Parents Behaving Badly

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Kathleen Butts picked up her kids from daycare on Nov 10, 2009, at 5:15, but she never made it out of the parking lot with them. She did however, manage to find her way into a nearby snowbank, which is where a maintenance worker found her at 7PM. Her two children, 2 and 4 years old, strapped into the car, and had been sitting there for an hour and a half, with the door wide open. Both were cold, and no doubt scared, but after a quick trip to the hospital they were released to other family members, and both of them are doing fine.

It’s a good thing that the maintenance worker found her, or those children could have frozen to death. This happened in New Hampshire, and it was 30 degrees outside.

Butts admitted to drinking before going to get her kids, and is being charged with aggravated DWI, and child endangerment. That said, I have another bone to pick……If Butts was so drunk when she picked up her kids from daycare that she passed out in a snowbank outside, somebody at the daycare had to have noticed. Why in blue blazes was she allowed to take the children from the facility in that condition? Were the workers THAT eager to clock out that they would let a couple of kids go with a drunk? And how is it that none of the workers noticed the car, with it’s door open, when they left for the day? I think the daycare needs to be investigated as well. They are guilty of endangerment just as surely as the mother is. At the very least, the employees need a class or two on how to keep kids safe from idiot parents who show up schnozzled.

Thanks to jakes_daddy for the tip.

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The attractive brunette above is Rhonda Mays. That was sarcasm, BTW. Not the name, the description. Anyway, wonky-eyed Rhonda, 39, has pleaded guilty to child pornography, and offering a child for sex. She’s a child molester, and procured children for other child molesters. She allowed her boyfriend, Tanner Stickney, 29, to molest a 4-year old relative, while she VIDEOTAPED it; and when she couldn’t get the same child for a second round, she offered him a 2-year old relative. Class act, there. But at least she was stupid enough to provide undeniable proof on tape of what a filthy hag she really is.

Mays once ran for the office of mayor for the city of Umatilla, FL (don’t they do background checks on these people – or at the very least competency checks?), and she has children of her own, but no ages were available for them. I sincerely hope that they were not in her custody. Her lawyer has said that Rhonda is not a danger to the community (no, only the children, I guess), and that she is ’sick’ and needs help. Anybody here have any suggestions on how we might be able to ‘help’ such a sick woman?

The court documents say that she faces up to 30 years in prison (only 30 years?!?), and that the boyfriend only faces 15, because he helped authorities incriminate another child molester. The molester he handed over to them was none other than Frank Lombard, associate director of the Center for Health Policy at Duke University. Lombard was arrested when he offered his own 5-year old son for sex in an undercover sting set up with the help of Stickney. He has since been fired from the University. But I digress.

Apparently Mays’ lawyer is trying to use a mental deficiency angle to try and reduce the sentence for his client. Again, this woman’s stupidity might be a boon to prosecutors. She was kind enough to leave an internet ‘chat’ record in which she said “I am pretty much declared incompetent so even if I get caught, I can play it off and not get into trouble,”. Good job. That proves competence, knowledge of wrongdoing, premeditation, and probably conspiracy. Also in her chats, she suggested that she and Stickney could adopt children that ‘nobody wants’, and use them as sex slaves. And that they should stick to children 6 years old and younger, because they would not be able to give the details that an older child could. Again….a lot of thought and planning went into this, so the prosecutors should have more than enough ammunition to annihilate her in court. I hope they nail her to the wall, and then some.

The boyfriend’s lenient sentence is a travesty of justice, in my opinion. I don’t care if he handed them a Jeffery Dahmer clone on a silver platter, he should still have to serve the rest of his life in prison. Give him his choice of a steak or chicken dinner plate once a week or something, but reduce his sentence? I don’t think so. Is anyone going to reduce the damage done to those children? Can they take that away?

I wonder what the parents of the family members she offered up for sex are thinking right about now? If it were me, she would never have made it to trial, let alone sentencing. I would have ended her child molesting permanently. With extreme prejudice.

Thanks go out to Lauren for the tip on this article.

The original article on this was written up here by Joel back when it happened. I am just letting you know the current status, since one of our readers, Kathryn, sent us an article about it. Thanks for keeping us up to date, Kathryn! The article Kathryn sent us can be found here.

I won’t go into all of the details of this one, because it’s been written about already, and you can use the link to get to it. The pertinent facts are that Mila Petrov and her husband Carlos Beltran were arrested for the murder of their 5-year old daughter Melanie Beltran, in March of 2007. The death blow was caused when the child was beaten for throwing up her dinner. I guess we all know how effective beatings are in making sick children well again, don’t we?

