It was a Monday morning and I just sat down with my first cup of coffee, my phone dinged from a Facebook message. I looked to see who messaged me so early to find the words “I’ll pay you to take a DNA test”! At first, I originally thought that this lady must have the wrong person, so I asked her “Are you high”? I have 2 beautiful little girls and 2 beautiful C-Section scars to prove their births! She then proceeds to tell me that she is nearly 100% sure that my husband fathered her daughter!

 

After a very lengthy conversation with this lady, and receiving adorable pictures from her, of her daughter who’s biracial, and I looked at her pictures and looked at my husbands pictures and made the decision that this is more than likely his child.

 

My husband and I sat down and had “the talk”. It was interesting to say the least! About 3 hours later we agreed together that this was more than likely his child just going by looks. He then asked me to message this woman again and see what it was exactly that she wanted. What did she want? She needed us to take her daughter to Florida where we resided to get her away from people who supposedly stole her from her. Sounds odd right? We thought so too!

 

Her original story was that she was sent to jail one day for a bad check and traffic fines that she never paid and since her Mother was there her mother kept her daughter while she was in jail. Then, when she got out, her father obtained temp custody of this child. After a while, the father died, the grandmother then ended up with this child. She claimed to not be able to care for her, so she was given to people that had no business having a child in their custody. Later, I found out why!

 

We finally received a message from the woman who was housing this child, with her husband, and she told me a whole different story than the Mother told me, of course! Her story was that the Mother abandoned this child in a motel on a hill and the child was picked up by the Grandmother and given to the grandfather, who then died and then given to them because they’ve had her since birth off and on and she was familiar with their family.

 

3 days later….

My husband and I felt something was not right! Something was off! Someone was lying! And, we knew one of the people who had this child from in the past and knew he was not a good person in the past. My husband said he wanted to file for custody especially if this was his daughter to get her away from the hands of this man who had her because we knew his past behavior was not good! So, we filed in Mississippi Chancery Court, Tishomingo County a petition for visitation and custody. We did it on our own and hired an attorney afterwards.

 

My husband called the man who had her and decided to meet them in Iuka, MS so he could meet this little girl and see If there was a bond there. So, we packed our car and kids up and started our journey for the first time there! It was a horribly long trip, our 7-year-old had a bladder the size of a peanut, so we were stopping once an hour, every hour. Plus gas, eating, snacks, and to rest some! A 14 hour ride for a family who hasn’t traveled in a car much was difficult, but we made it!

 

14 ½ hours later, we arrived in Corinth, MS and checked into our hotel room at the Hampton Inn. Very nice hotel and very friendly faces! It’s so home like that we have stayed there nearly every time we have to make the trip up there.

 

My husband received a message from the man who has this child and he tells him that he is not going to allow us to see her because she’s with her family that day. And then tells us that he is not going to allow the visit to happen at all because she’s terrified of men from things that happened to her when she was very little.  So, we’ve thought that we made the trip for nothing. Until, we find out there is a Guardian At Litem on the custody case and he sees clients on Sundays! We were up there on a Sunday and made the arrangement to see him that Sunday!

 

We arrived at his office in a downtown like area. Beautiful buildings, gorgeous landscape, sideways styled parking like what you would see on a Hallmark Movie! When you opened his door, you went up this huge flight of steps into an old office that smelled really musty and had cobwebs everywhere. My first thought was this place needed a serious cleaning and does this man actually have clients come to this office space?

 

This man was creepy looking, not a professional appearance at all, and had a grim look on his face.

 

We brought our kids with us and they sat in the waiting room while me and my husband went in the office to speak to this man one by one, then for a few minutes together. The things this man said was hideous! Said “if we wanted custody of this child that we would do everything in our power to obtain custody even if that meant move to Mississippi”! He said other things that I cannot discuss at this time. And, moving to Mississippi wasn’t happening and that made him quite upset when we both told him that we’re not moving up there, our life was in Florida.

 

My husband took his DNA test in October 2017 and it came back that this beautiful baby girl was his! (we already knew that)

 

We hired our first attorney in November 2017 and went to our first court appearance in December 2017 to receive one supervised visit and several unsupervised visits, every other weekend for an 8-hour visit, to occur in Iuka, MS.  Plus, one phone call per week to call the man’s phone who had my stepdaughter.

