Just repulsive. Besides the killer custodial daddy, we need to hold Justice John McCarthy responsible for this murder.
Dad is identified as MARIO WINT.
http://www.yorkregion.com/news-story/6692201-mother-of-newmarket-boy-ty-wint-2-shares-her-story-after-boy-s-father-sentenced-for-murdering-him/
May 26, 2016
Mother of Newmarket boy Ty Wint, 2, shares her story after boy's father sentenced for murdering him
Toronto Star
Newmarket Era
By Jeremy Grimaldi
The young mother’s face brightens as she recalls the tiny son to whom she used to read goodnight stories.
“He was the best of all of us; he always did what he was asked,” she said “He was full of life and had the biggest heart, the brightest smile.”
But it didn’t take long for two-year-old Mathias “Ty” Wint’s flame to be snuffed out.
He was killed after being struck by his father, Mario Wint, the man Simcoe Children’s Aid Society workers — the agency meant to protect our province’s most vulnerable children — deemed best to care for him.
“(Ty) was not cut out for this world,” she adds, her eyes now cast downward. “He was too good for this world.”
It was on Jan. 22, 2015 when Ty was struck in the stomach so many times with such force that his liver and pancreas were split in two, resulting in his death.
Ty’s mother, Melissa, (not her real name), along with many in the community have been left deeply disturbed by the details of Ty’s story.
How Ty ended up in the care of Mario, who has a lengthy criminal history, is a question Melissa can’t answer, noting social workers delivered Ty to Mario’s house 41 days before the toddler’s death.
Given the private nature of the case, the agency, now named Simcoe Family Connexions, would not comment directly on its role in the affair.
Melissa’s story begins in Simcoe County, where she, herself, was in the care of the CAS from an early age.
She met Mario, who was born in Jamaica and grew up in Newmarket, about a decade ago in a Barrie nightclub.
Mario, now 30, was quiet, sweet, soft-spoken and a talented spoken-word musician.
“We became very close, very quickly,” she said. “We began dating and moved in together. That’s when the abuse started. You name it, he did it.”
The physical and psychological abuse and controlling behaviour, would carry on for many years.
“It was a nightmare… It became so bad I had to leave,” she said.
It didn’t take Melissa — by then in her early 20s— long before she discovered she was pregnant and Mario was nowhere to be found.
After eight months, he showed back up and said he wanted to be a dad.
This was the couple’s first child, a six-year-old whose identity is protected by the courts.
“The abuse started again almost immediately,” she said. “A week later, he threatened to leave with my baby. Three months later, he forcibly confined me.”
On Dec. 31, 2008, Wint kneed Melissa in the stomach and, about one month later, he kneed her in the rib-cage.
Melissa called the police and Mario was charged.
He pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm.
The next few years involved Mario leaving and then re-entering Melissa’s life, repeatedly promising things would be different.
“I loved him. I saw goodness, through all his bull****,” she added. “So I fought for what I believed in.”
Despite Mario’s promises, the abuse continued, often targeting Melissa’s stomach.
Often, his physical abuse was followed by threatening and harassing messages to her phone, leading to a criminal harassment conviction.
After having a second child, Ty, the abuse reached new heights.
One night, in 2010, after showing up at Melissa’s apartment, Mario grew enraged.
When she asked him to leave, he agreed, on one condition — he would be taking the couple’s son with him.
Melissa refused and picked up Ty.
Mario came at her with a knife, threatening, “I’m going to cut you”.
“He said if I put him in jail again, he would do whatever he could to ensure I didn’t have my kids,” Melissa said.
She called police, who in turn notified CAS.
Mario was arrested again and convicted of assault with a weapon and handed a six-month prison sentence.
In all, he has 12 convictions, five of which involve domestic abuse.
Soon after his incarceration at the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Mario called CAS to complain about Melissa, she said.
“He made the most unthinkable, outlandish allegations,” she added.
Her file was soon closed, Melissa said, after the social worker found no truth in the allegations.
However, the case was re-opened when Melissa’s father-in-law was murdered in Barrie.
She continues to maintain it was her own upbringing with the CAS and this murder that acted as the catalyst for the children’s removal from her home.
In November 2013, Ty, his older brother and a child from a former relationship were all taken from Melissa and given to foster parents.
When Mario was released from prison, he began weekly supervised visits with the boys, which eventually grew into unsupervised visits and then overnights once a week.
Meanwhile, Melissa was still restricted to supervised visits.
“The (CAS) deemed him fit to be alone with those children even with his huge violent domestic abuse record,” Melissa said.
Mario then sought custody of the boys, landing a job at a factory and completing a number of courses to show his worth to the CAS and the courts, Melissa said.
“I fought for a year for those boys,” she added. “He’s a smooth talker and comes off as caring.”
On Dec. 14, 2014, Mario was granted temporary custody of the boys in Barrie by Justice John McCarthy to live at his basement apartment at 136 Longford Dr., in Newmarket.
Soon after this legal victory, Mario quit his job and went back on welfare, Melissa said.
Despite being required to check on the boys’ welfare, Melissa insists that CAS did not conduct a required check after 30 days.
The CAS could not comment, by law, on the allegation.
Nonetheless, Mario was on his very best behaviour, Melissa said.
During this time, she was secretly checking for bruises, but found nothing on the boys.
“I didn’t notice any problems, not one,” she said.
By January 2015, Mario was having money troubles, so his mother, Valerie, was helping him out financially and Melissa was buying diapers for Ty.
The specifics of what happened between Mario and Ty on Jan. 22 remain unknown.
Mario pleaded guilty to striking Ty “more than once with significant force”, breaking the toddler’s back, while in a rage, according to court documents.
“He hit with significant force. I have been hit by Mario with force. I was in bed for one month,” Melissa said. “No child could survive that.”
Melissa still blames herself for Ty’s death, in part because she said she refused to see Mario after he texted her the day Ty died, begging her to visit him.
She continues to believe that it was Mario’s anger over her relationship with another man that led to Ty’s death.
“I wonder, if I had of gone (to visit him), would he still be here?” she said.
To this day, it remains an open question whether Ty was even alive as Mario walked around town with him in a stroller, running errands.
In one surveillance image, Ty’s 23-pound frame was seen to be lying motionless in the buggy, arms extended outward.
Valerie, a nurse by training, told Mario to take the boy to the medical clinic when she saw him, but he ignored the advice, too scared of the consequences.
He not only lied to her about what had happened to the boy, but he also lied to the 911 operator, paramedics, police and friends who supported him.
When Melissa got to the hospital, she felt her boy’s body and he was cold, signifying to her that he’d been dead for hours.
When Mario walked in, she said he tried to talk to Ty, before falling to his knees and crying.
He told Melissa that Ty was sick, wouldn’t eat or drink and just died.
“He could have got help for my boy. He did nothing. He hid,” Melissa said, referring to Mario’s failure to call 911 for hours. “He’s a wolf in sheep clothing.”
Weeks later, as Melissa continued to mourn the loss of her son, she felt another blow to her gut.
She believes the CAS wanted to adopt out the two remaining boys.
“You’re not my mommy; I’m getting a new mommy,” Melissa said one of her boys told her.
About a month ago, Melissa lost all her sons, after they were adopted by another family.
Although covered by a publication ban, a victim impact statement read in court showed the two boys, who lost their baby brother, experienced severe psychological anguish.
After pleading guilty to manslaughter, Mario was handed a 10-year sentence by Justice Nathan Dwyer on Tuesday, minus time served.
If he achieves parole at the earliest opportunity, Mario will be out in 32 months.
Melissa wants a coroner’s inquest into Ty’s death and plans to sue the Simcoe CAS.
---------------------
Showing posts with label Canada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canada. Show all posts
Friday, May 27, 2016
Sunday, May 1, 2016
Custodial dad on trial for torturing son still has unsupervised visitation with other kids (Ontario, Canada)
At first you might chalk some of this up to incompetence. But as it goes on and on, down to this freaking piece of sh** of a father CONTINUING to get UNSUPERVISED VISITATION that this is thorough and complete corruption of the family court system by the fathers rights people.
And all their names are being withheld to "protect" the identity of the boy. The boy they set up for torture. Uh huh.
http://www.ottawasun.com/2016/04/29/mountie-in-child-abuse-trial-has-unsupervised-visits-with-his-other-children
Mountie in child abuse trial has unsupervised visits with his other children
By Gary Dimmock
First posted: Friday, April 29, 2016 08:16 PM EDT | Updated: Friday, April 29, 2016 08:36 PM EDT
The Mountie on trial for torturing and starving his shackled, naked 11-year-old son in a darkened Kanata basement is free on bail and has unsupervised weekend visits with his two other sons, who are younger than the first-born son he is accused of almost starving to death in 2013.
The father, who has admitted that he burned his oldest son’s genitals because he thought the boy was the devil, can still play with his other sons on weekends. The unsupervised visits happen outside of Ottawa and the stepmother, who is also on trial, is not present for the visits.
The father has said he chained and handcuffed his son in the basement, and that he rationed the boy’s meals down to just two peanut-butter pitas a day. He also confessed that he burned his son with a lighter and once hit him so hard with the back of his hand that the boy was left with a broken tooth, court has heard.
The victim was sent to live with his father after his mother died in 2009. The boy’s maternal grandmother went to court in 2011 to try to win visitation rights, but a judge rejected her motion. The boy was distraught about his mother’s death and torn between his maternal and paternal family. The judge who dismissed the grandmother’s motion relied on the Mountie’s story and the child psychologist he enlisted.
The psychologist recommended the boy should remain in the full-time care of the father and his wife, both of whom are now on trial.
The same psychologist told the boy’s father in 2010 that he couldn’t “terrorize” his son, and warned him that if he kept punishing the boy, he’d have to call in the child-protection office.
The judge who heard the case was also aware of allegations that the Mountie was an abusive father.
Still, the judge ruled the boy’s maternal family could not have visitation rights. In the 2011 decision, the judge said the father was to send report cards and a school photograph of the boy to his maternal relatives. And if there was correspondence between the boy and his maternal family, the judge ruled that the controlling Mountie was allowed to read all letters sent to the boy he later tortured.
Two years after that ruling, on Feb. 12, 2013, the boy escaped his chains and fled his Kanata basement in search of water. He weighed only 50 pounds and doctors said he had almost starved to death.
One neighbour spotted the boy crouched at his garden tap with an empty water bottle in hand, so he filled it up for the boy in the kitchen, handing it back to him through the patio door.
“I thought I was looking at a ghost. His face was sunken. He looked very old,” the neighbour testified last year at the trial, which began last September.
The boy’s father and stepmother are accused of keeping the boy shackled in their basement for six months. Both are charged with aggravated assault, forcible confinement, and failure to provide necessities of life.
One of their neighbours testified that the boy showed up at their front door around suppertime on the day of his escape.
She told court that she hadn’t seen the boy in a year and a half.
He used to be “chubby, happy and full of energy,” she said. “He was completely changed. I couldn’t recognize him.”
The boy appeared nervous, she said, and fumbled for piggy-bank change from his pocket, offering it while asking if he could stay at her home.
She started walking the boy back to his own home, but when the boy complained of back pain, her husband called the police.
Crown attorney Michael Boyce also called another neighbour to testify about the boy. She said he was small for his age, and occasionally wasn’t wearing proper winter clothes while waiting for the morning school bus, usually alone and across the street from where the other kids stood while his father watched from a car parked down the road.
The woman testified that the boy wasn’t allowed to go to birthday parties in the neighbourhood. She said that when she offered the thirsty boy a juice box, he said he had to go ask his father for permission. The boy returned and said he wasn’t allowed, the neighbour recalled.
The boy’s father and stepmother are prohibited from talking to one another, according to their bail conditions. The suspended Mountie is also charged with careless storage of 9-mm Luger. Lawyers for both of the accused declined to comment Friday.
The Children’s Aid Society has a policy not to comment on such cases.
The trial, presided by Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger, continues Monday. There is a publication ban on several witnesses — including the child psychologist — to protect the identity of the boy.
And all their names are being withheld to "protect" the identity of the boy. The boy they set up for torture. Uh huh.
http://www.ottawasun.com/2016/04/29/mountie-in-child-abuse-trial-has-unsupervised-visits-with-his-other-children
Mountie in child abuse trial has unsupervised visits with his other children
By Gary Dimmock
First posted: Friday, April 29, 2016 08:16 PM EDT | Updated: Friday, April 29, 2016 08:36 PM EDT
The Mountie on trial for torturing and starving his shackled, naked 11-year-old son in a darkened Kanata basement is free on bail and has unsupervised weekend visits with his two other sons, who are younger than the first-born son he is accused of almost starving to death in 2013.
The father, who has admitted that he burned his oldest son’s genitals because he thought the boy was the devil, can still play with his other sons on weekends. The unsupervised visits happen outside of Ottawa and the stepmother, who is also on trial, is not present for the visits.
The father has said he chained and handcuffed his son in the basement, and that he rationed the boy’s meals down to just two peanut-butter pitas a day. He also confessed that he burned his son with a lighter and once hit him so hard with the back of his hand that the boy was left with a broken tooth, court has heard.
The victim was sent to live with his father after his mother died in 2009. The boy’s maternal grandmother went to court in 2011 to try to win visitation rights, but a judge rejected her motion. The boy was distraught about his mother’s death and torn between his maternal and paternal family. The judge who dismissed the grandmother’s motion relied on the Mountie’s story and the child psychologist he enlisted.
The psychologist recommended the boy should remain in the full-time care of the father and his wife, both of whom are now on trial.
The same psychologist told the boy’s father in 2010 that he couldn’t “terrorize” his son, and warned him that if he kept punishing the boy, he’d have to call in the child-protection office.
The judge who heard the case was also aware of allegations that the Mountie was an abusive father.
Still, the judge ruled the boy’s maternal family could not have visitation rights. In the 2011 decision, the judge said the father was to send report cards and a school photograph of the boy to his maternal relatives. And if there was correspondence between the boy and his maternal family, the judge ruled that the controlling Mountie was allowed to read all letters sent to the boy he later tortured.
Two years after that ruling, on Feb. 12, 2013, the boy escaped his chains and fled his Kanata basement in search of water. He weighed only 50 pounds and doctors said he had almost starved to death.
One neighbour spotted the boy crouched at his garden tap with an empty water bottle in hand, so he filled it up for the boy in the kitchen, handing it back to him through the patio door.
“I thought I was looking at a ghost. His face was sunken. He looked very old,” the neighbour testified last year at the trial, which began last September.
The boy’s father and stepmother are accused of keeping the boy shackled in their basement for six months. Both are charged with aggravated assault, forcible confinement, and failure to provide necessities of life.
One of their neighbours testified that the boy showed up at their front door around suppertime on the day of his escape.
She told court that she hadn’t seen the boy in a year and a half.
He used to be “chubby, happy and full of energy,” she said. “He was completely changed. I couldn’t recognize him.”
The boy appeared nervous, she said, and fumbled for piggy-bank change from his pocket, offering it while asking if he could stay at her home.
She started walking the boy back to his own home, but when the boy complained of back pain, her husband called the police.
Crown attorney Michael Boyce also called another neighbour to testify about the boy. She said he was small for his age, and occasionally wasn’t wearing proper winter clothes while waiting for the morning school bus, usually alone and across the street from where the other kids stood while his father watched from a car parked down the road.
The woman testified that the boy wasn’t allowed to go to birthday parties in the neighbourhood. She said that when she offered the thirsty boy a juice box, he said he had to go ask his father for permission. The boy returned and said he wasn’t allowed, the neighbour recalled.
The boy’s father and stepmother are prohibited from talking to one another, according to their bail conditions. The suspended Mountie is also charged with careless storage of 9-mm Luger. Lawyers for both of the accused declined to comment Friday.
The Children’s Aid Society has a policy not to comment on such cases.
The trial, presided by Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger, continues Monday. There is a publication ban on several witnesses — including the child psychologist — to protect the identity of the boy.
Saturday, April 30, 2016
Joint custody dad with history of "dismissed" DV charges charged with murder of 5-year-old daughter (Carbonear, Canada)
After blogging about these kinds of articles for five plus years, it sickens me to see the same crap repeated again and again. Even next to the facts!
The analysis by Peter Jaffe is correct and spot on.
Then what happens? The idiotic reporter describes the relationship between the parents as "volatile" (like a fire?) when IN FACT what you have is a documented history of domestic violence BY the father AGAINST the mother. This was not a case of two "volatile" people or a "volatile relationship." it was a case of a "volatile" violent man. Let's be absolutely clear about that.
And all the charges were "dismissed" by the authorities who consistently refuse to take violence against women seriously, or the tremendous risks that women take in trying to prosecute. But the reporter doesn't go into that either.
So what do they do next? They give the violent abuser joint custody. They CONTINUE TO DO THIS long after the evidence has shown that giving abusers any custodial rights just continues the trauma of women and children and continues the abusive behavior.
This, as critics have repeatedly pointed out for YEARS, is not a "tragedy." Tragedy is a sad conclusion coming about through fate or some random act of the Gods. This is FARCE. Freaking bloody FARCE. The likely outcome to these HUMAN DECISIONS is absolutely predictable, yet the authorities make the same stupid evil decisions again and again and again.
