I Speak For This Child: True Stories of a Child Advocate

by Gay Courter

  “You called him?”

  “Yes. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to shut me out.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He promised he would protect and take care of them, and that I would always be welcome in their lives.” There was a long pause. “I don’t want to hurt them, you know that.”

  “I know, but this is hard for you.”

  “It is tearing out my heart.”

  “You feel like you are giving up your children forever,” I said in my most sympathetic voice, although my patience was waning fast.

  “You’re the only one who understands. I’ll sign the papers with you.”

  “We can’t do that, Mr. Colby. I represent the best interests of the girls and your attorney needs to advise you of your rights in the matter.”

  “He’s a fool. He’s filing the papers to withdraw from the case. Can’t you come to the house?”

  “I’m not a notary and you also need two witnesses.”

  “We could meet at the bank.”

  “When?”

  “In twenty minutes?”

  “Okay,” I said, although my hair was dripping wet and I hadn’t had breakfast.

  I hung up, called Nancy, and explained the problem. “I warned you that you can’t be connected with the signing of the terminations,” she said, not cloaking her annoyance.

  “I know, but Mr. Colby said he will only give them to me.”

  “He could later claim he signed them under duress.”

  “We’d be in a public place, with witnesses to what was said.”

  “If there was an appeal, he could contend that you met him earlier and talked him into it or made promises that he could see the children or have some control over them.”

  “Well, he could assert that I did the same thing last night or last week.”

  “I don’t want these consents to terminate parental rights compromised, Gay. You heard what Myra Garland said about them being ‘tainted.’ “

  “The alternative is to force the kids through a termination hearing.” Just then my housekeeper arrived. “How about if I bring a personal witness who could attest to what I do and say at the bank?”

  “All right,” Nancy said with a sigh. “Just be very careful.”

  I asked Martha, my wonderful housekeeper, to come for a ride and explained that she should remember what I said to the man we were going to see at the bank.

  I left the car window open for the six-mile drive, hoping the breeze might blow dry my hair to some extent. Then, in the bank parking lot, I made a hopeless attempt to comb it back, but I could see Mr. Colby waiting impatiently and gave up.

  I shook Mr. Colby’s hand. “This is a friend of mine,” I said introducing Martha. “She is here to witness that I am not talking you into anything.”

  “You want me to do this, don’t you?” he asked plaintively.

  “I want you to do what you think is best,” I said and followed him into the bank.

  I stood in the foyer with Martha. Mr. Colby went to the other side of the velvet ropes and took a seat in a bank officer’s area. She read the forms and then asked Mr. Colby for identification. Next he signed one paper for each of his children agreeing that “it is in the best interests of this child to release the child to the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services to be adopted” and also that “I hereby acknowledge that I have read this form concerning this child, and I clearly understand its meaning and it is correct and true to the best of my knowledge and belief, and I have freely and voluntarily signed this Affidavit and Acknowledgement of Surrender, Consent and Waiver of Notice in order to release this child for adoption.”

  When the papers were signed, witnessed, and notarized, Buddy Colby came around the ropes and handed them to me.

  “You are handing these consents to terminate your parental rights to me. I will bring them to your attorney’s office and he will give them to the judge at the next hearing, is that correct, Mr. Colby?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Colby,” I said softly, then opened the door to the parking lot. On the curb, I asked, “Do you want to call the girls, or shall I?”

  “Will you?” he asked, tears shining in his eyes. “And tell them I love them.”

  Lottie Hunt had come to court with Wanda. Lillian was there with me, but Nancy was not available. Mr. Colby’s attorney had agreed to fulfill this final duty, after Mr. Colby apologized to him on the phone.

  When our case was called, I walked up to sit in the guardian’s seat next to Lillian. But Calvin Reynolds waved me forward to his table on the right side of the courtroom. “This is your day, Gay. Come sit beside me.”

