4 Family Court-Enabled Child Murders in 2 Months in 1 State
MSM Gets It Wrong Again
In 2 months in one state, Family Court judges enabled fathers to murder four precious children. Sophia, Liam, Audrey, and Cameron were murdered in Colorado in December and January.
Familicide after divorce or separation by revenge- and control-obsessed fathers is a societal problem the world over. A significant subsection of these murders are being committed by fathers who’ve sexually abused the children. In these recent Colorado cases, it was no different.
The Denver Gazette published an article discussing these cases, and a few others that involved abusive fathers getting custody, but not murder—at least not yet. A summary of the cases here is followed by a critique of the gender-neutral language and framing of the issue, which serves to mislead the public as to the real cause of the Custody Crisis.
LITTLE SOPHIA
At three years-old, little Sophia came home with ligature marks around her ankles and a strange rash. She began telling her mother about things she didn’t like that her father was doing to her, amounting undeniably to sexual abuse.
Sophia said that her father would kiss her private parts. She exhibited sexualized behaviors, including inserting items in her orifices. She said her father made her wash him during baths.
There was also evidence that the father was using Sophia to make CSAM [child sexual abuse material]. Recent research indicates that it is not uncommon for fathers to use children for CSAM.
Sophia’s childcare provider made a report to CPS that she had been making sexual overtures with another child. Both CPS and criminal investigations were opened. The police, as usual did a piss-poor investigation, closed the case, and told Andrea to stop pestering them. The CPS worker wanted to protect Sophia, but was thwarted from doing so by her supervisor.
That left Family Court, where Judge Rebecca Moss did what most judges do: she disregarded and minimized the strong evidence of sexual abuse. Apparently, she accepted the father’s defense that he was just putting suppositories into Sophia and giving her enemas.
Andrea told reporters that Judge Moss didn’t believe her. But Judge Moss did not disbelieve her—or Sophia. She was discrediting her as a means to cover up the sexual abuse and switch custody to the father.
Two years after Sophia bravely began telling about the abuse, her father murdered her and then killed himself. Their bodies were found in his truck last month.
LITTLE LIAM
Cathleen had a Restraining Order against Little Liam’s father due to his domestic violence. Although he had also abused Liam, the RO just covered Cathleen and she had to bring him to visit with his violent father.
Liam’s father had been arrested for violating the RO in September with no bond. And that was just one of the many times he had violated it.
Family Court Judge Scott Sells (believed to be incorrectly reported as “David” Sells since there is no public record of one) acknowledged the father’s violent and criminal behaviors, but said that did not make him unfit to parent Liam. He gave the father custody.
On January 5th, the father murdered Liam and killed himself. They were also found in the father’s truck.
Women’s Coalition News & Views reported on the case of Little Cameron and Audrey when they were murdered in December: 2 Little Girls Murdered: Victims of Custody Crisis.
Their mother, Erica, pleaded for their safety, but the judge ordered equal parenting time with the father. He shot and killed them in December before killing himself.
SERIAL MURDER ENABLER JUDGE MOSS
Andrea’s judge, Judge Rebecca Moss, enabled another DV perp father to murder his son back in 2019. She permitted the father to keep 10 year-old Ty from away from his mother, Jing, and actively alienate him from her for nearly a year.
A new judge came on the case and was horrified at the degree of alienation perpetrated by the father. She said was going to stop it by giving the mother significant parenting time. This angered the father and he proceeded to murder little Ty the very evening of the hearing where he had lost his nearly complete control over the boy.
This new judge did the right thing by denouncing the father for alienating Ty. In this case, Ty was young enough that simply giving the mother more time than the father would help her undo the “undue influence”. But the abusive father really should have been restricted to supervised visits. That may have prevented his death.
In a recently publicized case involving alienation and reunification, Maya and Sebastian were older and the father had reportedly alienated them to the point they were fiercely refusing to visit their mother. So a four day reunification program was used as a transitional step to help them reunify with her.
Although alienation by fathers in custody cases is common, reunifying with mothers is rare, so kudos to judges who do rightful reunifications helping mothers get their children back. But fathers should not be allowed to alienate children in the first place. If a mother dares to keep her children away from a father for a few hours, days, or weeks, she faces jail, like in Elizabeth’s case.
The Ty and Bryn wrongful reunification case that Women’s Coalition News & Views profiled in a recent column “Teen Barricaded in Room: Refuses Reunification with Molester Father” has gone international MSM with an article in the Daily Mail and ProPublica today.
Theirs is the typical case in which the mother has been falsely accused of alienating and the kids are being wrongly made to reunify with a sexually abusive father.
3 ADDITIONAL CASES
The Gazette article additionally profiles three more Colorado cases in which abusive fathers have been given custody but have not escalated to murder. Two involve sexual abuse and one extreme physical violence.