And guess what? A quick search showed that no other news article even MENTIONS that this was a case of a violent man getting child custody. NOT ONE. And that's another way this evil keeps getting perpetuated. Guess what? If you give violent parents access to child victims, the violent parents will continue to be violent. This is not rocket science, folks.
Dad is identified as TRENT SPENCER BUTT.
See the Killer Dads and Custody List for Canada.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/parents-kill-children-why-1.3555456
Parents who kill their children: Why would someone do the unthinkable?
Experts say dads typically do it out of revenge, mental breakdowns most common for moms
By Terry Roberts, CBC News
Posted: Apr 28, 2016 4:11 PM NT| Last Updated: Apr 29, 2016 2:54 PM NT
Five-year-old Quinn Butt died in Carbonear early Sunday, and police allege her death came at the hands of her father, Trent Spencer Butt.
The troubling allegation against Trent Spencer Butt is gut-wrenching, and brings with it a host of sobering and painful questions.
Most notably, why would a parent kill his or her own child? Their own flesh and blood?
That's a question being asked by many throughout Newfoundland and Labrador following an unfathomable tragedy in Carbonear on Sunday.
Police believe 37-year-old Trent Butt killed his five-year-old daughter Quinn and then set fire to his modern home on a quiet street in the Conception Bay North town.
He faces charges of first-degree murder and arson, but neither charge has been proven in court.
Dads a greater threat
Experts have long tried to understand why fathers and mothers commit filicide, the term used when a parent kills their own child.
The answer is difficult to come by, but it's clear that dads are more likely to kill children than moms.
That's the case about 60 per cent of the time, says Peter Jaffe, a professor in the faculty of education at Western University in Ontario.
Research also shows that when dads kill their children, they typically do it out of revenge after a partner has left the relationship, and there is usually a history of domestic violence, said Jaffe.
"The way for the father to get back at the mother for getting out of the relationship is to kill the thing that is most precious to her, which is her child or children," Jaffe told the St. John's Morning Show on Thursday.
Moms typically kill infants
Jaffe said mothers who commit filicide tend to do so following a mental health breakdown, such as postpartum depression, and their victims tend to be younger, usually an infant.
He said fathers typically kill offspring that are older.
"You're dealing with extreme circumstances," noted Jaffe, but he said these cases are rarely out of the blue.
A host of tell-tale signs — prior history of domestic violence, actual or pending separation, depression, stalking and threats — are usually noticed by family, friends and frontline professionals such as social workers and police.
"In Ontario when we find a child killed by a parent, on average there's nine different professionals that have been involved in some way … in the prior years leading up to the homicide," he said.
Because filicide is something most people can't even comprehend, Jaffe said many don't know what to do when they see the warning signs.
He said research shows that greater public awareness is needed, and those close to a situation should encourage a troubled parent to seek help.
"It's essential that the community gets involved. You've often heard that it takes a village to raise a child, well it also take a village to protect a child."
A strained relationship
Firefighters rescued Trent Butt from certain death. He's now in serious condition, but is expected to live. Desperate efforts to save Quinn were unsuccessful.
The tragedy followed the marriage breakup of Quinn's parents, and a custody sharing arrangement that sources say was strained.
Court documents also show the relationship between Butt and his estranged wife was volatile, with Butt charged with three separate counts of assault against the mother dating back to 2013 and 2014. All three charges were dismissed.
The tragedy has rekindled dark memories of the death of Zachary Turner 13 years ago.
The 13-month-old and his mother, Shirley Turner, both died after the mother committed murder-suicide by walking into Conception Bay in August 2003.
Turner was facing extradition to the United States on a charge that she killed her former lover two years prior.
The analysis by Peter Jaffe is correct and spot on.
Then what happens? The idiotic reporter describes the relationship between the parents as "volatile" (like a fire?) when IN FACT what you have is a documented history of domestic violence BY the father AGAINST the mother. This was not a case of two "volatile" people or a "volatile relationship." it was a case of a "volatile" violent man. Let's be absolutely clear about that.
And all the charges were "dismissed" by the authorities who consistently refuse to take violence against women seriously, or the tremendous risks that women take in trying to prosecute. But the reporter doesn't go into that either.
So what do they do next? They give the violent abuser joint custody. They CONTINUE TO DO THIS long after the evidence has shown that giving abusers any custodial rights just continues the trauma of women and children and continues the abusive behavior.
This, as critics have repeatedly pointed out for YEARS, is not a "tragedy." Tragedy is a sad conclusion coming about through fate or some random act of the Gods. This is FARCE. Freaking bloody FARCE. The likely outcome to these HUMAN DECISIONS is absolutely predictable, yet the authorities make the same stupid evil decisions again and again and again.
And guess what? A quick search showed that no other news article even MENTIONS that this was a case of a violent man getting child custody. NOT ONE. And that's another way this evil keeps getting perpetuated. Guess what? If you give violent parents access to child victims, the violent parents will continue to be violent. This is not rocket science, folks.
Dad is identified as TRENT SPENCER BUTT.
See the Killer Dads and Custody List for Canada.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/parents-kill-children-why-1.3555456
Parents who kill their children: Why would someone do the unthinkable?
Experts say dads typically do it out of revenge, mental breakdowns most common for moms
By Terry Roberts, CBC News
Posted: Apr 28, 2016 4:11 PM NT| Last Updated: Apr 29, 2016 2:54 PM NT
Five-year-old Quinn Butt died in Carbonear early Sunday, and police allege her death came at the hands of her father, Trent Spencer Butt.
The troubling allegation against Trent Spencer Butt is gut-wrenching, and brings with it a host of sobering and painful questions.
Most notably, why would a parent kill his or her own child? Their own flesh and blood?
That's a question being asked by many throughout Newfoundland and Labrador following an unfathomable tragedy in Carbonear on Sunday.
Police believe 37-year-old Trent Butt killed his five-year-old daughter Quinn and then set fire to his modern home on a quiet street in the Conception Bay North town.
He faces charges of first-degree murder and arson, but neither charge has been proven in court.
Dads a greater threat
Experts have long tried to understand why fathers and mothers commit filicide, the term used when a parent kills their own child.
The answer is difficult to come by, but it's clear that dads are more likely to kill children than moms.
That's the case about 60 per cent of the time, says Peter Jaffe, a professor in the faculty of education at Western University in Ontario.
Research also shows that when dads kill their children, they typically do it out of revenge after a partner has left the relationship, and there is usually a history of domestic violence, said Jaffe.
"The way for the father to get back at the mother for getting out of the relationship is to kill the thing that is most precious to her, which is her child or children," Jaffe told the St. John's Morning Show on Thursday.
Moms typically kill infants
Jaffe said mothers who commit filicide tend to do so following a mental health breakdown, such as postpartum depression, and their victims tend to be younger, usually an infant.
He said fathers typically kill offspring that are older.
"You're dealing with extreme circumstances," noted Jaffe, but he said these cases are rarely out of the blue.
A host of tell-tale signs — prior history of domestic violence, actual or pending separation, depression, stalking and threats — are usually noticed by family, friends and frontline professionals such as social workers and police.
"In Ontario when we find a child killed by a parent, on average there's nine different professionals that have been involved in some way … in the prior years leading up to the homicide," he said.
Because filicide is something most people can't even comprehend, Jaffe said many don't know what to do when they see the warning signs.
He said research shows that greater public awareness is needed, and those close to a situation should encourage a troubled parent to seek help.
"It's essential that the community gets involved. You've often heard that it takes a village to raise a child, well it also take a village to protect a child."
A strained relationship
Firefighters rescued Trent Butt from certain death. He's now in serious condition, but is expected to live. Desperate efforts to save Quinn were unsuccessful.
The tragedy followed the marriage breakup of Quinn's parents, and a custody sharing arrangement that sources say was strained.
Court documents also show the relationship between Butt and his estranged wife was volatile, with Butt charged with three separate counts of assault against the mother dating back to 2013 and 2014. All three charges were dismissed.
The tragedy has rekindled dark memories of the death of Zachary Turner 13 years ago.
The 13-month-old and his mother, Shirley Turner, both died after the mother committed murder-suicide by walking into Conception Bay in August 2003.
Turner was facing extradition to the United States on a charge that she killed her former lover two years prior.
Friday, April 29, 2016
Custodial dad has "pain inside" for torturing son (Ottawa, Canada)
Frankly, UNNAMED DAD sounds like a sociopath. He's aping the language of "feeling" and "victimization" when he doesn't feel a thing. In other words, he's a total bullsh**ter.
http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/i-am-in-pain-inside-suspended-mountie-says-as-child-abuse-trial-continues-1.2879448
'I am in pain inside' suspended Mountie says, as child abuse trial continues
Joanne Schnurr, CTV Ottawa Published Thursday, April 28, 2016 4:58PM EDT
Last Updated Thursday, April 28, 2016 5:01PM EDT
A suspended Mountie continued his assertions in an Ottawa court today that he had been a victim of abuse and that, in a fog; he had seen his son as the enemy during the time in which he beat and confined him. The Crown prosecutor was having none of that. The focus today was finding the truth and that discussion led to a combative day between the Crown and the accused who maintained he was legally responsible for abusing his son but not morally.
The boy was just 7 years old when he moved in with his father and stepmother after his birth mother died. Within 4 months of that move, he would spend his first night sleeping in the unfinished basement as punishment.
"He was out of control from the moment he arrived," the father testified in court today, "I was constantly putting out fires."
The 44-year-old father is a suspended RCMP officer, on trial, along with his 36-year-old wife, for confining his son and denying him the necessities of life. The father is also charged with sexual assault.
The man told court that he had hired a child psychologist to ostensibly deal with his son's behavior. When the doctor suggested that the father was "terrorizing his son", court heard that the father ended sessions.
The accused has maintained throughout the Crown's cross examination that he was a man under duress, driven by the demons from his past to view his own son as a demon.
"I don't know what the hell I was doing,” he told court, “why I beat my son, why I burned him."
He has agreed to the abuse, but is mounting a defense, trying to prove he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder after he says he was raped as child in Lebanon; that he internalized this abuse and saw his son as the enemy.
After 4 years of living in this situation, the son escaped from the chains binding him in the basement and managed to flee the house while rest of family was shopping. He was 11 years old at this point in time and weighed 50 pounds. Doctors at CHEO, who examined him, said he almost starved to death.
When the father returned home and found him missing, he called 911. That was February 12, 2013.
"I’m guilty of this,” he told the 911 operator, “I did bad things with him. I did bad things to him and I regret it."
From here, followed a frustrating exchange between the Crown, trying to prove this man knew exactly what he was doing, and the father maintaining he was living in a fog.
At one point, the Crown presented a 6-foot long piece of wood flooring; similar to what the father admits he used to hit his son.
"Did you hit him on the arm?" the Crown asked.
"I don't know," he answered.
"Did you hit him on the stomach or the head?"
"I don't know," he repeated.
He said he remembers hitting and burning his son but added he didn't rationalize what he was doing. The trial continues tomorrow.
http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/i-am-in-pain-inside-suspended-mountie-says-as-child-abuse-trial-continues-1.2879448
'I am in pain inside' suspended Mountie says, as child abuse trial continues
Joanne Schnurr, CTV Ottawa Published Thursday, April 28, 2016 4:58PM EDT
Last Updated Thursday, April 28, 2016 5:01PM EDT
A suspended Mountie continued his assertions in an Ottawa court today that he had been a victim of abuse and that, in a fog; he had seen his son as the enemy during the time in which he beat and confined him. The Crown prosecutor was having none of that. The focus today was finding the truth and that discussion led to a combative day between the Crown and the accused who maintained he was legally responsible for abusing his son but not morally.
The boy was just 7 years old when he moved in with his father and stepmother after his birth mother died. Within 4 months of that move, he would spend his first night sleeping in the unfinished basement as punishment.
"He was out of control from the moment he arrived," the father testified in court today, "I was constantly putting out fires."
The 44-year-old father is a suspended RCMP officer, on trial, along with his 36-year-old wife, for confining his son and denying him the necessities of life. The father is also charged with sexual assault.
The man told court that he had hired a child psychologist to ostensibly deal with his son's behavior. When the doctor suggested that the father was "terrorizing his son", court heard that the father ended sessions.
The accused has maintained throughout the Crown's cross examination that he was a man under duress, driven by the demons from his past to view his own son as a demon.
"I don't know what the hell I was doing,” he told court, “why I beat my son, why I burned him."
He has agreed to the abuse, but is mounting a defense, trying to prove he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder after he says he was raped as child in Lebanon; that he internalized this abuse and saw his son as the enemy.
After 4 years of living in this situation, the son escaped from the chains binding him in the basement and managed to flee the house while rest of family was shopping. He was 11 years old at this point in time and weighed 50 pounds. Doctors at CHEO, who examined him, said he almost starved to death.
When the father returned home and found him missing, he called 911. That was February 12, 2013.
"I’m guilty of this,” he told the 911 operator, “I did bad things with him. I did bad things to him and I regret it."
From here, followed a frustrating exchange between the Crown, trying to prove this man knew exactly what he was doing, and the father maintaining he was living in a fog.
At one point, the Crown presented a 6-foot long piece of wood flooring; similar to what the father admits he used to hit his son.
"Did you hit him on the arm?" the Crown asked.
"I don't know," he answered.
"Did you hit him on the stomach or the head?"
"I don't know," he repeated.
He said he remembers hitting and burning his son but added he didn't rationalize what he was doing. The trial continues tomorrow.
Friday, April 22, 2016
After abducting 4-year-old daughter, non-custodial dad crashes car injuring them both (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)
Dad is identified as MARIO RODRIGUES.
http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2016/04/18/police-seek-minivan-in-suspected-parental-abduction-of-5-year-old-girl.html
Father, daughter hurt in crash following Amber alert
Father in custody after child was taken from her mother’s home early this morning.
York Regional Police Police say the girl's father, Mario Rodrigues, 35, of Toronto, is now in custody.
By: Evelyn Kwong Staff Reporter, Published on Mon Apr 18 2016
A four-year-old girl and her father have been taken to hospital after a rollover that ended a province-wide search for the child early Monday.
The suspect vehicle was located after Ontario Provincial Police spotted a van travelling in the Bancroft area.
After several attempts to stop it, the van rounded a curve and rolled over, according to preliminary information from the provincial Special Investigations Unit.
The SIU is now investigating the crash. Police said the girl was trapped in the van, and was airlifted to the hospital with non life-threatening injuries.
Mario Rodrigues was taken into police custody and also taken to hospital, York Regional Police Const. Andy Pattenden said.
An Amber alert had been issued this morning after police in York Region said the girl was taken from her mother’s home in Aurora around 4:20 a.m.
Police were seeking Rodrigues, of Toronto, who was reportedly seen driving away from the house in a silver Toyota minivan.
The SIU is a civilian agency that investigates incidents involving police that result in death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault.
http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2016/04/18/police-seek-minivan-in-suspected-parental-abduction-of-5-year-old-girl.html
Father, daughter hurt in crash following Amber alert
Father in custody after child was taken from her mother’s home early this morning.
York Regional Police Police say the girl's father, Mario Rodrigues, 35, of Toronto, is now in custody.
By: Evelyn Kwong Staff Reporter, Published on Mon Apr 18 2016
A four-year-old girl and her father have been taken to hospital after a rollover that ended a province-wide search for the child early Monday.
The suspect vehicle was located after Ontario Provincial Police spotted a van travelling in the Bancroft area.
After several attempts to stop it, the van rounded a curve and rolled over, according to preliminary information from the provincial Special Investigations Unit.
The SIU is now investigating the crash. Police said the girl was trapped in the van, and was airlifted to the hospital with non life-threatening injuries.
Mario Rodrigues was taken into police custody and also taken to hospital, York Regional Police Const. Andy Pattenden said.
An Amber alert had been issued this morning after police in York Region said the girl was taken from her mother’s home in Aurora around 4:20 a.m.
Police were seeking Rodrigues, of Toronto, who was reportedly seen driving away from the house in a silver Toyota minivan.
The SIU is a civilian agency that investigates incidents involving police that result in death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault.
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Bureaucrats defend social workers after sexually abusive father gets unsupervised access (British Columbia, Canada)
Very typical of the way fathers rights ideology as taken over. Mothers are labeled vindictive crazy liars no matter what.
UNNAMED DAD.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/judge-bc-sexual-abuse-errors-b-j-province-1.3401088
B.C. defends social workers after abusive father gets unsupervised access
Ministry of Children and Families appeals ruling that blamed officials for allowing child to be abused
By Natalie Clancy, CBC News
Posted: Jan 13, 2016 9:07 AM PT| Last Updated: Jan 13, 2016 3:02 PM PT
The family members can't be identified to protect the children, three of whom a B.C. Supreme Court justice determined were sexually abused by their father.
Natalie Clancy Investigative Reporter | CBC News Vancouver
Natalie Clancy is an award-winning journalist with a 25 year track record for breaking stories. Her investigations have exposed how Canadian girls are recruited by ISIS, sexual harassment in the RCMP, and forced the B.C. government to improve safety for nurses.
