DDA) waiver programs have been and continue to be a priority under the Moore-Miller Administration,” referring to the governor and Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller.
‘A silent survivor’
In Maryland, having sex with a disabled adult who cannot consent constitutes second-degree rape. The addition of force or threat of force elevates the charge to first-degree rape.
“I can’t imagine how scared she felt,” Williams said.
“We don’t know how many times. We don’t how many people,” said Kamryn’s father, Kevin Jones.
Kamryn’s parents are divorced but remain close to co-parent her and her siblings. Williams lives with her other children in York, Pennsylvania, and works as a family therapist practitioner. Jones resides in Baltimore, but travels as a quality-control manager at large commercial construction sites.
Kamryn was born with cerebral palsy, intellectual disabilities and other complications. Until she was 4, Williams cared for her at home. She and Jones later enrolled Kamryn in the Maryland School for the Blind and then a residential school on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
Designated as legally blind, Kamryn can recognize familiar faces up close. Other calming forces: Michael Jackson songs, the movie “Frozen” and french fries.
Even around people she knows, she can suddenly become overwhelmed. “She can’t communicate that,” Williams said. “She will reach out and grab. It’s just her — her way of sometimes saying, ‘I’m done.’”
At the request of Kamryn’s parents, The Post is not identifying Kamryn’s daughter by name. The Post generally does not name sexual assault victims without their permission. In this case, as Kamryn’s legal guardians, her parents wanted her to be identified because they want her to be seen as a person.
“From childhood to now, she’s been through more than just about anybody,” Jones said. “She is just a silent survivor.”
The source of the skin damage to Kamryn’s ankles remains unclear. A photograph attached to the lawsuit, taken at the hospital, shows a dark mark wrapping around the top of her right ankle with a section of broken skin. The mark on her left ankle was shorter but the broken skin more pronounced, according to the photo.
Two medical experts hired by Kamryn’s attorneys, whose findings were attached with the lawsuit, concluded that the injuries were “ligature marks resulting from Kamryn being forcibly restrained, likely as she was raped.”
Owolabi, the Dominion executive, said the claim isn’t true.
“That was a false allegation. She always has blisters on her legs,” Owolabi said.
Medical records written by a doctor whom the lawsuit says Dominion retained to care for its residents attributed the blisters to cellulitis.
Moving into the group home
As Kamryn approached her 21st birthday, when she would age out of the Eastern Shore residential school, her parents applied for placement into a group home through Maryland’s Community Pathways program. They requested that her most personal care — bathing and dressing — be performed by women. A program coordinator proposed Dominion Resource Center’s group home on Milford Avenue, her parents said, and Kamryn moved in on Oct. 28, 2021. At the time, she weighed 89 pounds.
Early on, Kamryn’s parents said, they received few updates from Dominion about how she was doing. That improved in 2023, they said, when a caregiver began sending photos and arranging FaceTime calls with Kamryn.
In the summer of 2024, Williams said, staff at the group home told her that Kamryn had gained weight and needed larger clothes. “I’m thinking, ‘Oh, she’s eating good. We wanted her to gain weight,’” Williams recalled.
She visited her daughter in the fall of 2024 and said she always saw her in a wheelchair, covered with the smock and wearing compression socks. “The last thing the family was thinking is Kamryn was possibly carrying a baby,” said Gina Smith, one of the attorneys for Kamryn and her parents.
Williams sometimes visited her daughter in her bedroom and said caregivers were constantly nearby. “Her door was open and staff either was sitting in the room with us or continuously coming back,” she said. “I never questioned them on it — I figured it was their job.”
The lawsuit, filed on March 25 in Baltimore City Circuit Court, details medical care provided during Kamryn’s pregnancy by nurses, a doctor and caregivers connected to Dominion, arguing that it would have been impossible for them not to realize that she was pregnant.
