need some help, too long needs editing..

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katgotsteve
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Joined: Thu Dec 21, 2006 10:47 am
Location: Georgia

need some help, too long needs editing..

Postby katgotsteve » Tue Mar 13, 2007 11:46 am

this is a letter i wrote, it is too long, but i am unsure of what to take out. Help
March 13, 2007
To Whom It May Concern:

As I sit here writing this letter, I feel totally appalled and overwhelmed by our society. I am angered by a society that will sit idle as children are removed from their parents by the word of one person or for “ifs”. I am living proof that no matter how good a parent you are, how much of a part of child’s life you are, no matter how much of a sacrifice you make in honor of your children, no matter how dear they are to you, you can loose them.

I have written letters in the past to the Department of Human Resources, our representatives, our senators and our governor. All letter were forwarded to DHR or the Office of Constituent Services. I have been contacted by the Office of Constituent Service and was told that DHR would be contacting me about my case. Well, that was in January and I have yet to receive that phone call. I have yet to have my case explained to me. I have yet to have policy explained to me as it applies to my case. I have yet to understand how my husband can be removed from his own child who he loves dearly when I am told that the case cannot be substantiated. I have yet to understand how after this mentally ill child has accused other people in the past and DFCS was called, that only my husband could be pursued. How I was forced to have all my children go to foster care because he was accused? How I was not able to let him leave and my kid’s life not be disrupted? How my children were forced to live in the sexual fantasies of a fifteen year old in foster care? How my eight year old knows about sexual hot spots now?

I am the one who called DFCS and started our nightmare. This nightmare has been going on since August 28, 2006. My husband is guilty of a few things, allowing her to massage lotion on his feet in our bedroom is one of them, letting his guard down and listening to DFCS about letting her interact with him because she was potentially his child. It has been said that our bedroom door was locked during this incident, but my husband did not know it. It was told by our kids, age 8 and 11, that the door indeed was locked and that our 11 year old unlocked it the way her daddy had taught her and she got a pencil and that during that time my niece was on the floor rubbing his feet and that they both had clothes on. During all these incidents, all three children were at home. The funny thing about this is, the child is 12 years old, she gives no details, no dates, and she cannot describe any details about his body. A five year old, I could understand not giving any details, but a 12 year old, who has written a lot of detailed creative stories, I cannot. The claim is that all incidents happened with me out of town. Her claim to dates have been valentines day 2006, which I was at home, I have documentation to prove or the summer of 2006, I was also at home and have documentation about this because we had what we consider local software installs. On one of the nights over that summer I was out of town, they came and stayed in the hotel with me. What it boils down to is this, how do you defend yourself against the undefendable? How do you know that you will be defending yourself unless you are doing something wrong?

There are no criminal charges, nor is there plans to be. I am told because her story is not consistent, that they have no pattern with his behavior, but in juvenile court because an adjudicatory hearing says that he could have done it based on a preponderance of the evidence, he is guilty. All that is brought up in court is the fact that he let her rub lotion on his feet. DFCS has brought in a third party to do a Comprehensive Child and Family Assessment (CCFA). The therapist went to the schools, evaluated our visits with the children, talked to the children and talked to us in our home. She found a lot of things that I was not even aware of. For instance, my niece has a half sister, same father different mother, this child was said to have gotten herpes at the age of three from her father. The child is three years older than my niece, so in thinking about this, for three years DFCS knew that he had infected his daughter with herpes, but allowed my niece to live with him. Now lets add this into the mix, this same man then molested my brother and my niece was allowed to live with him for over a year after this incident until he was sent to prison for aggravated child molestation. So for the first 4 years of her life, she lived with a man who DFCS documented as infecting his own child with a STD and no one did anything about it. Now add this, the paternal grandfather in 2006 was accused of molestation of the same sister who contracted herpes from her father just a few months before my niece made allegations. We took this sister in after we became foster parents and this child talked to my niece about the grandfather. This man has been accused of the same allegation by niece, but this man has not had to go through the ridicule of court proceeding, he has not had to go for any psychological testing. After the allegations, he became a bus driver for the Worth County Board of Education. Now what upsets me, is that my niece knew of the incident with her sister and father and I did not. DFCS has now backed away from the grandfather and now states that her father molested her and that she was removed from the grandparents because they were giving the father access. It was also insinuated to one foster mom that the father was in prison for molestation of the daughter. My niece has since recanted to her grandmother since all this began, but when told of this, I get answers like “we can never tell when she is lying.” You cannot pick and choose what she says, either she is telling the truth or she is not. There is none of this one time it is the truth, the other it is a lie.

