Sunday, April 16, 2006

What Kind of a Human Being Would be Trying to Separate a 4 Year Old From her Mother


Can you imagine what kind of a human being would be trying to get custody of a 4 year old away from it’s mother? Especially a black child with the history in this country of black children being sold away from their mothers for financial gain…Even some of the language used by the US marshals “who are best known for hunting down fugitives” hunting this poor mother and child reminded me of those ads slave owners used to put in newspapers offering rewards for the return of runaway slaves…

US marshals should stick to their original mission and keep their noses out of the affairs of mothers and their children.

I just vomited all over my keyboard just thinking about what this poor mother must of gone through over the years afraid at any time that a US marshal could show up and steal her child away from her.

This is why we must ALL be careful about getting involved and helping this National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as it appears to have morphed into another tool to exploit mothers and children for financial gain in this ever-expanding custody war that men have instigated…This National Center is going to lose ALL credibility with mothers if they continue their pattern of getting involved on the side of men in custody fights.


http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/LegalCenter/story?id=1844217&page=1&WNT=true


Father and Daughter to be Reunited After 13 Year

Girl was missing since mother abducted her at age 4

April 14, 2006 — Carl Dodd, a Washington, D.C., transit worker, says he has had a hole in his life since his 4-year-old daughter, Marilyn, disappeared 13 years ago.

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."

A Painstaking Process

But Marilyn Byrd would be 17 years old now. What would a 4-year-old look like as a young adult?

The marshals relied on the center's age-enhancement technology, which estimated her growth rate and how her features would change over 13 years.

"We brought in some subtle maturity into the area of the eyes, into the area of the nose," said Glenn Miller, supervisor for the Forensic Services Unit at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "These are again slow changes, very small, but we have to be conscious of that when we do the age progression."

Thomas said the result was startlingly accurate. "The picture was dead on with what she looked like," he said. "Our deputies were able to notice her right away with this photograph."

Most abducted children are eventually found. Dodd will finally get to see his daughter Monday. He is nervous.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Obviously, you have never experienced the emotional pain and lies this child has gone through. My own mother stole me away from my father and an extended family. We moved all the time (the most being 13 times in one year), always afraid that one day someone would come to the door "to steal me away from her". It wasn't until I was a teenager that I realized it wasn't "them" I needed to be afraid of but my own mother's actions and selfishness. My mother hid my birth certificate, their marriage license, and anything that provided a hint to my father's identity. She would tell me that he didn't want me, that he tried to kill me on several occasions. I lived in fear and would go hid whenever the doorbell rang. Yes, there are situations in which the welfare of the child is in jeopardy and ONLY in those cases do I feel that it is in the child's best interest to remove them from that environment. This does not give the cutodial parent the right to "bad mouth" the other parent. When you do so, you are not hurting the other parent, only the child. I can't tell you how many times I wondered if my father was so horrible would I become the same way. It took months of counseling to recover from the manipulation, lies, and worst of all, my own mother's betrayal.

It wasn't until I was 19 that I finally was able to tell my mother to "butt out of my life". I researched all of the "stories" she told me and found that they were lies. My father had tried to find me but because we moved so much, my mother was one step ahead of him. I spent hours talking to friends of my maternal grandparents to get information and was able to get copies of my birth certificate, my parents' marriage license and divorce papers all of which my mother refused to give me.

I was able track down my paternal family to the tune of $26,000. (I earned this working 2 full time jobs while going to college full time). I was 27 years old when I finally found them. My father unfortunately had passed away. My grandfather had also passed away and my grandmother was in a nursing home with Alzheimer's. My mother stole away a family from me, a heritage, an identity. This girl is very fortunate. She has a family that never gave up hope, they have a chance to reunite, reacquaint and hopefully in time, love and cherish the time they now have together.

I am a single mother with 2 young children of my own. Their father is very much a part of their lives. We refuse to allow our problems become our children's problems. Every child has a right to at least "know" their parents, grandparents, family and heritage. We share joint custody and work very hard at communicating with each other about our children and keeping our personal problems, just that, personal. We try not to argue in front of our children, and to provide them with an example that any problem can be resolved with serious discussion. Our children have had to adjust to "daddy" not living with us and having another "woman" in his home. Eventhough he left me for another woman, I do not bad mouth him to our children. The one time his new fiancee did bad mouth me (to my face) in front of our children, he told her that he would not accept that kind of talk around our children and if they were to be married she would need to seriously consider her feelings about the children being from a previous marriage. If she could not accept it than they could not be married, period.