One of the nurses was Owolabi, the Dominion executive, who also works for FamilyChoice Clinic, which Dominion uses to provide health care visits to residents, according to medical records. She saw Kamryn regularly to review her medications and behavior, according to medical records, and told The Post she did not know that Kamryn was pregnant.
Starting in August 2024, when Kamryn was four months pregnant, a Dominion caretaker documented several months of irregular menstrual spotting, but that didn’t prompt further medical evaluation, according to the lawsuit.
Two months later, when Owolabi visited Kamryn to review her medications and behavior, according to medical records, a caregiver told her that Kamryn’s mood had worsened.
“She becomes easily annoyed and irritated, especially during diaper changes,” medical records state. “The patient exhibits aggressive behavior towards unfamiliar individuals, particularly when they attempt to touch her private parts.”
Owolabi spent 60 minutes evaluating Kamryn’s behavior and emotional state. She said Kamryn’s menstrual activity was regular enough to indicate that she was not pregnant.
Kamryn was regularly taken to see primary care physician Edward Obazee. From July to November 2024, as Kamryn’s pregnancy progressed, Kamryn saw Obazee five times. During her first four visits, according to medical records, he documented her abdomen as soft. At the final visit, four days before the pregnancy was discovered, Obazee conducted a head-to-toe assessment, according to Kamryn’s attorneys. “Departing from his customary practice,” they wrote, “he failed to document the findings of his assessment of Kamryn’s abdomen.”
Reached by phone, Obazee declined to comment. On Wednesday, his attorneys filed an answer to the lawsuit denying all allegations of negligence or improper conduct.
The family’s attorneys allege that by at least the sixth month, Obazee, Owolabi and a caregiver knew that Kamryn was pregnant but did not report it, fearing financial consequences for Dominion.
The lawsuit also names as defendants the Maryland Health Department. Citing the department’s records, the lawsuit says that after the rape was reported, the Health Department’s Office of Health Care Quality (OHCQ) substantiated the complaint but determined the group home to be in compliance with state regulations.
Hils said in a statement that OHCQ investigations have specific parameters.
“OHCQ’s role is to conduct regulatory inspections and investigations to determine compliance with state and federal regulations — it is not to clear any licensee of allegations involving criminal actions,” the statement read. “Determinations made during OHCQ inspections and investigations may corroborate facts that support a criminal charge, which would be referred to or shared with law enforcement for further action as appropriate because OHCQ does not conduct criminal investigations.”
The status of the criminal investigation remains unclear. Attorneys for Kamryn and her parents said that after the baby was born, investigators got a sample of the child’s DNA.
As the case progressed, the Maryland Attorney General’s Office’s Medicaid Fraud and Vulnerable Victims Unit became involved. The family’s attorneys said they spoke last year with an assistant attorney general, who told them that investigators were taking a “methodical approach in a concentric circle,” and had collected one DNA sample, determined that it didn’t match the baby’s DNA, and were planning to test six others.
An Attorney General’s Office spokeswoman declined to comment, citing a policy of not confirming or denying the existence of an investigation.
Kamryn’s parents want a faster pace. “This guy is out there,” Jones said. “He might still be going into these homes.”
‘Say hi to your baby’
Kamryn’s mother, Williams, describes the past 17 months as grieving the death of a family member. In the early days, she would sit in her car outside Sinai Hospital and cry before driving home. She is now raising Kamryn’s baby.
Kamryn’s father, Jones, has moved his traveling office to a construction project in Florida. But he speaks regularly with his granddaughter on FaceTime, often joined by extended family members. With each new face on the screen, the baby blows a kiss.
Kamryn lives in a different group home in Baltimore County. When Williams visits her, she sometimes places the child on Kamryn’s lap and chest. Kamryn lets her sit without becoming upset.
“Kam, say hi to your baby,” Williams will say.
Kamryn knows babies from having younger siblings. It’s unclear whether she knows the girl is hers.
The post They thought their disabled daughter was safe. A pregnancy revealed her rape. appeared first on Washington Post.