Anyway, the prosecutors had asked for the death penalty, but Mila managed to walk away with only 39 years for the murder of her child. I guess that’s more appropriate than what Carlos got – he only got 20 years. The defense played the “she was an abused child herself” card, and it seems to have worked out for her, since she avoided the electric chair. I won’t even go into what I think of people who blame their abuse of their own kids on what happened to them as children. Most of the regular readers on here know already. It’s a crock of B.S.

So, Carlos will be walking the streets in less than 20 years, and Mila in less than 30, more than likely. But Melanie will not receive a parole from her sentence. She will still be dead. I just hope the DNA donors will be locked up long enough that all of their remaining children will be grown and gone before these two animals are allowed out of their cages.

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I would like to thank Bridget for the tip and the title to this story. The title idea was all hers, and I hope she doesn’t mind me using it in my article…it was just too good to pass up.

We have a couple of real winners here folks – an abusive sperm donor, and an idiot for an incubator. Thomas Campo, 43, has been accused of abusing his triplets – 2 boys and a girl. They were only 5 months old when Campo was arrested, and he had allegedly been abusing them since they were born. One of the boys had at least five fractured ribs on the right side, and three on the left. Medical experts have said that the injuries are more consistent with shaking than with squeezing. Another of the babies, also a boy, had bilateral skull fractures and also some rib fractures. The baby girl had injuries to an ear, and a bite mark on her abdomen. So I guess the guy thought biting the baby was a good parenting technique. I would be willing to bet that he abused the kids because they would not stop crying – like most other idiots claim. Well….how’d that work out for you Campo? Oh, right, you’re in jail. So now you don’t have to listen to your babies cry anymore. I guess that worked out all right for you then….not so much for the babies, though.

Now for the gestation device, Zoya Campo. This quote is directly from the article folks: ” “Zoya Campo told me that her husband has a history of anger and acts out towards the babies,” Caggiano wrote.” OK. So the woman knew her bedmate had anger issues, and that he took out these issues on the babies, and yet, she did…….nothing?!? WHAT!?! Now you know where the stupid comes into the title, folks. I think she should be charged with abuse as well, since she knowingly permitted it. She’s as bad as he is. The bite mark on the little girls abdomen occurred in April, right after the babies had come home from the hospital. She was three weeks old. This tells me a couple of things folks. The babies, being triplets, were probably born early, and SMALL. That would be my guess as to why they were three weeks old before being allowed to go home. So in addition to being defenseless, and fragile, these babies ALREADY had another reason to be treated with special care – they were preemies. Instead they were abused by Thomas, and betrayed by Zoya. She said that she had confronted him several times about his abuse of the babies, and he had apologized to her each time. Oh. OK. That makes everything alright, then. Maybe in her world, but certainly not in mine.

Another thing – and this is purely speculation on my part, based on the age of the sperm donor. If he is 43, then I would imagine that she is probably in her late 30’s to early 40’s. She had triplets. This suggests to me that there might have been some sort of medical help to conceive, such as fertility drugs, or in-vitro. Now….if she wanted a child so badly that she was willing to undergo medical treatment in order to conceive, and then willing to go through the entire pregnancy (which I would think was probably difficult, and even dangerous, with triplets), you would think that this idiot would have taken better care of her babies – protected them more.

A final note, then I’ll go away and leave you all to discuss this: Zoya also said that her husband would take the babies (one at a time) into another room and shut the door, not allowing her in. The reason he gave her was that he needed to learn how to comfort them himself, without her help. But she could hear the babies in distress while he was alone with them. I’m sorry folks – but that freakin’ door would have come off the hinges, if it had been my child in there. You don’t take one of my babies ANYWHERE, and then deny me access to them. Not without killing me first.

Oh, and Thomas has been indicted on 37 counts stemming from the abuse of his babies. The mother, as far as I can tell, has not been charged with anything. They should charge her with gross stupidity, for starters, and work their way up.

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Tyrone Adair, 38, has been charged in the death of his girlfriend, Tracy Judd, 33, and their daughter Deja Adair, 23 months. He is also being sought in connection with the deaths of a former girlfriend, Amber Weigel, 25, and his daughter with her, Neveah Weigel-Adair, 2. He has not been charged in those deaths yet, though.

