Linda Harris

A 14-year-old Amityville girl died under unexplained circumstances Sunday at a Tennessee home for troubled children, leaving her father dazed less than a week after Suffolk County placed her there for a range of emotional problems.

Linda Harris' death has left her father, Purcell, a retired custodian, grief-stricken. It has also left Suffolk officials and Tennessee law enforcement questioning the details leading to her collapse Sunday night.

"I don't know what to make of all of this," said Harris, staring yesterday from an armchair in his Amityville home at Linda's green and purple bike, propped against a wall. Linda's mother died 12 years ago after complications from carrying twins. He raised her alone since, even as her emotional state deteriorated.

"I raised her from the time she was born, but I needed help," he said, noting that trouble began around fifth grade.

Suffolk probation officials said they are concerned because they have received conflicting accounts from the Montgomery County, Tenn., sheriff's department and the Chad Youth Enhancement Center in Ashland City on the incident.

Harris, who arrived less than a week ago from Suffolk after Family Court Judge Joan Genchi placed her there, was being escorted to a "time out" room after an emotional outburst when workers said she collapsed. But sheriffs are investigating whether the girl was being restrained physically - and possibly illegally - by a worker at the time of the incident, according to Suffolk sources and Tennessee law enforcement officials.

"There was an incident involving the escort of this young lady and that's what's being investigated," said Ted Denny, a sheriff's spokesman.

She was pronounced dead at 10:12 p.m. Sunday. An autopsy was being conducted yesterday by the Nashville medical examiner's office, but results were not available as of last night.

"We're very concerned we received conflicting information from the residential facility and the Montgomery County sheriff's department," said John Desmond, Suffolk's director of probation, which oversees out-of-state placements by Family Court. "We're sending a team to the facility to investigate."

The death comes a little more than a month after Gov. George Pataki signed legislation known as Billy's Law, designed to better protect children in out-of-state treatment centers, following myriad accounts of abuse, neglect and deaths of New York children. In July, Long Island officials pulled its children out of Berkshire Farm Center, a home for troubled boys in upstate Canaan, after allegations of sexual and physical abuse. And a New Jersey treatment center, Bancroft Neurohealth Center, which accepts some Long Island children, agreed to sweeping reforms after the death of a 14-year-old Pennsylvania boy there.

For years, Long Island Family Court judges have relied on out-of-state centers for their most severely troubled children, because there are few options locally.

According to records and her family's accounts, Linda Harris was a girl hopelessly adrift. Her 77-year-old father was having a hard time controlling her emotional outbursts. Her rage was so explosive at times that she once stabbed a wall and sliced up the furniture in his house, he said. Linda, at 5 feet 7 inches and at more than 300 pounds, ran away from local treatment centers where she was placed by the Family Court at the request of her father. She refused to take her anti-psychotic medication.

Yet in other ways, she seemed like an average teenage girl. She loved talking on the phone. She loved romance novels and movies like "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" and "Brown Sugar." She loved hip hop. Her diploma from a recent Drug Abuse Resistance Education program hung proudly on the living room wall.

The center released a statement yesterday saying it was cooperating fully with the sheriff's inquiry and that the staff aide who escorted Harris to the "time out" room has been temporarily suspended, according to Buddy Turner, the center's regional vice president. But they declined to comment further on whether she was restrained.

The Tennessee center now houses 75 children. Suffolk has paid it $790,000 since 2002.

Harris' father, who was unaware of the conflicting accounts until told by a reporter, said he was shocked and looking for clues about his daughter's death.

"I talked to her on Wednesday when she got there and she said she liked it and was happy and that she would call back," said Purcell Harris. "But she never did."

Where the kids go

Anywhere from 200 to 300 children are annually placed by Nassau and Suffolk in out-of-state residential treatment centers in places such as Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Massachusetts.

The costs can range from $150,000 to $180,000 a year per child for treatment for physical disabilities and emotional problems.

Gov. George Pataki recently signed "Billy's Law" to create better oversight of children and adults at out-of-state centers, and calls for better scrutiny of such centers, more frequent inspections by New York state agencies and an attempt to create more beds in state for disabled children.