Our lives have come down to psychological evaluations. To be honest, I know that I am not perfect and could always use some creative criticism, but who would not have something wrong in their lives when put under a microscope. We went from January 2006 of being good candidates for foster children and completing IMPACT classes to child abusers. The system that we held in such high regards has now brought our lives down to “ifs”. If he did it, he will do it again. If we don’t believe her, who will? My question is, if she lying who is going to protect the falsely accused. If this happened, why didn’t the other children in the home see it? If this child has never done what she is suppose to have done knowing it was right, why would she have gone along with this. Who is going to protect the other children from the psychological torture of being ripped from their parents? My daughter had never spent the night away from home, because we were trying to protect her from what could have happened, to spending a month away from her family. She is depressed and in therapy, this was a happy normal child, now she is in therapy because she lost control of her life, because her mom and dad could not protect her from a system that went wrong, because her parents made mistakes in raising a mentally disturbed child or even taking in a child that they thought they could help. Hindsight is always 20/20 and boy, are my eyes open! My younger niece has regressed back to where she was when we first took her in. Her grades have slipped, she is clingy, and she tells us she loves us constantly as if we have stopped loving her. When you grow up, parents, teacher, and family tell you, that how you live your life is how you will be judged. Well I am told now, that it does not matter how you lived your life, how you deal with others, how you care about other people, all that matters now is that you’re accused and whether or not you are found guilty of a crime or if you are never charged or if DFCS substantiates the case or finds it unsubstantiated, your life as you knew it is gone, you are as good as guilty in the eyes of juvenile justice. As a mother, if he had done this, I could have murdered him. Does that mean that if I could commit murder I should be arrested? I did not think that our justice system worked like that. Does this not dance around your right to a fair trail? Does this walk all over the constitutional rights granted to us as US citizens? What happened to Guilty Beyond a Reasonable Doubt? Doesn’t DFCS stand for Department of Family and Children Services? Where is the FAMILY in this situation? Who is looking out for the well being of the other two children? Who picks up the pieces when the entire bureaucratic BS is done?

When we went to court this last time, we were told that my husband would possibly have to attend Sexual Offender Therapy. I had read about it, but not thoroughly. Well, it is my understanding after reading a few nonbiased reports, that in order to complete this therapy he has to admit guilt. Does that mean he can never come home if he never admits something he did not do? So, does this mean he has to lie about doing this to just be able to be part of his own child’s life? Is this not state sanctioned parental alienation? Doesn’t the State of Georgia insist that fathers need to part of their children’s lives? Then why can they treat the father as the inferior parent? Is it considered that all men are sexual abusers? Again, Who is thinking of the FAMILY?

We were given our ajudicatory hearing in September, prior to DFCS completing the investigation because psychological and other test continued until December 18, 2006. The conclusions have all been the same, it could have happened or it could be the imagination of a child with document fantasy/reality issues. That there is no physical evidence, that her story changed from penetration to attempted penetration to penetration to attempted penetration, depending on which report you read. The CCFA shows that yes this child was sexually abused but by whom we do not know and that it happened before entering our home. It shows a child who was not raised by her parents, but “drug up by the head of her hair.” She has lived with a man who is a convicted sexual molester, a grandfather who is an “alleged” sexual molester and a mom and stepfather who manufactured meth from their home and had sex parties in the living room outside the children’s bedroom door. Men were in and out of their house and were often left “babysitting” these children while the mother and stepfather made drug deals.

I am asking that someone, anyone with a little authority take notice to my family’s case. Look over the facts, read the reports, anything that it takes to heal our hurt and our pain, so that we can function as a whole not as parts. I would like to know if they have substantiated or unsubstantiated our case, I have yet to receive the generic letter that they send out about a case. I know that one-day the letter I write will catch the eye of someone who can and will in fact help me or someone like me. I hope that the handling of my case is not routine to the handling of other cases.

Thank you so much for your time,




Kathy Williams

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