Amber and Neveah were found in a car inside the garage of their home, shot to death. Tracy and Deja were found in the trunk of another car, in a different part of town, on the same day. Although the authorities are not releasing the cause of death for Tracy and Deja, is has been reported that it was not related to firearms.

So, this poor excuse for a human being killed two of his children, and both of their mothers in the same day. Wow! He’s been a busy boy, hasn’t he? He is still at large as well, and is being considered armed and extremely dangerous. Nooooo….really?

He was involved in paternity cases with the mothers of both of the babies, and had reportedly not paid any child support to Weigel for several months prior to the murders. The night he killed all of them, he called Judd’s older child to tell her that Tracy and Deja had been in a bad accident, and would not be home that night. An accident?!? Is THAT what they’re calling murder these days? I wonder how he is going to try to characterize the shootings of the other two….spontaneous lead poisoning, maybe?

No motive has been put forth as to the reason for these slayings, but I’m sure some of his defenders will eventually find their way here to tell us what a good guy he is.

In other news, he also had a restraining order against him obtained by another woman he had been stalking and threatening for months. That was back in 2006, though….so he has a history of violent tendencies, and has now ended the lives of four people. I really hope he resists arrest when they find him.

Thanks to Christina for the tip.

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Amber Lee Gandy, 25, of Grand Ronde, Oregon, likes to drink and then go joyriding with her babies in the car. Allegedly. Charges are expected to be filed concerning the accident in which she flipped her SUV upside down in Widow Creek with her children, 2-year old Kylie Gandy, 3-year old Austin Gandy, and six-month old Kameron Gandy in the vehicle.

Luckily, a neighbor happened upon the wreck and was able to extract Kylie and Austin, and the mother. It took a few more minutes before the incubator remembered that she had a third child, who was still in the vehicle, underwater. The hero waded back in to the creek, but by the time he got the baby out, Kameron had no pulse and was not breathing.

Medical personnel managed to revive the infant and he was life-flighted to another hospital in critical condition, and his prognosis has improved since then. No thanks to the idiot who thought that getting her drink on was more important than keeping her kids alive.

Where do these selfish hootchies come from? And why do they have babies that they have no intention of taking proper care of? How hard is it to stay sober, anyway? I do it all the time, so it can’t be that hard. Just say no. Just another public service announcement from your neighborhood crime prevention specialist, Captain Obvious.

I have yet to find an article that gives Amber’s BAC, but the wording in one of the articles makes me wonder if alcohol was the only thing she was under the influence of. According to the second article linked above, “an investigation by the Sheriff’s Office and Oregon State Police revealed that Amber Gandy was under the influence of intoxicants and that alcohol was a contributing factor of the traffic crash.” If alcohol was listed as a ‘factor’, and she was under the influence of ‘intoxicants’ (plural), that leads me to believe that there were other substances that she tested positive for, as well.

Oh, and did I mention that she was driving on a suspended license? Yeah. It has been suspended since 2007. I bet it wasn’t suspended for anything as minor as unpaid traffic tickets, either. Something tells me that this ain’t her first rodeo, if ya know what I mean…..

And just so I don’t get slammed by the ‘double standard’ police….where in the HELL was the father? Surely he knew her license were suspended, and that she had a drinking problem. So why were the kiddies in the car with her? So many questions….anybody have any answers?

I sincerely hope they throw the book at this lush, and keep her away from her kids for a good long time. Like, until they are old enough to drive themselves around.

I’d like to thank Calvena for this tip.

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OK, ok….so it was a closet the child was locked in, but ‘hole’ just fit in better there. Anyway, the hairy hag up there is Heidi L. Duesing-Christensen, who has been arrested and charged with several felonies, including child abuse, neglect, enticement, and reckless endangerment.

It seems that Heidi has allegedly been tying up her five year old daughter, taping her mouth and other body parts (after administering adult doses of benadryl), and then locking the child in a closet. The poor child has also been starved. When she went to live with her father, she only weighed 30 lbs. (bottom 3% of the weight range for her age), and had scars, scabs, and bruises all over her body. Dad was good enough to report the slag who had abused his child, and a two-week investigation ensued, culminating with the arrest of this walking waste of flesh.

The egg donor claimed that she had to restrain the girl because she would throw ‘fits’ and was uncontrollable. She blamed the bruising and scabs on the girl as well, saying the injuries were caused when the child would throw herself against the floor and walls. I wonder how the child could throw herself against ANYTHING if she was tied up all the time. Oh, yeah….she didn’t. My bad. The birth-witch did it.

