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LISBON -- The 4-year-old local boy featured in a photograph that became synonymous with the drug problem in Columbiana County and the country will continue to reside with his great-aunt and great-uncle following a hearing held Monday in county Juvenile Court.
The couple, Lori and Terry Lane of Myrtle Beach, S.C., were granted permanent custody of their great-nephew, who was found strapped in a car seat in the back of an SUV that nearly struck a school bus in East Liverpool on Sept. 7. The two people in the front seat -- driver James Acord and the boy's grandmother, Rhonda Pasek -- were found passed out from a suspected drug overdose and had to be revived using an opiate antidote administered by EMTs.
Photographs taken by police of the couple slumped over while the boy looked on impassively from the back seat spread across the nation and the world via the news media and social media, sparking outrage directed at the couple and sympathy for the boy. The news media has also been criticized by some for failing to obscure the boy's face and praised by others for doing so because it showed how drug abuse affects more than the users.
Shortly after the boy's birth in 2012, custody was awarded to his maternal great-grandparents because his parents were deemed unfit due to their history of drug use and offenses. Two years later, the great-grandparents, now in their 80s, petitioned the court to have custody transferred to their daughter and her husband -- the Lanes. Meanwhile, Rhonda Pasek decided to seek custody.
Judge Tom Baronzzi awarded custody to Pasek on July 25, six weeks before the incident. Baronzzi said afterward that had any evidence of drug use been introduced during the trial he would have never awarded custody to Pasek, although the great-grandparents had expressed concern during the hearing about her drinking.
The day after seeing the photograph on TV, the Lanes filed a motion seeking temporary custody, which they were awarded the same day. A follow-up hearing resulted in the custody order being continued until a trial could be held and that was on Monday.
Juvenile Court Administrator Dane Walton said no one showed up at the trial to contest permanent custody being awarded to the Lanes, so the temporary order was made permanent. Pasek, who is still serving a six-month sentence at the county jail for child endangering and public intoxication from the incident, did not object or attend the hearing.
The Lanes' attorney said before the boy appeared to be adjusting well to his new life, having known his great-aunt and great-uncle from spending time visiting them over the years with his great-grandparents.