Parents Behaving Badly

It doesn’t look good for Daniela Toledo do Prado of Sao Paola, Brazil. After her year-old daughter Vitoria died at the hospital, police searched the mom’s home. Curious about a suspicious white powder that doctors found on the girl’s tongue, they went looking for its source. They found it: a baby bottle and a hyperdermic syringe, both of which had traces of cocaine. do Prado was charged with homicide.

I’m hoping against hope that this isn’t what it looks like: a mom offing her kid on the stupid belief that medical examiners would never find the coke in her system. I’ve gotten used to having my hopes dashed.

(Hat tip to Sandy. Got a tip? Send it in!)

“Oh Jesus fuckme Christ, I so need a shot of scotch. This little bastard is driving me up the wall. Too bad they don’t have those drive-up margarita stands here in Clermont, Florida, like they do in Louisiana. I really need to move my drunk ass to Louisiana.

“Hey…there’s a bar. Fuck! If I didn’t have this snotnose with me…Well, it’s okay. He’ll be fine for a few minutes, right? It’s just one wittle drink. Sweetie, be good for mommy and don’t get kidnapped by pedophiles, okay? Mmmm…shit, that hits the spot. Hey, that was quick. I’ve got time for one more. Mmmm. So warm…so warm. Well, maybe just another, right? Come on, barkeep, keep ‘em comin’! Keep ‘em…comin’…just..one…more…

“Mmmmm. Wha’fuck? Where am I? My…car? Yeah…someone’s talking to me…where’s my, wha, wait, slow down, don’t whisper so fucking loud…where’s my wha? My baby? My BABY?! OH SHIT, WHERE’S MY BABY???!! Oh. He’s okay?! Hell, shit, don’t scare me like that! I was just resting so that I didn’t have to drive drunk, and…what? Wait! Where are you taking him?! Where are you taking ME?!?! You cock-eating motherfuckers! This is bull fucking SHIT! I wanna speak to my lawyer! I’M A GOOD MOTHER!!!!“

Little Monica Uribe was 7 months old when she died. She weighed a mere eight and a half pounds – a size typical of newborns. Procecutors in Elko, Nevvada jumped into action and charged both parents, Salvana Maria Fernandez and Florencio Carlos Uribe, both 22 years old, with first degree murder and felony child abuse. The jury in Fernandez’ cases didn’t agree that she intentionally meant to kill her daughter; they found her not guilty of murder, but threw the book at her for child abuse. The jury also found her baby’s father guilty of the same charge.

The last of the sentences came down this week. Both parents received a 20-year sentence, with the possibility of parole in eight years. Personally, I’ll be chanting “ONE MORE YEAR” every time these two come up for parole. There is no excuse for a child starving to death under your care.

The shittiest, and I mean SHITTIEST, thing that can happen to a child is to be pulled from one abusive home, only to be thrown into another. What can a young kid conclude about life when every family to whom he’s sent treats him like garbage? I can only imagine what went through seven-year-old Ricky Holland’s head in the days leading up to his death at the hands of his adoptive mother, Lisa Holland of Williamston, Michigan, who has been convicted of first degree murder.

Prosecutors contended that Holland struck the boy in the head. It was only one of many ways that the mom reportedly abused the child. One of her more clever devices? Duct taping him to the refrigerator. Both husband Tim Holland and his wife then stood back and watched the boy die – a trauma that Tim Holland recounted later in vivid detail. Then the asshole couple reported the child missing, and sent police on a wild goose chase. It took nine days months for the husband to break down and lead the cops to the body. After that, of course, the harmonious couple turned against one another. Lisa Holland’s defense was that her husband was the murderer; her lawyers used the fact that he had lied repeatedly on behalf of his wife to depict him as someone who couldn’t be trusted. Oh, the irony. The jury didn’t buy it, though, so now Lisa gets a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole. Her husband – who comes across as a giant, quivering pussy who stood back and did nothing while his wife tortured their son – got slapped with the rap for murder in the second degree.