B.C.'s Children's Ministry is defending its actions in a case that involved a father who a judge ruled in a civil case sexually abused a child while the toddler was in the care of the ministry.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled earlier in 2015 that the province's child protection service was negligent when it gave the father unsupervised access to his children after the three eldest made disclosures of sexual abuse.
The Ministry of Children and Family Development filed its reasons for appealing the decision this week.
The factum, submitted to the B.C. Court of Appeal, says that social workers relied on several experts including a pediatrician, psychologist and an expert on parenting when granting the unsupervised visits.
Allegations about the father were investigated by Vancouver police in this case, who concluded there was "no evidence to support J.P's allegations that B.G. molested their children." As a result no criminal charges were laid in this case.
The document says the judge who ruled in the case made errors in law and ignored key evidence when he condemned the ministry's actions.
Stop 'keeping secrets for Daddy'
The factum paints an ugly picture of the mother referred to only as J.P., citing an incident when she pepper-sprayed her ex-husband, brother and sister-in-law in the home where the children were staying.
As a result the children were moved to a foster home.
Social workers were also concerned about her repeated attempts to interview the children about their father's abuse.
The document says during a supervised visit she "forcibly held (her daughter) in her lap while telling her that (she) needed to tell the truth and cannot keep secrets. J.P. stated that (her daughter) was 'keeping secrets for daddy,' and that her actions were 'ruining our lives.'"
The government says J.P. refused to meet with social workers to talk about the "traumatizing effect that J.P.'s behaviour would have on a five-year-old child."
Mother's lawyer responds
J.P.'s lawyer Jack Hittrich says he will file a full response to the province's appeal in April. In the meantime he highlighted his concerns to CBC News.
"What is astounding about this factum is that the central findings of fact are completely ignored," said Hittrich.
"They chose to align themselves fully with the (father)," says Hittrich, but the ministry denies that.
"In this case mom does everything she can to protect these children. The more she cries the more she's labelled as crazy!"
Concerns mother would harm children
The factum argues the judge was wrong to rule social workers acted in bad faith, suggesting the evidence shows they properly assessed the risks posed to the children, and made decisions based on the information available at the time.
They feared the children were endangered by their mother, and at one point concern was raised by a police investigator that the mother might even kill the children.
The ministry's appeal argues that at that time experts advised it was unlikely the children had been sexually abused, and that their mother needed mental health intervention before she could safely regain custody.
Social workers had no way of knowing a judge would later rule that the father had abused the children and the mother had no mental health issues.
The province says the actions of social workers were unfairly judged in hindsight.
By June of 2011 the director of child welfare was aware the three eldest children had made disclosures of sexual abuse, but their statements were inconsistent, and Vancouver police had found no physical evidence to support charges.
Ministry relied on expert findings
The judge ruled social workers did not properly assess the risk to the children, but the document says the ministry relied on several reports, including:
■Pediatrician found no physical evidence of sexual abuse.
■Child psychologist found low probability that sexual abuse occurred.
■Parental capacity expert concluded sexual abuse was unlikely.
■Child psychologist concluded sexual abuse was unlikely.
■Parental capacity expert recommended father get custody.
■Child psychologist recommended father get custody.
■Parental capacity expert said mother required mental health intervention.
■Child psychologist found mother required psychiatric assessment.
The document says the mother refused to go for a recommended psychiatric assessment while the father followed orders to work with a parenting coach, who wrote positive reviews.
The trial judge ruled the VPD investigation was flawed and the experts the ministry relied on were not reliable, and social workers ought to have known that.
The ruling found one ministry employee's pervasive distrust of J.P. influenced others, and his failure to include sexual abuse allegations in a key document amount to misfeasance.
But the province says the evidence does not support such a serious finding.
The document says the plaintiff's view that a "multi-institutional conspiracy" led social workers to make a decision that ultimately allowed a father to molest his toddler in the ministry's care is simply not supported by evidence.
Being wrong does not mean negligence
But the factum does not dispute that sexual abuse occurred after the father was granted unsupervised access.
"Whether the sexual abuse in fact occurred is a much different question from whether social workers reasonably and in good faith" says the document.
"The fact that the trial judge eventually concluded … that the director was 'wrong' in her assessment of risk does not render all actions of the director that preceded … negligent and malicious."
The province declined to comment on the appeal because it is still before the courts.
UNNAMED DAD.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/judge-bc-sexual-abuse-errors-b-j-province-1.3401088
B.C. defends social workers after abusive father gets unsupervised access
Ministry of Children and Families appeals ruling that blamed officials for allowing child to be abused
By Natalie Clancy, CBC News
Posted: Jan 13, 2016 9:07 AM PT| Last Updated: Jan 13, 2016 3:02 PM PT
The family members can't be identified to protect the children, three of whom a B.C. Supreme Court justice determined were sexually abused by their father.
Natalie Clancy Investigative Reporter | CBC News Vancouver
Natalie Clancy is an award-winning journalist with a 25 year track record for breaking stories. Her investigations have exposed how Canadian girls are recruited by ISIS, sexual harassment in the RCMP, and forced the B.C. government to improve safety for nurses.
B.C.'s Children's Ministry is defending its actions in a case that involved a father who a judge ruled in a civil case sexually abused a child while the toddler was in the care of the ministry.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled earlier in 2015 that the province's child protection service was negligent when it gave the father unsupervised access to his children after the three eldest made disclosures of sexual abuse.
The Ministry of Children and Family Development filed its reasons for appealing the decision this week.
The factum, submitted to the B.C. Court of Appeal, says that social workers relied on several experts including a pediatrician, psychologist and an expert on parenting when granting the unsupervised visits.
Allegations about the father were investigated by Vancouver police in this case, who concluded there was "no evidence to support J.P's allegations that B.G. molested their children." As a result no criminal charges were laid in this case.
The document says the judge who ruled in the case made errors in law and ignored key evidence when he condemned the ministry's actions.
Stop 'keeping secrets for Daddy'
The factum paints an ugly picture of the mother referred to only as J.P., citing an incident when she pepper-sprayed her ex-husband, brother and sister-in-law in the home where the children were staying.
As a result the children were moved to a foster home.
Social workers were also concerned about her repeated attempts to interview the children about their father's abuse.
The document says during a supervised visit she "forcibly held (her daughter) in her lap while telling her that (she) needed to tell the truth and cannot keep secrets. J.P. stated that (her daughter) was 'keeping secrets for daddy,' and that her actions were 'ruining our lives.'"
The government says J.P. refused to meet with social workers to talk about the "traumatizing effect that J.P.'s behaviour would have on a five-year-old child."
Mother's lawyer responds
J.P.'s lawyer Jack Hittrich says he will file a full response to the province's appeal in April. In the meantime he highlighted his concerns to CBC News.
"What is astounding about this factum is that the central findings of fact are completely ignored," said Hittrich.
"They chose to align themselves fully with the (father)," says Hittrich, but the ministry denies that.
"In this case mom does everything she can to protect these children. The more she cries the more she's labelled as crazy!"
Concerns mother would harm children
The factum argues the judge was wrong to rule social workers acted in bad faith, suggesting the evidence shows they properly assessed the risks posed to the children, and made decisions based on the information available at the time.
They feared the children were endangered by their mother, and at one point concern was raised by a police investigator that the mother might even kill the children.
The ministry's appeal argues that at that time experts advised it was unlikely the children had been sexually abused, and that their mother needed mental health intervention before she could safely regain custody.
Social workers had no way of knowing a judge would later rule that the father had abused the children and the mother had no mental health issues.
The province says the actions of social workers were unfairly judged in hindsight.
By June of 2011 the director of child welfare was aware the three eldest children had made disclosures of sexual abuse, but their statements were inconsistent, and Vancouver police had found no physical evidence to support charges.
Ministry relied on expert findings
The judge ruled social workers did not properly assess the risk to the children, but the document says the ministry relied on several reports, including:
■Pediatrician found no physical evidence of sexual abuse.
■Child psychologist found low probability that sexual abuse occurred.
■Parental capacity expert concluded sexual abuse was unlikely.
■Child psychologist concluded sexual abuse was unlikely.
■Parental capacity expert recommended father get custody.
■Child psychologist recommended father get custody.
■Parental capacity expert said mother required mental health intervention.
■Child psychologist found mother required psychiatric assessment.
The document says the mother refused to go for a recommended psychiatric assessment while the father followed orders to work with a parenting coach, who wrote positive reviews.
The trial judge ruled the VPD investigation was flawed and the experts the ministry relied on were not reliable, and social workers ought to have known that.
The ruling found one ministry employee's pervasive distrust of J.P. influenced others, and his failure to include sexual abuse allegations in a key document amount to misfeasance.
But the province says the evidence does not support such a serious finding.
The document says the plaintiff's view that a "multi-institutional conspiracy" led social workers to make a decision that ultimately allowed a father to molest his toddler in the ministry's care is simply not supported by evidence.
Being wrong does not mean negligence
But the factum does not dispute that sexual abuse occurred after the father was granted unsupervised access.
"Whether the sexual abuse in fact occurred is a much different question from whether social workers reasonably and in good faith" says the document.
"The fact that the trial judge eventually concluded … that the director was 'wrong' in her assessment of risk does not render all actions of the director that preceded … negligent and malicious."
The province declined to comment on the appeal because it is still before the courts.
Thursday, January 7, 2016
Custodial dad's "reign of terror" killed 17-year-old daughter, jury at "suitcase" murder trial hears (Toronto, Canada)
We've posted on dad EVERTON BIDDERSINGH before.
See the Killer Dads and Custody list for Canada.
http://www.680news.com/2016/01/04/dads-reign-terror-killed-daughter-jury-suitcase-murder-trial-hears/
Dad's 'reign of terror' killed daughter, jury at 'suitcase' murder trial hears
Local National by Diana Mehta, The Canadian Press
Posted Jan 4, 2016 8:22 am EST Last Updated Jan 5, 2016 at 5:39 am EST
A father’s “reign of terror” reduced his daughter from a happy, healthy child to a starved, emotionally broken teen, ultimately killing her, a Crown prosecutor told a Toronto court Monday as he urged the jury to find the man guilty of first-degree murder.
Everton Biddersingh has pleaded not guilty in the death of 17-year-old Melonie, whose charred body was found in a burning suitcase 21 years ago.
“His reign of terror over Melonie ultimately resulted in her death,” Crown prosecutor Mary Humphrey said in closing arguments. “But for his actions or his omissions, Melonie would have been alive today. She would have been 38 years old.”
The case has taken two decades to get to trial because police weren’t able to identify Melonie’s remains until they received a tip that eventually led to the arrest of Biddersingh and his wife in March 2012.
The trial has heard that Melonie came to Canada from Jamaica with two brothers in 1991, when she was 13, to live with her father and stepmother.
Jurors have heard that the girl – who hoped to one day become a nurse – was not sent to school and suffered brutal beatings, food deprivation and gut-wrenching abuse at the hands of her father.
Melonie was treated like a slave, Humphrey said, and was “withering away” before her father’s eyes but he did not stop mistreating her.
“Everton took away everything from Melonie,” she said. “He took away her will to live.”
Biddersingh viewed his daughter as a “traitor” after he believed she once took her stepmother’s side during a marital dispute, Humphrey said.
He also used the girl as a free housekeeper, a caregiver for his other young children and an outlet for his anger towards his wife, Humphrey said.
Over the course of many months, Melonie was confined for hours in a tiny closet, had her head placed in a toilet that was flushed, was chained to the furniture at times, was denied food and was kicked, punched and thrown against walls by her father, the trial has heard.
“The evidence was clear that Everton had a real dislike for his daughter,” Humphrey said. “He told (Melonie’s older brother) Cleon he wished he had dropped her on the head as a baby.”
Melonie wasn’t taken to the hospital as her health deteriorated – despite her obviously frail body and the fact that she had trouble moving – because Biddersingh didn’t want anyone to detect that the girl had been abused, Humphrey said.
“He dominated her and he exploited her until her very last breath,” she said. “When she was no longer of any use to him he killed her or he caused her to die when she was unlawfully confined.”
While the exact cause of Melonie’s death is debatable – there are suggestions she may have drowned or merely starved to death – Humphrey told the jury there was no doubt that Biddersingh’s “planned and deliberate” actions caused his daughter to die.
“Melonie was a helpless 17-year-old girl who was starved, beaten, drowned or nearly drowned, stuffed into a suitcase and then set on fire by her father,” she said. “This was a cold, calculated, deliberate first-degree murder.”
After Melonie’s death, Humphrey told the jury, Biddersingh crammed his daughter into a suitcase, drove her to a remote area and set her on fire.
“He attempted to eliminate any evidence that she ever existed,” she said. “Burning her body shows a high degree of malice.”
The jury has heard that Biddersingh told friends and family, including Melonie’s brother and her biological mother, that the girl had run away from home. The jury was told that Melonie died on Sept. 1, 1994 and weighed only about 50 pounds at the time.
Expert evidence indicated Melonie was “grossly underweight” and had 21 “healing fractures” in her ribs, spine, pelvis, right knee and left ankle that were caused three weeks to six months before her death.
It also indicated that Melonie had inhaled water shortly before her death.
See the Killer Dads and Custody list for Canada.
http://www.680news.com/2016/01/04/dads-reign-terror-killed-daughter-jury-suitcase-murder-trial-hears/
Dad's 'reign of terror' killed daughter, jury at 'suitcase' murder trial hears
Local National by Diana Mehta, The Canadian Press
Posted Jan 4, 2016 8:22 am EST Last Updated Jan 5, 2016 at 5:39 am EST
A father’s “reign of terror” reduced his daughter from a happy, healthy child to a starved, emotionally broken teen, ultimately killing her, a Crown prosecutor told a Toronto court Monday as he urged the jury to find the man guilty of first-degree murder.
Everton Biddersingh has pleaded not guilty in the death of 17-year-old Melonie, whose charred body was found in a burning suitcase 21 years ago.
“His reign of terror over Melonie ultimately resulted in her death,” Crown prosecutor Mary Humphrey said in closing arguments. “But for his actions or his omissions, Melonie would have been alive today. She would have been 38 years old.”
The case has taken two decades to get to trial because police weren’t able to identify Melonie’s remains until they received a tip that eventually led to the arrest of Biddersingh and his wife in March 2012.
The trial has heard that Melonie came to Canada from Jamaica with two brothers in 1991, when she was 13, to live with her father and stepmother.
Jurors have heard that the girl – who hoped to one day become a nurse – was not sent to school and suffered brutal beatings, food deprivation and gut-wrenching abuse at the hands of her father.
Melonie was treated like a slave, Humphrey said, and was “withering away” before her father’s eyes but he did not stop mistreating her.
“Everton took away everything from Melonie,” she said. “He took away her will to live.”
Biddersingh viewed his daughter as a “traitor” after he believed she once took her stepmother’s side during a marital dispute, Humphrey said.
He also used the girl as a free housekeeper, a caregiver for his other young children and an outlet for his anger towards his wife, Humphrey said.
Over the course of many months, Melonie was confined for hours in a tiny closet, had her head placed in a toilet that was flushed, was chained to the furniture at times, was denied food and was kicked, punched and thrown against walls by her father, the trial has heard.
“The evidence was clear that Everton had a real dislike for his daughter,” Humphrey said. “He told (Melonie’s older brother) Cleon he wished he had dropped her on the head as a baby.”
Melonie wasn’t taken to the hospital as her health deteriorated – despite her obviously frail body and the fact that she had trouble moving – because Biddersingh didn’t want anyone to detect that the girl had been abused, Humphrey said.
“He dominated her and he exploited her until her very last breath,” she said. “When she was no longer of any use to him he killed her or he caused her to die when she was unlawfully confined.”
While the exact cause of Melonie’s death is debatable – there are suggestions she may have drowned or merely starved to death – Humphrey told the jury there was no doubt that Biddersingh’s “planned and deliberate” actions caused his daughter to die.
“Melonie was a helpless 17-year-old girl who was starved, beaten, drowned or nearly drowned, stuffed into a suitcase and then set on fire by her father,” she said. “This was a cold, calculated, deliberate first-degree murder.”
After Melonie’s death, Humphrey told the jury, Biddersingh crammed his daughter into a suitcase, drove her to a remote area and set her on fire.
“He attempted to eliminate any evidence that she ever existed,” she said. “Burning her body shows a high degree of malice.”
The jury has heard that Biddersingh told friends and family, including Melonie’s brother and her biological mother, that the girl had run away from home. The jury was told that Melonie died on Sept. 1, 1994 and weighed only about 50 pounds at the time.
Expert evidence indicated Melonie was “grossly underweight” and had 21 “healing fractures” in her ribs, spine, pelvis, right knee and left ankle that were caused three weeks to six months before her death.
It also indicated that Melonie had inhaled water shortly before her death.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Canada to review US extradition of protective mom (Ottawa, Canada)
UNNAMED DAD
http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/canada-to-review-us-extradition-of-mom-1.1963881
Canada to review US extradition of mom
24 December 2015 at 12:31pm
By: AFP
Ottawa - Canada's attorney general said on Wednesday she would review the case of a Canadian woman facing extradition to the United States for allegedly stealing her children from their abusive American father.
“I have decided to reconsider this case,” Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould said in a statement, citing possible new facts in the years-long domestic dispute.
