This scenario is very typical of murders committed by custodial dads. Gaining custody is little more than a control/punishment manoever, executed by a father with a history of abuse. (This mother has said before that this father withheld food as family "punishment.") After this type gets custody--despite all the fathers' rights rhetoric about "shared parenting"--the first order of business is to shut off all contact with the mother. Then the father can start abusing the child with virtual impunity.
http://www.kob.com/article/stories/s2568880.shtml
Boy, 11, starved to death by father, stepmother in Texas
Posted at: 04/04/2012 6:45 PM
By: Jill Galus, KOB Eyewitness News 4
Authorities were on the line to tell her that her son had been starved to death, allegedly by his father and stepmother in Texas.
The details are heartbreaking and difficult for the child's mother, Judy Williams, to talk about.
Williams said she last spoke with her son more than a year ago, but said she always hoped she would have another chance.
"My poor little boy," Williams said, during an interview Wednesday afternoon. "I'd just tell him how proud I am of him, and how much I love him and miss him."
Those are the words Williams said she never got the chance to say to her 11-year-old son, Johnathan Ramsey.
Williams said she last talked with him on the phone more than a year ago, while Johnathan was living with his father and stepmother in Dallas. But after that, she said her ex-husband and his wife cut her off from all contact with her son.
"I just couldn't talk to him," Williams said. "I couldn't see him, couldn't even send him anything... I had no phone numbers, no address, nothing."
Williams said she would check her phone for occasional e-mail updates on how Johnathan was doing, and was assured by her ex-husband that her son was always okay.
Johnathan's grandfather was also forbidden from seeing him for more than a year, but it was not until last week that he finally decided to call police. That is when the horror of what happened to the 11-year-old came to light.
"I'm just numb right now," Williams said.
Police said Aaron and Elizabeth Ramsey confessed to starving Johnathan as a form of punishment, before dumping his body south of Dallas.
Police have yet to find his body.
In a quiet Texas town, investigators said Johnathan suffered a slow, silent death.
The Ramsey's told police they locked him in his room, and fed him only bread, water and milk. He was eventually too weak to walk, and resorted to eating his own feces.
Williams said her only bit of solace will be seeing the Ramsey's pay for what they did.
"I didn't see this coming," Williams said. "Poor kid, didn't have to suffer and die."
Williams said she never had the money to travel to Dallas to physically check on her son.
Police said Aaron Ramsey told them he punished his son for punching his stepmother's stomach while she was pregnant. Ramsey claimed that caused his wife to miscarry.