A Life Destroyed

(I’m working on some pictures and things to put up here. I need to get my scanner set up and find time to scan things. So this is a work in progress.)

As a teenager, my youngest brother just couldn’t seem to be a decent human being. He was always being dragged home by the police. He was running around screwing anything he could get his paws on. He was, in essence, an absolute nightmare for our mother. Unfortunately, he also dragged children into this nightmare. His first wife was pregnant with someone else’s kid when they got together. When she had the baby, he decided he would put his name on the birth certificate and take responsibility for the child. That sounds all noble and shit. It might have been if he had taken it seriously.

Chaotic years went by and eventually my brother ended up with another wife. There have been few sisters-in-law that I’ve liked. Some of them I got to be okay with after they weren’t part of the family anymore or, alternatively, if they grew up and turned into half decent people. But this particular sister-in-law I have never liked. From the beginning, something about her set my teeth on edge. She was younger than me, which was sick considering my brother was in his twenties. So, he pretty much molested this kid. When she got pregnant her family (which has its own share of molesters), pretty much told my brother he’d marry her or die. So it was a shotgun wedding. They lived with us for a while. She talked about how members of her family had molested her. Somehow I couldn’t feel any empathy for her because they way she acted was… it’s hard to describe. She had a tendency to lie, to take things that weren’t hers and basically treat other people and their belongings with a lot of disrespect. So, yeah, I started not liking her pretty early on. I didn’t really get to hating her until later, though. The reason for it was simple: she’s a fucking abusive bitch who takes out her own feelings of being a useless slug out on little kids. She should have gotten help. She didn’t. To this day, her fucked up mentality causes issues in the family.  Worse, she is transferring it to her own children, too. She is the epitome of vindictive, psychotic bitch.

My mother and I had a lot to do with raising my brother’s two kids from his first wife. They lived with us the first few years of their lives.  After that, they spent most of their weekends with us.  During that period, they quite often would show up with marks on them. When asked, they would tell us their step-mother put the bruises on them. In fact, one time they said she had cornered my nephew in the bathroom and beaten him with a broom handle. Mom and I tried reporting it to CPS. They never did anything. They wouldn’t even send an investigator to our house to gather evidence. I wish cell phones with cameras had been around in those days so I would have at least had pictures to use against the bitch. But we were poor. Cameras and film developing were luxuries we couldn’t afford.

The kids also told us about pornographic materials in my brother’s household which were left where any of the children could access them. Then there was the baggy of odd white powder stuffed under the seat of my brother’s truck. I already knew my brother had a weed addiction. I knew he was an alcoholic. I knew those were the real reasons he was constantly begging my mother for money. So things were swirling around the toilet drain more and more as time went on. The only reason I didn’t end up in outright warfare with the two of them was that my mother told me not to. Having a lot of respect for her, I abided by her wishes. But, oh, the urge to just beat the living shit out of the both of them in the hopes of shaking their brains into working was so strong back then.

I guess the little pear shaped bitch of a sister-in-law couldn’t stand having to deal with his kids from his previous marriage. Beating on them and berating them wasn’t good enough. No. She wanted them out of her house, out of their lives. She wanted to hurt them any way she could. So, apparently she got with some of her family members and cooked up a plan. She’d start saying my nephew was abusing all these kids and get him sent to jail. All of a sudden, Mom and I are hearing all of this and going “What the hell??”  We got bits and pieces of it. Even at that stage, we were extremely suspicious. Parts of it weren’t meshing right. So, Mom got with Michael’s mother and got hold of the allegations. We looked over them together. As we looked over them, I said, “Mom, on these dates, they’re saying he molested kids in their van. They didn’t own the van yet.” Yeah, too stupid to verify the true facts behind their own lies.  We were livid.  All through this process, my brother pretty much allowed his little bitch and her family to trash the little boy he had taken responsibility for. We yelled at him for it and he basically said he’d so whatever the pussy with the whip told him to do. Yay for a grown man bowing down to a psychotic little girl.

I knew my nephew would talk to us more than any other people because he knows we love him and he could trust us.  So, I started talking to him about this mess. Mom and I asked him to tell me the truth and told him that we wouldn’t be mad at him no matter what the truth was. He swore to us that the majority of the allegations in that list were lies. There had been ONE incident which was true. He and his sister both admitted that. That incident had happened because my moronic brother left pornographic videos where his kids could get them and left his kids unsupervised too much. He was experimenting because he’d seen things in those videos. Kids do that. Do we have an apoplexy and name them monsters for it? We’re not supposed to. We’re supposed to sit them down and explain to them why they shouldn’t do that and let them know it’s okay to ask us about those things so we can help them understand as they grow up. Well, that what EFFECTIVE parents and families are supposed to do, anyway. But we’re talking dysfunctional psychopaths, aren’t we?

