MONROE, N.C. (AP) - A judge is appointing an attorney to represent a North Carolina man charged after an 11-year-old boy was found handcuffed to a porch with a dead chicken tied to his neck.
Dorian Harper told a judge Monday that he didn’t have money for an attorney because he was fired as an emergency room nurse after his arrest.
A hearing for Harper’s girlfriend, Wanda Sue Larson, who is facing similar child abuse charges, was postponed until Tuesday.
Larson and Harper, both 57, were arrested in November after a Union County sheriff’s deputy found the boy on the porch. The couple now faces a 21-count indictment that spells out the abuse that investigators say occurred in their home between August and November.
The couple had guardianship of the boy.
Larson, a former child-protection investigations supervisor with the county Department of Social Services, is also indicted for failing to report the abuse.
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