The woman, known only as “M” in court documents, has been fighting extradition since her arrest in 2010, and reportedly went on a brief hunger strike after Canada's top court ruled earlier this month that she could be sent to the US state of Georgia to face prosecution for interstate interference of a child custody order.
“M” and her former husband had three children before they divorced in 2001.
He was granted sole custody of the children while she received no visitation rights due to a substance abuse problem.
In October 2010 their father reported the children, who were 9, 10 and 14 years old at the time, missing.
Several weeks later, they turned up with their mother at a battered women's shelter in Quebec, and she was arrested.
But the children told Canadian child protection officials they ran away without their mother's knowledge and because of their father's abusive treatment and violence.
A Quebec judge would later grant the mother full custody of her children, which has not been challenged by their father.
The Supreme Court of Canada 4-3 split decision found extradition was justified in the case.
But dissenting justices wrote that the mother could not be found guilty on the abduction charge “since her intent was to protect the children from danger of imminent harm at the hands of their father.”
http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/canada-to-review-us-extradition-of-mom-1.1963881
Canada to review US extradition of mom
24 December 2015 at 12:31pm
By: AFP
Ottawa - Canada's attorney general said on Wednesday she would review the case of a Canadian woman facing extradition to the United States for allegedly stealing her children from their abusive American father.
“I have decided to reconsider this case,” Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould said in a statement, citing possible new facts in the years-long domestic dispute.
The woman, known only as “M” in court documents, has been fighting extradition since her arrest in 2010, and reportedly went on a brief hunger strike after Canada's top court ruled earlier this month that she could be sent to the US state of Georgia to face prosecution for interstate interference of a child custody order.
“M” and her former husband had three children before they divorced in 2001.
He was granted sole custody of the children while she received no visitation rights due to a substance abuse problem.
In October 2010 their father reported the children, who were 9, 10 and 14 years old at the time, missing.
Several weeks later, they turned up with their mother at a battered women's shelter in Quebec, and she was arrested.
But the children told Canadian child protection officials they ran away without their mother's knowledge and because of their father's abusive treatment and violence.
A Quebec judge would later grant the mother full custody of her children, which has not been challenged by their father.
The Supreme Court of Canada 4-3 split decision found extradition was justified in the case.
But dissenting justices wrote that the mother could not be found guilty on the abduction charge “since her intent was to protect the children from danger of imminent harm at the hands of their father.”
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Custodial dad charged with manslaughter in starvation death of 21-month-old daughter (Brampton, Ontario, Canada)
Honestly, how stupid does the media think we are? There is not a lot of evidence here that the parents had joint shared custody. And even in the remote chance that they did, it was clearly not enforced. A kid does not die of malnutrition during a two-day visitation with Daddy. Plus, the signs of malnutrition would have been clear well before that. So common sense tells you that either the mother was complicit, or she was totally shut out. Well, she wasn't arrested for abuse in this case, so it's clear what was what here. Dad FRANK BRIAN O'DEA was either legally or effectively a custodial father.
See the Killer Dads and Custody list for Canada.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/brampton-father-manslaughter-charges-1.3369664
Brampton dad charged with manslaughter in toddler Victoria O'Dea's death
Police were called to Brampton home April 20 for a child without vital signs
CBC News Posted: Dec 17, 2015 11:58 AM ET|Last Updated: Dec 17, 2015 10:15 PM ET
A Brampton father is now facing a charge of manslaughter in connection with the death of his 21-month old daughter.
Frank Brian O'Dea, 42, who was initially charged with criminal negligence causing death, was arrested Wednesday and charged with failing to provide necessities of life, in addition to the manslaughter charge.
The new charges come in the wake of a provincial forensic report released Monday that found that malnutrition and dehydration were to blame for Victoria O'Dea's death.
Victoria was pronounced dead at hospital after police responded to a report just after midnight on April 20 of a child without vital signs at a home on Pappain Crescent in Brampton.
Her death prompted an outpouring of public support, with community members launching crowdfunding efforts to pay for the little girl's funeral.
Sources told CBC News that Frank Brian O'Dea and Victoria's mother were separated at the time of the girl's death. Const. Lori Murphy could not say whether the two shared custody.
Actor and comedian Russell Peters also stepped in, offering to help cover the funeral expenses.
O'Dea was released on bail eight months ago after the initial charges were laid.
He was supposed to appear at the Ontario Court of Justice in Brampton Thursday for a bail hearing connected to the new charges.
The 42-year-old will return to court on Monday.
See the Killer Dads and Custody list for Canada.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/brampton-father-manslaughter-charges-1.3369664
Brampton dad charged with manslaughter in toddler Victoria O'Dea's death
Police were called to Brampton home April 20 for a child without vital signs
CBC News Posted: Dec 17, 2015 11:58 AM ET|Last Updated: Dec 17, 2015 10:15 PM ET
A Brampton father is now facing a charge of manslaughter in connection with the death of his 21-month old daughter.
Frank Brian O'Dea, 42, who was initially charged with criminal negligence causing death, was arrested Wednesday and charged with failing to provide necessities of life, in addition to the manslaughter charge.
The new charges come in the wake of a provincial forensic report released Monday that found that malnutrition and dehydration were to blame for Victoria O'Dea's death.
Victoria was pronounced dead at hospital after police responded to a report just after midnight on April 20 of a child without vital signs at a home on Pappain Crescent in Brampton.
Her death prompted an outpouring of public support, with community members launching crowdfunding efforts to pay for the little girl's funeral.
Sources told CBC News that Frank Brian O'Dea and Victoria's mother were separated at the time of the girl's death. Const. Lori Murphy could not say whether the two shared custody.
Actor and comedian Russell Peters also stepped in, offering to help cover the funeral expenses.
O'Dea was released on bail eight months ago after the initial charges were laid.
He was supposed to appear at the Ontario Court of Justice in Brampton Thursday for a bail hearing connected to the new charges.
The 42-year-old will return to court on Monday.
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Control freak, abusive custodial father finally loses custody of autistic sons (Toronto, Canada)
Only in a marginal sense is this about autism, homeopathy, or alternative medicine. Frankly, the father is just using all that as a club againt the mother, so that he can maintain total control.
Like a lot of abusive fathers, he's not even interested in seeing the kids unless he "owns" them.
Like a lot of abusive fathers, he's intent on denying the mother contact or visitation.
And like a lot of abusive fathers, he really likes soaking Mom for money.
All the red flags are here.
And yet somehow he got custody. And somehow he retained custody for some time despite the fact that he could have killed this child due to his dogmatic opposition to antibiotics.
And he STILL gets access and visitation, a very dangerous thing for a control freak/abuser who has been "spurned."
UNNAMED DAD
http://www.digitaljournal.com/life/health/father-tries-to-cure-sons-autism-via-homeopathy-loses-custody/article/450849
Father wouldn't stop homeopathy on autistic sons, loses custody
By Megan Hamilton yesterday in
Health. Toronto - A father in Ontario lost custody of his two young sons, in part because he refused to stop trying to cure the boys' autism and other illnesses with homeopathy.
The boys, aged nine and ten have "severe and profound" autism spectrum disorder. The boys' father is a 48-year-old computer programmer who lives in the Greater Toronto Area, the National Post reports.
The treatments weren't effective, and "they had negative effects," according to a court decision that granted sole custody to the boys' mother.
During an October hearing, the children's mother sought a court order demanding her ex-husband stop using homeopathic treatments on their sons, DeadState reports. Her argument was that the boys' father was "looking for a 'cure' for autism" instead of trying to find a method of managing the disorder.
He will now see the children three weekends a month, and will share access on holidays, the National Post reports.
Homeopathy, a practice developed in Germany, has its' roots in the early 19th century, and is considered an alternative therapy.
In her testimony before the Ontario Court of Justice, the mother said the ill-effects of her ex-husband's "treatments," which were being used to lessen one boy's spasms instead made him "very aggressive," DeadState reports.
"He would not stop hitting everyone and it took about two weeks for the [behavior] to stop and for him to return to his normal state," she said.
In another instance, the father allegedly didn't use antibiotics for an infected cut on the nine-year-old's finger and kept the boy from his mother while trying to treat the infection with homeopathic remedies. That only made the infection worse.
The boys don't speak, aren't toilet-trained and are unable to dress or feed themselves, The Vancouver Sun reports.
While this case doesn't involve a serious and possibly fatal illness, it quickly could have, family lawyer Andrew Feldstein told the National Post.
"Kids get strep throat all the time, and you need antibiotics to deal with strep throat, and if a parent is having problems with the other parent administering the antibiotics, that becomes a very serious issue," he said.
Medical care was just one part of a spate of issues that influenced the custody hearing in which both parents were seeking sole custody.
Justice Roselyn Zisman criticized the father for his refusal to see his kids during the summer, and for his threat to institutionalize the boys unless his $500 per month child-support payments were lowered.
"If you cannot handle the children I suggest foster care, institutionalizing them, or cover my child expenses so I can take them," he wrote his ex-wife in a text last July.
In her decision, Zisman wrote "the father's decision not to see the children is the most glaring example of his inability to put the children's needs before his own need to control and punish the mother."
The ruling is just one of several custody battles involving parents with unorthodox medical views potentially endangering their kids, The Vancouver Sun reported.
Cases have included a toddler with leukemia whose father wanted to treat him with cannabis oil in lieu of chemotherapy. There have also been numerous cases where Canadian judges have ruled that Jehovah's Witnesses do not have the right to prevent their children from receiving potentially life-saving blood transfusions.
In October, Digital Journal reported on the sentencing of a Spokane man who sold industrial bleach and touted it as a cure for autism.
Louis Daniel Smith, 45, was sentenced to 51 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
Dubbed Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS), Smith sold the product through his company, Project GreenLife. He claimed it cured a variety of diseases and illnesses, but this 'miracle cure' was actually sodium chlorite mixed with water.
In a statement the Department of Justice reported that sodium chlorite "cannot be sold for human consumption, and suppliers of the chemical include a warning sheet stating that it can cause potentially fatal side effects if swallowed."
MMS is also on the FDA warnings list due to the fact that it's toxic and causes, diarrhea, fatigue, low blood pressure associated with severe dehydration, and severe vomiting.
Touted as a cure for autism, parents desperately forced their kids to drink it or gave it to them as an enema, which destroys the lining of their intestinal tracts and kills healthy gut bacteria.
It was also alleged that Smith instructed customers to mix the product with citric acid, and that creates chlorine dioxide. It's a chemical used as a bleach for textiles and pulp for paper products. Chronic exposure to small doses of chlorine dioxide can result in neurodevelopmental and reproductive damage.
The National Post noted that some homeopaths dilute their medicines so much that a dose may only contain one or two molecules of the "active" ingredient.
Like a lot of abusive fathers, he's not even interested in seeing the kids unless he "owns" them.
Like a lot of abusive fathers, he's intent on denying the mother contact or visitation.
And like a lot of abusive fathers, he really likes soaking Mom for money.
All the red flags are here.
And yet somehow he got custody. And somehow he retained custody for some time despite the fact that he could have killed this child due to his dogmatic opposition to antibiotics.
And he STILL gets access and visitation, a very dangerous thing for a control freak/abuser who has been "spurned."
UNNAMED DAD
http://www.digitaljournal.com/life/health/father-tries-to-cure-sons-autism-via-homeopathy-loses-custody/article/450849
Father wouldn't stop homeopathy on autistic sons, loses custody
By Megan Hamilton yesterday in
Health. Toronto - A father in Ontario lost custody of his two young sons, in part because he refused to stop trying to cure the boys' autism and other illnesses with homeopathy.
The boys, aged nine and ten have "severe and profound" autism spectrum disorder. The boys' father is a 48-year-old computer programmer who lives in the Greater Toronto Area, the National Post reports.
The treatments weren't effective, and "they had negative effects," according to a court decision that granted sole custody to the boys' mother.
During an October hearing, the children's mother sought a court order demanding her ex-husband stop using homeopathic treatments on their sons, DeadState reports. Her argument was that the boys' father was "looking for a 'cure' for autism" instead of trying to find a method of managing the disorder.
He will now see the children three weekends a month, and will share access on holidays, the National Post reports.
Homeopathy, a practice developed in Germany, has its' roots in the early 19th century, and is considered an alternative therapy.
In her testimony before the Ontario Court of Justice, the mother said the ill-effects of her ex-husband's "treatments," which were being used to lessen one boy's spasms instead made him "very aggressive," DeadState reports.
"He would not stop hitting everyone and it took about two weeks for the [behavior] to stop and for him to return to his normal state," she said.
In another instance, the father allegedly didn't use antibiotics for an infected cut on the nine-year-old's finger and kept the boy from his mother while trying to treat the infection with homeopathic remedies. That only made the infection worse.
The boys don't speak, aren't toilet-trained and are unable to dress or feed themselves, The Vancouver Sun reports.
While this case doesn't involve a serious and possibly fatal illness, it quickly could have, family lawyer Andrew Feldstein told the National Post.
"Kids get strep throat all the time, and you need antibiotics to deal with strep throat, and if a parent is having problems with the other parent administering the antibiotics, that becomes a very serious issue," he said.
Medical care was just one part of a spate of issues that influenced the custody hearing in which both parents were seeking sole custody.
Justice Roselyn Zisman criticized the father for his refusal to see his kids during the summer, and for his threat to institutionalize the boys unless his $500 per month child-support payments were lowered.
"If you cannot handle the children I suggest foster care, institutionalizing them, or cover my child expenses so I can take them," he wrote his ex-wife in a text last July.
In her decision, Zisman wrote "the father's decision not to see the children is the most glaring example of his inability to put the children's needs before his own need to control and punish the mother."
The ruling is just one of several custody battles involving parents with unorthodox medical views potentially endangering their kids, The Vancouver Sun reported.
Cases have included a toddler with leukemia whose father wanted to treat him with cannabis oil in lieu of chemotherapy. There have also been numerous cases where Canadian judges have ruled that Jehovah's Witnesses do not have the right to prevent their children from receiving potentially life-saving blood transfusions.
In October, Digital Journal reported on the sentencing of a Spokane man who sold industrial bleach and touted it as a cure for autism.
Louis Daniel Smith, 45, was sentenced to 51 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
Dubbed Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS), Smith sold the product through his company, Project GreenLife. He claimed it cured a variety of diseases and illnesses, but this 'miracle cure' was actually sodium chlorite mixed with water.
In a statement the Department of Justice reported that sodium chlorite "cannot be sold for human consumption, and suppliers of the chemical include a warning sheet stating that it can cause potentially fatal side effects if swallowed."
MMS is also on the FDA warnings list due to the fact that it's toxic and causes, diarrhea, fatigue, low blood pressure associated with severe dehydration, and severe vomiting.
Touted as a cure for autism, parents desperately forced their kids to drink it or gave it to them as an enema, which destroys the lining of their intestinal tracts and kills healthy gut bacteria.
It was also alleged that Smith instructed customers to mix the product with citric acid, and that creates chlorine dioxide. It's a chemical used as a bleach for textiles and pulp for paper products. Chronic exposure to small doses of chlorine dioxide can result in neurodevelopmental and reproductive damage.
The National Post noted that some homeopaths dilute their medicines so much that a dose may only contain one or two molecules of the "active" ingredient.
Friday, October 30, 2015
Custodial dad FINALLY goes to trial for 1994 torture-murder of 17-year-old daughter (Toronto, Canada)
The custodial dad is identified as EVERTON BIDDERSINGH.
There are an amazing number of cases like this. Poor mothers in imporverished countries who lose custody to fathers in the wealthier countries. Fathers who can presumably provide these children with a "better life." And the "better life" turns out to be torture and death.
See the Killer Dads and Custody list for Canada.
http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2015/10/28/trial-starts-for-dad-charged-in-daughters-murder-after-body-found-in-suitcase.html
Melonie’s terrible last days unroll in courtroom as her father’s trial begins
The Crown outlines its case against Everton Biddersingh, whose daughter was found burned in a suitcase in 1991.
By:Rosie DiManno
Columnist, Published on Wed Oct 28 2015
Melonie Biddersingh came to Canada from Jamaica in early 1991 with nothing more than a single suitcase.
Whether this was the same suitcase in which her charred remains were found three years later, behind a Vaughan commercial building, is unknown.
The known details are gruesome: 21 healing fractures discovered on autopsy, when that pitiful corpse was examined by a coroner; weight of 50 pounds, far below the normal body index range for a 5-foot-2 teenager, indicating severe malnourishment; an ante-mortem — before death — head contusion that had resulted from trauma or blunt force injury; fluid in the nostrils and bone marrow, indicative of drowning as either a cause of death or major contributing factor — the liquid from a freshwater source, not tap water, perhaps pooling rain.
All of these details were related in a Toronto courtroom Wednesday, as the prosecution laid out its case against Melonie’s biological father.
To the death roll of Randal Dooley and Jeffrey Baldwin, children starved to death and grotesquely mistreated while alive, right in our midst, add now the name of this 17-year-old who lived and died with nobody taking notice.
All but held prisoner, the court was told, in a one-room apartment she shared with her father, her stepmother, two brothers, two half-brothers and, eventually, an infant half-sister for whom she was responsible. When the baby’s diaper needed changing, Melonie would be summoned with a buzzer.