And no, I do not bad mouth my mother to my children. She comes to visit, however, I do not allow them to be alone together. I can only provide to my children stories about their grandfather and great-grandfather as told to me by paternal aunts and uncles. They have met their great-grandmother who never was able to see them or meet me before her mind began to fail. Again, someone hurt by my mother's actions.

The mother in the article is an adult and knew exactly what she was doing. I don't care what she gives as an excuse...she will not get an ounce of sympathy from me. The only one that deserves my sympathy and prayers is the child who was manipulated and used as a pawn in an adult's mind game.

NYMOM said...

In the context of one family, you are probably right as this should NEVER happen to any child...however in the big picture over 300,000 parental abductions take place in this country every year...so with those kinds of numbers we MUST look at what is driving this...and sadly it appears to be men fighting for custody in order to avoid paying child support.

I can see no other significant social change that has happened to drive this behavior...

So something MUST happen in order to drive these numbers down and unless we want women to just quit having kids (which is actually happening already to a certain extent, due to all this custody and abduction crap started by men) we are going to have to change SOMEONE'S behavior...and since women are the bearers of life (not chosen by me, it's just a fact of life) they are the ones who must be catered to in this instance...not men...

Men are secondary players in this situation, backup and support, not in charge...it is WOMEN'S ROLE, our honor or curse whatever you wish to call it to be the bearers of life and thus, OUR WISHES in this matter regarding THE children WE, ALONE BEAR must take precedence...

Sorry...

I don't feel badly for men as they control everything else in the world from the government to the Pentagon and the courts...

THIS, however, is something they are not going to have...it's not something for a court to give them...it's something that has been given to women by God, evolution or nature whatever you want to call it...

Those people who don't like this simple fact, take it up with their deity...whatever.

Again, sorry...

Anonymous said...

If those guys are asking for full custody "to avoid paying child support", does it mean that child support payments are grossly overinflated?

After all, the guy prefers to pay for "all" the expenses of the child, instead of for "a part" of these, as CS supposedly do?

Anonymous said...

"Those people who don't like this simple fact, take it up with their deity...whatever."

Well, looks like they are not taking it up with their deity as you would like, but with the courts. And in many cases, the courts agree with them.

NYMOM said...

Yes I believe child support is overly inflated.

I mean for one thing, it doesn't take into account that as income goes up the percentage of your income that you spend on your children falls...so probably the 17% to 20% that constitute guideline support for one child is appropriate at the lower income levels (ie: poverty or welfare recipient spending) but as income goes up the percentages should be dropped...

I mean this is where you get those unbelievable child support awards of $800 to $1000 monthly for one child in a working class family...and this is claimed as the correct amount for ONE parent's prorated share. Of course it's ridiculous but that's the standard amount of child support, so Judge HAVE to order it, they can't deviate...

The ancient Romans only allocated 5% of the entire income from a woman's dowry to cover child support for any children she produced...of course those were the highest income people in the ancient world...

So about 5% to 8% of an income over minimun wage is probably decent for guideline support since you still have to pay for a prorated portion of childcare plus uncovered medical...so you would be paying 17% to 20% of your income anyway when the smoke clears, as opposed to now where people are paying 40% to 50% of their incomes with childcare and uncovered medical included.

I mean in NY your prorated share of childcare can be MORE then the 17% of child support...

Additionally there has to be some recognition that women who were stay-at-home mothers should not be made to pay guideline child support. As everyone agrees they make less income due to investing their time in building their families as opposed to their careers, which all of us in society benefit from their sacrifice.

Thus, it's just not fair to impose an additional burden on them of 1. making less income over a lifetime because they chose to have children and stay home and raise them; and 2. then hitting them up for child support if they lose custody...

It's like a double burden for those women who contribute the most to their society's long-term future and not fair.

NYMOM said...

"..in many cases the courts agree with them..."

The courts might agree with them now, but we have seen that historically courts are not always the best arbitrators of what is morally right.

Only what is legal.

In other words what you can get away with...

As I have said before if men continue instigating all this trouble we will soon have no children to fight over...that's where this is heading.

NYMOM said...

IdahoMom:

I think you posted here before and I believe I told you then this is a site for like-minded persons to discuss ways to brainstorm so as to change the current situation. In essence to stop women from losing custody of their children so men can benefit financially...

Thus if you have no ideas along those lines, don't bother commenting here. Going forward your comments will be erased (unread) unless they meet that criteria.

Have a nice day anyway.