Bad Breeders

Like any good father, Alton Hanscom involved his son, Mark, in the family business. Sadly, that’s where any similar between Hanscom and a good parent ends. After several months of undercover buys, police raided the Hanscom’s housing development apartment and found over 1,000 Oxycontin pills – some of them in plain sight in the room of Alton Hanscom’s 6-year-old daughter. Officers arrested the pair, who now stand charged of drug trafficking.

Both Alton Hanscom and Mark’s attorney claim the junior Hanscom had nothing to do with the operation. To his credit, Hanscom Sr. tried to claim during interrogations that his son had nothing to do with it. Of course, Hanscom also claimed “it’s all me” to detectives – then turned around and pled not guilty in court. So we’ll see how far that defense flies when this thing gets to trial.

I don’t know if you can classify this as parents behaving badly; it all depends on who gets the blame for letting Juan Reyes babysit two toddlers while their mom gave birth at a nearby hospital. From what the article says, both Reyes and the family lived in the same house, so I can’t imagine mom and dad didn’t know something about the man’s character. Whoever’s to blame, it’s obvious now that Reyes should never have been left alone with these children. Deputies investigating a family court case peered in through the windows of the home and found the babysitter passed out drunk in a chair. They entered the home to find that one of the toddlers was also three sheets to the wind, with a blood alcohol content over 0.09 – in other words, legally drunk. The kid is now in the hospital, the other child is in state custody, and mom is probably kicking herself repeatedly for trusting this guy to safeguard her children.

Personally, I pity all the people who share the name Juan Reyes, as their efforts to ego-search will now be frustrated by Juan Reyes, the Drunk-Ass Babysitter.

(Thanks to Jennifer, Rebeka and my lovely wife Kim for all sending this link. Um…should I be worried that, when people think of bad parenting, they think of me? Especially when one of those people is my own spouse?)

Maria Wells, the estranged wife of Geoffrey Wells, has posted an update on her soon-to-be-ex-husband’s case. You’ll remember that Wells was charged after one of his sons, Syber, committed suicide with a loaded, unsecured pistol that his father had left lying around. The result of that carelessness? Wells has received a 12 month suspended sentence and three years probation. He cannot own firearms of any kind, and cannot visit his surviving children unsupervised.

Maria Wells is understandably very bitter toward her husband, whom she says is contesting their divorce. When I asked her in email how her children were doing, the reply was – predictably – dismal. “My three surviving sons are all in counceling. As am I. They have been traumatized for life. My hope is that Geoff Wells will come to realize what he has done, give me a divorce, and let our children heal.”

Mrs. Wells also left us with a cautionary message. “People have to start realizing that leaving unsecured weapons out, kills.”

Was this a fair verdict? Should it have been more harsh? Let us know what you think.

Earlier this week I wrote about William Alfred Ginglen, the ex-Marine who taught his son such deep values that they felt compelled to turn in him when they discovered dad was robbing banks. Now comes word that the 64-year-old Ginglen has been sentenced to 40 years behind bars. The married Ginglen was leading a double life that included drugs and prostitutes, which he funded through small-town bank heists. In sentencing the repentant Ginglen, Judge Scott said the case posed a real “dilemma”, as Ginglen was once regarded as a pillar of his community.

Shit. Now I feel even worse for this guy than before. This story has such a “There but for the Grace of God go I” feel that it’s hard to read it as anything other than a cautionary tale about the dangers of losing your way in the world.

From the “You Can’t Make Up Something This Twisted” Department comes the shocking tale of Nazir Ahmed. The Pakistani dad suspected his 25-year-old stepsister was having an affair. So, like any rational dad, he slit her throat. He then proceeded to slit the throat of his three biological daughters as his wife looked on, clutching their three-month-old son in horror. His reasoning? He didn’t want them growing up to be whores like his stepsister. Hauled in front of Pakistani TV cameras, Ahmed voiced only one regret: that he hadn’t had time to slay the man his stepsister supposedly fucked and burn the guy’s house to the ground.