 

After our first court appearance, we were allowed to meet our baby girl at her school with her biological Mother present. Up until that moment, this child had not seen her Mother in nearly 2 years because the people who had her kept her away from her and the Maternal Grandmother made it so that the Mother wasn’t allowed around this child. That first meeting at the school, our babygirl hid for a few minutes until she heard her dad’s voice and then she ran over to him and hugged him, kissed him and wouldn’t let him go! They danced to the hokey pokey together and played musical chairs with our other 2 kids that were with us and had a grand time together! She came over and sat in my lap and asked me if I was taking her home to our house and I just laughed and said no, you must go back to your home today. After that, she would not leave my side!

 

Our first supervised visit was the last weekend in December. We drove from Ormond Beach, FL to Iuka, MS, which is a 14-hour trip for us for only a 3 hour visit. We met them at the McDonalds in Iuka, MS and was asked to leave after 45 minutes of sitting there because of the “seating rule” and was told by the manager that day that the people in our party knew of the seating rule. So, during 30-degree weather, we went to the park so that we could play with her and start our bonding process! After playing outside, they said it was time for them to go home and that is when the crying started! She begged for us to not give her back to them, begged for us to bring her to our home and said that she does not want to go back with them because she is tied of being hit. We have all the videos of this incident! She held onto her dad and wouldn’t let him go until he carried her to their car, and he put her in it, after I pleaded with her not to cry because she would make me cry!

 

Two weeks passed and we made the first trip up there to see her unsupervised! Received a message from the Grandmother telling us to basically not come because of weather issues, snow and ice, but nothing was getting in the way of my husband seeing his precious little girl! So, we traveled up there with snow and ice on the roads for 14 hours and visited with her for 7 hours the first time. We went to a little pizza joint that has an arcade in there and had a blast! It was time to meet back up with them to give her back and she pitched a whole type of fit because she did not want to go back. She again begged and pleaded with her dad to not take her back because she is tired of being hit. She said she ran away once to a friend’s house because of him hitting her. We noted a few bruises on her arms but figured it was from a kid being a kid!

 

We made this trip once every other weekend to Iuka, MS from Ormond Florida for 5 months back and forth. Every time we picked her up or dropped her off, there was a problem with these people! Once, we had nearly the whole Iuka, MS police department surrounding our car scaring our kids. We went to Chuck E Cheese once and they showed up and tried to take her away from her dad while she was in his arms. They were always late to drop her off to us at McDonalds. And once they even got angry that we decided to get a hotel room for the day and hang out in the hotel room and binge watch kids shows and eat popcorn! The one time we decided to get a hotel room, I’m glad we did because we found out that she had lice in her hair and we ended up treating her hair and giving her a bath because she smelled awful! Nearly every time we have ever picked her up, she smelled, her hair was matted, and she was in pajamas, never failed!

 

We finally had another court date and because the GAL on the case decided to take a vacation and supposedly got sick and couldn’t travel back to Mississippi, they had to continue the case, after we were already up there.

 

The next court date, we drove all the way up there and had to continue that one also because the Judge had an emergency and couldn’t make it.

 

The next court date we finally obtained visits to our home for a week. We met up with the people at the GAL’s office and they told us that she was on medicine for several things. During this meet up, there was an investigator in the office who was a witness to this incident. The people attempted to hand us medicine in little baggies and in a container that is not approved for travel. I spoke up since I was the one driving and explained that I can not take this medicine like how they handed it to us and that it had to be in bottles. The GAL told us to figure it out because he was going to lunch and couldn't bother with us and our "issues" as he said it. The investigator agreed with me and said that the way it was packaged was against the law and not suitable to cross state lines. We immediately called our attorney and he informed the other parties lawyer that they need to go get the bottles for transport and they refused, so she went without her medicine all week long. We didn’t see a difference from giving it to her vs. not giving it to her, which we thought was odd!

 

We finally got to take our baby girl home! We had a great ride back home and an even better week at home! The kids played, had so much fun and we even went out and bought new furniture for their room! They originally had 2 twin beds in their room, but they wanted bunk beds! So, that is what we went and found. They picked out white ones and said that they wanted their room to be purple and the beds white. It was severely disappointing when we had to take her back home! She was not a happy camper! She complained the whole ride home and threw a few fits until we promised that we would come back for her very soon!