She was not allowed to attend school, though furthering her education — her ambition to one day become a nurse — was the main reason Melonie had been excited about moving to Canada, leaving behind a mother and four other siblings, living in abject poverty in a slum shack.
The harshness of Melonie’s existence was only summarily outlined by Crown Attorney Anna Tenhouse in her opening address to the jury. The details here are all from that address:
At times, the teen was kept in a closet, “hidden from the outside world.”
She was made to shower on the balcony in summer, was at times locked out there as punishment, and forced to use a bucket to relieve herself.
She was called names like “the devil,” told that she’d brought evil to the family.
Made to sleep on a piece of cardboard on the living room floor, though there was a sofa bed nearby.
Had her head placed in the toilet and the toilet flushed, as punishment.
Was kicked and punched about her body, dragged by the hair and stomped upon.
Was at times chained to furniture.
Deprived of food, she became so weak she could no longer hold her baby sister. Enfeebled to the point that her older brother had to help her bathe after the girl urinated or defecated on herself.
That brother, Cleon, was allegedly forced to sell drugs and warned that, if he ever told anyone about it, or about the abuse in their home, “harm would come to him and his family in Jamaica,” Tenhouse told the jury.
Cleon got out by and by, ran away. Melonie’s other brother, Dwayne — 12 when he arrived in Toronto, a year younger than Melonie — died in an accident 17 months later.
Melonie died, court was told, on Sept. 1, 1994. This is not yet evidence. It is the prosecution’s claim.
But the photograph displayed on a screen in the courtroom — that’s evidence.
Blackened, curled into a pathetic heap of limbs, bits of singed hair still visible on the death scalp.
In the front row, Melonie’s mother, Opal Austin, choked on a sob and wept. Melonie’s sister, Racquel Ellis, was overcome: “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.”
Who could do this terrible thing?
Melonie’s father, Everton Biddersingh, pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. His wife, Elaine Biddersingh — Melonie’s stepmother — has also been charged with first-degree murder but will be tried separately next year.
On Aug. 31, 1994, Det. Steven Seabrook, then a constable with the canine unit of York Regional Police, was patrolling in the Highway 7 area when he noticed a plume of black smoke. He tracked it to a spot behind an industrial area. What he saw, at first, were flames a couple of metres high, emanating from a pile close to a garbage bin. At the base of the fire was a tire, largely melted — source of the black smoke, from the burning rubber.
The heat was so intense Seabrook could come no closer than 4 or 5 metres.
Another officer arrived with a fire extinguisher, but that only put the blaze out temporarily. The flames sprung back.
Next came the firefighters, who were able to douse the pyre with water. And then they all saw, amidst the charred heap, a grisly sight.
“At that point, it was obvious to us there was a body lying on the tire, in the fetal position. No flesh on the legs, the head was very black and charred,’’ Seabrook testified yesterday. “I noticed a metal square shape around the body, looked like the frame of a suitcase.’’
The Suitcase Girl, as she became known in the media, once it was determined that the corpse was female.
No name. And no one came forward with information about a missing teenage girl.
Those with long memories may recall, as the years went by, the occasional press conferences as police continued attempts to identify her. The artist’s depiction of how she may have looked. The forensic sculpture of a female head, which triggered no public recognition either.
They never gave up but they never came close to solving the mystery.
Eighteen years would pass, longer than the length and breadth of Melonie’s sad life.
And then, as Tenhouse told court, the secret was exposed, the plotline that police have never revealed. On Dec. 11, 2011, Elaine Biddersingh confessed to her pastor, court heard, that the girl in the suitcase was her step-daughter. The minister took that information to police, and the Toronto Police cold case unit took carriage of the matter.
Opal Austin, living in Jamaica, was contacted. For nearly 20 years she had wondered what had become of her daughter and sought information. Everton Biddersingh told her Melonie had run away to New York.
DNA from the mother was matched to The Suitcase Girl, confirming her identity. She had a name. She claimed her history.
Outside court, Racquel Ellis told reporters: “It’s like the hole of my belly button dropped out. I couldn’t breathe. I had to come out of the courtroom. It’s like my heart was going to stop beating.’’
Everton and Elaine Biddersingh were arrested on March 5, 2012, in Welland, Ont.
Yesterday, the father never appeared to even once glance at the mother of their dead and desecrated daughter.
Melonie.
Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
There are an amazing number of cases like this. Poor mothers in imporverished countries who lose custody to fathers in the wealthier countries. Fathers who can presumably provide these children with a "better life." And the "better life" turns out to be torture and death.
See the Killer Dads and Custody list for Canada.
http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2015/10/28/trial-starts-for-dad-charged-in-daughters-murder-after-body-found-in-suitcase.html
Melonie’s terrible last days unroll in courtroom as her father’s trial begins
The Crown outlines its case against Everton Biddersingh, whose daughter was found burned in a suitcase in 1991.
By:Rosie DiManno
Columnist, Published on Wed Oct 28 2015
Melonie Biddersingh came to Canada from Jamaica in early 1991 with nothing more than a single suitcase.
Whether this was the same suitcase in which her charred remains were found three years later, behind a Vaughan commercial building, is unknown.
The known details are gruesome: 21 healing fractures discovered on autopsy, when that pitiful corpse was examined by a coroner; weight of 50 pounds, far below the normal body index range for a 5-foot-2 teenager, indicating severe malnourishment; an ante-mortem — before death — head contusion that had resulted from trauma or blunt force injury; fluid in the nostrils and bone marrow, indicative of drowning as either a cause of death or major contributing factor — the liquid from a freshwater source, not tap water, perhaps pooling rain.
All of these details were related in a Toronto courtroom Wednesday, as the prosecution laid out its case against Melonie’s biological father.
To the death roll of Randal Dooley and Jeffrey Baldwin, children starved to death and grotesquely mistreated while alive, right in our midst, add now the name of this 17-year-old who lived and died with nobody taking notice.
All but held prisoner, the court was told, in a one-room apartment she shared with her father, her stepmother, two brothers, two half-brothers and, eventually, an infant half-sister for whom she was responsible. When the baby’s diaper needed changing, Melonie would be summoned with a buzzer.
She was not allowed to attend school, though furthering her education — her ambition to one day become a nurse — was the main reason Melonie had been excited about moving to Canada, leaving behind a mother and four other siblings, living in abject poverty in a slum shack.
The harshness of Melonie’s existence was only summarily outlined by Crown Attorney Anna Tenhouse in her opening address to the jury. The details here are all from that address:
At times, the teen was kept in a closet, “hidden from the outside world.”
She was made to shower on the balcony in summer, was at times locked out there as punishment, and forced to use a bucket to relieve herself.
She was called names like “the devil,” told that she’d brought evil to the family.
Made to sleep on a piece of cardboard on the living room floor, though there was a sofa bed nearby.
Had her head placed in the toilet and the toilet flushed, as punishment.
Was kicked and punched about her body, dragged by the hair and stomped upon.
Was at times chained to furniture.
Deprived of food, she became so weak she could no longer hold her baby sister. Enfeebled to the point that her older brother had to help her bathe after the girl urinated or defecated on herself.
That brother, Cleon, was allegedly forced to sell drugs and warned that, if he ever told anyone about it, or about the abuse in their home, “harm would come to him and his family in Jamaica,” Tenhouse told the jury.
Cleon got out by and by, ran away. Melonie’s other brother, Dwayne — 12 when he arrived in Toronto, a year younger than Melonie — died in an accident 17 months later.
Melonie died, court was told, on Sept. 1, 1994. This is not yet evidence. It is the prosecution’s claim.
But the photograph displayed on a screen in the courtroom — that’s evidence.
Blackened, curled into a pathetic heap of limbs, bits of singed hair still visible on the death scalp.
In the front row, Melonie’s mother, Opal Austin, choked on a sob and wept. Melonie’s sister, Racquel Ellis, was overcome: “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.”
Who could do this terrible thing?
Melonie’s father, Everton Biddersingh, pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. His wife, Elaine Biddersingh — Melonie’s stepmother — has also been charged with first-degree murder but will be tried separately next year.
On Aug. 31, 1994, Det. Steven Seabrook, then a constable with the canine unit of York Regional Police, was patrolling in the Highway 7 area when he noticed a plume of black smoke. He tracked it to a spot behind an industrial area. What he saw, at first, were flames a couple of metres high, emanating from a pile close to a garbage bin. At the base of the fire was a tire, largely melted — source of the black smoke, from the burning rubber.
The heat was so intense Seabrook could come no closer than 4 or 5 metres.
Another officer arrived with a fire extinguisher, but that only put the blaze out temporarily. The flames sprung back.
Next came the firefighters, who were able to douse the pyre with water. And then they all saw, amidst the charred heap, a grisly sight.
“At that point, it was obvious to us there was a body lying on the tire, in the fetal position. No flesh on the legs, the head was very black and charred,’’ Seabrook testified yesterday. “I noticed a metal square shape around the body, looked like the frame of a suitcase.’’
The Suitcase Girl, as she became known in the media, once it was determined that the corpse was female.
No name. And no one came forward with information about a missing teenage girl.
Those with long memories may recall, as the years went by, the occasional press conferences as police continued attempts to identify her. The artist’s depiction of how she may have looked. The forensic sculpture of a female head, which triggered no public recognition either.
They never gave up but they never came close to solving the mystery.
Eighteen years would pass, longer than the length and breadth of Melonie’s sad life.
And then, as Tenhouse told court, the secret was exposed, the plotline that police have never revealed. On Dec. 11, 2011, Elaine Biddersingh confessed to her pastor, court heard, that the girl in the suitcase was her step-daughter. The minister took that information to police, and the Toronto Police cold case unit took carriage of the matter.
Opal Austin, living in Jamaica, was contacted. For nearly 20 years she had wondered what had become of her daughter and sought information. Everton Biddersingh told her Melonie had run away to New York.
DNA from the mother was matched to The Suitcase Girl, confirming her identity. She had a name. She claimed her history.
Outside court, Racquel Ellis told reporters: “It’s like the hole of my belly button dropped out. I couldn’t breathe. I had to come out of the courtroom. It’s like my heart was going to stop beating.’’
Everton and Elaine Biddersingh were arrested on March 5, 2012, in Welland, Ont.
Yesterday, the father never appeared to even once glance at the mother of their dead and desecrated daughter.
Melonie.
Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Child Abuse and Neglect Journal Study: Dads More Likely to Kill Children Than Moms (Canada)
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/10/28/dads-more-likely-to-kill-their-kids-than-moms-and-gap-growing-study-finds_n_8410712.html
Child Abuse And Neglect Journal Study: Dads More Likely To Kill Children Than Moms
CP | By Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press
Posted: 10/28/2015 3:37 pm EDT Updated: 10/28/2015 3:59 pm EDT
TORONTO — Contrary to popular perception, Canadian dads are more likely to kill their children than moms are, according to an extensive new study that also finds the gender gap appears to be growing.
The research published in the journal Child Abuse and Neglect could help in devising strategies to prevent the horrors of filicide, study author Myrna Dawson said Wednesday.
"People who kill their children tend not to be evil, they tend to be people who are struggling with very real life events," Dawson, a University of Guelph sociology professor, said in an interview. "Social supports can help reduce the number of these cases."
Dawson, a Canada research chair in criminal justice and public policy, looked at Statistics Canada data from between 1961, when the agency started its annual homicide survey, and 2011, the most recent year for which the information was available. In that time — one of the longest periods for any study of this kind — parents killed at least 1,612 children under 18.
Overall, 57 per cent of the accused child killers were men, although the ratio jumps to 90 per cent for stepfathers, according to the research.
While the study did not attempt to delve into details of individual homicides, Dawson said the higher incidence of fathers killing children may simply reflect the fact that men, in general, are more violent than women.
"Another explanation may be that an increasing gender gap in filicidal mothers and fathers is the result of changes in parenting or child-care responsibilities," the research states. "It is believed that fathers spend more time with children than in the past, arguably increasing their time at risk."
Dawson said she was surprised by the size of the gender gap.
"Even research has focused more on female accused," Dawson said. "It may be that there is more horror if a mother kills a child than a father, because we don't expect violence as much from women."
Another finding was that killer fathers tend more than mothers to be motivated by revenge or sexual jealousy.
The research also found:
— Female accused tend to be under 18 and likely single or never married;
— Males dominate older age groups and tend to be divorced, separated or widowed;
— Most accused are biological parents;
— When stepchildren are killed, nine of 10 accused are the stepfathers;
— Fathers are more likely than mothers to commit suicide after killing a child.
Dawson said further research is needed on parental-leave policies in terms of stresses on parents and the changing roles of mothers and fathers in child care. Experts also need to pay more attention to family violence involving stepchildren given the increasing numbers of blended families.
"We've learned that domestic homicides are actually probably one of the most preventable types of homicide," Dawson said.
Several child-killings have made the news in recent months: A Winnipeg woman was charged with killing her two-month-old daughter, a Montreal man killed his 10-month-old-son and then himself, a woman threw her six-month-old child from an apartment in New York City.
"There are often risk markers, there are often situational factors; if there was public and professional awareness of the risks to children, there may have been more immediate interventions."
Child Abuse And Neglect Journal Study: Dads More Likely To Kill Children Than Moms
CP | By Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press
Posted: 10/28/2015 3:37 pm EDT Updated: 10/28/2015 3:59 pm EDT
TORONTO — Contrary to popular perception, Canadian dads are more likely to kill their children than moms are, according to an extensive new study that also finds the gender gap appears to be growing.
The research published in the journal Child Abuse and Neglect could help in devising strategies to prevent the horrors of filicide, study author Myrna Dawson said Wednesday.
"People who kill their children tend not to be evil, they tend to be people who are struggling with very real life events," Dawson, a University of Guelph sociology professor, said in an interview. "Social supports can help reduce the number of these cases."
Dawson, a Canada research chair in criminal justice and public policy, looked at Statistics Canada data from between 1961, when the agency started its annual homicide survey, and 2011, the most recent year for which the information was available. In that time — one of the longest periods for any study of this kind — parents killed at least 1,612 children under 18.
Overall, 57 per cent of the accused child killers were men, although the ratio jumps to 90 per cent for stepfathers, according to the research.
While the study did not attempt to delve into details of individual homicides, Dawson said the higher incidence of fathers killing children may simply reflect the fact that men, in general, are more violent than women.
"Another explanation may be that an increasing gender gap in filicidal mothers and fathers is the result of changes in parenting or child-care responsibilities," the research states. "It is believed that fathers spend more time with children than in the past, arguably increasing their time at risk."
Dawson said she was surprised by the size of the gender gap.
"Even research has focused more on female accused," Dawson said. "It may be that there is more horror if a mother kills a child than a father, because we don't expect violence as much from women."
Another finding was that killer fathers tend more than mothers to be motivated by revenge or sexual jealousy.
The research also found:
— Female accused tend to be under 18 and likely single or never married;
— Males dominate older age groups and tend to be divorced, separated or widowed;
— Most accused are biological parents;
— When stepchildren are killed, nine of 10 accused are the stepfathers;
— Fathers are more likely than mothers to commit suicide after killing a child.
Dawson said further research is needed on parental-leave policies in terms of stresses on parents and the changing roles of mothers and fathers in child care. Experts also need to pay more attention to family violence involving stepchildren given the increasing numbers of blended families.
"We've learned that domestic homicides are actually probably one of the most preventable types of homicide," Dawson said.
Several child-killings have made the news in recent months: A Winnipeg woman was charged with killing her two-month-old daughter, a Montreal man killed his 10-month-old-son and then himself, a woman threw her six-month-old child from an apartment in New York City.
"There are often risk markers, there are often situational factors; if there was public and professional awareness of the risks to children, there may have been more immediate interventions."
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Dad in child custody "argument" arrested for threatening mom, damaging her car (Cornwall, Ontario, Canada)
Why violent men should not have child custody/visitation in any form. They just use the opportunity to further abuse/terrorize the mother and/or kids.
UNNAMED DAD
http://www.cornwallseawaynews.com/News/2015-10-09/article-4305210/Father-in-child-custody-argument-faces-four-charges/1
Father in child-custody argument faces four charges
Published on October 09, 2015
CORNWALL, Ontario - Cornwall police arrested a 48-year-old man on Wednesday following a domestic-incident complaint.
Adam Brazeau Cornwall Community Police Service (CCPS) blotter update.
According to the Cornwall Community Police Service, the suspect's estranged common-law wife was visiting his residence on October 7, when an argument erupted over the custody of their children.
The argument, which was taking place outside, escalated to the point that the woman locked herself in her vehicle.
Police say the suspect threatened to break the victim's window and punch her in the head, in addition to punching the hood of her vehicle causing damage and threatening further harm to the woman as she left the area.
CCPS were contacted and an investigation was conducted.
The man was arrested at the scene and transported to police HQ where he was held in custody for a bail hearing in a Cornwall court.
The suspect is facing three counts of domestic threats and one count of domestic mischief. His name is not being released to protect the victim's identity.
UNNAMED DAD
http://www.cornwallseawaynews.com/News/2015-10-09/article-4305210/Father-in-child-custody-argument-faces-four-charges/1
Father in child-custody argument faces four charges
Published on October 09, 2015
CORNWALL, Ontario - Cornwall police arrested a 48-year-old man on Wednesday following a domestic-incident complaint.
