Child allegedly abused for taking chocolate

A 6-year-old boy hospitalized Friday with severe injuries allegedly inflicted by his foster mother was in trouble “for eating mommy’s chocolate bars,” one of his siblings told police.

The 4-year-old told police that Joyce D. Hibshman picked up the older boy and threw him on the ground several times before beating him with her shoe, according to police reports.

Another child, 5, in the home told Coeur d’Alene police that Hibshman gave the boy five spankings “on his bare butt,” pulled on his hair and eyebrows and hit him across the back with a belt.

A total of five kids were removed from the custody of Hibshman, 36, and her husband, Ted, on Friday and placed in the state’s care. She was booked into the Kootenai County Jail on felony injury to child charges and is being held on $75,000 bail.

During her first appearance in court Monday, Hibshman said she moved to Coeur d’Alene three months ago from California, where she had six years experience as a foster parent for the state.

“I have a perfect record with them,” Hibshman told 1st District Magistrate Robert Burton.

It’s unclear in court papers and police reports whether Hibshman was a licensed foster parent. Idaho Department of Health and Welfare spokesman Ross Mason said she wasn’t a foster parent with the Idaho agency.

Emergency room staff called Coeur d’Alene police on Friday after the 6-year-old boy was brought to Kootenai Medical Center with severe bruising and a head injury.

Doctors there said the injuries didn’t appear to be consistent with Hibshman’s explanation that the child had fallen. The child, who was transferred to Sacred Heart Medical Center, is expected to recover from the injuries, police said over the weekend.

In an interview at the police station Friday, Hibshman told Sgt. Christie Wood that she had hit the boy with a belt several times throughout the day, grabbed his arm and pulled him off his bed, grabbed the back of his neck and hit him in the face.

A day earlier the boy fell down stairs outside the home, Hibshman told Wood. She said he fell down two flights of stairs inside the home Friday and then was “being defiant,” so she told him to sit in the laundry room.

Hibshman told Wood that a few moments later she noticed the boy was lying on the floor unconscious and “did not look right.” She said she put an ice pack on his head and put him under a shower with cold water running in an attempt to revive him, according to police reports.

Hibshman said she called her husband, who came home and told her to call 911.

According to police reports, five children were living in the home. The oldest, a 12-year-old, is the biological daughter of Hibshman and her husband. A 5-year-old girl was adopted by the couple and three boys, including the boy who was injured, were foster children.

The children told police about a “spanking spoon.”

When Wood asked Hibshman about it, she said she no longer uses it “because her children became afraid when she would use it to cook dinner.” She said she and her husband both spank the children using belts.

In an interview with police, Ted Hibshman said he had spanked the boy twice Thursday using a 1½-inch-wide leather belt with an oval buckle.

According to police reports, Ted Hibshman said the boy hadn’t been making “good choices,” had been lying and “stealing low-carb candy bars” that belonged to his wife.

No charges have been filed against Ted Hibshman.

Coeur d’Alene police did not return calls from The Spokesman-Review seeking comment Monday afternoon.