by Tonya Craft
It was just about the worst Mother’s Day I could imagine. Or so I thought.
Finally, in mid-May, I found a qualified child psychologist and forensic interviewer to speak with Ashley. It would cost me an arm and a leg to hire that woman, which David complained to me about during one of our phone calls. But I wasn’t going to mess around with this. It had to be done right. I made the earliest appointment I could, which was for June 12. It seemed like a long time to wait, but like I said, I was preparing myself for the worst, and making sure that interview was impeccably done meant a lot to me. I wasn’t about to accuse somebody of something if they hadn’t actually done anything wrong, but I was determined to protect Ashley with everything in me.
David and I saw each other a few times and talked on the phone now and then over the course of that May. But he didn’t move back in. He didn’t make any promises that he would, either. I don’t think I had ever felt more alone in my life.
On the third Saturday in May, with just a week to go before the kids and I planned to tackle our first-day-of-summer celebration at the community pool, I sat in my house and wallowed in my own misery. Not just about David, but about everything. I felt lost. My whole life was a mess. And while I prayed to God to give me the strength to get through it and to bring my family back together again, I remember laughing to myself, too.
“Well,” I said right out loud. “At least it can’t get any worse!”
Chapter 16
After everything in my life unraveled so explosively on May 30, 2008, every thought, every action, every word, every moment that unfolded in the following days felt heightened. I wrestled with every decision I made. I worried, constantly, that with one mistake I could find myself in an even more horrific situation—if that was even possible.
I knew I needed help. So even though the interviews with my kids were being delayed, I kept my appointment to see the Tennessee attorney, Diana’s friend Clancy Covert, on Monday. Once again, I had to sit there in front of a stranger and explain what had happened to me that weekend from start to finish. Only this time, as I sat there telling this attorney about the allegations that had been made against me, I also discussed the concerns I had regarding Ashley. I had waited too long to truly do something about the situation, and with everything that was going on, I simply couldn’t wait any longer.
I brought Clancy up to date about the steps I had taken to deal with it, including setting up an interview with a professional child interviewer so I could get some totally unbiased information before I went ahead and made a stink about anything. That interview was scheduled to occur on June 12—ten days from that very Monday as I sat there explaining it.
With criminal allegations pending against me in Georgia, Clancy explained that Joal could file an emergency custody request with the court to keep the kids away from me. It killed me that I wasn’t with my kids on Monday: I couldn’t imagine not seeing them for one more day, let alone the weeks or months that a custody dispute might take in civil court. Here I had been quietly harboring questions about what Ashley said about her stepmother, and the “system” was treating their father’s house as a place of safety and refuge while I stood falsely accused of something I didn’t do! It made absolutely no sense to me, and I kept kicking myself for signing that safety plan. I never should have agreed to it. I certainly wouldn’t agree to something like that again.
I wanted my kids back. I wanted them in my care. I wanted an investigation to move forward into the goings-on at Joal’s house. And all of that needed to happen immediately. My one-step-at-a-time approach didn’t apply anymore.
Clancy made calls with me right there in his office to make sure he handled my case correctly, and he promised to do all the paperwork that night so my requests could be filed as soon as the courthouse opened in Chattanooga in the morning.
I woke up in the cocoon of a bedroom at the back of Diana’s house on Tuesday with a knot in my stomach so thick and gnarly I swore it was going to cut right through my body and spill my insides all over the floor. I didn’t want to move. I was terrified to get out of bed. I was just as terrified that I was going to fall back to sleep and miss a phone call with news—about anything.
When I finally did get up, I looked in the mirror and couldn’t believe how drawn my face looked. Four days without a single full meal had taken a toll on me. My body was starting to look the way my heart felt.
I thought about something Clancy Covert had mentioned the previous afternoon that made a lot of sense to me. He gave me some advice on what I ought to be doing to prepare myself for whatever was going to happen with these allegations down in Georgia. He said that I ought to be putting a timeline together of everything I could remember about any time I had ever spent with those three girls the detectives said had accused me: Brianna Lamb, Chloe McDonald, and Skyler Walker.
“But Kim—Skyler’s mother—told me that Skyler didn’t accuse me of anything,” I’d told him.
“That’s important, then. Was she around you a lot?”
“Yes.”
“Was she around these other kids?”
“Yes, all the time.”
“Then that’ll show up in the timeline, and that’ll help your case.”
The more I could remember about every time I’d ever been around those girls, he said, and especially any time I’d spent alone with those girls, the better my chances of refuting anything that they might have told the detectives.
“I don’t recall ever being alone alone with any of them,” I’d told him, “unless they walked into the kitchen, or if Ashley went to the bathroom while we were watching TV together in the living room. Like, normal stuff. Chloe McDonald only slept over one time, at a party we threw for the kids. Brianna only slept over at our town house one time that I can recall, too, and there were always other kids there. In fact, the one time Brianna slept over, Tyler’s friend Braden was there—my friend Courtney’s son. And David was around during any kids’ sleepovers that would’ve happened in the last year.”
