Two months ago the teen son of a Tri-Cities coach showed up at a police station. What he told investigators led to the arrest of his adoptive parents on felony charges of assault with a deadly weapon.
The teen told police that Kennewick High School head wrestling coach Vernon Vogtman Jr. had been hitting him and three other adopted siblings with a large, custom-made paddle. The kids are ages 10 to 16 years old, court documents show.
The paddle was described as 2-feet long, 3-inches wide and an inch thick with duct tape on the handle and a rope to help with grip, according to court documents.
Vogtman, 44, who goes by "Junior," was employed by Kennewick School District as an assistant and a head wrestling coach from Fall 2015 until February 2023, according to district officials.
The teen told police on May 25 that two weeks earlier some banana bread had gone missing at their home and Vogtman had beat all of the children with the paddle in an effort to get one to admit to taking it, according to court documents.
The children told investigators their mother, Heather Vogtman, 43, also hit them with the paddle, said the documents.
Then the night before the teen went to the police station, a window on a canopy had been broken at the home. The teen told investigators Vogtman lined up the kids and hit them with the paddle, then asked if anyone wanted to confess.
When no one did, he repeated the process seven times, hitting them harder each time. One of the children later told a forensic interviewer that he was made to pull his pants down. They were then made to sit on their knees and put their faces on the ground.
The child had large visible bruising from the paddle, according to the documents. Each of the children later separately gave similar accounts of the abuse to a child forensic Interviewer, said police.
Officers went to the house and took the children into protective custody. All four had similar bruising, investigators said. Vogtman allegedly admitted to striking the children, giving investigators a similar account of what happened.
Vernon Vogtman was charged with one count of third-degree assault of a child and three counts of third-degree assault causing bodily injury with a weapon.
Heather Vogtman is charged with one count of second-degree assault with a deadly weapon for an incident stemming from December 2022. Her husband was named as a related party in that incident, according to court records.
Both have pleaded innocent to the charges and are awaiting trials in Benton County Superior Court.
Vernon Vogtman was released on personal recognizance and Heather Vogtman was released on a $2,500 bond.
