wexwimpy
June 1st 04, 09:55 AM
The horror stories keep coming and keep getting worse
28 May 2004
The service was held at a Baptist church in Longwood. Afterward, the
three white coffins were loaded into hearses for the trip to the
cemetery.
There was plenty of space in the hearses, because the coffins were
small.
Ilona Williams died at age 9. Ian Williams was 6. Ivey was only 5.
Police say their mother killed them and hid the bodies in a trundle
bed.
On Mother’s Day.
The children’s father says he begged authorities to take the children
from his estranged wife because she was mentally disturbed. Last fall,
she was hospitalized twice for psychiatric evaluation under Florida’s
Baker Act.
Three reports of possible child abuse against Andrea Williams had been
investigated — and closed — by the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office.
“We don’t have a crystal ball, obviously,” Capt. Greg Barnett told a
reporter.
Despite Andrea Williams’ hospitalizations, Circuit Judge Donna
McIntosh refused to take Ilona, Ian and Ivey from her mother last
November.
If she had, the children would be alive today. It’s the same sad and
infuriating story, recycling through the headlines: Somebody guessed
wrong.
As wrong as wrong can be.
Sometimes it’s a judge, sometimes it’s a case worker or supervisor for
the Department of Children & Families, sometimes it’s a cop, sometimes
it’s a family member.
The result is the same: a funeral.
Last year in Florida, 81 kids died because of abuse or neglect,
according to DCF. The most common cause was accidental drowning that
occurred when a parent was distracted or inattentive.
But at least 36 of the 81 victims were the subjects of previous abuse
reports to state officials. These children were known. Their names
were on files. They were not invisible. And still they ended up in
caskets.
Nobody knew that the three Williams children were dead until their
mother arrived in North Carolina to confront a woman named Ashley
Bishop. The two had met in an online chat room, started a relationship
and then lived together for a time.
When Andrea Williams was arrested, police say, she had a duffel bag
containing handcuffs, duct tape, ammunition and a handgun. Just your
average Florida mom on vacation.
During her interviews with North Carolina police, Williams provided
the information that led Seminole County lawmen to her children’s
bodies, wedged between mattresses in the trundle bed at the family
home.
NIGHTMARE AFTER
NIGHTMARE
Williams allegedly confessed to giving lethal overdoses of sleeping
pills to Ilona, Ian and Ivey on Mother’s Day, then driving north to
surprise Bishop.
Once upon a time, such a crime would have seemed beyond belief, but
not anymore. These horror stories keep coming, one nightmare following
another, and they keep getting worse.
On the very day that the Williams children were laid to rest in a
cemetery near Orlando, another small casket was being prepared in
North Miami.
Angel Hope Herrera, age 3, had been beaten to death.
The person charged with the little girl’s murder is her mother,
Yusimil Herrera, herself the victim of violence when she was a child
in state-approved foster homes.
In the Herrera cases lies a depressing irony.
A few years ago, Yusimil and her sister, dubbed the “Two Forgotten
Children,” sued DCF for the rapes, beatings and other cruelties
suffered at the hands of foster parents.
A jury awarded $4.4 million to the Herrera sisters. Later the verdict
was tossed out, and the case was settled for about $250,000.
No amount of money could have healed the damage that already had been
done to Yusimil. She turned Angel over to the Mitchell family when the
baby was only four weeks old.
Two years later, though, Yusimil began seeing Angel again, and
eventually took her back. Ann Mitchell said she told DCF of her fears
that the toddler was being beaten by her mother.
In February and March 2004, calls to the state’s child-abuse hot line
warned that Yusimil Herrera was physically abusing Angel. DCF reports
indicated that Yusimil was mentally ill, and might have stopped taking
her medicine.
On March 24, a hearing was held to decide if she was fit to keep
custody of Angel. The Mitchells say they were unable to attend.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Sarah I. Zabel ruled that there was no
probable case to separate Angel from her mother. It remains unclear
how much information the judge received from DCF before making her
decision, but this is much is true:
Angel Hope Herrera would be alive today if she’d been taken from
Yusimil.
Zabel, like McIntosh, had no crystal ball to guide her.
And consider the options: Leave Angel with Yusimil — aged 20, unstable
and pregnant again — or put the little girl into the same foster-care
program that destroyed Yusimil’s own childhood.
That’s all we had to offer a 3-year-old girl who needed help. That was
the best we could do.
Strapped for money, DCF has been summarily closing thousands of case
files — which, unfortunately, is not the same as saving thousands of
kids.
Not that all of them can be saved, but for many the warnings are
evident. It was true for Ilona, Ian and Ivey Williams. It was true for
Angel Hope Herrera.
Maybe someday, somebody in Tallahassee will decide that protecting our
most endangered children is more important than all the other nonsense
that goes on in politics.
Until then, the funerals will continue, and we’ll be haunted by the
sight of coffins that are just too small.
http://www.oscnewsgazette.com/index.php?option=news&task=viewarticle&sid=8482
Defend your civil liberties! Get information at http://www.aclu.org, become a member at http://www.aclu.org/join and get active at http://www.aclu.org/action.
