Justice For Abigail

Abby is our grandchild, a beautiful, healthy, loving little girl who is adored by everyone she meets. She has been in our sole custody since she was just a tiny baby and in September she will celebrate her sixth birthday. We are the only parents she has ever known and we love her with all of our hearts.

Her biological parents are two people who have made some very bad life choices.  Her father is my wife's oldest son from a previous marriage. They are both now adults in their 40's and on their seperate paths, working hard to rebuild their lives. They are doing OK now and don't need our help, but Abby still does.

In February 2012, after drifting from one eviction or cheap motel to another they vanished from Florida, leaving behind a lot of debts including a substantial one to us, and eventually turned up on the doorstep of my wife's youngest son in North Carolina.  Abby's father left shortly afterwards and never returned. That left the younger son in the uncomfortable position of having to accomodate three strangers, Abby, her mother and an older son from a previous relationship, in a small trailer with five children of their own. He works long hours as a trucker so his wife was for the most part left to try to deal with matters alone. They went without themselves so the children could be fed and clothed.

Abby's mother showed no inclination to get a job, contribute, or to help manage seven young and very active children.  Eventually she had worn out her welcome and was told to leave.  She left on "business" and was told she should not  bring that kind of business back under their roof.  She said that she would be back next day to pick up the children.

Predictably she didn't return but at first would call to check on the children and speak to the oldest one.  Soon the calls ceased and the number was disconnected. As a family we now had a big problem to resolve. Two children, one of whom was no blood relative, had been left with strangers and nobody knew for how long.  By May it was clear that they were abandoned so we decided to act.

We hired an attorney to draw up the paperwork needed to take custody of Abby and transport her accross several state lines to our home in Florida. We drove up over the Memorial Day weekend and met with her father who signed the neccessary permissions. We took Abby but we were forced to leave her half brother behind as he wasn't a blood relative. He cried terribly and begged us to take him but we just couldn't.

On our return we set about draining our bank account to buy clothes, toys, nursery furniture and everything else a baby might need. The poor child didn't even have a birth certificate!  The last time she had seen a medical professional was in the delivery room so we found a pediatrician and registered her with the county clinic. She was in the bottom ten percentile for height and weight and had obvious behavioral and emotional issues stemming from her early months.

After paying for full time childcare, medical expenses (nobody had bothered to register her) and all her other needs it was clear that we couldn't make ends meet. We are by no means poor bur neither are we rich. We have always worked hard and lived modestly so we have enough to get by.  I took the opportnity to retire on medical grounds and became a full time, stay at home dad.  Our income was cut in half but by being careful and cutting out any luxuries we could make it, we'd be OK.

Because of Abby's circumstances we were finding it very difficult to get her the medical care she urgently needed. At every turn we had to jump through the same hoops even though we were paying cash for her care until Medicaid could be arranged.  We couldn't get her vaccinated because we didn't have the authority to take such decisions on her behalf having only an informal custody arrangement. We were turned away from medical appointments. So we decided we would have to file for guardianship. By this time I'd fallen in love my my special little girl so I didn't need much persuading. I would be proud to raise this beautiful child as if she were my own.

In July Abby's biological mother finally turned up unannounced to collect her children and left with the oldest child without a word of apology or thanks. It's unclear what happened to him in the meantime but we were told that she had turned up in Florida again, alone and was living in her car behind the local grocery store.

And that's when our long nightmare really began....

A few weeks later we were awakened in the middle of the night by two police officers with drawn firearms. One was shining a torch in my eyes through the bedroom window while the other was shouting orders at gunpoint.  They had received a report of a "kidnapped" child being held at our house.  We explained what really had happened and showed them all the documents we had and they looked a little embarrassed. They apologized, told us that they would make sure this didn't happen to us again and left.  As we were never bothered by the local Police Department again I'm guessing the gave instructions to their dispatchers. Unfortunately for us they didn't share the information with the Sheriff's Department.

We began to notice signs of prowling around the property and  a most unwelcome visitor banging on our door and shouting. On the advice of the police we simply ignored her and didn't answer the door.  We received a call from two seperate friends who had overheard a planned home invasion with the help of a particular nasty thug. The intention was to cut the throat of everyone in our house.  It was taken seriously.

Shortly afterwards and again in the late hours we had Law Enforcement at our home once more, this time a Sheriff's Deputy and some unidentified social worker.  Once again we had to explain the truth and who was behind all the fake accusations. This time around we had the added indignity of having to wake Abby from her bed, take off her pajamas and diaper and stand her naked on the doorstep.

This was our life now.

Mercifully for us she was eventually detained indefinitely under the Baker Act and our lives began to return to normal.

I had a small retirement sum sitting in a mutual fund so we used that to hire an attorney to arrange permanent guardianship of our little angel.  This would leave us flat broke with only a few years left to retirement but we thought it was a worthwhile cost to keep Abby safe and her mother out of our lives permanently. What we ended up with was merely court ordered temporary custody and the lawyer had even agreed to allow weekly visitation! I wasn't allowed in the court room and had to sit outside, my wife couldn't understand the legalese, so by the time we realised how badly things had been messed up the judge was back in his chambers and the whole thing was over. To add insult to injury, the attorney billed us twice the sum she had initially told us to expect leaving us thousands of dollars in debt.