Nice.

I’m guessing that Ahmed is a Muslim, which means he doesn’t believe in reincarnation. Too bad. When he comes back to Earth as an earthworm, he’s in for a big fucking surprise. May whatever God confronts Nazir Ahmed at his death judge him with the infinite benevolence and compassion he denied his children.

Stephen Swarbrick’s children will finish up their childhoods without a father. The 41-year-old Brit lost his keys after getting drunk on Christmas Eve, then tried to scale a drain pipe at his house (presumably to climb in through a window). He was found alive the next morning, but later died.

Hey parents, if you want to go out and have a good time, be my guest. (Though I have to ask: getting drunk on Christmas Eve? Is this some kind of English tradition that’s escaped those of us on the other side of the ocean?) But for the love of God, have a sober person on hand who can stop you from doing anything irrevocably stupid. Your kids will thank you for it.

“You’re disgusting, everybody at school hates you.” Sounds like the typical ugliness you’d read in a note written by a middle-schooler, or on Bill O’Reilly’s Web site, huh? But no! The Jerusalem 10-year-old who received such messages has her own newly-minted stepmother to thank for this vitriol. Stepmommy Dearest also admitted to trying to slip a physical note to her new daughter through another girl at school; the girl, apparently realizing that the mother was a few tire skids short of Susan Smith, refused.

Any bets on how long this marriage will last?

Ahh, what could be better than a friendly father-son discussion over who owes whom money? I know – let’s throw in some firearms! Phat Phuoc Le (I’m hoping to God that’s not pronounced how I think it is) of Lebanon, Pennsylvania’s China Gate Eastery was arrested after grabbing a gun out of a cupboard and opening fire on his son, Tuan Le. The elder Le reportedly got the gun out, stood two feet from his son, and fired into the floor. The bullet ricocheted, grazing Tuan le’s shin. Phat Phuoc Le was allegedly reloading the weapon – presumably to show those goddamn floorboards who’s boss once and for all – when Le the Younger wrested it from him.

Dad’s been ordered to steer clear of his son until a January 6th hearing. Smart idea.

Remember the last story we reported out of Africa? Involving a family with HIV and an ax, it wasn’t exactly what you’d call uplifting. So I’m pleased that this Parent Behaving Badly story out of Ghana actually has an uplifting ending. 18-year-old Sophia Adoo didn’t fully realize she was pregnant until she went to relieve herself in some nearby bushes. When a baby popped out, she panicked and told her grandmother that she had miscarried. Three days later, someone discovered the ant-encircled infant and brought him to the hospital. Mom and baby are now both doing fine.

While this is surely a PBB moment, I’m not going to chastise the mom. You have to consider that both social mores and poverty had a significant impact on her state of mind. I can only hope she takes this unlikely reunion for what it is: a miraculous second chance.

Over on Blogging Baby, we covered the story of Joseph and Lamoy Andressohn, who were convicted of child neglect charges after their kids wasted away on a strict raw food diet. It was never clear whether it was the diet itself that was to blame, or whether the parents simply underfed their kids. At any rate, their treatment led to the death of their daughter Woyah, for which they escaped charges of manslaughter. Judge Stanford Blake ordered the couple receive a five-year suspended sentence – to be unsuspended if they violate the terms of their probation – and an additional 10 years on probation. Should the Andressohns get their kids back from Child Protective Services, they will have to obey a host of restrictions imposed by the judge, which includes obeying nutritional recommendations made by a court-appointed dietician.

Most nutritionists think a raw food diet is mainly healthy. In an interesting twist (designed to appease the vegetarian community?), the state prosecutor, Herbert E. Walker III, is himself a raw food vegetarian who described the parents as “dyed in the wool raw foodists”. Walker was pressing for a 20-year jail sentence – which again implies to me that this is about more than two parents who fed their kids some wheat grass.