Adam Brazeau Cornwall Community Police Service (CCPS) blotter update.
According to the Cornwall Community Police Service, the suspect's estranged common-law wife was visiting his residence on October 7, when an argument erupted over the custody of their children.
The argument, which was taking place outside, escalated to the point that the woman locked herself in her vehicle.
Police say the suspect threatened to break the victim's window and punch her in the head, in addition to punching the hood of her vehicle causing damage and threatening further harm to the woman as she left the area.
CCPS were contacted and an investigation was conducted.
The man was arrested at the scene and transported to police HQ where he was held in custody for a bail hearing in a Cornwall court.
The suspect is facing three counts of domestic threats and one count of domestic mischief. His name is not being released to protect the victim's identity.
Thursday, October 8, 2015
Dad headed to jail after "violent encounter" (Manitoba, Canada)
As Bugs Bunny would say, what a maroon.
Daddy is identified as SHANE BAPTISTE.
http://www.winnipegsun.com/2015/10/07/manitoba-father-headed-to-jail-for-violent-encounter-at-waterpark
Manitoba father headed to jail for violent encounter at waterpark
The Canadian Press
First posted: Wednesday, October 07, 2015 12:01 PM CDT | Updated: Wednesday, October 07, 2015 02:09 PM CDT
A Manitoba father has been sentenced to two years less a day after a family trip to a waterpark ended with a dangerous, high-speed chase down the Trans-Canada Highway with his wife and three children in the van.
Shane Baptiste, 39, pleaded guilty to several charges Tuesday, admitting he threatened a woman and punched an RCMP officer in the face.
He told court he feels bad about it, adding that he feels apologetic every day for what he did.
Baptiste took his family to Splash Island in Portage la Prairie, Man., on July 25 but the fun afternoon turned sour when he got into an argument with another patron and threatened to kill her and her family.
The woman, who works as a probation officer, called police but when an RCMP officer arrived moments later, Baptiste slugged him in the face.
Court was told several children at the waterpark witnessed the violent encounter, including Baptiste's own children.
Baptiste then ordered his family to get into their van and sped away, blowing through several stop signs and school zones at nearly 100 kilometres an hour, increasing that to 180 kilometres an hour once he hit the highway.
"This was probably the fastest his van could go," Crown attorney Joyce Dalmyn told court. "This is one of the most egregious motor vehicle flights from police we've seen. His speeds are ridiculous. Frankly, it's nothing shy of a miracle his three children weren't injured."
Baptiste eventually drove over a spike belt laid down by other RCMP officers and abandoned his van -- and his family -- by taking off on foot.
He turned himself in at a local police detachment days later, after his picture had been released to media outlets.
Baptiste has a lengthy prior criminal record which includes two previous assaults against police officers.
"He didn't think," defence lawyer Greg Brodsky told court. "He feels badly about his inappropriate behaviour. He acknowledges that he was driving in a ridiculous fashion."
Daddy is identified as SHANE BAPTISTE.
http://www.winnipegsun.com/2015/10/07/manitoba-father-headed-to-jail-for-violent-encounter-at-waterpark
Manitoba father headed to jail for violent encounter at waterpark
The Canadian Press
First posted: Wednesday, October 07, 2015 12:01 PM CDT | Updated: Wednesday, October 07, 2015 02:09 PM CDT
A Manitoba father has been sentenced to two years less a day after a family trip to a waterpark ended with a dangerous, high-speed chase down the Trans-Canada Highway with his wife and three children in the van.
Shane Baptiste, 39, pleaded guilty to several charges Tuesday, admitting he threatened a woman and punched an RCMP officer in the face.
He told court he feels bad about it, adding that he feels apologetic every day for what he did.
Baptiste took his family to Splash Island in Portage la Prairie, Man., on July 25 but the fun afternoon turned sour when he got into an argument with another patron and threatened to kill her and her family.
The woman, who works as a probation officer, called police but when an RCMP officer arrived moments later, Baptiste slugged him in the face.
Court was told several children at the waterpark witnessed the violent encounter, including Baptiste's own children.
Baptiste then ordered his family to get into their van and sped away, blowing through several stop signs and school zones at nearly 100 kilometres an hour, increasing that to 180 kilometres an hour once he hit the highway.
"This was probably the fastest his van could go," Crown attorney Joyce Dalmyn told court. "This is one of the most egregious motor vehicle flights from police we've seen. His speeds are ridiculous. Frankly, it's nothing shy of a miracle his three children weren't injured."
Baptiste eventually drove over a spike belt laid down by other RCMP officers and abandoned his van -- and his family -- by taking off on foot.
He turned himself in at a local police detachment days later, after his picture had been released to media outlets.
Baptiste has a lengthy prior criminal record which includes two previous assaults against police officers.
"He didn't think," defence lawyer Greg Brodsky told court. "He feels badly about his inappropriate behaviour. He acknowledges that he was driving in a ridiculous fashion."
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Custodial dad, step "really sorry" about torture-murder of 6-year-old daughter (Calgary, Canada)
True to our Dastardly Dad axiom: A killer's dad's custodial status is neatly "forgotten" by the time he goes to trial. Though you wouldn't know it here, dad SPENCER JORDAN had primary custody of this murdered child. See our previous posts.
See the Killer Dads and Custody list for Canada.
http://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/child-killers-face-no-chance-of-parole-for-21-years-for-torture-slaying
Couple apologizes before getting life for causing death of Meika Jordan, 6
Daryl Slade, Calgary Herald
Published on: September 18, 2015 | Last Updated: September 18, 2015 9:15 PM MDT
An apology by the father and stepmother of Meika Jordan, convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced on Friday to life with no parole for 17 years for the torture death of the six-year-old girl, was far past due, say the girl’s mother and stepfather.
“I thought it was too little, too late, something that should have happened four years ago,” the girl’s mother Kyla Woodhouse said outside court.
“When it comes down to it, it was decent of them to offer that to us. It’s a little bit of closure on our end to see them show some emotion and humanity out of this. But in no way do we accept it. It’s nothing people can apologize for.”
Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Rosemary Nation said in sentencing the girl’s father Spencer Jordan, 28, and stepmother Marie Magoon, 26, that it was difficult to fathom how someone could do such heinous acts to a child.
“Words cannot describe the egregious nature of this crime,” she said. “That a parent and caregiver can abuse a child in such a way is horrendous. Children are our most prized … they are our future.”
Jordan and Magoon earlier told a courtroom packed with family and friends of the girl that they were sorry for the trauma they caused as a result of the fatal injuries they inflicted on Meika over the Nov. 10-13, 2011, weekend.
“I’m sorry, but sorry doesn’t bring her back,” Spencer Jordan, 28, told the girl’s family and friends, his voice cracking. “Sorry doesn’t bring her back, but I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry her brothers and sisters will not see her grow up.
“The victim is not me. (Meika) died in my care, under my roof. It’s my responsibility. I loved Meika, I still do and I miss her every single day. If I could bring her back, I would …”
Magoon, 26, was also emotional in reading her written statement.
“I’m really sorry for all the pain and suffering I caused,” she said. “It bothers me every day that I failed her. I really am sorry. I feel a lot of shame and I deeply regret my actions.
“My actions were painful, cruel and unforgivable. There are no excuses for my irresponsible behaviour. I wish I could take it all back. I have a great deal of remorse. I will do everything in my power to get better. I’m really sorry, Kyla, for taking your baby away. She was a beautiful soul.”
Before reading their statements, the couple listened intently as Kyla and Brian Woodhouse, Kyla’s sister Brittany Pinnell, Meika’s grandfather Kevin Kushner, and step-grandmother Heather Grady read their gut-wrenching victim impact statements.
“How does anyone put into words the loss of a child, my child, my baby girl,” a sobbing Kyla Woodhouse said. “Words cannot express the pain and loss, the sorrow and anguish, the sheer devastation myself and family have experienced these last few years without our Meika.
“I will never again get to see her smile, hear her laugh or watch her play, never get to meet her best friends or boyfriends, teach her how to do makeup or accessorize an outfit,” Woodhouse said.
“These things have been stolen from me in the worst way possible, by someone I once trusted. The feelings that run through me every day, I have to try to forgive and forget but the truth is I will never forget. I will not let her death be in vain.” Brian Woodhouse said Jordan and Magoon forced him to live through a parents’ worst nightmare, to receive the news in the middle of the night from officers at the door telling them of their child’s horrific injuries.
“But what you continued to do was much worse, so heinous and selfish,” he said. “You forced us to stand with you as we said our final goodbye and listened to her heart take its final beat. You forced us to allow you to be part of the decision making in the funeral for the child you murdered, sharing with you our day of grief and having to look into your faces as I stood before all and said our final goodbye that you forced us to have to say.”
Outside court, he told reporters he was pleased with the sentence, in that their kids will be of legal age before the killers can get out of prison and are able to look at anybody again.
“To know everything we went through didn’t fall on deaf ears and the judge heard our pleas, to know our side of things, is satisfying,” Brian Woodhouse said.
Crown prosecutors Susan Pepper and Hyatt Mograbee, who sought a sentence without parole for 21 years, were nevertheless content with the judge’s reasons.
“When a person is convicted, as they were convicted of murdering a child while in a position of trust, that brings up the sentence,” Mograbee said. “The sentence was within the range we proposed.”
Pepper said the case has been a long, arduous ordeal, and it is a relief for everybody.
“We were privileged to work with some many excellent people — police, experts, other citizens,” said Pepper. “But we want to acknowledge how grateful this has been for family — Kyla, Brian, family and friends. They’ve been here every step of the way. We hope they have happier times and bring an end to a horrible chapter in their lives.”
Pepper earlier told the judge that Meika Jordan’s death “involved abuse and suffering of a child at the hands of Jordan and Magoon over a long period of time.
“The court found as fact that Meika Jordan sustained head injuries, abdominal injuries, multiple bruises and abrasions when she was dragged over various surfaces, pulled up the stairs by her hair, she was missing hair, and had a burn on her hand from being held over a lighter.”
She also said the couple’s attempt to cover up the crime and failing to call 911 until it was too late are both aggravating factors that call for a longer prison sentence.
Magoon’s lawyer, Allan Fay, agreed with the Crown that his client deserved to spend more than the minimum required time in prison before becoming eligible for parole. But he said 13 to 15 years was appropriate.
“This case falls into the spectrum of horrendousness,” Fay added. “It’s hard for any of us to fathom how this could come to be. My client appreciates the tremendous trauma the family has suffered because of this incident. She acknowledges the feelings they have on her.”
Jordan’s lawyer Mitch Stephensen said his client, obviously, was “not the best father, but not for lack of trying.” #He sought a parole ineligibility period of 10 to 12 years.
“He wasn’t a cruel dad,” he said. “Mr. Jordan loved his daughter, too. He’s a victim here. You can blame him, but no one blames him more than himself.”
Stephensen noted that the judge, in convicting the parents of second-degree murder, decided they did not have the intent to kill, only that they recklessly caused the child’s injuries.
Jordan and Magoon faced first-degree murder charges at the start of trial, but the judge convicted them of the lesser charge, which draws a parole period of 10 to 25 years.
Had they been convicted of first-degree murder, they would have been handed automatic life terms without parole for 25 years.
See the Killer Dads and Custody list for Canada.
http://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/child-killers-face-no-chance-of-parole-for-21-years-for-torture-slaying
Couple apologizes before getting life for causing death of Meika Jordan, 6
Daryl Slade, Calgary Herald
Published on: September 18, 2015 | Last Updated: September 18, 2015 9:15 PM MDT
An apology by the father and stepmother of Meika Jordan, convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced on Friday to life with no parole for 17 years for the torture death of the six-year-old girl, was far past due, say the girl’s mother and stepfather.
“I thought it was too little, too late, something that should have happened four years ago,” the girl’s mother Kyla Woodhouse said outside court.
“When it comes down to it, it was decent of them to offer that to us. It’s a little bit of closure on our end to see them show some emotion and humanity out of this. But in no way do we accept it. It’s nothing people can apologize for.”
Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Rosemary Nation said in sentencing the girl’s father Spencer Jordan, 28, and stepmother Marie Magoon, 26, that it was difficult to fathom how someone could do such heinous acts to a child.
“Words cannot describe the egregious nature of this crime,” she said. “That a parent and caregiver can abuse a child in such a way is horrendous. Children are our most prized … they are our future.”
Jordan and Magoon earlier told a courtroom packed with family and friends of the girl that they were sorry for the trauma they caused as a result of the fatal injuries they inflicted on Meika over the Nov. 10-13, 2011, weekend.
“I’m sorry, but sorry doesn’t bring her back,” Spencer Jordan, 28, told the girl’s family and friends, his voice cracking. “Sorry doesn’t bring her back, but I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry her brothers and sisters will not see her grow up.
“The victim is not me. (Meika) died in my care, under my roof. It’s my responsibility. I loved Meika, I still do and I miss her every single day. If I could bring her back, I would …”
Magoon, 26, was also emotional in reading her written statement.
“I’m really sorry for all the pain and suffering I caused,” she said. “It bothers me every day that I failed her. I really am sorry. I feel a lot of shame and I deeply regret my actions.
“My actions were painful, cruel and unforgivable. There are no excuses for my irresponsible behaviour. I wish I could take it all back. I have a great deal of remorse. I will do everything in my power to get better. I’m really sorry, Kyla, for taking your baby away. She was a beautiful soul.”
Before reading their statements, the couple listened intently as Kyla and Brian Woodhouse, Kyla’s sister Brittany Pinnell, Meika’s grandfather Kevin Kushner, and step-grandmother Heather Grady read their gut-wrenching victim impact statements.
“How does anyone put into words the loss of a child, my child, my baby girl,” a sobbing Kyla Woodhouse said. “Words cannot express the pain and loss, the sorrow and anguish, the sheer devastation myself and family have experienced these last few years without our Meika.
“I will never again get to see her smile, hear her laugh or watch her play, never get to meet her best friends or boyfriends, teach her how to do makeup or accessorize an outfit,” Woodhouse said.
“These things have been stolen from me in the worst way possible, by someone I once trusted. The feelings that run through me every day, I have to try to forgive and forget but the truth is I will never forget. I will not let her death be in vain.” Brian Woodhouse said Jordan and Magoon forced him to live through a parents’ worst nightmare, to receive the news in the middle of the night from officers at the door telling them of their child’s horrific injuries.
“But what you continued to do was much worse, so heinous and selfish,” he said. “You forced us to stand with you as we said our final goodbye and listened to her heart take its final beat. You forced us to allow you to be part of the decision making in the funeral for the child you murdered, sharing with you our day of grief and having to look into your faces as I stood before all and said our final goodbye that you forced us to have to say.”
Outside court, he told reporters he was pleased with the sentence, in that their kids will be of legal age before the killers can get out of prison and are able to look at anybody again.
“To know everything we went through didn’t fall on deaf ears and the judge heard our pleas, to know our side of things, is satisfying,” Brian Woodhouse said.
Crown prosecutors Susan Pepper and Hyatt Mograbee, who sought a sentence without parole for 21 years, were nevertheless content with the judge’s reasons.
“When a person is convicted, as they were convicted of murdering a child while in a position of trust, that brings up the sentence,” Mograbee said. “The sentence was within the range we proposed.”
Pepper said the case has been a long, arduous ordeal, and it is a relief for everybody.
“We were privileged to work with some many excellent people — police, experts, other citizens,” said Pepper. “But we want to acknowledge how grateful this has been for family — Kyla, Brian, family and friends. They’ve been here every step of the way. We hope they have happier times and bring an end to a horrible chapter in their lives.”
Pepper earlier told the judge that Meika Jordan’s death “involved abuse and suffering of a child at the hands of Jordan and Magoon over a long period of time.
“The court found as fact that Meika Jordan sustained head injuries, abdominal injuries, multiple bruises and abrasions when she was dragged over various surfaces, pulled up the stairs by her hair, she was missing hair, and had a burn on her hand from being held over a lighter.”
She also said the couple’s attempt to cover up the crime and failing to call 911 until it was too late are both aggravating factors that call for a longer prison sentence.
Magoon’s lawyer, Allan Fay, agreed with the Crown that his client deserved to spend more than the minimum required time in prison before becoming eligible for parole. But he said 13 to 15 years was appropriate.
“This case falls into the spectrum of horrendousness,” Fay added. “It’s hard for any of us to fathom how this could come to be. My client appreciates the tremendous trauma the family has suffered because of this incident. She acknowledges the feelings they have on her.”
Jordan’s lawyer Mitch Stephensen said his client, obviously, was “not the best father, but not for lack of trying.” #He sought a parole ineligibility period of 10 to 12 years.
“He wasn’t a cruel dad,” he said. “Mr. Jordan loved his daughter, too. He’s a victim here. You can blame him, but no one blames him more than himself.”
Stephensen noted that the judge, in convicting the parents of second-degree murder, decided they did not have the intent to kill, only that they recklessly caused the child’s injuries.
Jordan and Magoon faced first-degree murder charges at the start of trial, but the judge convicted them of the lesser charge, which draws a parole period of 10 to 25 years.