Lisa Holland reportedly broke down into tears as the verdict was read. Bitch. You have no right – zero – to cry over that child’s body. The proper time to weap was when he was still alive, and you still could have reformed your sorry ass and been a good mother to him. With any luck, the inmates in your prison will treat you with the same dignity and respect that you treated poor Ricky.

Rest in peace, Ricky Holland. Justice has been done. I’m so sorry no one could help you before it was too late. Your death is our failure.

For more on this case, check out the Lansing State Journal, which has a huge round-up of its coverage. The stories tell you all you need to know about these failed parents, including Lisa Holland’s desperate bids for attention, her tendency to overmedicate Ricky, and her public denigration of the child she should have showered with love.

I got wrapped up in some Zero Boss work last night, and haven’t had time today to post my usual round of bad parenting stories. Frankly, I would prefer to be silent due to a lack of material. But the world keeps turning, and mothers and fathers keep inflicting all matters of harm upon their families. Today’s culprit is African national Khalid Adem, who lived with his family in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Adem’s new home is a 7-by-14 prison cell, which is where police threw him on charges that he circumcised his daughter with a pair of scissors.

Adem is from Ethiopia, where female circumcision (read: mutilation and torture) is practiced around the country. The most severe form of this practice is called “infibulation”, where “part or all of the external genitalia is removed and the vaginal opening is narrowed by stitching.” The Adem case is a landmark event, as a gential mutilation case involving African nationals has never been tried in the US before.

Adem’s lawyer maintains that he’s innocent, and that someone else in the family inflicted this torture on his daughter. The daughter, however, told prosecutors that Khalid Adem was the culprit. I’m reserving judgment on this one. Adem and his wife Fortunate are in the middle of a nasty divorce row, so who knows where the truth lies? Let’s wait for the legal system to sort this one out, and then torch the responsible party afterwards.

(Hat tip: Tanya @ My life as a Spaz)

[UPDATED: It looks like police are treating this as an accident. Also, the woman found was not the child's mother, as a commenter notes, but the "companion" of the father.]

What the FUCK is going on here?! Is Greece suddenly the new hot spot for suicidal parents? First we have John Hogan, the English dad who lept from the window of a Crete hotel – and took his two kids along with him for the ride. Now, it looks like Neil Shephard and Ruth Emy of Wakefield are in the same boat. The two parents were found comatose, and their six-year-old boy and seven-year-old girl dead, in a hotel on the island of Corfu.

It appears there’s a possibility that what’s at play here is one of the world’s worst cases of food poisoning. That doesn’t look likely, however, as the hotel says no other guestshave succumbed. The agent appears to be a “powerful poison”, which the adults are so far surviving due to their stronger immunity. Police are leaning heavily towards suicide, but won’t confirm it until they wrap up their investigation. I’ll have more details as they come available. It’s a tragedy no matter how it turns out. Sadly, it appears to be yet another case of villainy stacked upon tragedy.

I wish I had some light story about parents wigging out at their kid’s soccer game to share this morning. Instead, all I’ve got is a tale of two dead twins – and the father who stands accused of their murder. Chris and Cru Kahui died five months ago at Auckland’s Middlemore Hospital. The twins both had head wounds and broken bones; a pathologist concluded that they had both been smashed into something. Ever since then, the police have accused the Kahui family of “stonewalling” them and not cooperating. The twins’ father, Chris Kahui, finally sat down with the cops for a five-hour interview on October 3rd. Yesterday, a fleet of detectives arrived at his address and carted him off. Shortly thereafter, Kahui was formally charged with murder.

Wikipedia has the full annotated run-down of this case. According to sources, the Kahuis didn’t even get medical attention for their kids when it was obvious that they were injured; instead, they spent several hours at McDonald’s before making their way to Middlemore Hospital. The family’s reluctance to answer questions was so profound that New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark condemned it, and street gangs in Auckland were threatening to harm the Kahuis if they didn’t talk to the cops.