Over the next five years things slowly turned around for us.  The harrassment ceased, the weekly visits never took place except very rarely and we gradually paid off the debts we had run up.  We were happily living as a family, Abby finally had a Mommy and Daddy who loved her, cared for her and kept her safe. I spent many nights sitting beside her bed holding her tiny hand and soothing her brow as she wrestled with those early demons.

Slowly she got better, gaining height and weight and with the help of a dedicated team of doctors and therapists she managed to gain control of her anger and emotional problems. A large part of her recovery was due to a stable, loving home and a very firm schedule. If she knows what's expected of her and when, she is fine, but the slightest change to her daily routine upsets and frightens her.  It's a burden she will carry for the rest of her life but after many years of patience and a whole lotta love she is largely symptom free. She has been transformed from a malnourished, traumatised baby into a content and healthy young girl.

Sadly it all went terribly wrong.......

In late 2016 we received a notice from the State of Florida informing us that they had tracked down the mother and were pursuing a case against her for child support obligations. We neither wanted or asked for the money, we were however required to attend the hearing. We did and the case was proven in the absence of the defendant. And that we thought was the end of the matter. We certainly didn't expect any actual payments considering the source and had no intentions of pursuing her for them. 

In December we received a phone call from an attorney representing the biological mother asking us if we would adopt Abigail if she would pay the costs. It's something we had inteneded to do once she was old enough to understand and consent so of course we were interested. However the devil was in the small print which would transfer the arrears owed to the state to us.  We let the clock run out on the offer.

In February 2017 we received another notice that there would be a rehearing of the child support case.  This was later rescheduled for March.  We then received another hearing notice - the mother was demanding the return of a child she abandoned over five years ago, had made no effort to maintain a relationship with and to whose care she hadn't contributed to with five years of Child Support arrears.

We couldn't afford an attorney this time but we weren't too worried. Surely it would be apparent that this was all about getting out of Child Support and not a sincere wish to become a mother.  What kind of person would tear a vulnerable child from the only family she had ever known and hand her over to an unstable stranger who had  abandoned her once already?  We were confident that the judge would just laugh it out of court.

The hearing took place on March 27th.  I spent three weeks preparing Abby's case, getting together the medical evidence which was consistent - a major upheaval like this for a child with Abby's challenges and her need for stability would be nothing short of a disaster for her. Her therapist turned up and told the court the same thing. Unfortunately we were outmanouvered by a slick talking attorney. It's odd isn't it that a person who can't pay child support can afford a string of very expensive attorneys? Despite everything, we lost. Nobody has ever been able to explain to me how, except to say that Florida is a state which leans very heavily towards the mother, even a deadbeat one.   Much of our case was never allowed the opportunity to be presented.

We had another chance though. A case conference was ordered for Monday 8th of May. We still couldn't afford an attorney but this time we knew what tricks to expect and we would be better prepared.  I had statements from Abby's medical team warning of the consequences of the course being pursued. We had been forced to tell Abby about her parentage at an age she wasn't equipped to deal with it and that the court were planning to take her away. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do and it just crushed her.  We had kept a journal of how her condition went downhill at a 45 degree angle. All the progress we had worked so hard to acheive was being undone before our eyes. On Thursday 27th April Abigail ran away from home, crossing a busy main road. I found her in our local hardware store. She told me she was going to hide so nobody could take her away and come home again once they had gone.  She's right back where we started, deeply distressed and crying herself to sleep at night.

The really saddest part though is she has stopped singing. She sings in the bath, when she's writing or drawing..... sometimes it's classic rock songs she's learned from the radio but mostly it's songs she makes up about her puppy, her family or her home, "Abby House" she calls it.  She has a beautiful voice, clear as a bell. I asked her about it and she told me "I just don't want to sing any more Daddy".

Her father wrote to the court begging them to leave Abby with us, he knows where his flesh and blood is safe. His younger brother wrote confirming the details of the abandonment including many we were previously unaware of.  I wrote at some length to the judge about a whole series of misrepresntations or outright falsehoods. (I'd been forced to sit outside again) Many, many people who are familiar with the case took the time to write to the judge expressing their schock at what was being done to Abigail.  The letters were filed without being read by the judge.

We lost again, our entire case was ruled inadmissable, even the medical reports and doctor's statements.  On August 10th we will be forced to hand over Abby.

Unless.....

We need to hire an attorney to present the case in the correct manner. We need to do it quickly and bring him up to speed. We need to hire a PI to fully investigate the mother's lifestyle, drug use, employment status, criminal background, recent evictions and current living arrangements.

There is a final case conference on July 10th.  If we can have skillful representation we might be able to pull this out of the fire even at this late stage.  Failing that we might be able to file an appeal with a more family friendly judge.

Each hearing will cost over $5,000 and there are likely to be several.  The cost of various investigations is likely to be in the thousands.

We will be selling everything we can live without and scraping together as much money as possible but it's not going to be enough. Not even close. We've been bled dry.

We are in our sixties now, we've never asked for anything and we've never been given anything.  Now we are asking, we are asking YOU.