“Well, that’s a pretty good start. All those witnesses, that corroboration, that could be used to refute any claims they may have made, right?”
I got it. I saw his point. So that Tuesday morning I started going over some of those dates and times with Diana’s help. She took notes and did some digging on her computer to help me remember certain dates. I wasn’t really sure how helpful that exercise would be, or whether I’d even need it since I hadn’t done anything wrong, but at least it gave me something to do while I waited for the phone to ring.
I think the most excruciating and unnerving part of the whole ordeal was that I had no idea what was actually said about me. What have I actually been accused of? And why won’t anybody tell me? It was awful. My imagination ran wild. Whatever they said about me wasn’t true. I knew that much. But all that really meant was that they could have said anything. I hated not knowing. If I knew, at least I could have dealt with it in my own mind. I might have had some inkling of whether these children had been fed some set of malicious lies, or whether they had taken something out of context, or misconstrued something, or whatever. Instead, my mind was left to worry and fret over every little scrap of what little I’d been told.
Of course, I was also terrified about how my own kids were now being dragged into this whole thing. I tried not to obsess over it, but it felt impossible to stop.
Then my phone rang. It was Clancy. He’d done it: He’d filed my complaint at the juvenile court in Chattanooga, demanding an investigation into the living and bathing arrangements at Joal and Sarah’s and demanding that my children be returned to my custody.
“Thank you. Thank you so much, Clancy. When will I hear something back?”
“The court should act on it quickly, so we should know more by this afternoon. Just stay calm, okay? Any word on the interviews?”
“No, nothing yet.”
“I’m going to make a call to DFACS and speak to Brandon Boggess on your behalf, if that’s okay with
you. Since the interviews will directly impact this custody case, I want to make sure everybody’s in the loop and make sure he calls me when the interviews are finished.”
“By all means, yes. Please. Let me know whatever you find out.”
“I will. As soon as I know anything, I’ll call you.”
“Thank you, Clancy, for all your help. You’re a godsend. Thank you.”
I knew both Tyler and Ashley were supposed to be interviewed that morning, but I didn’t know what time. The relief I felt knowing that this attorney was going to stay on top of it was something I could hold on to. Having two attorneys on board, with my local attorney working on it from the Georgia side, was a relief as well. I wasn’t sure how I was going to pay for it all, but my parents had stepped up and said they would help with whatever I needed. I hadn’t spoken to my husband through this entire ordeal. David hadn’t picked up his phone even once, and he never returned any of my messages. I felt like crying every time I thought about him, but I couldn’t. I had too many other things to worry about.
Waiting on news about my children that morning was by far one of the most agonizing waits of my life. I kept looking at the clock. Diana and I prayed together, asking God to see those kids through and to keep them strong under whatever questioning they were forced to endure. We prayed for guidance. Most of all, we prayed for the truth to come out.
A good couple of hours ticked by before my phone rang again. It was Clancy.
“Well, I have what I think is some very good news. I spoke to a couple of people and the interview with Ashley is complete, and she apparently didn’t say anything about you that could be seen as criminal.”
“Oh, thank God. Thank God,” I said. Diana took my hand across the table.
“Does this mean it’s over?” I asked.
“The investigation? No. Not necessarily. You should speak to your Georgia attorney about that. You said he was in touch with the DA’s office, right?”
“He and the DA are apparently buddies. At least, that’s what he led me to believe.”
“Then he should be able to find out more now that the interviews are finished.”
I hung up with Clancy and immediately got on the phone to my Georgia attorney. He said it was news to him that the interviews were complete but promised he’d make some calls and get back to me. While I waited, Clancy called back.
“Sorry to call back so soon, but I’m down at the circuit court and I just received word that your ex-husband filed an emergency motion to keep the kids in his custody pending the outcome of the case against you in Catoosa County.”
“What? Can he still do that?”
“Technically, the court should not have accepted it because we filed your complaint in Juvenile Court a good two hours before he filed his motion in Circuit, so that should override it.”
“What?” I asked. I had no idea what he was talking about. With every passing word, I realized how little I knew about the court system. Outside of my divorce proceedings, I had never had reason to learn.
“It’s technical, but no. He can’t do this. We just may need to get in front of a judge to convince the court to remove his request.”
I was mad. The fact that Joal filed something like that confirmed to me that he did know about the “case” in Catoosa County. How much does Joal know? How long has he known? When did he get involved? My mind started spinning and I worried about how urgently I needed to get my kids out of that house.
“How fast can you make that happen? I want to see my kids, Clancy.”
“It will take a little time.”
“But by ‘a little time’ you mean today, right?”
“Tonya, I’m afraid these things sometimes move slower than we’d like, but I’ll push to get a hearing as soon as possible.”
“Like, today?”
“That is very, very unlikely. I’ll do my best, but realistically, this could take a few days.”
“How the heck can he take the kids away from me when I haven’t been arrested? I haven’t been charged with anything. I haven’t done anything!”
“I know. Let me see if I can get a judge to look at it today, okay? I’ll do my best.”
I tried to calm down. I knew it wasn’t Clancy’s fault.
