RICHMOND (October 25, 2021) – Stacey Burrell, 57, of King William, has pled guilty today in New Kent Circuit Court to one count of felony unlawful wounding. The guilty plea is related to injuries suffered by a juvenile patient in 2019 at Cumberland Hospital for Children and Adolescents in New Kent County, while Burrell was employed at the hospital as a behavioral technician. A sentencing hearing, in this case, is scheduled for December 20, 2021.

Stacey Burrell, 57, of King William County.

“The conduct committed by this behavioral technician against a juvenile patient is truly awful and should never occur in a facility that is meant to treat and take care of children,” said Attorney General Herring. “My team and I are dedicated to protecting the vulnerable and holding those who harm their fellow Virginians accountable, especially when they harm our children.”

This guilty plea is part of an ongoing investigation into Cumberland Hospital by the Virginia State Police and was prosecuted by members of Attorney General Herring’s Major Crimes and Emerging Threats Section. Previously, former Cumberland Hospital psychotherapist Herschel “Mickey” Harden was indicted for two felony counts of sexual assault, however, he died by suicide before standing trial.

If anyone has additional information about these or other alleged crimes that may have occurred at Cumberland Hospital for Children and Adolescents they may contact the Virginia State Police’s Bureau of Criminal Investigations at (804) 537-6788.

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Northwestern Prevention Collaborative invites Shenandoah Valley residents to join Rev. Jan M. Brown, MA, CPRSS and Tom Bannard, MBA, CADC, for a free, virtual Recovery Ally Training.

Recovery Ally Programs are trainings that are designed to increase a communityʼs recovery capital, decrease stigma and grow intervention skills.  This training is an interactive, three-hour online training, originally developed at Virginia Commonwealth University to train faculty and staff to become Recovery Allies.  Individual modules include: Basic Science; What Does an Ally Do?; Racial Justice and Recovery; Philosophies of Care & Pathways to Recovery; Families; and Language. It provides a great starting point to supporting people struggling with substance use disorders.

This online training for the residents of Page, Shenandoah, Warren, Frederick, and Clarke counties and the city of Winchester will be offered November 9^th from 9 am to 12 noon, or again November 10^th from 6 pm to 9 pm.

Audience: All are welcome.  This training is a very helpful primer as a family member, lay person, friend, employer, health care provider etc.  For people with limited exposure to treatment or recovery, it can provide some great starting points.  For professionals or people with a great deal of lived experience, it will provide a set of slides, tools and approaches that may be helpful with clients or family members or may provide an easy way to train community members to be part of the solution.  Because the training is conversation-driven, professionals can often be particularly helpful to other participants during the training.

To register or learn more, visit https://tinyurl.com/y6aodsyn

This free training is made possible by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of an award totaling $333,333.33 with 0% percentage financed with non-governmental sources. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA, HHS, or the U.S. Government. For more information, please visit HRSA.gov.

About Northwestern Prevention Collaborative

The Northwestern Prevention Collaborative covers the Lord Fairfax Planning District, encompassing the City of Winchester and the counties of Clarke, Frederick, Page, Shenandoah and Warren. One of their current areas of focus is on opioids, with dual goals of preventing young people from misusing prescription drugs and reducing the number of heroin/prescription drug overdose deaths. The Collaborative is a partnership between Page Alliance for Community Action, Family Youth Initiative, Warren Coalition, Northern Shenandoah Substance Abuse Coalition and the Prevention Department of Northwestern Community Services and is funded, in part, through the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, the Health Services Resources Administration and the Substance Abuse Mental Health and Services Administration.

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Rotary Club of Warren County hosted Community Shred Day last weekend. Thank you to all of the community members who came out to take advantage of this wonderful service. Recycling makes a huge difference to our planet. Check out these stats to really understand how impactful shredding and recycling your paper waste can be:

• 4,233 lbs of paper was recycled.
• $502 was raised and donated to the Front Royal Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department.

And by recycling, we also saved:

• 36 trees
• 804 gallons of oil
• 8,466 kilowatts of energy
• 14,815 gallons of water

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To start, let me say something about myself. I love sports. I was a three-sport athlete in high school and I still love playing sports now (though badly). I love watching sports, both on TV and in person. I have a son on the high school baseball team and never thought I would enjoy watching as much baseball as he plays, but I do. I have heard sports described as either soap operas or reality shows for men. It really is as Jim McKay used to say: “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” The problem is that sports are meant to be fun (unless my Hokies and Razorbacks both lose as they did last week) but, with the politics of the day, they are losing some of their enjoyment as mindless entertainment. What is really starting to get hard is the hypocrisy in sports, yet, historically speaking, maybe it always has been this way.

The big news of last week was the resignation of Las Vegas Raiders Coach Jon Gruden. At first, I was not sure what I thought about an email sent eleven years ago but, as more and more inappropriate emails began to surface, it became clear that he needed to go. His emails were full of racist, homophobic, and sexist language that the NFL has condemned. It is right that the NFL condemns this type of language and the League has tried recently to stand up for what is right.

