Horrific Child Abuse Story Developed Over Two Years

Reporter Scott Farwell of the Dallas Morning News spent two years of his professional life documenting the developing story of Lauren Kavanaugh, rescued by police in June 2001 at age 8 from a small closet in her mother and step-father’s trailer home, where she had been imprisoned almost continuously for nine months.  But, Lauren’s story of torture and abuse neither began when she was shut away in the closet, nor did it end with her release.  Farwell’s series of eight in-depth reports that chronicle this horrifying sage of human depravity and recovery won the Headliners Foundation’s Charles Green Award for Best Online Package of 2013.

In this interview, Farwell visits with Mark Morrison about how he developed the story and how the DMN’s web design team created a multifaceted, yet highly-accessible view of a long and complicated series of events, personalities and ramifications.