 

Thanksgiving came and the Guardian at Litem recommended that the other party give us our baby girl for the week. He thought it would be a good idea so she can do some more bonding! We made travel arrangements to meet them in Macon, GA the meet up spot that was supposed to be halfway. We were on the road and halfway there and they messaged and said they were not giving her to us for the week. Said that since it was not court ordered and it was just a recommendation from the GAL, they didn’t have to. We immediately called the GAL and his words were “I’ve told_____ to bring you the child and he might want to reconsider his decision or there will be consequences” Now, so far, 1 year later, there has not been any consequences to their inappropriate actions.

 

Court Ordered Christmas visit! Yes!! Exactly what we needed. We met them in Macon, GA again and picked her up! Had an amazing ride home and when she got there and seen all her presents under and all around the tree her eyes lit up like the Christmas tree! We live directly behind a convenience store in a mobile home park and she asked her daddy to go get her something from the store. Me and the kids sat on the porch talking about Santa and how does he fit un our little fireplace, you had to be there! All of a sudden a white Nissan Altima that we’ve never seen before was driving faster than normal passed our home and nearly hit my husband, probably because it’s fairly dark out there at night, we’re still hoping that didn’t happen on purpose! And it had the rental sticker on the window and our baby girl instantly started crying and screaming at that car “Do not come to my daddys house and take me ____, I’m not leaving here”! I instantly realized that it was the other party and messaged them to tell them that I had them on camera and seen they were in our neighborhood and they were more than welcome to come inside our home to see that it was safe and nice and if they were going to follow us home, why did we just drive all the way to Macon, GA for nothing! Of course, they tried to lie and say that they were not there, but it later came out in court that they were and that they lied!!

 

We got her into the bathtub that evening and she had bruises all over her little body! Arms, legs, and her butt. It was horrible. My oldest daughter asked her what happened and she told her that _____ hit her and she’s been telling us this for a long time now but no one will listen to her and that his father who she calls _____ has hit her a lot too. I was furious, my husband her father was furious! We don’t hit our kids, we don’t believe in hitting them because they’re good kids. Why would someone hit her and leave marks on her? It was awful and there was nothing that I could do except contact our attorney and the Guardian at Litem on the case. Nothing was ever done about it and it was brushed under the rug like it didn’t happen!

We took her back the first weekend in January and the drop off went smooth, thank goodness! We had a wonderful visit and we were both glad the exchange went peacefully.

We are so glad that drop off went smooth because one of our pick ups didn't go so smooth! One day I met with the man at the Texas Roadhouse in Macon, GA and I feared for my life! He nearly assaulted me over a blanket! He was over 5 hours late and when I asked for a blanket for our baby girl, he refused to give one to her. Said that I needed to be more prepared. When I was set to meet him at 6 pm, it was 75 degree, when he showed up at 1145, a cold front had come through and it was 44 degree! He raised his fist to me and everything! Every thing was caught on camera at this restaurant! This man is violent, and has a horrible temper. This incident was told to the GAL and of course, he did nothing to the other party for his actions!

Our original attorney had to quit on us, he was amazing, but his heart was being a Military Lawyer! So, we hired John Robbins out of Tupelo! The best decision we have ever made. John has been there for us emotionally and legally! He is a family man himself and very down to Earth and has a heart of Gold. If you ever need an attorney, please contact him, you won’t be disappointed!

 

We went back to court and received more visitation, and no end for final custody. Every excuse in the book was made! The GAL needed to contact the Department of Children and Families in Florida to do a home visit with us, he never did! The GAL then said that we need to get our own home study done and gave me the name and number to call, so I did!

 

$1000.00 later, Florida Home study LLC came to our home and completed a home study. The lady was genuinely nice and kind. She took pictures and interviewed me, my kids, and my husband. She was so amazing! She said it normally takes months to get this done but we were on a time crunch and needed it done before our next court date, in 2 weeks! We were sent to MacData, a background screening place and was fingerprinted and questioned.

 

The biological Mother of my stepdaughter was halfway living here in our neighborhood in Florida and an unfortunate event happened. Her baby died and is believed that the Father of this baby killed him. I honestly do not know what all happened to the baby as I was not there when he died or when the Father was arrested for murder. Because of the murder of the baby, the GAL on the case decided that it was in the best interest of the child to have her taken away from her father and myself and assumed that we put her in harms way. Unfortunately, I nor anyone else can determine where this woman lives and cannot say that she has ever brought harm towards my stepdaughter. No one agreed that our baby girl was put into harms way, even DCF in Florida came to our home and said that our home was nice and fit and that he knew the background of the people who had temp custody of her and that he wouldn’t recommend taking her back there. He said we needed to figure it out on how to get her away from them!

