The stepfather of a 12-year-old homeschooled child found dead in her Enfield bedroom last month has been charged with first-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor in connection with her death.
Anthony Federline, the stepfather, was arrested by Enfield police on Thursday and will appear in court April 6 to be arraigned on the felony charges.
The case against Federline stems from a 911 call on March 18, in which Enfield police were called to a home where the 12-year-old girl, later identified as Eve Rogers, was found unresponsive on the floor of her bedroom.
In an affidavit, police said they found the body of the child on the floor of her bedroom and spoke to Federline and the girl’s mother, who said she had not seen her daughter since the previous evening.
The mother told police that her daughter had locked herself in her room the night before, which she said was not uncommon. The mother became alarmed that morning when her daughter didn’t answer her door, broke into the room and found her on floor.
As police reviewed the scene, they found several pills near the girl’s body. But according to the arrest warrant, other “suspicious circumstances” at the scene prompted police to obtain a search warrant for the home. The girl was found naked from the waist down, according to the warrant, and there were other signs of potential sexual assault.
After that point, the investigation into the child’s death widened. The affidavit states that police used a sexual assault kit to collect DNA evidence from the 12-year-old.
The officers later returned to the home to request DNA samples from Federline, the girl’s mother and three other children, ranging in age from 17 to 6, who were in the home.
According to the affidavit, the DNA test results from the sexual assault kit identified two foreign DNA samples from the girl’s body, and the lab results showed that one of those samples was a strong match with the swab that was taken from Federline.
Police are still waiting on a toxicology report in order to determine the cause of the 12-year-old’s death.
The criminal case against Federline is likely to capture public attention statewide at the moment, given that state lawmakers are considering legal changes surrounding homeschooling in the state.
Enfield Public Schools Superintendent Steven Moccio said in a statement last month that Eve’s mother alerted schools in September 2022 that she would be withdrawing her daughter and homeschooling her “for the rest of the school year and the foreseeable future.”
The scrutiny of homeschooling this legislative session followed two high-profile incidents, including one in Waterbury in which a boy was allegedly locked away for decades after being removed from school for homeschooling and another in which a young girl’s body was found in New Britain after her mother pulled her out of public school for homeschooling.
Legislators are currently considering changes to state statutes that would require the Department of Education to report the names of families that withdraw their children from public school to DCF to determine whether the family has any open cases with the agency.
Homeschool families have come out in large numbers to oppose that bill, arguing they are being targeted and unfairly blamed for recent tragedies.
Rep. John Santanella, an Enfield Democrat, released a statement Friday evening in which he described the girl’s death as “heartbreaking.”
“The policies we debate in Hartford are not abstract,” he said, and called for a key piece of legislation — House Bill 5468, which has drawn strong opposition from homeschooling parents — to be amended.
The bill “extends too far in overseeing homeschooling families who are acting in good faith,” he said, but legislators should close “any loopholes that may allow individuals to evade accountability under the guise of homeschooling.”
Officials with the state Department of Children and Families said they were cooperating with police and would not say whether the other children had been removed from the home.
Enfield Police Chief Alaric Fox said his officers were working with its state partners at DCF on the case.
“I have every confidence that the children are in good, safe and appropriate hands,” he said.
Federline, who had worked at a school bus company for roughly six months, was also immediately terminated from that position. In a press release, the Smyth Bus Company said he had passed both a criminal background check and a review of the Department of Children and Families child abuse and neglect registry before being hired.