Yep. He’s guilty as sin.

Dad, of course, maintains he’s innocent. I’ll die of coronary arrest on the spot if that turns out to be true.

The Kahuis have a 12-month-old son named Shane, who’s currently in state custody. I imagine he’ll remain until the authorities can find him a new family…one that doesn’t leave him starving and dirty while beating his siblings to death.

Jesus. Who do some people even have children?

How many of you are old enough to remember those Saturday Night Live skits with Eddie Murphy as the adult Buckwheat? I’m thinking in particular of the “Buckwheat Has Been Shot” meme, where a man named John David Stutts was arrested for Buckwheat’s assassination. The news reporters in the skits went to Stutts’ hometown and interviewed his friends and neighbors, who said he was a wonderful, charitable kid. Then the reporter would ask, “Did you think he killed Buckwheat?”, and they’d all reply, “Oh yes, definitely.” The reporter even obtained a copy of Stutts’ yearbook, in which he was voted “Man Most Likely to Shoot Buckwheat”.

That’s all I can think about while reading this story of Betty Hartley of Evansville, Kentucky. Hartley was a friend of Renee Terrell, the mother implicated in the death of social services worker Boni Frederick. While Hartley admits that Terrell was troubled and may have been “depressed”, she also gushes about how Renee “loved” her baby, and “adored” all of her kids. “She loved that child. She sang to it and read to and talked to it when she was pregnant. For months she saved her breast milk and meticulously froze it to save for him. She cared about its health.” And then there’s this puketastic statement: “Renee just had a gift for relating to children. She truly adored her children.“

Really, Mrs. Hartley? If she loved her children so much, why had she already lost two of them to social services? Why was her current child, who showed signed of neglect, about to be carted away? Why did she keep having MORE kids, even though it was clear she couldn’t care for the two she had already lost? Was it all just a vast conspiracy perpetrated by the state, as Terrell herself seems to maintain?

In another thread on PBB, Kate from BabyLune urged people to be aware of their neighbors, and be on the alert for signs that a child near you is being mistreated. Renee Terrell was clearly not in a fit state of mind. For whatever reason, she clearly was not a fit mother. If Terrell is the standard of “good parenting”, how the hell are we supposed to recognize the BAD ones?

It’s very generous for a mother and father who already have five children to take in a 9-year-old girl from their homeland, and treat her as if she were her own daughter. But when the parents choose instead to treat her worse than they would the family cat, it’s criminal. Abdel-Nasser Youssef Ibrahim and his ex-wife Amal Ahmed Ewis Abdel-Motelib were both sentenced to prison this week for keeping young Shyima captive in their home for two years as the family’s unpaid servant. In a delicious twist, District Judge James V. Selna decided to augment the jail time by demanding the couple pay Shyima $152,000 in back wages.

The bad news: Shyima’s time in her home prison was torture. The parents apparently worked the girl to the bone, verbally abusing her along the way. Mom, dad, and the five kids called her “the stupid girl” – a prophecy they fulfilled by allowing her no schooling, no playmates, no downtime. She was threatened with arrest if she dared step foot outside the home. Her best friend was a spider. When police found her, her skin was dead and hard. She was only rescued after a curious neighbor wondered why she wasn’t in school.

The disgusting news: Ibrahim and Abdel-Motelib, who are facing deportation following their jail sentences, tried to maintain that they were helping the girl and being charitable toward her. Hmmm…how do you say “pigfuckers” in Arabic?

The good news: Shyima, now 17, is being adopted by a California couple, Jenny and Chuck Hall, who apparently treat her the way a child deserves to be treated – as a daughter, not as a slave. Shyima, as a parent, let me say that my heart breaks that you had to endure this bullshit. May you continue to heal, and end up healthier and happier than you could ever imagine.