In addition to all of this, though, I would be remiss if I didn’t share the blame where it is warranted. Only after the girl was sent to live with her father did the child’s teacher mention that back in October she noticed discoloration over 50% of the child’s back, and extensive scabbing. Oh, and the little girl was also one of the few children who would consistently snarf down every morsel at lunch in school. That should have been a red flag right there. Any child who is willing to eat the mystery meat, AND all of the toxic trimmings served at your average public school, is either being starved, or has no taste buds. So lets hear it for the incompetence of the teacher as well. Isn’t there a law that says teachers are REQUIRED to report suspected abuse?

Most amazing of all is the fact that the child’s father says she has exhibited no behavior problems at all since moving in with him. Well, not really so amazing….I tend to think that the only behavior problems going on in the child’s former residence were most likely the ones exhibited by the incubator and her live-in boy-toy.

The hag faces up to 29 years if convicted on all charges, but has been released on $2,000.00 bail. She also has a charge of bail jumping against her, so I am guessing that they will now have to find the witch before they prosecute her. Way to go, judge and justice system.

Thanks go out to jake’s_daddy for this tip.

implements of torture

Apparently they can all be used as disciplinary tools……no, not really. But a Jamaican national residing in Cambridge, in the UK, thought that it would be OK to use these implements to keep the kids in line anyway. She has eight of them – children, I mean. You’d think if she hates kids so much, she would figure out what causes them and have that problem remedied. But no….she just keeps right on poppin’ ‘em out like a pez dispenser.

She was turned in by two of her own children who were finally terrified and terrorized enough to report the abuse to a teacher last year. This slag has been convicted on 18 charges. She would beat the children in the head with the meat mallet and garlic crusher, and brand them with the hot screwdriver. She also used belts and broken coat hangers to beat the children, and once slashed one of the children with a knife. One of the children admitted to considering suicide because of the way they were all treated.

Although social workers were first involved with the family as early as 1999, nothing was done for them until the report was made to the teacher in 2008. I won’t even go there. It makes me too sick – but y’all go ahead and have at it, OK?

The branding incident that involved one of her daughters has left permanent scarring on the girl’s thigh and buttocks. Then the incubator had the nerve to tell the authorities that the children made it all up. Were the scars on the thighs and buttocks imaginary too, I wonder? Stupid cow. The 12 and 14-year olds did all of the shopping and cooking while mum laid about on the sofa. Stuffing her fat cow face, no doubt.

When the authorities arrived to arrest her, there was also the obligatory nastiness in the house. One of the officers stated that, “The house was untidy and cluttered. It smelt and there were no, or very few, toys around.” There was also no food in the house and no sheets on the children’s beds. Why is THAT not surprising?

The abusive individual will be sentenced on December 7.

Thanks to Monique for the tip.

Michael Dunn

That friendly looking fella up there is firefighter Michael Dunn, 43. This is gonna be one of those stories that will make you say, “Wow! That might actually be funny, if it wasn’t so stupid!”

It seems Mike and the wife were arguing over bills on Halloween, so Mike thought he would help diffuse the situation by putting half a tablet of Lexapro in the little woman’s Earl Grey, to ‘calm her down’. No matter that it had been prescribed to him, and might have helped even more if it had been taken by him. Since it had been prescribed to him, I can only assume that a doctor somewhere had determined that he needed to be on it.

Anyway, Mikey-boy drugged the tea, and sat back to wait for it to kick in. His wife had just returned from trick-or-treating with their 3-year-old son, and had made the hot tea to help warm up, and she shared it with the baby, because he was cold, too. Oops! I’m pretty sure that Lexapro’s not good for a 3-year old in any dosage, let alone half of an adult strength tablet.

Mrs. Dunn became suspicious when she noticed a white powdery substance around the child’s mouth, and she asked her hubby if he had put something in the tea. He tried to tell her that it must just be undissolved sugar. Did I mention that Mrs. Dunn is a police detective? No? Well, she is. I hear those cops are pretty smart…..she didn’t even consider her husband’s version, but instead wiped the child’s mouth, and saved the tissue with the residue. Then she found Mike’s prescription, and he finally admitted what he had done. Like I said…those cops are pretty smart.

Mrs. Dunn then called the (on-duty) police, and had this 18-year veteran of the Fire Department arrested. It seems Mike has had a previous domestic abuse arrest involving his first wife. He threw a bag of laundry at his 5-year old daughter, and threw his wife to the ground; but managed to have the charge dropped after staying out of trouble for seven months. Another fine example of the judicial system’s lenience leading to further domestic incidents.

