What was happening in the house off Springhill Church Road could have been stopped sooner.
Well before his arrest on a child cruelty charge, before Burke County authorities found his 11 children living in squalor in July and placed all but one of them in state custody, Jeremy Long got a visit from the FBI.
The bureau did a welfare check of sorts on the family after Mr. Long's father, George Long, called the Augusta office from Louisiana, saying he hadn't heard from his son, his daughter-in-law or his grandchildren in years and was concerned for their well-being, according to the elder Mr. Long and Burke County Sheriff Greg Coursey's account of a conversation with his son.
An agent went to the house, spoke to Mr. Long, then reported to his father that he was fine. When this occurred is unclear; Mr. Long said it could have been "several years ago."
"We didn't know if they'd all been killed," he said.
That wasn't the only time someone with a badge went to the doorstep. In the months leading up to the discovery, Burke County sheriff's deputies went there twice when neighbors complained that the children were tampering with their mail.
The deputies knocked on the door of the dilapidated brick house surrounded by "keep out" signs but left when no one answered, according to incident reports and Sheriff Coursey. In hindsight, the sheriff said, more should have been done.
Charles Jackson, the chairman of the Department of Educational Leadership, Counseling, and Special Education at Augusta State University's College of Education, said the Longs lived in third-world conditions, not something he'd expect to find in the United States. He said he wants to know why the FBI and the deputies left the house without doing more, why what they saw didn't raise flags.
"We are talking about children," Dr. Jackson said. "At the very least, I wonder why they didn't contact social services."
Though his memory was vague on specifics, George Long said that during the search for his son he contacted multiple police agencies in the two-state area around Blythe -- the last place he knew of Jeremy and his wife, Christine, living -- along with either Burke County's or Richmond County's Department of Family and Children Services.
At some point, he found help at the FBI. Mr. Long said an agent whose name he didn't recall told him he'd find his son, but by law couldn't say where he was.
The agent later called and said his son was fine and that he'd told him to call his parents. He never did, Mr. Long said.
Sheriff Coursey said Jeremy Long, now being held in his jail, recounted the visit from the FBI to him. He said, according to the sheriff, that an agent came to the door and told him he needed to see him and make sure everyone was OK.
Anthony Russo, the Augusta FBI office's supervisory senior resident agent, wouldn't confirm or answer questions about the visit.
"I can't blame any of the officials we went to for help," George Long said, "because the ultimate responsibility is with Jeremy."
In April, a family living across the road from the Longs told sheriff's Cpl. Willie Burley that neighborhood children were opening their mail, which is delivered to three mailboxes on the Longs' side. An incident report states that a cell phone had been left in one box, and in another instance they found a stick in the ground with a $1 bill taped to it, the significance of which no one could say.
One of the neighbors, Rhonda Holshouser, said she received angry letters from a creditor because someone had written "return to sender" on bills, then put them back in the mail. The family was also concerned because the Veterans Affairs Department sends medications to her father.
In May, the family summoned the sheriff's office again and told Deputy Louise Graydon that the mailboxes were empty after the carrier said she had delivered a bundle that day. That time, Burke County Magistrate Judge Curtis St. Germaine, who is running against Sheriff Coursey this year, was present.
Judge St. Germaine said that while he was campaigning in the area, a man who lives across the street from the Longs told him about the children in the house and the problems they were causing. He said he'd known Jeremy Long for years -- he was a customer at a convenience store the judge once owned nearby on Farmers Bridge Road -- but he didn't know he had a wife and children living with him.
The judge said he was there when the deputy went to the door. No one seemed to be home. He acknowledged he didn't follow up with social services either.
"I just took for granted that the sheriff's department was going to take care of it," Judge St. Germaine said.
Sheriff Coursey, who's now among community members helping Mrs. Long and her children reintegrate into society, said he wasn't aware of the family living in Hephzibah until the discovery July 31. He told members of the news media that day that he didn't understand how the Longs slipped through the cracks or how society allowed it.
Burke is a big county, he said in a recent interview with The Augusta Chronicle , and he has limited manpower and his deputies can't check every house. The sheriff said the situation with the Longs should make everyone more cognizant about being "our brother's keeper," his deputies included.
"Maybe we all learned something from it," Sheriff Coursey said. "To be more on the lookout."
CHILDREN'S CARE
Ten of the 11 Long children are in five different foster homes. The oldest, an 18-year-old girl, lives with her mother in a rental home.
All of the school-age children now attend Burke County public schools. The children have supervised visits with their mother once every two weeks for an hour. Weekly visits stopped because of the difficult logistics of getting them all together in one place.
Birth certificates show all 11 were born at Augusta hospitals.
At the time of the discovery, their genders and ages were as follows:
GIRLS: 18, 17, 16, 13, 4, 2
BOYS: 14, 12, 8, 5 or 6, 10 months
Source: Burke County Sheriff Greg Coursey
WHY JEREMY LONG WAS ARRESTED
A transcript of an Aug. 27 preliminary hearing reveals the reasoning behind the criminal charge against Jeremy Long.
WHY HE'S CHARGED : Prosecutor Hank Simms asked Burke County sheriff's Capt. Frankie Parker what separated this situation from, say, a parent keeping a filthy house, which might warrant a misdemeanor charge.
"Well, the condition of the house itself being with no water and no lights, no food in the house, children not in school, all of this," Capt. Parker said.
WHY HE ALONE IS CHARGED: Mr. Simms asked why no warrant had been taken out for Mr. Long's wife, Christine Long.
"Well, one of the things was that he was supposed to be the provider," the investigator said. "He never showed up the whole time I was out there. I stayed out there till (sic) after 12 o'clock because the oldest girl said that he usually came home at night about 11:30 ...
"So I stayed out later hoping he would show up. When he didn't show up, it was a week later before he even turned himself in. So my thinking -- you know, I can't see anybody leaving that many kids out there and those small kids with no running water and no electricity."
THE CHARGE: Mr. Long is charged with second-degree cruelty to children, a felony punishable by one to 10 years in prison. It's defined as causing, with criminal negligence, cruel or excessive physical or mental pain to a person younger than 18. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is still looking into the case, and a grand jury could decide whether the facts warrant more charges.
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