  Calvin had worked out a way to accomplish several legal procedures simultaneously. First he filed the permanent placement plan that had been in suspension putting the children in a pre-adoptive placement, and requesting terminations from the parents. Then he filed the voluntary terminations of parental rights for each of the three children along with waivers of notice of future hearings and proceedings. It was determined further that it was manifestly in the best interests of the children to continue in HRS custody. The proof of this was the list of the children’s placements over the past five years. The termination form mentioned eleven moves for Simone, thirteen for Nicole, and eleven for Julie. The court then retained jurisdiction over the children until the time when they would be adopted.

  “Does anyone else have anything to add?” the judge asked.

  “May I approach the bench, Your Honor?” I asked.

  He was taken aback but nodded. I handed the judge a photograph of the children at the craft fair. “I wanted you to see the children whose lives are being changed at this moment,” I said.

  He smiled broadly. “They are handsome, aren’t they?” He handed the photo to his clerk, who passed it to the court reporter. At the end of the chain was Lottie Hunt. I nodded that she might keep it.

  The judge directed his words at her. “Mrs. Hunt, the court recognizes that this has been a difficult and painful decision for you to make. It has taken courage to relinquish control of your daughters and I want it on the record that your contribution has been one of caring. Thank you for putting the interests of your children first.”

  The courtroom was silent in recognition of what had just happened. Calvin Reynolds stood and shook my hand.

  “Now you can clean out that file drawer, Calvin,” I said, then turned and saw Lottie being helped to her feet by Wanda. I went up to Lottie and hugged her.

  “Thank you for doing this, Mrs. Hunt.”

  “I feel better after what the judge said. It’s like he took a weight off me. Now I can still be their mother, just differently.”

  “Yes, you can.” I said, then hugged her again. “We did it. We did the best for the girls.”

  On that day two boxes of Colby files moved from the county office to the adoption unit. Dolly Lemoine began her adoption home study and the Slaters faced another round of paperwork.

  During the next few weeks, Lottie Hunt had Julie for an overnight on her birthday weekend and took Simone to the dentist twice because Mrs. Slater was working. Lottie attended Nicole’s sports day and Simone’s concert. When Julie’s class had parent’s day, it conflicted with both Jared and Zane’s, so Vic went with Zane, Jeanne with Jared, and Lottie Hunt attended the activities with her daughter.

  Mostly Julie calls her father on the phone, but on a recent school holiday morning, I took two of the sisters to a restaurant breakfast with their father. Simone had to work a shift at her new job. While the girls may have unsupervised visits with him now, they still prefer to have me along.

  Sometime after Christmas the Slaters and their five children expect to move into their new home. Jared and Zane will share the pool side bedroom, Julie and Nicole have the garden side, while Simone gets her own room. When she goes to college, that room will go to Nicole. Now they were trying to coordinate Christmas visits with the Slaters, the Hunts, the Baldwins, and t
heir father.

  “We’ll work it out,” I assured them. “This is the sort of problem I enjoy.”

  6

  Lolita II

  Sandra’s Story

  Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.

  —VLADIMIR NABOKOV

  LILLIAN ELLIOTT, MY CASE COORDINATOR, FOR THE LOCAL Guardian ad Litem program, was on the phone. “I know you already have two cases, but I wanted your advice about something.”

  I waited for the other shoe to drop. “Sandra Shepherd is sixteen,” she said in her molasses-rich voice. “She ran away a few weeks ago and told the people who took her in say that her mother’s boyfriend has been molesting her for several years.”

  “Is he in jail?”

  “No, he’s disappeared and the mother was arrested because she supposedly knew about the abuse and did nothing to protect her daughter.”

  While I was still digesting this, Lillian added, “There is an adjudicatory hearing on the mother’s charges Monday.” Then she asked, “Will you read the file?” She knew that once I did, I would be hooked.