Here’s another light story for y’all. It’s a refreshing break from our usual murder and mayhem, and yet still a sad portrait of parents shitting all over their kids. That’s right – it’s another sports story! This one, from Brevard County, Florida, concerns the rookie team of the Port St. John Rockets, who are forced to warm the benches for the rest of the season thanks to a handful of asshole parents. After a questionable call by a referee in last week’s game, several moms and dads stormed the field and shouted obscenities at the official. Which, as we all know, is the perfect way to get a bad call changed. Nothing softens a referee up like calling him a shitsucking motherfucker! The officials forced the team to forfeit the game, which prevented them from qualifying for the playoffs.

On the one hand, I think that’s a crappy decision. It sucks ass that the kids have to suffer just because their parents are dorks. On the other hand, I know that coaches and youth league officials all across America are sick and tired of parents interfering with their kids’ games. They’re fed up with parental attempts to micromanage the teams, even to the point of forcing out coaches. And they’re disgusted at the displays of unsportsmanlike conduct coming from 30- and 40-somethings who should damn well know better.

Still, I’d love to see a solution that punished the parents without hurting the kids. Slap mom and dad with a $500 “parents behaving badly” fine that they have to play if they want their kid to play again. Don’t shut the entire team’s season down just because some people can’t control themselves.

Okee guys, time to revisit that age-old controversy: how much does mental illness impinge on moral accountability? This isn’t an academic question in the case of 22-year-old Danielle Wails of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, who called police one night to report that her house was burning down with her baby trapped inside. When detectives arrrived, she spun a fanciful tale about being tied up by intruders, and forced to dial 999 (British 911) with her tongue. As overdramatic as that sounds, newspapers ran with it as the official version of events.

Well, you all know what site you’re on, so you know the sad direction this is heading. The story unraveled. There were no intruders; Wails set the fire herself to try and “win back” the baby’s father. The blaze killed her son, Alexander Gallon. Wails was arrested and charged with murder. But at the recommendation of psychiatrists, she was allowed to plead to the lesser charge of infanticide, which earned the young mom a mere three months probation. Two experts testified that Danielle was suffering from postnatal depression (that’s postpartum depression to us States-siders), and therefore wasn’t legally culpable for her actions.

This may earn me some hate, but I call bullshit on that sentence. Let’s agree that PPD can be devastating, and that society can and must do better about recognizing and treating it. On the other hand…three months probation for the murder of your child?! I know many, many mothers who have suffered PPD – some of them severe cases. Not one ever decided to torch her house, and her baby along with it. On top of that, Wails had already been diagnosed with the condition, and was receiving treatment for it. So a reduced sentence, with PPD as a mitigating factor? That I could accept. But this sentence absolves Wails of ANY personal responsibility for her actions. It’s like being granted a retroactive license to kill.

Don’t think that I’m letting the dad off the hook, though. Why did Wails think that killing off his kid would “win him back”? Was that the delusional belief of a mentally ill woman…or an idea planted in her mind by the dad himself? If father Robert Gallon had anything to do with steering Wails’ mind towards murder, then he deserves to share a jail cell with Russell Yates.

Straight outta Chesapeake, Virginia, it’s the depressing story of Jennifer Lynn Grisetti, a 28-year-old mom who was convicted this week of killing her three-month-old baby, Trey Alexander Grisetti. The mom admitted to throwing her son so hard into his playpen that his head bounced off of the wall.

Her defense lawyers tried to paint it as involuntary manslaughter. Hey, all she wanted to do was shake the little bastard up a bit! You know, make him scared. Show him who’s boss. She didn’t mean to MURDER him, for gosh sakes. And the judge might have bought that…if it hadn’t been for the multiple, healing breaks and fractures the ME’s office found during the autopsy. In other words, Grisetti tossed her sound around like a football – and then had the audacity to act surprised when she finally killed him.

Jennifer Lynn Grisetti will be sentenced in January. By Virginia law, she can be sentenced for up to 40 years; in the worst case, she can skip off with a paltry five years for her crime. Gag. Keep your fingers crossed for high double-digits, folks.