Had they been convicted of first-degree murder, they would have been handed automatic life terms without parole for 25 years.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Custodial dad, step on trial for torture of 11-year-old son (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada)
UNNAMED DAD. No word as to what happened to this boy's mother.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-mountie-wife-continue-trial-on-severe-child-abuse-1.3226475
Ottawa Mountie, wife continue trial on severe child abuse
WARNING: Story contains graphic and disturbing details
CBC News Posted: Sep 13, 2015 4:47 PM ET
Last Updated: Sep 14, 2015 7:26 PM ET
An Ottawa Mountie and his wife were arrested in 2013 in what police called the "worst case of abuse police have seen."
An Ottawa woman told police "I haven't done anything" after she and her RCMP officer husband were accused of severe long-term abuse of the man's 11-year-old son, including chaining him up in the basement of their home, court heard Monday.
The woman, 36, and man, 44, are on trial for what Ottawa police called the "worst case of abuse police have seen" when they were arrested in February 2013. They cannot be named to protect the boy's identity.
Each is on trial for aggravated assault, forcible confinement and failing to provide the necessaries of life.
The woman is also charged with assaulting the child with a weapon, while the man is charged with sexual assault causing bodily harm and assault with a weapon.
On Monday, court saw the woman's police interview via video, which was taken after her arrest. She told police her 11-year-old stepson was "out of control" and that she feared for the safety of her toddler and four-month-old baby.
She said she never hit the boy nor was she aware of his many injuries, including burn marks near his genitals, scabs and scars on his body and that he was gaunt and malnourished.
At one point, Ottawa Police Sgt. Tracy Butler told her in a raised voice the boy was "maltreated and abused by your husband."
She added, "you knew about it, you condoned it and you let it happen."
The woman, who was at times emotional during the interview, said, "I haven't done anything. I swear to God."
Father admitted to confining son During the interview, which lasted more than two hours, the woman told police her stepson was stealing and getting into fights.
She said he was sent to private school after being kicked out of school, but the boy began being home schooled in 2012.
She said the boy was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and oppositional defiant disorder and prescribed anti-psychotic medication.
She also said she worried he had sexual feelings for her after he asked her to breastfeed him.
"(He) didn't attach to me. I love him but it was difficult to reach out to him when he's mocking me all the time," she said.
She also said he told his father he would "initiate sexual things with other boys" at school and camp.
Last week, the court heard the man admit he used a chain and plastic ties to confine his son in the family's Kanata basement in his police interview video.
In 2013, the RCMP said the father has been on leave since May 2011, but the reason for that remains under a court-ordered publication ban.
Police sources previously told CBC News the man was a member of the force's counter-terrorism unit.
The trial continues.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-mountie-wife-continue-trial-on-severe-child-abuse-1.3226475
Ottawa Mountie, wife continue trial on severe child abuse
WARNING: Story contains graphic and disturbing details
CBC News Posted: Sep 13, 2015 4:47 PM ET
Last Updated: Sep 14, 2015 7:26 PM ET
An Ottawa Mountie and his wife were arrested in 2013 in what police called the "worst case of abuse police have seen."
An Ottawa woman told police "I haven't done anything" after she and her RCMP officer husband were accused of severe long-term abuse of the man's 11-year-old son, including chaining him up in the basement of their home, court heard Monday.
The woman, 36, and man, 44, are on trial for what Ottawa police called the "worst case of abuse police have seen" when they were arrested in February 2013. They cannot be named to protect the boy's identity.
Each is on trial for aggravated assault, forcible confinement and failing to provide the necessaries of life.
The woman is also charged with assaulting the child with a weapon, while the man is charged with sexual assault causing bodily harm and assault with a weapon.
On Monday, court saw the woman's police interview via video, which was taken after her arrest. She told police her 11-year-old stepson was "out of control" and that she feared for the safety of her toddler and four-month-old baby.
She said she never hit the boy nor was she aware of his many injuries, including burn marks near his genitals, scabs and scars on his body and that he was gaunt and malnourished.
At one point, Ottawa Police Sgt. Tracy Butler told her in a raised voice the boy was "maltreated and abused by your husband."
She added, "you knew about it, you condoned it and you let it happen."
The woman, who was at times emotional during the interview, said, "I haven't done anything. I swear to God."
Father admitted to confining son During the interview, which lasted more than two hours, the woman told police her stepson was stealing and getting into fights.
She said he was sent to private school after being kicked out of school, but the boy began being home schooled in 2012.
She said the boy was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and oppositional defiant disorder and prescribed anti-psychotic medication.
She also said she worried he had sexual feelings for her after he asked her to breastfeed him.
"(He) didn't attach to me. I love him but it was difficult to reach out to him when he's mocking me all the time," she said.
She also said he told his father he would "initiate sexual things with other boys" at school and camp.
Last week, the court heard the man admit he used a chain and plastic ties to confine his son in the family's Kanata basement in his police interview video.
In 2013, the RCMP said the father has been on leave since May 2011, but the reason for that remains under a court-ordered publication ban.
Police sources previously told CBC News the man was a member of the force's counter-terrorism unit.
The trial continues.
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Custodial grandfather with criminal record, history of child abuse still being "investigated" in death of 13-month-old boy; dad "furious," but why didn't mom have custody? (Niagara, Ontario, Canada)
We've posted on this case before.
But there is STILL no explanation as to why the UNNAMED GRANDFATHER, a man with a criminal record including a CONVICTION for abusing the baby's father when he was a baby, got custody.
And the mother continues to be basically erased and silenced. Dad is allowed to be "furious" in print, but why the mother was shut out this baby's life is totally unexplained.
Yet another case that screams of fathers rights corruption and deal making.
http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/2015/08/24/father-furious-with-facs-over-sons-death
Father furious with FACS over son’s death
By Bill Sawchuk, St. Catharines Standard
Monday, August 24, 2015 8:26:57 EDT PM
As the police investigation continues into last month’s death of a 13-month-old boy in Thorold, the boy’s father remains furious with FACS Niagara.
He said family and children’s services placed the child in the custody of his grandfather and his spouse.
The grandfather had a previous conviction for abusing a baby.
An affidavit filed by family and children services and obtained by The Standard shows the society was aware of the grandfather’s conviction for assaulting the baby’s father as an infant in 1995.
“As far as I am concerned, I would rather have my eyes poked out with a hot poker than ever see a FACS worker again,” the baby’s 20-year-old father said. “I begged them not to put (the baby) there.”
Niagara EMS and police said they responded to a home in Thorold at 10:30 a.m. July 25 after a 911 call reported a child in medical distress.
The child was transported to St. Catharines hospital and airlifted to McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton that same day.
The grandfather was distraught and refused to enter the hospital, the affidavit said. At one point, he began walking back to Thorold from Hamilton before a family member picked him up, the affidavit said.
The baby was taken off life-support at 5:51 p.m. on July 26. The mother and father were with their son when he died.
“The worst part was when they decided to take him off life support, and I felt his last heartbeat with my own hand,” his father said.
The affidavit said the grandfather, who is in his late 30s, told police the child was knocked over by the family’s Labrador dog. The grandfather heard the child crying on the floor.
The grandfather told police the boy seemed fine but then went “limp and was making gagging noises,” the affidavit said.
The boy’s father isn’t buying the explanation.
“A dog couldn’t cause the kind of injuries (the boy) had,” he said.
The affidavit said the baby had sustained “extensive bleeding to the brain, including multiple layers of bleeding.”
A woman who answered the door at the home in Thorold after the boy’s death said she had no comment.
Further efforts to contact the grandfather and his spouse were unsuccessful.
Efforts to contact the mother by cellphone were unsuccessful.
The Standard isn’t using any names because of a publication ban on identifying children, their parents or family members that are the subject of a child protection proceeding in family court.
Another grandchild was in the care of the grandfather and his spouse. The 19-month-old girl was also placed there by family and children’s services.
In the affidavit, family and children’s services said the grandfather “was open and honest about his criminal history and was willing to complete the necessary documents for the society to complete the assessment.”
On July 27 after the death of the boy, doctors at McMaster said a skeletal exam revealed the girl might have “historical unexplained injuries.”
Further tests were ordered. A FACS worker told the grandfather and his spouse the same day the agency was apprehending the girl because of the suspicions injuries, the affidavit said.
Neither the grandfather nor his spouse asked where, or what, the injuries were, the affidavit said. Family and children’s services placed the girl with yet another family member.
Chris Steven, executive director of FACS Niagara, said after additional testing, the doctors determined the girl didn’t have any injuries.
“Some things were seen on the initial examinations,” Steven said. “But what they saw was subsequently determined to be normal variations in a child’s bone development and not injuries.”
Const. Dave Mander of the Niagara Regional Police said its investigation into the death of the boy is “open” and ongoing, but wouldn’t provide any details.
“The police haven’t told us too much,” the boy’s father said. “They have told us it is one of their top cases. I know the police are meeting with the coroner’s office and the staff from McMaster sometime in the next two weeks. That’s about all I know about the investigation.”
Steven said his agency is working closely with the police to determine what happened.
“For men and women that dedicate themselves to the care and protection of children, this is the worst it can be,” Steven said. “It’s heartbreaking. It was a tragic loss of a child, and it has had an impact on his family, those who cared for him and the community.
“If I were a member of the public, I would want to know what happened. How is this possible? We understand that, but while events are unfolding, we can’t say much about the investigation.”
Steven said any investigation and apprehension of a child requires the society to gather information, review it and weigh the current circumstances of the family being assessed.
“When we apprehend children, we have to be in court in a matter of days and place creditable information before the court to support any recommendations. It isn’t just our decision.
“It is not a question of taking a child from one vulnerable circumstance and putting them into another one and closing the case. There is a very comprehensive plan of support and supervision.
“If there is a (criminal) record, what impact does that record have under the current circumstances. Is there a continuing risk? Have there been any changes? We have to take into consideration if there are any other children in the home. How are they doing? Are they thriving? All that information is assessed and brought forward as part of a recommendation.
“It can appear (to the public) like this is a very cut-and-dried, simplistic error, but there is no typical case. It is very unpredictable and complicated at times.” Regional Coroner Dr. Jack Stanborough said he couldn’t comment on the specifics of the case or the cause of death.
“The matter is really in the hands of the police,” he said. “We can’t give a cause or manner of death until the police investigation is complete and criminal charges are considered or dealt with.” Stanborough said, in general, if the case is a homicide or criminally suspicious, the police have the lead and the coroner’s office works with the detectives.
“After the post-mortem is done, we often have to wait for the results of further tests,” Stanborough said. “The pathologist will often look at the tissue under the microscope. We will do other toxicology. Sometimes you have a fairly good idea of what happened and more testing is just a matter of being complete. “All of it takes time. Then we take our findings and the results of the police investigation — the evidence from the scene, the examination of the body, the past medical history, the toxicology — and wrap it up into a picture that makes sense.”
But there is STILL no explanation as to why the UNNAMED GRANDFATHER, a man with a criminal record including a CONVICTION for abusing the baby's father when he was a baby, got custody.
And the mother continues to be basically erased and silenced. Dad is allowed to be "furious" in print, but why the mother was shut out this baby's life is totally unexplained.
Yet another case that screams of fathers rights corruption and deal making.
http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/2015/08/24/father-furious-with-facs-over-sons-death
Father furious with FACS over son’s death
By Bill Sawchuk, St. Catharines Standard
Monday, August 24, 2015 8:26:57 EDT PM
As the police investigation continues into last month’s death of a 13-month-old boy in Thorold, the boy’s father remains furious with FACS Niagara.
He said family and children’s services placed the child in the custody of his grandfather and his spouse.
The grandfather had a previous conviction for abusing a baby.
An affidavit filed by family and children services and obtained by The Standard shows the society was aware of the grandfather’s conviction for assaulting the baby’s father as an infant in 1995.
“As far as I am concerned, I would rather have my eyes poked out with a hot poker than ever see a FACS worker again,” the baby’s 20-year-old father said. “I begged them not to put (the baby) there.”
Niagara EMS and police said they responded to a home in Thorold at 10:30 a.m. July 25 after a 911 call reported a child in medical distress.
The child was transported to St. Catharines hospital and airlifted to McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton that same day.
The grandfather was distraught and refused to enter the hospital, the affidavit said. At one point, he began walking back to Thorold from Hamilton before a family member picked him up, the affidavit said.
The baby was taken off life-support at 5:51 p.m. on July 26. The mother and father were with their son when he died.
“The worst part was when they decided to take him off life support, and I felt his last heartbeat with my own hand,” his father said.
The affidavit said the grandfather, who is in his late 30s, told police the child was knocked over by the family’s Labrador dog. The grandfather heard the child crying on the floor.
The grandfather told police the boy seemed fine but then went “limp and was making gagging noises,” the affidavit said.
The boy’s father isn’t buying the explanation.
“A dog couldn’t cause the kind of injuries (the boy) had,” he said.
The affidavit said the baby had sustained “extensive bleeding to the brain, including multiple layers of bleeding.”
A woman who answered the door at the home in Thorold after the boy’s death said she had no comment.
Further efforts to contact the grandfather and his spouse were unsuccessful.
Efforts to contact the mother by cellphone were unsuccessful.
The Standard isn’t using any names because of a publication ban on identifying children, their parents or family members that are the subject of a child protection proceeding in family court.
Another grandchild was in the care of the grandfather and his spouse. The 19-month-old girl was also placed there by family and children’s services.
In the affidavit, family and children’s services said the grandfather “was open and honest about his criminal history and was willing to complete the necessary documents for the society to complete the assessment.”
On July 27 after the death of the boy, doctors at McMaster said a skeletal exam revealed the girl might have “historical unexplained injuries.”
Further tests were ordered. A FACS worker told the grandfather and his spouse the same day the agency was apprehending the girl because of the suspicions injuries, the affidavit said.
Neither the grandfather nor his spouse asked where, or what, the injuries were, the affidavit said. Family and children’s services placed the girl with yet another family member.
Chris Steven, executive director of FACS Niagara, said after additional testing, the doctors determined the girl didn’t have any injuries.
“Some things were seen on the initial examinations,” Steven said. “But what they saw was subsequently determined to be normal variations in a child’s bone development and not injuries.”
Const. Dave Mander of the Niagara Regional Police said its investigation into the death of the boy is “open” and ongoing, but wouldn’t provide any details.
“The police haven’t told us too much,” the boy’s father said. “They have told us it is one of their top cases. I know the police are meeting with the coroner’s office and the staff from McMaster sometime in the next two weeks. That’s about all I know about the investigation.”
Steven said his agency is working closely with the police to determine what happened.
“For men and women that dedicate themselves to the care and protection of children, this is the worst it can be,” Steven said. “It’s heartbreaking. It was a tragic loss of a child, and it has had an impact on his family, those who cared for him and the community.
“If I were a member of the public, I would want to know what happened. How is this possible? We understand that, but while events are unfolding, we can’t say much about the investigation.”
Steven said any investigation and apprehension of a child requires the society to gather information, review it and weigh the current circumstances of the family being assessed.
“When we apprehend children, we have to be in court in a matter of days and place creditable information before the court to support any recommendations. It isn’t just our decision.
“It is not a question of taking a child from one vulnerable circumstance and putting them into another one and closing the case. There is a very comprehensive plan of support and supervision.
“If there is a (criminal) record, what impact does that record have under the current circumstances. Is there a continuing risk? Have there been any changes? We have to take into consideration if there are any other children in the home. How are they doing? Are they thriving? All that information is assessed and brought forward as part of a recommendation.
“It can appear (to the public) like this is a very cut-and-dried, simplistic error, but there is no typical case. It is very unpredictable and complicated at times.” Regional Coroner Dr. Jack Stanborough said he couldn’t comment on the specifics of the case or the cause of death.
“The matter is really in the hands of the police,” he said. “We can’t give a cause or manner of death until the police investigation is complete and criminal charges are considered or dealt with.” Stanborough said, in general, if the case is a homicide or criminally suspicious, the police have the lead and the coroner’s office works with the detectives.
“After the post-mortem is done, we often have to wait for the results of further tests,” Stanborough said. “The pathologist will often look at the tissue under the microscope. We will do other toxicology. Sometimes you have a fairly good idea of what happened and more testing is just a matter of being complete. “All of it takes time. Then we take our findings and the results of the police investigation — the evidence from the scene, the examination of the body, the past medical history, the toxicology — and wrap it up into a picture that makes sense.”
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Dad charged with manslaughter in death of 6-week-old daughter gets bail (Thurso, Ontario, Canada)
Notice the enabling support for an alleged baby killer. Very typical when it comes to fathers.
Dad is identified as DANIEL LEFEBVRE.
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/thurso-father-in-shaken-baby-death-released-on-2000-bail
Thurso father charged in baby's sudden death released on $2,000 bail
Paula McCooey, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: July 22, 2015 | Last Updated: July 22, 2015 1:58 PM EDT
A Thurso father charged with manslaughter in the apparent shaking death of his six-week-old child was released on $2,000 bail Wednesday.
The court also removed the publication ban on the identity of Daniel Lefebvre, 25.