  Sandra’s file began with the computer printout of the report called into the state-wide abuse registry two weeks earlier that listed three maltreatments: sexual battery and sexual molestation by the man, and the mother’s failure to protect from the infliction of injury. The first two were considered abuse charges, the third neglect. The alleged perpetrators were Rudolph S. Grover, whose relationship was “stepfather” and whose whereabouts were unknown; and Florence Shepherd, the mother, with a rural route address.

  Next I studied the narrative report, which stated that this stepfather had begun molesting Sandra when she was seven. Sandra told the investigator that she had informed her mother, but the mother said they had to live with “Uncle Rudy” because she could not support them alone. Two days before the official abuse report, Sandra said she was again sexually abused by Uncle Rudy, and escaped to a friend’s house. By law the Guardian ad Litem has access to everything except the identity of the reporter of the abuse, although it was logical to suspect the friend’s parents had tried to protect Sandra.

  Phoebe Finchley, the protective investigator for the Department of Children and Families (the new name for the state agency), was the first to interview Sandra. She confessed that Mr. Grover had been having sexual intercourse with her for many years, and that the last occurrence had been early the morning she had run away. Mr. Grover had come into her room and started to kiss her and asked if she loved him. Then he forced one of his fingers into her vagina, rolled her onto her back, pulled down her panties, and performed oral sex on her. She said it lasted about thirty minutes, after which time he went back to bed with her mother. The investigator asked Sandra how old she had been when this first happened. She said she had been nine years old. By the time she was twelve, he began having intercourse with her.

  Deputy Moline stated that he interviewed Ms. Shepherd alone in her dining room. After reading her the Miranda warning from the card, she waived her right to an attorney, and said that Sandra made accusations because she was jealous of his relationship with her mother. She admitted that Rudy did tease her daughter and she asked that he stop. A year ago Sandra told her mother that he was always touching her “boobs.” Rudy claimed that she misinterpreted brushing into her in the hallway or hugging her as a greeting and promised he would stay away from her to keep the peace.

  An affidavit was filed for Rudolph S. Grover’s arrest for one count of sexual battery with a bond set of $20,000, but he could not be located. Florence Shepherd’s bail had been increased from $5,000 to $15,000.

  The investigators notes indicated that Sandra was living with Barney and Millie King. I decided to call them to introduce myself.

  “Sandra’s a lovely girl,” Mrs. King said. “ She’s been dating our son, Dirk, for more than a year.” She coughed as though she had a chronic disease. “He’s in the Navy.”

  “How long can she stay with you?” I asked.

  “As long as she likes. This whole situation is disgusting, if you ask me. I mean that man is a criminal, but what mother would put up with that?”

  “I don’t think the Florence believes Sandra.”

  Mrs. King’s response was an angry growl. “Do you know how many time I’ve called that woman and told her point blank what was going down?” I heard water running.

  “Is this a bad time?”

  “No, just putting the spaghetti water on. Now where was I? Oh, and you know what this is all about don’t you?” I waited. “Money. That root of all evil. That guy has veteran’s benefits and rents construction equipment. He owns the house, the cars—even bought one for Sandra when she turned sixteen. That did shut her up for a few months.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “She has something with ROTC this weekend, which should keep her mind off of this. She’s a good student and a really sweet girl. You’ll like her.”

  Monday morning as I walked into the anteroom of Judge Donovan’s chambers a voice boomed behind me. “Which one is the Guardian ad Litem?” Phoebe Finchley pointed to me. “Hello, I’m Judd Prescott, Mrs. Shepherd’s attorney.” He thrust a document in my hand. “Since you were just appointed, I didn’t have a chance to send this to you.” I glanced at the top line that read: “Answer to Petition for Dependency.”

  I knew Mr. Prescott by reputation and was surprised to see him in juvenile court. When couples of means divorced, they raced each other to get “Jug” Prescott to represent them first. The nickname was because of his tendency to go for the jugular and bleed the other party for every last cent.

  “Who are you representing?” I asked.