In one case, a mother has spent over $600,000 in legal fees, court-related payments, and sanctions for being a “vexatious litigant”. All for just trying to protect her daughter from sexual abuse and neglect by the father.
Another involves a mother who was, amazingly, at first able to protect her 7 year-old daughter with supervised visits with the molester father. But later, when her daughter turned 10, the judge deemed her old enough to fend off the father’s sexual assaults and reinstated unsupervised visitation.
A third case does not comprise sexual abuse, “only” severe interpersonal violence. In one of many DV incidents, the father fractured the mother’s skull and broke her nose—in front of their child. The judge, however, deemed his violence unimportant, and instead said restricting visitation with the father would be traumatic for the baby.
GENDER NEUTRAL LANGUAGE
Although the Gazette journalist does a great job bringing to light all these horrific Family Court cases, he gets the overall picture wrong, as expected, since organizations and “advocates” interviewed are not identifying the gendered cause of the Custody Crisis.
The headline states the “troubled Family Court system ignores children in peril”. It characterizes the system as “dysfunctional”.
But, as Women Coalitionists know, the system is not dysfunctional per se. It is working exactly as designed—to empower men in their role as fathers and disempower women in their role as mothers. Secondly, children are not being gender-neutrally imperiled. Children are being imperiled by being given to abusive fathers.
Despite the fact that all of the cases profiled comprise mothers unable to protect their children from fathers, the article uses gender-neutral language and concepts when it comes to the larger issue. It characterizes cases as “high conflict” rather than cases in which mothers are trying to protect children from the father.
The article asserts that allegations of abuse, sexual assault and violence are ignored and children are being endangered by judges returning them to abusive or unfit parents, when it is only abusive and unfit fathers who are routinely given custody.
The oft-cited, gender-neutral statistic of murders of children by “parents” post separation is rehashed, as usual, without clarifying that the vast majority of the over 900 murders were committed by fathers apparently motivated by revenge and control. No mention of the rarity of mothers murdering their children; and when that happens, it’s usually a result of the mother being seriously mentally ill or experiencing severe grief or desperation at having lost her children or being unable to protect them from a sexually abusive father.
The other oft-cited, gender-neutral statistic the article refers to is the: 58,000 children a year are court-ordered into the custody of abusers. This is also seriously misleading, because, as stated above, the only epidemic is children being court-ordered into the custody of violent and abusive fathers, not mothers. The article goes on to say that parents are being penalized for reporting abuse, when it is only mothers being consistently punished.
This focus on generic abuse is delved into in a previous column: “Down the Abuse Rabbit Hole.
INEFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS
Then come the inevitable ineffective solutions proposes to end the crisis: more training and other legislation of some sort or the other.
The inescapable: judges need more training is still being pitched when there is no evidence this has worked over the last half century. And there is a ton of evidence—and women’s lived experiences—that judges are switching custody to abusive fathers deliberately, not due to lack of training.
Protective parent advocates interviewed also claim legislation creating “tighter regulations” for evaluators is needed. While that may make it a bit more difficult for judges, it won’t stop them from using evaluators who will do their bidding. And in the off chance evaluators recommend protecting children, the judge can still just ignore them.
Also, the need for legislation to prevent judges from taking kids away from fit parents and making them reunify with abusive parents is suggested. This plays into the unproductive “ban alienation and reunification” solution which not only won’t help, but will likely hurt mothers [to be addressed in depth in an upcoming column]. The problem is judges are purposely finding fit mothers to be alienating and ordering children to reunify with documented abusive fathers, so that will not help either.
Nor will any new legislation within the Family Court system help. Because the system is designed so judges can rule however they want, regardless of training, qualifications, facts, evidence, rights or law. And the underpinning agenda is systemic male entitlement.
Join The Women’s Coalition where women are uniting to bring an end to the structural sexism causing our children to be taken and endangered.
The Denver Gazette article by Christopher Osher referred to in this column:
4 recent murders: Colorado's troubled family court system ignores children in peril
The Women’s Coalition is documenting custody cases that involve sexual abuse to support our contention that judges are deliberately disregarding evidence of abuse by fathers.
If you reported sexual abuse of your child in Family Court, please take a minute to fill out this form. You may do this anonymously.
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The good old boys' network operates in family court. The best interests of the child are ignored. Fathers that request custody usually get it. Murders involving fathers and children are becoming too frequent. Ava Wood was murdered by her father this year in New York. Tommy Valva was murdered by his father in 2020 (New York: Judge Hope Schwartz Zimmerman and Judge Joseph Lorintz). Kayden Mancuso was murdered by her father in 2018 (Pennsylvania: Judge Jeffrey G. Trauger). Ten-year-old Ty was murdered by his father in 2019. Fifteen-year-old Ty Larson is speaking out and pleading for protection. Mothers are dying. Women and children are not protected in family court. The Child Custody Act will give power to a jury.
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