Have you ever heard of the Old German Baptist Brethren? (Not to be confused with the German Baptist Brethren, and certainly not to be mixed up with those bastards the Old Order German Baptist Brethren.) They’re an Anabaptist group, theologically similar in some ways to the Mennonite and the Amish. I’d never heard of the conservative religious group until I stumbled across this story about 34-year-old Michael Hari of Illinois, who’s standing trial for kidnapping his daughters, Mollie, 15, and Allene, 13.

How does this relate to the Old German Baptist Brethrens? According to the article, Hari is a member of the church, which according to the writeup prohibits educating girls after the eight grade. I couldn’t actually confirm this in any statement of belief about the OGBB, so I’m taking that one with a grain of salt. The best I could gather is that the OGBB don’t support “higher” education. But it seems that even that opposition has eroded in recent years.

Whatever the reason, something inside Hari compelled him to skip the country with his daughters in tow, landing him and the girls to a Mennonite colony in Belize. Hari’s attorney denies that his client fled to Belize. But he seems incapable of explaining why Hari told his ex-wife, Michelle Frakes, that he’d be drop the girls off in “a couple of hours” – and then thoroughly disappeared for 10 months. Hari’s attorney also doesn’t explain how a private investigator tracked the wayward dad to Belize, and why it took no less than Dr. Phil McGraw to talk the guy into returning voluntarily to the states. (You can find the full account of The Dr. Phil Show’s involvement on RickRoss.com.)

This is one of those cases that make me glad I never became a defense attorney. There just can’t be that much job satisfaction in manufacturing excuses for people like Michael Hari. If I wanted to tell lies for a living, I’d get a more socially respectable job – like, say, being a TV news anchor, or a presidential press secretary.

I have to hat-tip readers Emari and Heidi, who both sent me this fresh story about parents behaving badly when it comes to their children’s sports. Yesterday, we covered a rather innocuous tale about filthy-rich parents abusing their power to hector a basketball coach. But today’s story? BRING OUT THE WEAPONS, YO!! 40-year-old Philadelphia dad Wayne Derkotch reportedly drew a pistol on his son’s coach during a heated discussion of his son’s lack of playing time. Derkotch the Dumbass now faces felony assault charges due to his display of male machismo.

I’d love if these news reports on parents who go apeshit on coaches were accompanied by details about the offending parent’s background. I’m dying to know what motivates people like Derkotch to flip their shit. Perhaps a failed run at college ball lies in this dad’s past? Or perhaps he’s just a life failure with no special achievement to call his own, dreaming of the day that pictures of him and his NFL running back son appear in the folds of Sports Illustrated. Well, Mr. Derkotch, you finally found your way into SI. What are you gonna do next?!

Blogging Baby appears to have stepped up its coverage of bad-behaving parents lately – much to the discontent of some readers. I find that funny. I started Parents Behaving Badly while I was a co-editor for BB, specifically because some readers were fed up reading these tales. Rather than let them fade into history, I collected them here, in what has since become one of the world’s darkest exercises in negative catharsis. (Not to mention that it’ll keep some sociology student very busy someday.)

I’m glad BB is including these stories. My goal is to make PBB as comprehensive as possible. Their coverage makes it less likely that anything will slip through my net. And it would be a shame if their currently featured tale of woe and horror passed by without the offender getting all of the scorn he has coming to him. Professor Festus Oguhebe, a Nigerian native who teaches taught at Alcorn State University in Mississippi, entered a nolo contendere plea on one felony count of child abuse. Oguhebe insists that he was merely “disciplining” one of his kids when he put ants on him after the child returned home with bad grades.

I’m not going to chalk this up to “cultural differences”. That would be an insult to Nigerians, most of whom I’m sure know better than to subject their kids to hundreds of ant-bites. There are, ahem, better ways to propel them toward “academic excellence”. The only thing that this kind of abuse guarantees is that you’ll wake up one night to find your son hovering over your bed, with a loaded revolver pointed at your face. You’d have a hard time empaneling a jury willing to convict that kid.