Mike has now been charged with placing foreign objects in edibles, which carries a max sentence of 18 months. That probably means he’ll get nothing more than probation for this incident.

Both the mother and child were unharmed, but that still does not excuse or mitigate his behavior in any way, IMO. The child drinking the tea might have been unintentional, but his lying about the drug afterward WAS intentional. He knew the child had ingested the drug, and still lied to his wife about it – not knowing what it might do to the boy. That’s reckless endangerment, in my book.

Thanks to jj for this tip.

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The picture up there is Melodia Dunn. She is the mother of LaDareon Dunn, 3, and his brother Catereon, 2 – the two boys who died in a fire in Memphis a few weeks ago. The original story was posted here, and my first update to it can be found here.

The mother has FINALLY been arrested! She has been indicted for the deaths of her two children. Her lawyer is apparently already looking for a mental defect loophole for his client; and if successful, the irresponsible person who left those two boys to die alone in the house may not serve much time at all. Let’s all hope that a jury will see through such a lame excuse, and convict her and have her sentenced in the harshest possible manner.

Dunn is currently being held on $250,000.00 bond.

Thanks to Megan for the tip.

Diane Schuler

Diane Schuler has killed seven people. Four of them were children, and one of them was her own child. Diane was drunk. And stoned. And driving these kids back from a camping trip. There was only one survivor from the horrific crash that occurred after she drove almost two miles on the Taconic Parkway THE WRONG WAY. Her five year old son lived.

Diane killed her three nieces, ages 9, 7, and 5, and killed her own 2-year-old daughter as well. She also killed all three men in the SUV she hit head-on. And she died as well, so she won’t be going to jail for her crimes. Apparently many family members knew she was a drunk and a stoner, and indulged in both vices on a daily basis. Her husband and brother both knew – so I am wondering what in the name of Hades either of them was thinking when they decided to let her drive the kids home from the campground. As we all know, there is no cure for stupidity, but now I guess stupidity has also become a contagious disease. More than one person had to have caught it from her, for them to be able to justify letting her ferry anyone’s kids anywhere – let alone their own.

In addition to the stupidity factor, we can also add a healthy dose of denial. In the immediate aftermath of the accident, Diane’s husband was telling anyone who would listen that his wife didn’t drink at all – she was a teetotaler. The brother hasn’t said much on that topic – only that when she called him 2 hours before the wreck, to tell him she was feeling sick, her speech was slurred, and she was almost incoherent. Yet he still did nothing. I cannot imagine the guilt he must be feeling right now. His wife knew Diane smoked pot on a daily basis, but they were still in the car with the drunk and high idiot. Why?!? Why would you let your kids ride in a vehicle with someone you know does drugs, or drinks to excess?

I have a couple of family members who are not allowed to drive my kids anywhere, because they either drink or do drugs. For years it has caused fights, and bitterness on the part of the ones who were not allowed to drive the kids around. My reply? So freaking what?!?! They are my kids, and I will protect them from whatever I can, whenever I can, and other peoples’ feelings be damned. The family members I am talking about are good people, and I love them. I love them so much that I am not willing to put them in a position where I might have to have them arrested one day. I am not willing to let them drive my kids around, because if there WAS an accident, I would blame them. It wouldn’t matter if the accident was their fault or not – I would blame them because they were impaired. I love them too much to do that. So I don’t let my kids ride with them. Simple, right? I guess not. Not for this family, anyway.

At the time of the crash, Diane had a BAC of .19 – more than twice the legal limit. She also had another 10 ounces of undigested vodka in her stomach, an empty Absolut bottle in the vehicle……and the autopsy also showed high levels of THC. Wow….just wow! And nobody noticed or cared. Un-freakin-believable!

The lives of seven people were snuffed out, and another child was severely injured, because Diane couldn’t wait till she got home to get her drink on.

Although Trench didn’t send this tip to me, I will say thanks to Kathy Thomas, because her tip in another thread led me to this story.

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I wasn’t going to do another story today, since I have already given you so much to talk about. You have April to thank for my change of plans. She made me do it. Meet Linda and Robert Williams….