28 May 2004
The service was held at a Baptist church in Longwood. Afterward, the
three white coffins were loaded into hearses for the trip to the
cemetery.
There was plenty of space in the hearses, because the coffins were
small.
Ilona Williams died at age 9. Ian Williams was 6. Ivey was only 5.
Police say their mother killed them and hid the bodies in a trundle
bed.
On Mother’s Day.
The children’s father says he begged authorities to take the children
from his estranged wife because she was mentally disturbed. Last fall,
she was hospitalized twice for psychiatric evaluation under Florida’s
Baker Act.
Three reports of possible child abuse against Andrea Williams had been
investigated — and closed — by the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office.
“We don’t have a crystal ball, obviously,” Capt. Greg Barnett told a
reporter.
Despite Andrea Williams’ hospitalizations, Circuit Judge Donna
McIntosh refused to take Ilona, Ian and Ivey from her mother last
November.
If she had, the children would be alive today. It’s the same sad and
infuriating story, recycling through the headlines: Somebody guessed
wrong.
As wrong as wrong can be.
Sometimes it’s a judge, sometimes it’s a case worker or supervisor for
the Department of Children & Families, sometimes it’s a cop, sometimes
it’s a family member.
The result is the same: a funeral.
Last year in Florida, 81 kids died because of abuse or neglect,
according to DCF. The most common cause was accidental drowning that
occurred when a parent was distracted or inattentive.
But at least 36 of the 81 victims were the subjects of previous abuse
reports to state officials. These children were known. Their names
were on files. They were not invisible. And still they ended up in
caskets.
Nobody knew that the three Williams children were dead until their
mother arrived in North Carolina to confront a woman named Ashley
Bishop. The two had met in an online chat room, started a relationship
and then lived together for a time.
When Andrea Williams was arrested, police say, she had a duffel bag
containing handcuffs, duct tape, ammunition and a handgun. Just your
average Florida mom on vacation.
During her interviews with North Carolina police, Williams provided
the information that led Seminole County lawmen to her children’s
bodies, wedged between mattresses in the trundle bed at the family
home.
NIGHTMARE AFTER
NIGHTMARE
Williams allegedly confessed to giving lethal overdoses of sleeping
pills to Ilona, Ian and Ivey on Mother’s Day, then driving north to
surprise Bishop.
Once upon a time, such a crime would have seemed beyond belief, but
not anymore. These horror stories keep coming, one nightmare following
another, and they keep getting worse.
On the very day that the Williams children were laid to rest in a
cemetery near Orlando, another small casket was being prepared in
North Miami.
Angel Hope Herrera, age 3, had been beaten to death.
The person charged with the little girl’s murder is her mother,
Yusimil Herrera, herself the victim of violence when she was a child
in state-approved foster homes.
In the Herrera cases lies a depressing irony.
A few years ago, Yusimil and her sister, dubbed the “Two Forgotten
Children,” sued DCF for the rapes, beatings and other cruelties
suffered at the hands of foster parents.
A jury awarded $4.4 million to the Herrera sisters. Later the verdict
was tossed out, and the case was settled for about $250,000.
No amount of money could have healed the damage that already had been
done to Yusimil. She turned Angel over to the Mitchell family when the
baby was only four weeks old.
Two years later, though, Yusimil began seeing Angel again, and
eventually took her back. Ann Mitchell said she told DCF of her fears
that the toddler was being beaten by her mother.
In February and March 2004, calls to the state’s child-abuse hot line
warned that Yusimil Herrera was physically abusing Angel. DCF reports
indicated that Yusimil was mentally ill, and might have stopped taking
her medicine.
On March 24, a hearing was held to decide if she was fit to keep
custody of Angel. The Mitchells say they were unable to attend.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Sarah I. Zabel ruled that there was no
probable case to separate Angel from her mother. It remains unclear
how much information the judge received from DCF before making her
decision, but this is much is true:
Angel Hope Herrera would be alive today if she’d been taken from
Yusimil.
Zabel, like McIntosh, had no crystal ball to guide her.
And consider the options: Leave Angel with Yusimil — aged 20, unstable
and pregnant again — or put the little girl into the same foster-care
program that destroyed Yusimil’s own childhood.
That’s all we had to offer a 3-year-old girl who needed help. That was
the best we could do.
Strapped for money, DCF has been summarily closing thousands of case
files — which, unfortunately, is not the same as saving thousands of
kids.
Not that all of them can be saved, but for many the warnings are
evident. It was true for Ilona, Ian and Ivey Williams. It was true for
Angel Hope Herrera.
Maybe someday, somebody in Tallahassee will decide that protecting our
most endangered children is more important than all the other nonsense
that goes on in politics.
Until then, the funerals will continue, and we’ll be haunted by the
sight of coffins that are just too small.
http://www.oscnewsgazette.com/index.php?option=news&task=viewarticle&sid=8482
Defend your civil liberties! Get information at http://www.aclu.org, become a member at http://www.aclu.org/join and get active at http://www.aclu.org/action.