After 4 Years Girl Returned to Dad|ABC 13

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After 4 Years Girl Returned to Dad

posted 11:47 pm Thu February 07, 2008 - Lynchburg, VA

tags: missing • girl • abuse • rescue

Carlton Madden, Father - "Everyday, not a day went by that I didn't think about my daughter." For more than four years, he has searched for his little girl, a search that stretched all the way to Lynchburg from Atlanta, Georgia.

ABC 13 - After 4 Years Girl Returned to Dad

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Now, father and daughter are back together after spending most of her young life apart. The girl's maternal grandparents are in a Lynchburg jail. We report on their arrests and the trial that started their years on the run. Along with information on the Duncans' church, which many blame for Joy Madden's disappearance.

We start on Wise Street, in Lynchburg. That is where Lynchburg Police and US Marshals found little Joy. But she wasn't the only child there. There were actually six other children at this home, all under the age of 12.

With them, the Duncans, both convicted of beating their own children in Georgia. Now they're in jail, and Joy is on her way home. She says dad, but can't remember. The one thing she knows -- she's going home.

Carlton Madden, Joy's Father - "Not a day went by that I didn't think about my daughter: what she was doing, how she was getting along."

Carlton Madden didn't know where five-year-old Joy was, but knew who had her. Her grandparents, David and Sharon Duncan, members of a church, the House of Prayer.

Madden - "It's a cult. Nothing short of a cult."

He says for four years he and Atlanta-area police searched until a tip led them to 1104 Wise Street, right here in Lynchburg. In a one bedroom apartment, police found the Duncans, Joy and six other children.

Investigator Jerry Hise, Lynchburg Police - "I feel like they're much safer today than they were last night."

Rosa Ratcliff, Neighbor - "I heard the screaming and yelling from the kids."

Neighbors say there was abuse. They claim they heard screams, chanting and praying. But didn't know what to do.

Kameelah Hamlor, Neighbor - "It's really scary because like inside behind the doors it's like a whole 'nother world."

A world broken apart by police. A family reunited.

Madden - "I'll never let her go again, never will I do it."

Joy and her father left for Atlanta less than two hours ago. Despite neighbors hearing physical abuse, police say there's no evidence, but they do believe there was psychological abuse.

So, four out of the five years this little girl's been alive, no contact with her father. What comes next for the family, they try to make up for all that lost time.

As we mentioned, there were six other children in the Duncans' home on Wise Street, when police got there. Officials tell us all indications are they are all the Duncans' own children. They tell us those children are now with Social Services.

An official at the Lynchburg office say he can't comment on this case, but says in a situation like this, they typically place the children in foster care, while looking for relatives. The Duncans will be extradited back to Georgia, on charges of kidnapping and custodial interference. They're being held at the Blue Ridge Regional Jail.

The Duncans are no strangers to the law. In fact their legal troubles go back before little Joy was even born. In 2002, David and Sharon Duncan, along with their church pastor, Rev. Arthur Allen, Junior, and two other people, went on trial for child abuse.

The Duncans and Allen represented themselves in the trial, in Fulton County, Georgia. The case centered around their church, The House of Prayer. Prosecutors said church members held down and whipped the Duncans' 10-year-old son, David Junior, something Rev. Allen didn't deny, but he said the children's injuries were exaggerated.

During the trial Pastor Allen says the children needed corporal punishment because of cultural differences.

Rev. Arthur Allen Jr. House of Prayer - "They have different backgrounds. See whites have been free longer than we have. They've been introduced to culture longer than we have. We still have a bunch of Africanism in us."

Media reports at the time say Rev. Allen advocated 14-year-old girls be married in order to curb teenage pregnancies. Investigators believe Pastor Allen had a hand in Joy's abduction. He was charged with kidnapping in October and is currently out on bond.

The Duncans were the little girl's mother's parents but where the mother in all of this? A spokesperson for Fulton County says Joy's mother, 25 year old mother, Candia Hardeman is in jail, she's been there since last April. Prosecutors believe she knew where Joy was this whole time. The spokesperson says she's been charged with contempt of court.

We looked into the Duncans' church -- The House of Prayer. According to its website, the church is based in Atlanta, Georgia, but has churches all over the country. In 2002, a reporter interviewed members, who said the church serves as an extension of the congregates' family, involved in almost every aspect of their lives.

Church services, which can often last up to eight hours, reportedly feature regular beatings of the congregates' children as a form of corporal punishment.

We're still looking into why the Duncans came to Lynchburg and what they were doing while they were here, as we continue following this story.

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