As he entered the prisoner’s box, the accused, sporting a dark bushy beard, nodded to about a dozen family members in the court gallery.
Lefebvre was released under a number of conditions, including undergoing a psychiatric assessment and banning contact with children under the age of six. Also, he cannot live anywhere but his home, and must abstain from alcohol and drugs.
He was also banned from contact with a number of individuals.
The father was originally charged with aggravated assault after the six-week-old baby girl was found unconscious in a Thurso home on July 15. The child died in hospital two days later.
The aggravated assault charge was withdrawn and replaced with the more serious manslaughter charge during a brief court appearance Monday.
Before his release, Lefebvre, who does not have a previous criminal record, was ordered to pay a $500 deposit to the court. If he breaches his conditions, he will be required to pay the remaining $1,500.
His lawyer told reporters his client is relieved he will be able to attend his daughter’s funeral.
“He is relieved given he will be able to (go) to the (baby’s) funeral,” Marc-André Cayen, who described his client’s state as “fragile.”
Outside court the family wiped tears, hugged and held hands. They formed a line in front of the court doors in an attempt to block media from taking photos and filming Lefebvre as he left. Outside he was whisked to the back seat of a white Honda Civic that drove off immediately.
Lefebvre is scheduled to make his next court appearance on Oct. 5.
Dad is identified as DANIEL LEFEBVRE.
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/thurso-father-in-shaken-baby-death-released-on-2000-bail
Thurso father charged in baby's sudden death released on $2,000 bail
Paula McCooey, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: July 22, 2015 | Last Updated: July 22, 2015 1:58 PM EDT
A Thurso father charged with manslaughter in the apparent shaking death of his six-week-old child was released on $2,000 bail Wednesday.
The court also removed the publication ban on the identity of Daniel Lefebvre, 25.
As he entered the prisoner’s box, the accused, sporting a dark bushy beard, nodded to about a dozen family members in the court gallery.
Lefebvre was released under a number of conditions, including undergoing a psychiatric assessment and banning contact with children under the age of six. Also, he cannot live anywhere but his home, and must abstain from alcohol and drugs.
He was also banned from contact with a number of individuals.
The father was originally charged with aggravated assault after the six-week-old baby girl was found unconscious in a Thurso home on July 15. The child died in hospital two days later.
The aggravated assault charge was withdrawn and replaced with the more serious manslaughter charge during a brief court appearance Monday.
Before his release, Lefebvre, who does not have a previous criminal record, was ordered to pay a $500 deposit to the court. If he breaches his conditions, he will be required to pay the remaining $1,500.
His lawyer told reporters his client is relieved he will be able to attend his daughter’s funeral.
“He is relieved given he will be able to (go) to the (baby’s) funeral,” Marc-André Cayen, who described his client’s state as “fragile.”
Outside court the family wiped tears, hugged and held hands. They formed a line in front of the court doors in an attempt to block media from taking photos and filming Lefebvre as he left. Outside he was whisked to the back seat of a white Honda Civic that drove off immediately.
Lefebvre is scheduled to make his next court appearance on Oct. 5.
Monday, August 3, 2015
Abusive dad abuses infant son, then takes custody of son's baby as an adult--and kills him; what happened to the mother? (Niagara, Ontario, Canada)
Somewhat unusual case in that involves protective father unable to stop his own abusive father from assuming custody of his infant son. The grandfather then killed the child.
But check this out: ZERO mention of this baby's mother. It's as if she had never existed. Mothers are erased so routinely anymore that reporters don't even seem to notice the obvious omission.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/07/31/dad-begged-son-not-be-placed-with-abusive-grandfather.html
Dad of Niagara baby who died begged that boy not be placed with grandfather
Young father of dead baby warned children's aid not to place his boy with grandfather convicted of child abuse.
By: Laurie Monsebraaten Social justice reporter, Published on Fri Jul 31 2015
The father whose 13-month-old baby died last weekend while in the care of a convicted child abuser, said he pleaded with children’s aid not to place his son with his grandfather.
“On the morning of the apprehension… I said flat-out: ‘If you place him with my dad, you’re most likely going to kill my son’,” the 20-year-old father said about the day his baby was taken away. “I know that man, and he was violent with me my entire life.”
As reported in the Star Thursday, a court document shows the Niagara children’s aid society knew the grandfather had physically abused his own infant son in 1995. (The grandfather was just a teenager at the time and is now in his mid-30s, according to an affidavit filed Wednesday by Niagara children’s aid in the Ontario Court of Justice.)
In May, Niagara children’s aid placed the baby in the care of the grandfather and his wife.
The baby was rushed to hospital with head injuries last Saturday and died Sunday. Niagara Regional Police and the coroner are investigating.
The affidavit concerns a second grandchild, a 19-month-old girl with “unexplained historical injuries” previously in the grandfather’s care.
The Star is not publishing any names to protect the living child.
The bereaved young father told the Star his own injuries at the hands of his father 20 years ago, when he was an infant, put him in hospital for three weeks.
“It was extremely touch and go. For the first week, the doctors didn’t know if I was going to live because I had severe head trauma as well,” he said.
Although he never lived with his father again for any significant time, he lived with his paternal grandfather and his wife for about eight years and continued to see his father.
“I got hit with a belt, a shovel,” he said. “I thought it was just discipline.”
Efforts to reach the grandfather Thursday were unsuccessful.
According to the affidavit, the grandfather told police that the baby boy who died Sunday was knocked over by the family’s 2-year-old Labrador, dog and hit his head on the hardwood floor.
The grandfather said the baby seemed fine and then went “limp and was making gagging noises.”
In the document, children’s aid explains that the second grandchild was placed in the grandfather’s care in March 2014, shortly after she was born, because he “was open and honest about his criminal history and was willing to complete the necessary documents in order for the society to complete the assessment.”
The baby’s death raises fresh questions in light of the Jeffrey Baldwin case.
The 5-year-old boy died of starvation in 2002 while in the care of his maternal grandparents who were later found to have been convicted of abusing their own children.
At the time of Jeffrey’s death, children’s aid workers had not been required to do background checks when they placed children with other family members. Since 2006, all potential caregivers, including extended family members and kin, are required to undergo extensive background checks for any previous criminal or child protection concerns.
But as the Niagara case shows, children’s aid workers continue to place children in the care of people with child abuse convictions, said NDP Children’s critic Monique Taylor.
“The fact that this child was placed in the custody of a known offender raises serious questions about oversight,” she said Thursday. “We urge the government to fully examine how such a terrible tragedy was allowed to occur and to take steps to prevent an incident like this from ever happening again in Ontario.”
Chris Steven, executive director of Family and Children’s Services Niagara, which includes children’s aid in the area, was not able to comment on the case due to legal and privacy concerns.
However, he said such placements are “not our general practice” and are “unusual.”
The Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies, which represents the province’s 46 societies, said circumstances have changed since the Baldwin case.
Although background checks are now required for all placements, there is also a new emphasis on keeping families together.
“There is a desire to maintain family bonds whenever possible,” said the association spokesperson Caroline Newton. “That may have been a factor in trying to weigh risk and the best interest of the child,” added Newton, who said she did not know the details of the Niagara case.
Ontario Children’s Minister Tracy MacCharles expressed shock and sadness about the boy’s death.
“My heart goes out to the family and those touched by these devastating events,” she said in a statement. “Whenever a child dies, we have a responsibility to learn from what happened and take all necessary steps to prevent similar tragedies in the future.”
But check this out: ZERO mention of this baby's mother. It's as if she had never existed. Mothers are erased so routinely anymore that reporters don't even seem to notice the obvious omission.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/07/31/dad-begged-son-not-be-placed-with-abusive-grandfather.html
Dad of Niagara baby who died begged that boy not be placed with grandfather
Young father of dead baby warned children's aid not to place his boy with grandfather convicted of child abuse.
By: Laurie Monsebraaten Social justice reporter, Published on Fri Jul 31 2015
The father whose 13-month-old baby died last weekend while in the care of a convicted child abuser, said he pleaded with children’s aid not to place his son with his grandfather.
“On the morning of the apprehension… I said flat-out: ‘If you place him with my dad, you’re most likely going to kill my son’,” the 20-year-old father said about the day his baby was taken away. “I know that man, and he was violent with me my entire life.”
As reported in the Star Thursday, a court document shows the Niagara children’s aid society knew the grandfather had physically abused his own infant son in 1995. (The grandfather was just a teenager at the time and is now in his mid-30s, according to an affidavit filed Wednesday by Niagara children’s aid in the Ontario Court of Justice.)
In May, Niagara children’s aid placed the baby in the care of the grandfather and his wife.
The baby was rushed to hospital with head injuries last Saturday and died Sunday. Niagara Regional Police and the coroner are investigating.
The affidavit concerns a second grandchild, a 19-month-old girl with “unexplained historical injuries” previously in the grandfather’s care.
The Star is not publishing any names to protect the living child.
The bereaved young father told the Star his own injuries at the hands of his father 20 years ago, when he was an infant, put him in hospital for three weeks.
“It was extremely touch and go. For the first week, the doctors didn’t know if I was going to live because I had severe head trauma as well,” he said.
Although he never lived with his father again for any significant time, he lived with his paternal grandfather and his wife for about eight years and continued to see his father.
“I got hit with a belt, a shovel,” he said. “I thought it was just discipline.”
Efforts to reach the grandfather Thursday were unsuccessful.
According to the affidavit, the grandfather told police that the baby boy who died Sunday was knocked over by the family’s 2-year-old Labrador, dog and hit his head on the hardwood floor.
The grandfather said the baby seemed fine and then went “limp and was making gagging noises.”
In the document, children’s aid explains that the second grandchild was placed in the grandfather’s care in March 2014, shortly after she was born, because he “was open and honest about his criminal history and was willing to complete the necessary documents in order for the society to complete the assessment.”
The baby’s death raises fresh questions in light of the Jeffrey Baldwin case.
The 5-year-old boy died of starvation in 2002 while in the care of his maternal grandparents who were later found to have been convicted of abusing their own children.
At the time of Jeffrey’s death, children’s aid workers had not been required to do background checks when they placed children with other family members. Since 2006, all potential caregivers, including extended family members and kin, are required to undergo extensive background checks for any previous criminal or child protection concerns.
But as the Niagara case shows, children’s aid workers continue to place children in the care of people with child abuse convictions, said NDP Children’s critic Monique Taylor.
“The fact that this child was placed in the custody of a known offender raises serious questions about oversight,” she said Thursday. “We urge the government to fully examine how such a terrible tragedy was allowed to occur and to take steps to prevent an incident like this from ever happening again in Ontario.”
Chris Steven, executive director of Family and Children’s Services Niagara, which includes children’s aid in the area, was not able to comment on the case due to legal and privacy concerns.
However, he said such placements are “not our general practice” and are “unusual.”
The Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies, which represents the province’s 46 societies, said circumstances have changed since the Baldwin case.
Although background checks are now required for all placements, there is also a new emphasis on keeping families together.
“There is a desire to maintain family bonds whenever possible,” said the association spokesperson Caroline Newton. “That may have been a factor in trying to weigh risk and the best interest of the child,” added Newton, who said she did not know the details of the Niagara case.
Ontario Children’s Minister Tracy MacCharles expressed shock and sadness about the boy’s death.
“My heart goes out to the family and those touched by these devastating events,” she said in a statement. “Whenever a child dies, we have a responsibility to learn from what happened and take all necessary steps to prevent similar tragedies in the future.”
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Social workers violate court order, so dad molested kids during unsupervised visitation (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada)
Very typical of so-called child protection agencies that are too often controlled by and/or heavily influenced by fathers rights and pro-pedophile types. This is right by the playbook. Label the protective mother as mentally ill and give Daddy a free pass to rape the kids with no interference.
http://www.timescolonist.com/watchdog-has-no-confidence-in-b-c-ministry-s-review-of-child-sex-abuse-case-1.2003010
Watchdog has 'no confidence' in B.C. ministry's review of child sex abuse case
The Canadian Press July 16, 2015 11:09 AM
VICTORIA - British Columbia's children's minister has promised a review after social workers violated a court order and allowed a father who had molested his kids unsupervised visits.
Stephanie Cadieux said Thursday her ministry will examine all the policy, practice and human resource concerns raised by a scathing B.C. Supreme Court ruling.
"This family, and the rest of British Columbia, deserve to know the child welfare system is responsive and accountable for the decisions it makes," Cadieux told the legislature as the Opposition New Democrats demanded she apologize.
The province's children and youth representative, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, said she has "no confidence" in the ministry's ability to investigate itself.
"This is a child welfare ministry that for some time has felt that it doesn't have to answer to independent oversight or to a court," she said in an interview. "They're not capable of holding each other to account. They do not have the structures to do that."
Turpel-Lafond, who heads the independent body that oversees the child welfare system, said she wants to participate in the review or see a third party hired to do it.
The ministry said it was working with the Public Service Agency to determine what kind of staff conduct review would work best, and details would be announced later.
Justice Paul Walker said in a written decision released Tuesday that the ministry showed "reckless disregard" when it falsely accused a mother of being mentally ill and removed four children from her care in 2009.
Social workers failed to investigate the kids' claims that their father had sexually abused them and knowingly violated a court order banning unsupervised visits, the ruling said.
Turpel-Lafond said the ministry needs to take immediate action against the workers named in the judgment and examine all other child welfare cases on which they worked.
She said the ministry's decision to eliminate the provincial director of child welfare between 2007 and 2011 created a system akin to the "Wild West" and that even now the director has no power over regional bosses.
Social workers employed by the government are not required to register in the B.C. College of Social Workers, meaning they are not regulated by a professional body, Turpel-Lafond said.
Children's Ministry spokesman Sheldon Johnson said all child protection workers must take specialized university courses and get on-the-job training including interviewing kids who may have been sexually abused. He said workers must have the skills required by the college although they don't need to register.
Johnson said the ministry cannot comment on the individuals named in the judgment due to privacy legislation.
The mother's lawyer, Jack Hittrich, has said that a team leader involved in her case, William Strickland, is still employed by the ministry.
In the legislature, NDP Leader John Horgan questioned how many other court orders the ministry had ignored.
"How many other children are being put at risk because the government believes it's above the law?" he said.
Walker concluded in 2012 that the father physically and sexually abused the couple's three eldest children and gave the mother sole guardianship.
In his decision released Tuesday, Walker determined that the father had also molested his youngest child while the couple's kids were in ministry care.
The ministry has not said yet whether it plans to appeal the ruling.
http://www.timescolonist.com/watchdog-has-no-confidence-in-b-c-ministry-s-review-of-child-sex-abuse-case-1.2003010
Watchdog has 'no confidence' in B.C. ministry's review of child sex abuse case
The Canadian Press July 16, 2015 11:09 AM
VICTORIA - British Columbia's children's minister has promised a review after social workers violated a court order and allowed a father who had molested his kids unsupervised visits.
Stephanie Cadieux said Thursday her ministry will examine all the policy, practice and human resource concerns raised by a scathing B.C. Supreme Court ruling.
"This family, and the rest of British Columbia, deserve to know the child welfare system is responsive and accountable for the decisions it makes," Cadieux told the legislature as the Opposition New Democrats demanded she apologize.
The province's children and youth representative, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, said she has "no confidence" in the ministry's ability to investigate itself.
"This is a child welfare ministry that for some time has felt that it doesn't have to answer to independent oversight or to a court," she said in an interview. "They're not capable of holding each other to account. They do not have the structures to do that."
Turpel-Lafond, who heads the independent body that oversees the child welfare system, said she wants to participate in the review or see a third party hired to do it.
The ministry said it was working with the Public Service Agency to determine what kind of staff conduct review would work best, and details would be announced later.
Justice Paul Walker said in a written decision released Tuesday that the ministry showed "reckless disregard" when it falsely accused a mother of being mentally ill and removed four children from her care in 2009.
Social workers failed to investigate the kids' claims that their father had sexually abused them and knowingly violated a court order banning unsupervised visits, the ruling said.
Turpel-Lafond said the ministry needs to take immediate action against the workers named in the judgment and examine all other child welfare cases on which they worked.
She said the ministry's decision to eliminate the provincial director of child welfare between 2007 and 2011 created a system akin to the "Wild West" and that even now the director has no power over regional bosses.
Social workers employed by the government are not required to register in the B.C. College of Social Workers, meaning they are not regulated by a professional body, Turpel-Lafond said.
Children's Ministry spokesman Sheldon Johnson said all child protection workers must take specialized university courses and get on-the-job training including interviewing kids who may have been sexually abused. He said workers must have the skills required by the college although they don't need to register.
Johnson said the ministry cannot comment on the individuals named in the judgment due to privacy legislation.
The mother's lawyer, Jack Hittrich, has said that a team leader involved in her case, William Strickland, is still employed by the ministry.
In the legislature, NDP Leader John Horgan questioned how many other court orders the ministry had ignored.
"How many other children are being put at risk because the government believes it's above the law?" he said.
Walker concluded in 2012 that the father physically and sexually abused the couple's three eldest children and gave the mother sole guardianship.
In his decision released Tuesday, Walker determined that the father had also molested his youngest child while the couple's kids were in ministry care.
The ministry has not said yet whether it plans to appeal the ruling.
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