It seems a couple in Carson City Nevada think that locking their 3- and 5-year old boys in a bedroom of their trailer is a good parenting technique. The morally destitute female reproductive vessel also liked to keep them really clean – she scrubbed the 3-year old’s face with a brillo pad, causing his face to turn into one large, infected abrasion. Be sure to check out the second article link for Linda’s version of the cause of the 3-year old’s injuries. The 5-year old had two black eyes. In addition, the house was filthy, there were no toys for the kids, the food was locked up to keep them out of it, the bedroom door was kept shut with a sliding bolt on the outside, and the bedroom windows were boarded from the inside. Did I mention the two urine-filled toddler potties that were on the floor of the bedroom? The children were found huddled together on an upper bunk bed, sharing a blanket. The 5-year old refused to come out from behind the blanket, and the 3-year old could not be awakened. They were both transported to the hospital. It was the first time either of them had been seen by a doctor in three years. There is no word on their condition, but they have been placed in state protective custody.

But Linda and Robert were not completely bad people….they had a dog (breed not specified, but I bet Trench has a suggestion) which was well groomed, and appeared to be well taken care of. Also, the nasty snatch worked as a caregiver. Really?!?! Apparently not at home, she didn’t. According to authorities, she also wrote a ‘letter of apology’ for the boys’ treatment. Oh. OK. That makes it all better then. I’ll be sure to ask the inmates to write a letter of apology after they get hold of you.

Linda and Robert Williams have been charged with child abuse, false imprisonment, and child neglect. They are each being held on $100,000 bail.

Lynwood W. Gordon, 28, and Lachanta Davis,32, were charged with beating their five children, ages 6 to 12. The family lived in room at the Rodeway Inn in New Castle, Del.

After receiving a complaint from a school social worker about suspected abuse, police investigated. They found that the children were beaten with an electrical cord, hangers and a belt resulting in scars and bruises. The children confirmed the abuse, and Davis admitted to striking the kids as well.

She claimed that her parents hit her with sticks, so she thought nothing of hitting her own children that way. The latest abuse happened after Davis’s daughter blamed her mom for making her miss her school bus. In reaction, Davis hit the child nine times with an extension cord.

Davis is being held at Baylor Women’s Correctional Institution in lieu of $50,000 secured bail. Gordon is at Young Correctional Institution in lieu of $56,000 bail. The children are in emergency custody of the Delaware Division of Family Services.

Finally, a school social worker who has their act together to save some kids from abuse. Go Delaware! And I have to hope that emergency custody is better than living in a cheap hotel, too.

Recently we reported on the case of Clint and Lynn Engstrom, the Oshkosh, Wisconsin couple who kept Clint’s 13-year-old daughter in her room for 22 hours a day. Today was the teenager’s turn to tell her side of the story – in court.

According to the girl, she wasn’t physically locked in her room, but merely ordered to remain their for her “bad” behavior, which included talking back, hitting, kicking, and lying. In other words, being a pre-teen. When the teen asked her stepmom why she couldn’t see her friends from an old private school, Lynn Engstrom reportedly told her that all her friends hated her. Nice. It sounds like the parents’ treatment of this girl became a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more they told her she was bad, and treated her as bad, the more she internalized it…and the worse her punishments became.

Meanwhile, the blame game continues in fierce fashion, with Lynn Engstrom saying she did only what the girl’s psychiatrist told her to do, and with psychiatrist Dr. John Korger denying he ever told the parents to lock her in a bare room with a piss-soaked mattress. And the Engstrom’s attorney continues to maintain that the two did everything they could to “help” their daughter. Spare me. Depriving a kid of two years of her childhood? Treating her like the Cinderella of the house, while her three siblings slept in rooms stocked with toys, on clean and comfy beds?

That is criminal negligence. it’s abuse. And there is no excuse for it.

(Hat tip: Sinthyia)

Hot tipper Norma gave me the lowdown on one Francina Katina Shepard, who is apparently well known by Child Protective Services in Detroit, Michigan: three of her kids have been taken from her in the past. But that didn’t stop Shepard from bearing twins, and beating them both so severely that the 16-month-old boy died.

There’s very little information beyond that. Mostly all we have at this point are questions. Was CPS involved with these kids from the get-go, given Shepard’s history with the state? Did she give birth to them before or after the other kids were seized? In short, what (if any) is CPS’ culpability in this case? Obviously Shepard bears the brunt of the moral blame. But if this is another case of a state agency turning a blind eye to a known abuser, I’m going to blow my stack. It’s hard enough to watch what happens to some of the kids we profile on this site. It’s almost unbearable knowing that some of these tragedies could easily have been prevented.

If you have any information on this developing story – past CPS records, court records, etc. – please give us a heads-up.

(Some hot tipper supplied this link to me, but I lost their name. Sorry. It’s been a loooong week.)