  “The mother in both criminal and dependency. My client wants her child back home where she belongs.” Before I could speak, he cut me off. “We’ve arranged bail for Mrs. Shepherd and are making plans for her to move out of the home she shared with Mr. Grover. We will guarantee that the child will have no further contact with Rudolph Grover and shall not permit any non-relatives to reside in the home. My client’s sister is coming to help out during this transition. We’ve also scheduled therapy to be provided by the Christian Counseling Service. Of course we have no objection to the child being supervised by the department and routine visits by the Guardian ad Litem.” He folded his arms across his chest satisfied that he had covered all bases.

  “Phoebe Finchley said that Sandra won’t be here today. As yet, I haven’t met her so I don’t know her wishes in the matter.”

  “I’ve been told she will agree.” Jug Prescott smiled as though he had closed a sale for a fully loaded Escalade. He leaned closer to me. “But you’re still wondering what’s going on with the mysterious Uncle Rudy, right?” I waited. “I spoke to him about an hour ago,” he said under his breath. “He’s going to turn himself in. We’re making a deal, but first the charges against my client have to be dropped and she has to get her daughter back. The way I see it, Mrs. Shepherd is a victim too.”

  Before I had a chance to reply to Jug, the bailiff called the case. A prison matron brought Florence Shepherd into the courtroom. She was wearing the usual orange prison garb, but her neck was wrapped in a wide brace and she wore an additional support around her torso. Her wide brown eyes and high bony cheeks gave her an owlish expression. She steadied the rolling armchair before lowering herself gingerly, then winced as she leaned back.

  Calvin Reynolds, the attorney for the state agency, wanted Sandra placed under its protective services supervision and to live in a licensed foster home. Jug Prescott explained that Mrs. Shepherd had found another house to rent and that she would no longer have any contact with Mr. Grover.

  “Her mother has already proven she can’t keep her daughter safe,” Phoebe Finchley said. “This child has been sexually abused on numerous occasions with the mother’s knowledge. She needs a foster placement.”

  Jug Prescott scow
led across the table. “My client does not admit she knew anything this serious was going on.” In a gesture reminiscent of a young, frightened child, Florence Shepherd wiped away her tears with her fist. Jug handed her his handkerchief. “Next Monday Mrs. Shepherd is entering University Hospital for an operation on her neck. After she is released, she will have to be immobile for several weeks and will need Sandra to help during her convalescence.”

  Judge Donovan turned to me. “What’s the guardian’s position?”

  “This is a young woman who put up with abuse to help support the family, which was bad enough, so I don’t appreciate Mr. Prescott laying another guilt trip on her.” I turned to Ms. Finchley. “Why should she go to a stranger’s when she has a close relationship with the people who are supporting her through this?

  “The King home probably won’t pass a home study.”

  The judge raised his eyebrows. “A few DWIs, your honor,” she said. “And their trailer home is very rundown.”

  Judge Donovan spoke to Calvin Reynolds. “Since bail has been arranged, Sandra may return to her mother’s home, but only if she does it voluntarily—and with the department’s oversight.” He turned to me. “Otherwise let’s look for the best alternative that the young lady will accept.”

  Jug Prescott stood up and helped Mrs. Shepherd to her feet. In the hallway, a tall woman with prematurely white hair blocked Mr. Prescott’s path. “I just got here!” she said in a breathless voice. “I’m Constance Blivens.”

  Jug Prescott clasped her hand like a politician on a street corner. “It went just like I said. Mrs. Shepherd will be out in an hour.” He introduced me. “This is your niece’s court-appointed guardian, Mrs. Courter. Mrs. Courter, this is Mrs. Shepherd’s sister from Arizona, Mrs. Blivens.”

  “I don’t understand this,” Mrs. Blivens said. “My sister loves Sandra more than life itself.”

  “This must have come as quite a shock to you,” I said.

  “Flo would never have done anything to harm her child. That’s why I agreed to pay for the best lawyer.”