What makes it hard to accept, however, is that with its moral outrage, NFL is also allowing a Super Bowl half-time show featuring Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and Dr. Dre. You may be aware of these artists, especially Snoop Dogg, who is becoming a cultural icon with his laid-back persona and commercials with Martha Stewart. However, if you are not, I would love to give you a sample of their lyrics, but I can’t because most papers would not print them. Their songs are full of racist, homophobic, and sexist language, much worse than Gruden’s. Add to that the violence and drug use these entertainers promote. I want to say sports can’t have it both ways, yet it does.

There is plenty of modern history showing the hypocrisy of sports. Most recently is Lebron James, who claims to be a champion for social justice yet attacked Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey for supporting democratic protesters in China. China was threatening to cut ties with the NBA, meaning James and the NBA could lose millions. James said of Morey, “But I believe he wasn’t educated on the situation at hand and he spoke.” It seemed what James really meant was Morey may not have been considering how much he might lose by supporting oppressed people not in America.

Then there is Nike, who also claims to support social justice and human rights. Nike used major social justice warriors like Megan Rapinoe and Colin Kaepernick in its ads but also refused to pay a real wage to workers in third-world countries, helping to keep those workers in poverty. There are championship sports teams that took their conservative players to meet Democratic presidents but refused to take their teams to either Bush’s or Trump’s White House. Then there was Monday Night Football, which dropped country legend Hank Williams Jr. for comparing President Obama to Hitler, while having no issues with artists and celebrities who made the same references to Trump.

Speaking of Hitler: When I think of one of sport’s biggest hypocrisies, he is at the center of the controversy. Most people know the story of the 1936 Olympics and American track star Jesse Owens (if you want to learn about these games from a non-track perspective, I highly recommend Boys in the Boat). Hitler planned to use these games to showcase his nation’s power and the strength of what he thought of as the “Aryan race.”

What he was not prepared for was a Black man from America showing up his track and field athletes. While Hitler’s Germans did win the most medals overall and the most gold medals, Owens walked away with four golds, more than any U.S. athlete at the time. While Owens’ dominance was the main story, the side story was his treatment by Hitler. After the first day of competition and after Hitler shook hands and congratulated the German winners, he left the stadium. The head of the Olympic Games told him that he either had to shake the hands of all the winners or none of them. He chose none of them.

Americans were furious and the story began to circulate that Owens, now a true American hero, was snubbed by the German leader. Yet when Owens was asked about the mistreatment, his answer was telling: “I wasn’t invited to shake hands with Hitler. But I wasn’t invited to the White House to shake hands with the President either.” FDR, who had spent much of his life in the South, in true hypocrisy did not invite Owens to the White House or acknowledge his accomplishments as he did with the white athletes. Americans who were outraged at Hitler did not seem to care about FDR’s own snub.

It is sad that politics and hypocrisy take over what many Americans like me use to get away from the world for a short time each week. Though it has not always been the case, sports today are the one place where merit rises to the top. Black or White, rich or poor, the best players in the games play together. It should be the place with the least amount of divisive language. I applaud the NFL for condemning the words of Jon Gruden. But if the League is serious about ending the hypocrisy and truly wanting to unite the nation and end this type of language, the NFL needs to find a new half-time show.

Dr. James Finck is a Professor of History at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma and Chair of the Oklahoma Civil War Symposium. To receive daily historical posts, follow Historically Speaking at Historicallyspeaking.blog or on Facebook.

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If you think Lizzie Borden with her ax is scary, imagine you are the real estate agent trying to sell her house. Haunted houses can be a tough sell, but some buyers can make a killing on a home with a creepy past.

According to a 2019 poll by YouGov, 45 percent of people they interviewed believe in ghosts and the same number believe in demons. While you do have to disclose a leaky roof, you may not have to disclose a ghost when selling. The law firm Kious, Rodgers, Barger, Holder & King, PLLC writes that in Minnesota and Massachusetts, it is unnecessary to disclose if the house is haunted by paranormal activity or the supernatural; in New Jersey, a seller must disclose it only if asked; and in New York, a seller is not obligated to share the information with a buyer unless they have already shared the opinion with the public at large.

Nonetheless, if confronted with a nice home with an icky history, would you buy it?

What if a great townhome was on the California market in a fantastic neighborhood at a stunningly low price with a highly motivated seller? But there is a reason the price is so low–this is the townhome of Nicole Brown Simpson, whose gruesome murder was tried in the infamous O.J. Simpson trial. Would you buy it? Someone did and the house sold for $200,000 off the asking price.
It’s not just violence and spirits that can stigmatize a home. In some states, it must be disclosed if a house for sale once had a methamphetamine lab, mainly because former customers could drop by or chemicals could remain. Even homeowners in a lot of debt can cause some stigma when they sell because the new owners could be targeted by debt collectors.

Some stigma can be enduring. Homeowners around one stigmatized property actually changed the name of the street. In 1997, 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult killed themselves awaiting an alien spacecraft. You won’t find their notorious address anymore and you won’t find the $1.6 million home either. The landlord tried to sell, but could not. The lender finally sold it for less than $700,000 and it was bulldozed.

According to real estate consultant Bell Anderson & Saunders, a buyer of a stigmatized home can expect from 10 to 25 percent off-market prices.

Some buyers make a name on homes with a creepy past. The legend of Lizzie Borden lives on in her home at 92 Second St., Fall River, Mass., now a bed and breakfast. And you’ll feel very cozy when you read the motto: Where everyone is treated like family. Oh, wait…

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