 

We were ordered to bring her back to Mississippi by the Judge and the GAL. and she was placed back with them. The GAL heard me telling her that if they hit her to call 911!! He told me to stop telling her that. Then, when we were set to leave, without her, the GAL tried stealing MY child! He took her by the arm and tried yanking her and the other party’s attorney said she needed to go with the other party but what they did not realize is… They had the wrong kid! Now, the two girls are only 9 days apart, but they look nothing like each other! My daughter is very dark skinned and also biracial, and my stepdaughter is exceptionally light skinned biracial child! How do you mix these 2 girls up? Makes me question, has the GAL ever met with my stepdaughter? Does he know who she is? Did he ever see her? All these questions are filling my head while I am grabbing my child to make sure they cannot take her away! And I told him that he had the wrong child and as soon as he realized it, he bolted out of the court room and ran to his car! He knew he screwed up!

 

One of our last court appearances in 2019, the GAL spoke to my oldest daughter, who is also biracial, and asked her some absurd questions. Questions that he has no business asking a child and makes me wonder how he is suitable to be a Guardian At Litem! Telling her to not have sex because he waited until he was 30 to have his kids. Asked her if she is going to be jealous having another mouth to feed because she will not be able to get all her makeup she wants and that she cannot have her expensive shoes. Telling her that her Christmas’ will be slimmer having another child in the house! I could not believe my ears when my 15-year-old child started telling me the things that he said to her!

 

We’ve been back and forth to court over 9 times now, only met with the Guardian At Litem once, while the other party has met with him over 18 times over the course of 3 years. He has refused to accept documents from us, refused to meet with us to get to know us, instead of going off hearsay from the other party and the Maternal Grandmother. The Judge refuses to listen to anything us or our attorney has to say. She is only willing to see our case if the GAL has been to our home so he can give a recommendation. The other party has made this exceedingly difficult to see our baby girl. The GAL has refused to come to our home and has claimed some absurd reasonings. First his excuse was “who’s going to pay for that trip”? then, “I don’t know the area so I can’t travel there”, then we found out he traveled to the Keys from Corinth, MS and you must pass right by our home to get there! We have offered to pay for the trip, offered him a map and told him about google maps. But the best thing is, when we have brought this up to the Judge, she’s insisted that he come to our home. So, on February 11, 2020 the Judge court ordered this GAL to come to our home and do a home visit so he can give a recommendation, he had 51 days from that day until the Country shut down for the Covid 19 issues. He never came! Now, it’s June 8, 2020, and we were a week away from our last court date and the GAL has continued this case again because he was negligent in his job and has refused to come to Florida.

 

The last time we seen our baby girl was Feb 14! Her hair was matted to her head, she smelled like garbage and her panties were crusty! She’s being abused and neglected! No one will listen to us! No one will advocate for her, no one will help her! We’ve done all we can do and have hit another road block! That is why we have made the story of our baby girl, to get the word out and hope that someone, anyone can help us help her!

 

We are begging for the GAL to stop listening to hearsay and come to our home, order his own study with DCF in Florida, get to know us as a person instead of the lies he’s heard from the other party and the Maternal Grandmother, OR eject himself from the case! If I went to work daily and did not perform my job for 3 years straight, I would be fired, why isn’t he? This custody case should not have lasted 3 years! Her natural born Father is able and willing to take care of her! In fact, it's the law in Mississippi for a child to be with the natural born parent, unless proven to be unfit or unwilling to care for said minor child. My husband, her father, hasn't abandoned her, is willing and capable of caring for her and as a matter of fact, has raised two other children in his custody for the last 10 years. 

 

We are begging the Judge that if she can not make a sound decision without the GAL to remove herself from the case or allow the case to proceed without the recommendation of the GAL! It’s plainly obvious that he can not perform his job in its entirety.

We are also asking that the Judge award us custody based on facts, and not hearsay from the GAL that hasn't done his job since he was hired to do so! He's biased, he's failing at keeping her safe and he refuses to get to know us but favors the third party, who shouldn't have any type of rights to our baby girl!! 

ACCEPT OUR HOMESTUDY that has already been completed!! 

 

Please share our story and the change petition that we have made to get us some help in this situation! 

PLEASE HELP US BRING OUR BABY GIRL HOME WHERE SHE BELONGS!!