(This is a copy of the original story on the AJC site.)
Reprinted with the permission of the Atlanta Journal and the Atlanta Constitution.

[The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 10.24.99]

 Georgians touched by death of child; He's not forgotten: Readers volunteer to buy headstone for small boy.

By Jane O. Hansen
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer
 

A story in last Sunday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution about a slain child has prompted an outpouring of emotion from readers, many of whom offered to purchase a headstone for the little boy's grave.

Terrell Peterson, 5, was buried last year in an unmarked grave in a country church cemetery in Cuthbert. His grandmother, his aunt and his aunt's boyfriend are due to stand trial next year for allegedly beating and nearly starving the child over an extended period of time.

But readers called to say they want to be sure the child gets a decent burial. The newspaper reported that since Terrell's death on Jan. 15, 1998, few visitors had come to the family plot located down a dirt road 170 miles south of Atlanta. Members of Mitchell Grove Baptist Church, where Terrell is buried, say that soon after he died, the child's body was laid in the ground and forgotten.

"If that child doesn't have a grave marker down in Randolph County, please call and tell me, because I just can't bear for that to happen," said Edd Sanders of Williamson, Ga., one of more than 100 people who called or wrote the newspaper. Sanders is the warden of West Central State Prison in Zebulon.

In recent days, however, lawyers for The Keenan Law Firm erected a simple marble tombstone at Terrell's gravesite in the child's memory. Don Keenan said his lawyers recently discovered the child's lonely grave while preparing to bring a lawsuit against the state for its handling of Terrell's case.

"We just couldn't have a client not have a headstone," Keenan said.

Any proceeds from the suit would be managed by a bank, not a family member, and would be used to improve the state's child protective services system, according to Keenan.

Readers said they were outraged that many people had known about the Atlanta child's plight but little was done to help him. The newspaper reported that there had been eight reports of neglect and abuse involving Terrell or his siblings, that dozens of government, hospital and criminal justice workers had been involved in his life, and that twice Terrell had been to the hospital for suspicious injuries. During one visit to the hospital, the child told police and doctors that his grandmother had beaten him, but a Municipal Court judge dropped the resulting criminal charge against her when his caseworker from the Department of Family and Children Services failed to show up in court.

"Every individual involved should be held accountable for their actions or inactions, from the judge down," wrote Douglas Mitchell, a reader from Atlanta. "Will Terrell be forgotten while these people who sealed his fate go about their daily chores and regular lives?"