ST. JOSEPH, Mo. — She’s accused of starving her daughter and keeping her in a closet. In an interview you’ll only see on FOX 4, Jacole Prince’s ex-boyfriend Marcus Benson speaks out. Benson is behind bars because he took a plea bargain, but then authorities say he violated the deal in connection with the case.
Now he wants to set the record straight about what he saw and his role.
Benson is being housed in a prison in St. Joseph. He spoke with FOX 4 for more than an hour and never took responsibility for anything to do with the child or the abuse she suffered. A ten-year-old girl referred to in court records as ‘LP’ only weighed 32 pounds when police found her at an apartment complex off Highland Avenue in Kansas City, Mo. She was found malnourished and seven months later had a heart transplant.
Benson said he did not live with Prince and her three children, but was at their apartment several times a week visiting his girls. While he’s not LP’s biological father, he still loves her.
“I love her just as well as I love my children,” Benson said.
He said at times during his visits, only his two girls were around.
“If I was to ask, you know, where is LP at or whatever, she would state that she’s got herself in trouble,” Benson said.
Benson said he didn’t know of the alleged closet punishment that LP received.
“From my understanding, you know, if not in a corner she would basically be in her room, her bedroom,” Benson said. “I don’t know about it being a closet, I just basically know it was said to be her room.”
A closet is where police say they found LP in June of 2012, a closet barricaded by a crib and tied closed with rope. The child was soaked in urine and filth. While one may infer that Benson must have known due to the odor in the home, he said that’s not the case.
“I’ve never been in her house to where it was, you know, in a manner to where you’d smell a strong odor or any of that,” Benson said.
Police say LP told them Prince kept her locked in the closet, rarely fed her and that Benson knew all about it.
“That there is shocking to me because I was never made aware that that statement was said, so that is shocking to me,” Benson said.
When asked how he could have been blind to what was going on in the apartment, Benson said he didn’t reside there.
“Being that I, one, don’t live there, I only come to visit, I’m not aware of things that I just did not know,” Benson said.
When Benson decided to take a plea agreement, he did so because he said he was told he’d lose his children if he didn’t. Part of the plea agreement was not to have contact with children under 17 for five years, which the probation department says he violated and is now in prison for seven years. He denied knowing anything about any abuse of LP and was fairly unemotional until he was asked about his children.
“Yeah, I miss them, I love them, I miss LP, love her as well,” Benson said.
He also expressed contrition for not realizing what was happening to her.
“I am very, very sorry,” Benson said.
In 2006 Benson took care of LP and his daughter after Prince lost custody because she missed several child welfare meetings. He said Prince was never given a psychological evaluation before the children were returned. He said he wishes he had kept custody of the children, because he took good care of LP and none of this would have ever happened.