“Thank you,” I said.
I relayed all of this to Diana and she simply could not believe how messed up the whole system was. How can the court just take your kids away based on nothing? Especially based on the words of a disgruntled ex-husband? And especially now that Ashley had been interviewed and said nothing about me that was criminal or even inappropriate? What in the world was going on?
My Georgia attorney got back to me that afternoon and told me the same thing that Clancy told me: From what he had found out, my daughter hadn’t “revealed” anything that would be described as “criminal” in her interview about me. Tyler’s interview didn’t reveal anything harmful or negative about me either.
“But I’m afraid that’s not going to be the end of it,” he said. “I finally heard back from Tim Deal.”
“The detective?”
“Yes. I worked on a murder case that he investigated not too long ago, and my client pled out. Her plea didn’t include any jail time and Tim wasn’t too happy about that.”
“So what does that have to do with me?”
“Well, Detective Deal vowed to ‘put that girl away for life,’ and he failed. And in the message he left me, he swore to me that ‘this one won’t get away.’ Meaning you. Those were his words. So I just don’t see him giving up on this case.”
“That’s horrible! What is this, some kind of vendetta? How can a detective be biased against me based on some other case and some other crime? That doesn’t make sense! Not to mention, what case is he talking about? I mean, what exactly have I been accused of? Can somebody please tell me that? Please?”
My own attorney couldn’t answer my questions. It seemed that no one could answer my questions. I couldn’t get answers, literally to save my life. I felt like I’d hit a brick wall. I didn’t know how to get through it, or over it, or even under it. I was stuck.
That state of disbelief, disorientation, and absolute limbo was right where I would remain for the next ten days. For ten straight days I made phone calls and visited my attorneys’ offices and showed up in court in Tennessee thinking we were going to have a custody hearing, only to be sent home. I went without kissing my kids good night. I continued to live off the good graces of Diana and her husband, Michael—who ran down to get me more clothes and other necessities from my house in Chickamauga, and who stayed positive and reiterated what I wanted to believe in my heart.
“There’s nothing to worry about, Tonya,” Michael kept saying. “They can’t arrest you when you’ve done nothing wrong. You’re going to be fine. It’s just taking some time to sort through it all, that’s all.”
I went to bed each night with more worry than the last. My anxiety climbed higher with each passing hour. I tried to distract myself by building my timeline, digging through notebooks and calendars and classroom activities and after-school schedules, hoping to piece together everything I could recall about the previous three years of my life, especially the times I had been around those children who had supposedly accused me—or not accused me, in the case of Skyler Walker.
Diana helped me sort through all kinds of photos to categorize them and add them to my timeline—even my wedding photos, which included shots of a smiling Brianna Lamb standing right beside me at the Lambs’ pool.
“How can anyone who knows me think I molested that little girl or any other child?” I wondered aloud.
“They can’t,” Diana said.
I can’t stress enough how dedicated Diana was in helping me get through this and helping me to focus on the tasks at hand so I wouldn’t lose my mind while I waited for resolution.
Finally, after suffering through another weekend without answers, my Georgia attorney called me back with a “proposal” from the detect
ives and the ADA (the “assistant district attorney,” he explained) who was now working my case. They wanted me to come in for a polygraph, he said, just like they’d wanted me to do on that very first day, only this time they would allow him to come along. The long and short of the ADA’s offer was this: If I passed the polygraph, they would conclude the investigation. If I failed it? The investigation would continue.
My attorney expressed some doubts about the whole idea, but I was unwavering in the fact that I had done nothing improper to any child. So I agreed to go ahead and take the polygraph. They set up an appointment for Wednesday, June 11, 2008—the day after my son’s ninth birthday. It was also, coincidentally, one day before Ashley was scheduled to go to the appointment I’d set up before all of this started, so an unbiased forensic psychologist could get to the bottom of what might be going on at Joal’s house.
It was right on Tyler’s birthday that we finally got in front of a Tennessee judge on the custody case, too. Joal didn’t show up. I wasn’t able to look him in the eye or to get any sense of what was going on with him or to understand why he might have filed that motion to take the kids from me. Instead, only his attorney was present. I never missed a court appearance, hearing, or anything that involved my two children. How could he just not show up?
Well, it turned out Clancy was right: Juvenile Court trumped Circuit Court in our case, so the judge tossed out Joal’s “emergency” motion and ordered that my children be returned to my custody as soon as possible. All I could think was, Yes!
I was frantic to see my children and so relieved that something had finally gone in my favor, but I was also aware of just how much trauma those kids had been put through. It was late in the day when that order finally came down. It was Tyler’s birthday, and the last thing I wanted to do was to cause him more pain than what he had already been put through. So with Clancy’s nod, I decided that I would wait until my polygraph was concluded the next morning and this whole ordeal was truly behind me before I would pick up my son and daughter. We relayed that news through Joal’s attorney. It ripped my heart to shreds that I wouldn’t see my son on his birthday and that I wouldn’t see my daughter for even one more minute. Yet I thought it was the right thing to do. For all of us.
