On a frigid January night, one knock on his door turned his life upside down. But the seizure of his four year old daughter, from the only home she's known, was just the start in a one and a half year battle with DHS, its agencies, and the Juvenile Family Court system.
Envision the father sixty-one, non married and your name is not on the birth certificate. Add abuse allegations and calculate the odds of recapturing your daughter.
The descriptive, wrenching anguish he shares throughout the narrative, gives insight into the impact the State's savagery has on families.
With each passing encounter, the bias, notably age and gender escalates. False allegations presumed as fact. Social workers not following basic protocol. State's attorneys objecting without reasons, and a Judge issuing a court order leaving explanations blank.
Forced to retire, the former Teacher provides a colorful and unadulterated glimpse into his thoughts of each person and agency he engages with.
Is it possible his daughter's Guardian Ad Litem (GAL), whose job is to advocate in the child's best interest, investigate the parties of the case, make home visits, compile reports and give recommendations, has never spoken to the father? The father who has appeared and even sat next to the GAL, at Family team meetings, disposition and progress hearings, for over one year. Not one word was ever exchanged...
Is it possible to legally keep a father, who spent every night for over four years with his daughter, from talking or seeing her for seventy days? A father with no criminal record to the case, and drops clean UA's? Yes, in this disturbing calamity anything is possible.