Did anyone bother to note that some of those accusations were fabrications? No. Did anyone bother to note the cause of the ONE that wasn’t?  No. The Assistant DA on the case seemed to be making a point of not letting anything that might save this kid into the court records.  In fact, at one of the hearings, when my mother and I tried to speak up and inform them that a majority of those claims were false because factual evidence proved they could not have happened as stated, we were told to sit down and shut up or risk going to jail for contempt of court.  They threatened a grey-haired grandmother with contempt of court for trying to submit evidence pertinent to a trial! 

The court appointed attorney on Mikey’s case was useless. He was ancient and clearly suffering from Alzheimer’s. His head and hands shook constantly. He looked like a bobble-head with Coke bottle glasses. I overheard him telling my nephew to just say he did all of it. My nephew kept telling him he didn’t do all of it and refusing to say he did. Mikey wasn’t allowed an advocate in court. As a minor, he should have had one. The initial police interrogations were done WITHOUT an attorney. How is a KID supposed to know he had a right to an attorney? Even if they told him that, do you thing a 12-year-old kid really gets what that means? Even if he did get it, do you think he’d remember it when he’s scared shitless at being hauled to the police station? In short, this boy was being railroaded by the system which was supposed to protect him. Nothing we did could stop it. His mother tried desperately to get him a new lawyer, to get a mistrial declared because he’d been interrogated without a lawyer. We were stonewalled at every turn.

Here’s the worst thing: My nephew was declared guilty with NO PHYSICAL EVIDENCE BEING SUBMITTED. The entire prosecution was based on testimony only. There were no rape kits, no medical records, no DNA evidence, NOTHING. His sister told us she’d heard my sister-in-law coaching the children who were the “witnesses” in what to say and talking to the cousins she’d dragged in to be the lynch mob on what their stories should be.  She tried telling the adults in the legal system this. Did they listen? No.

I have no doubt that my niece’s accounts are true because I have seen how manipulative the little troll of a sister-in-law can be. I’ve seen how her family is. They get a kick out of hurting people if they perceive someone has slighted one of them in any. In short, the whole fucking lot of them are a psychoanalyst’s worst nightmare. They outnumbered those of us who knew the truth of the matter. In the end, because those assholes were more numerous and more loud, a jury decided my nephew was guilty of all charges. They sent him away to a juvenile lock-up.  That was where the real destruction started. My brother pretty much told him he didn’t love him, had never loved him and wanted nothing to do with him ever again. Way to go, dad, can we hand you some cleats so you can more efficiently stomp on that child’s heart?

Michael hadn’t been there long when he called our house. Mom wasn’t home, but I talked to him. He was our baby boy. I’d made his breakfast for him from the time he was a baby. I’d diapered his bottom. I’d taught him how to play games. I’d helped teach him that it was okay to be artistic, to be who he was. So I talked to him. He told me that the people at the facility were browbeating him. They kept telling him that the only way he’d ever get out was to confess his crimes. They were trying to wear the kid down. He asked me, “Aunt Jolie, they want me to say I did all of those things. I didn’t do all of those things. What should I do?” I could hear the tears in his voice and it made me want to strangle the people who had done this to him.  Being who I am, I told him the only thing I could: “Honey, if you didn’t do them, then you keep on telling the truth. That’s all you can do.”

And he did. And they held him until he was 18.  At that time, they released him to his maternal grandmother and added him to the sex offender database. He had to stay registered until 2010. They always had to know where he was, etc, etc.  In time, he started reconstructing his life. He passed some time in the military. He went to school. He continued to make art. In time, he got married and had kids. It was looking like things might be going good for him. The state never removed him from the database like they were supposed to, though. His name was still up there two years after the deadline even though the file CLEARLY says it was supposed to have been removed in 2010.

Then he got divorced and he wanted custody of his children. It started becoming a messy affair as divorces tend to be. Apparently, his wife knew he’d had this past. She wanted to hurt him and keep his kids from him because that was THE best way to get at him. So, she got with my sister-in-law. Being the fucked up little plotter she is, the sister-in-law apparently helped her concoct the grand scheme: Claim Michael molested her daughter and they were, conveniently, just now getting around to reporting it.  Of course, with his past history, they’d eat this story up and believe them. So there it went again: Arrested, dragged into court on NOTHING BUT ACCUSATIONS. There were no medical records entered into court. There was no DNA, no photographs, NOTHING. Just testimony. The lawyer assigned to him was a DIVORCE lawyer. What the fuck was a divorce lawyer doing handling a CRIMINAL case??? They used a JUVENILE conviction to further prosecute my nephew as an adult. Last I was aware, you’re not supposed to do that. They allowed only two people to speak for him, his sister and half-brother. They had my information, even down to my Skype contact info so they could have me testify on his behalf.  This was ignored in favor of, once again, allowing the larger and louder group proceed to perform character assassination in court. Once again, a jury decided that someone’s words alone were enough to find the defendant guilty. He has now been sentenced to life. He won’t even be eligible for parole for 30 years. 

