, these are the types of stories they should be allowed to cover. War stories, and news reporting should be out of bounds to them, along with CBS/NBC/CNN.
Posted on 04/15/2006 11:41:30 AM PDT by Paddlefish
Marilyn was gone without a trace after her mother took off during a custody battle. "I felt like a piece of my heart had been taken away from me, not knowing if I would ever see her again," Dodd said. On five different occasions, authorities told Dodd that they had found his daughter. But each time they were wrong. Finally this week, pain turned to exhilaration after Dodd got a call from the U.S. Marshals Service that they had solved the oldest parental abduction case. This time they were right. "I started feeling chills running through my body," he said. "It's about to happen." In December, the Center for Missing and Exploited Children decided to team up with the FBI and the U.S. Marshals, who are best known for hunting down fugitives. The marshals began a painstaking investigation of every lead in the case, every friend, every relative. "We were able to gain information in the D.C. area," said Marshal David Thomas. "They believed that she moved somewhere up the coast. A lot of addresses were pointing towards Wilmington, Del."
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.news.aol.com ...
"On five different occasions, authorities told Dodd that they had found his daughter. But each time they were wrong."
wow. Can you say "justifiably pissed off?"
, these are the types of stories they should be allowed to cover. War stories, and news reporting should be out of bounds to them, along with CBS/NBC/CNN.
Nice to see that the power of the Feds is involved in this kind of thing now as well. Beats having the local cops tell you "they're not missing, you just don't where they are," or the DA saying something like "This is a civil issue," despite the fact that the abductor was violating their court order.
Yeah - it's the voice of experience.
What a triumph of love. Many another person would have given up or would have become embittered and loveless. This man continued to love and want his daughter.
I hope the girl turns on that monster mother who kidnapped her.
I saw nothing in that article to indicate the mother didn't have good reason to flee with her child.
What I see in the article that indicates the mother did not have a good reason is this: the court and custody system are heavily weighted against fathers, so if this man had done one thing wrong, the mom could have legally made it very difficult for him to see the child. If the mom had claimed that the father was, say, abusing the girl, he'd be in jail and forbidden to have contact with his daughter so fast it would make your head spin, whether the claim was true or false.
Besides, if the guy was a child molester or a spouse abuser, the cops would not have been helping him to find his daughter for so long.
*sighs*
It's such a pleasant Saturday, and so nice out, and a holiday weekend to boot, and I try so hard not to get into arguments here on FR, that I'm really tempted not to rebut this comment.
But, it's so far off the mark, I suppose I must.
The perception is that the court/custody system is heavily weighted against fathers. What actually happens is that a good many fathers agree to the mother's having custody, so it appears that way.
When an abusive father puts up a fight, it is simply frightening how frequently he prevails. Judges do not want to consider that a father could perpetrate such horrors on their own children. Conduct that, if you committed on a neighbor child you would be in jail for forever, ends up being considered just part of a messy divorce. Frequently, the police look the other way.
I work with this issue on a daily basis. I came to it watching a friend of mine, who was one of those mothers who, when you were around, you simply said, "Wow...what a great relationship she has with her kids!" lose custody of her kids in court to an abuser. (Literally, every time I was around him, he was blowing his stack in a manner I've never seen anyone do.)
I do not know the circumstances of this particular case. But I do know that the court system utterly fails to protect children in cases of abuse so frequently, it could drive someone to disappear without a trace.
You may be right about the failure of our court system to protect children; you say this is your business and I don't dispute that your experience is valid.
But I'm also familiar with many cases in which some loyal and loving fathers are denied the opportunity to see his children and the court just shakes its metaphoric finger gently at the mothers who disobey strict court orders to permit the fathers access. I've seen cases in which mothers were permitted to take their kids to the opposite end of the country in order to punish an ex-husband. I've seen cases in which fathers paid and paid and paid exorbitant sums in child support and still didn't get time with their kids. If there's a custody dispute, the "tender years" doctrine still places young kids with their mother even if the doctrine has been officially abandoned. In some cases mothers who are making a good living are still paid alimony as well as child support, leaving Dad to choose between living in poverty or going to jail. Many on this forum can testify to the injustices of the family court system.
I say this as a woman, not a knee-jerk woman-hater.
Thank you.
Judge Frawley in STL, MO is totally biased on the side of the father. My son was abused by his step-mom, his father knew about it because my son told his father it was happening and showed his father the bruises on his back, butt and face. DFS investigated the matter and i was substantiated that he was abused whil at his father's house. My son's psychologist confirmed the abuse, as did my son's pediatrician.
The judge said to us in the courtroom "I think it would be worse for him to not see his dad than any alleged abuse".
I'm not siding with the mother, but i'd like to see more facts.
Thank you for your well-reasoned reply. (I was a little afraid I was going to get flamed, and, as you may see from my first post, it's just too pleasant a day for that to happen. :) )
I think there are gross inefficiencies and injustices in the family court system. While I'm not willing to "split the difference" and say it happens to both equally, I certainly acknowledge there are on occasion fathers who get screwed over.
But I can't buy into, nor perpetrate, the idea that they are "biased against men." I have seen and heard way too much to believe that.
Happy Easter.
I'm very sorry to hear that, although I'm not surprised in the least. :(
Not when I have magistrates making comments from the bench that comments that "I'm going to kill you" doesn't really mean as much in the course of a heated family dispute as other places.
Or a psychologist giving a Good Housekeeping seal of approval to communications, one in four of which are deemed abusive.
*shakes his head*
Hang in there. My prayers are with you and your son.
I think much depends on the state and county you're in. The courts in liberal states (which is what I live in) tend very much to favor women.
Right now a friend's son has had his children handed over to their mother, a crackhead with multiple convictions, diagnosed as severely mentally ill. He's a fine, upstanding young man who is bankrupting himself so he can get custody of the young children before she kills them. And it's a losing battle.
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