Symbol of hope mired in tragedy

Nadir Turner began life in sadness and tragedy, left behind by a crack-addicted mother who walked out of the hospital after giving birth. Yesterday, there seemed to be every chance those fates would befall him again, as authorities prepared to charge Turner, now 19, with killing the 4-year-old son of his girlfriend.

Montgomery County prosecutor Bruce Castor said Turner, of the 2600 block of Lamott Avenue in Willow Grove, had already been accused of aggravated assault after allegedly beating little Jordan Jackson into a bruised, unconscious heap.

Those charges would now be upgraded, he said, after the boy died in a hospital over the weekend.

The criminal charges represent an extraordinary turn of fate for a man who as a baby was held up in news accounts as a symbol of hope. In The Inquirer and other newspapers, his foster, soon-to-be-adoptive mother told how Nadir, 11 days old in the summer of 1988, cried for hours as his little body went through a harrowing drug withdrawal.

Nadir's case was profiled to highlight problems that beset the city Department of Human Services and Family Court Division, helping lead the American Civil Liberties Union to file a massive lawsuit in 1990. None of that mattered yesterday.

"I have to make the decision on whether to charge first- or third-degree murder," Castor said yesterday. Conviction of first-degree murder can carry the death penalty.

In the summer of 1988, when Turner was born, Philadelphia was beset by a crack epidemic, with large numbers of babies being abandoned in hospital nurseries by their addicted mothers. At one time, as many as 60 such babies were at hospitals waiting to be placed in foster care.

They became known as "boarder babies," the problem so acute that Hahnemann University Hospital developed a program that encouraged employees to become the infants' caregivers and take them home.

In August 1988, "Bobbie" Turner, a longtime hospital employee, signed up. She said the second time she scooped up one of the infants, she knew he was the one she wanted - the child she would name Nadir.

"He looked so pitiful," she told an Inquirer reporter.

Turner, then 42, and her husband, Robert, took the baby to their home in West Oak Lane and expressed their interest in adopting him. When the Turners learned Nadir's biological mother had given birth in October 1989 to a baby girl at Temple University Hospital, they decided to seek custody of her, too.

Two months later, Nadir's sister, Zakia, joined the household.

Despite Nadir's difficulties - he didn't smile until he was 6 months old - the Turners pressed forward with their quest to adopt him and his sister.

The Turners were the only parents Nadir knew, although the adoption did not become final until 1993, a few months before he turned 5.

Yesterday, no one came to the door at Bobbie and Bob Turner's home in Abington, a few blocks from the Willow Grove Park mall.

A bay-window shelf held football and cheerleading trophies, some from the Abington Raiders football program. A neighbor said the football trophies belonged to Nadir, the cheerleading awards to his sister.

Both lived at the home with their mother, authorities said.

Risa Ferman, Montgomery County's first assistant district attorney, said yesterday that she could not speculate on what might have sparked the assault on the child. "We'll be in a better position to answer that once we've completed the investigation," she said.

The incident came to light Thursday when doctors at Abington Memorial Hospital contacted police. Jordan Jackson had no pulse when he arrived at the emergency room. He was bruised on the forehead, around the eyes, on his chest, and on his back and upper left arm. Doctors managed to revive him, and he was airlifted to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where he died Saturday.

An affidavit of probable cause provided details of how, in an interview with police, Turner told them he had been caring for the boy in the absence of his girlfriend, the child's mother, Venus Andaya. On Thursday, he said, he took Jordan to play at Crestmont Park, where the boy became ill, clutching his stomach, then vomiting blood. Turner took the unresponsive child back to his house on Lamott Avenue.

As the boy's condition worsened, a friend of Turner's arrived and drove the child to the hospital. Police said Turner never called 911 for help.

Zakia Turner told police that earlier in the day she had been dressing Jordan when she noticed bruises on his back, forehead and cheek. "Nadir hit me," the boy told her.

She took the child to a McDonald's restaurant, where he complained about back pain and repeated, "Nadir hit me," police said. The two returned home and were speaking with Bobbie Turner, Nadir Turner's mother, when Turner asked the boy to go with him.

The child did not answer. Turner repeated himself, and the boy latched on to Bobbie Turner's arm. Police said that Nadir Turner grabbed the boy and pulled him away. He carried the child - screaming and crying - out of the home, police said.

Later, police said, Zakia Turner saw Nadir Turner carry Jordan, who was motionless, back into the house. At first, she thought the boy was sleeping.

Minutes later, Jordan's mother, Andaya, arrived at the house. She and Zakia Turner saw the boy lying naked on Nadir Turner's bed, covered only with a green towel.

Prosecutor Ferman said the boy's mother, a Philadelphia resident, attends classes at Pennsylvania State University's Abington campus. It was unclear what brought Andaya to the home after the child was injured.