Children will, a lot of times, say whatever a parent tells them to say because they perceive it will make their parent happy. That’s all most kids want: parental attention and their parents to be happy with them. So, of course, a kid whose parent says “Okay, honey, I want you to tell these people xyz happened.” they are going to do it. And, if that parent is a cheating liar and has set that example for the kid, guess what… that’s what the kid becomes. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying we should call everyone who claims abuse or sexual assault a liar. I’m abuse survivor myself, so I’d never even think that.  I’m all for child abusers and sex offenders being punished to the full extent of the law IF they are actually guilty. What I am saying is that the court system should NOT be giving a life sentence on nothing more than someone’s testimony. At that point it becomes he said-she said and there’s just not enough proof to condemn a person on no matter how many people say they can corroborate the story. If they aren’t an OUTSIDE WITNESS (someone who is not directly involved in any way) you cannot guarantee that they aren’t doing something to get back at another person out of spite or being directed by such a person. Until they have a case where there is PROOF, it’s not right to just lock people away for the rest of their lives.

I’ve been told that, per the usual, the pear shaped little troll of a sister-in-law and her family are having a good old time posting shit about my nephew all over FaceBook. Yeah, it’s so grown up to kick someone who isn’t even around to defend themselves, isn’t it? They’re threatening my niece. They are applauding another niece for being a liar and helping them, once again, hurt Michael. They’re basically reveling in the fact that they have destroyed him again.

Hell, the other niece may actually believe the bullshit her mother’s been feeding her since she was little.  I don’t know because I’ve not even tried to keep track of them. I wrote them all off when my asshole, greedy brother decided to go against my mother’s wishes and contest her appointment of her estate.  Let me illustrate to you the kind of people that little slice of the family is in one last way:

My youngest brother basically went around trying to turn the whole family against me when my mother decided to cut the boys out of her benefits. She did this without my knowledge. When she told me after the fact, she said it was because the boys owed her so much money that she felt they had already burned their inheritance. She said I was the only one as an adult who had always helped her and stayed with her, so I deserved it.  He said I convinced her to do that. Right. If I had possessed the power to convince her to do anything, she wouldn’t have continued to put herself into debt by giving that loser money. I have no doubt his nasty little troll convinced him this was what he should do. She always had the control once she got hold of his nuts. *smirk* So, I keep telling him that he’s an insufferable prick and to get out of my face. My oldest full brother told him the same thing when he tried to turn him against me. He pretty much told the younger brother that if that was what Mom wanted then he needed to shut the fuck up and deal with it. The half brother just told him he wasn’t going to take a side in the matter. So, I got a probate lawyer to help me with this. I had to sink thousands into that. I had to go through months of aggravation when I should have been taking time to mourn and deal with my mother’s death in peace. My mother’s best friend and her employees and co-workers were a blessing. They all loved my mom and they lined up to testify as to her character and her state of being in the days before her sudden collapse from an aneurism. So the day of court came. I’m in the hall composing myself for this final confrontation. My brother and his sleazy lawyer approach me. They say that if I give them $1000 they’ll drop the whole thing.

I laughed. $1000?? Seriously? My answer was this (laughing the whole time): “A thousand dollars?! You have got some mother fucking BALLS to come up here after the months of SHIT you’ve put me through and ask for a thousand dollars! No, asshole! After all you’ve put me through, I am going to go in there to day and have the unmitigated JOY of watching all of my witnesses make you look like the stupid, callous ass you are!” And I did. And I won.  And that is the exact character of my brother and his part of the family.

So, now, here I am literally worrying myself sick about my nephew whose life has been stolen away from him yet again. I guess the bitchy little troll just couldn’t stand seeing him trying to build a better life for himself and his kids. Why should HE be happy when she’s still a miserable little worm who has to harm people to feel powerful? Well, my hope is that justice is going to come in and kick her ass. It’s coming time that all those nasty little secrets they are trying to keep buried get dug up and dealt with. I hope she chokes on the clods of dirt.