The Beardslee, Shellrude and Darr families left North America for West Africa during the 1950s. They followed what they believed to be “God’s Calling” – to spread Christianity throughout the world. Their children however - starting at the age of 6 – were required to attend the boarding school in Mamou, Guinea, run by the
Christian and Missionary Alliance. Cut off from their families for 9 months out of the year and without any reliable means of communication, the children quietly suffered emotional, spiritual, physical and/or sexual abuse at the hands of the all-missionary staff.
All God’s Children tells the personal story of the first boarding school for children of missionaries to be investigated for abuse at the hands of the parents’ missionary colleagues. The survivors and parents share their journey of
seeking justice, redemption and healing. [more inside]
posted by PeterMcDermott
on Jan 30, 2012 -
9 comments
In 2006, Hannah Overton was charged with the death of her 4-year-old foster son, Andrew Burd.
Media accounts at the time claimed that Overton had force-fed her misbehaving son a mixture of water and creole seasoning, leading to death by salt poisoning. Convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life without parole in 2008, Overton's case led angry bloggers to call her
"the ultimate evil," part of a cult of
"child abuse groupies," a murderer that
"church cronies" are working to free.
This month's issue of
Texas Monthly paints a fuller picture of the short life of Andrew Burd and the conviction of the mother who was working towards adopting him.
posted by mudpuppie
on Dec 20, 2011 -
79 comments
At 14 months, Spanish infant Osel Hita Torres was brought by his parents to Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama decreed him to be the reincarnation of the recently deceased Lama Yeshe. Torres became Lama Tenzin Osel Rinpoche, and spent most of his life growing up in a gilded cage in the Tibetan exile capital, venerated as a living deity and isolated from the corrupting influences of the world.
But then he escaped.
[more inside]
posted by acb
on Jun 1, 2009 -
66 comments
Russell Tongay cheerfully dropped his preschoolers into the Mississippi River. Two-year-old Kathy made it five miles before he pulled her out. Her five-year-old brother Bubba finally staggered to shore after 22 miles. Merely a warmup, their beaming father told the media gathered on the St. Louis riverbank, for what would be his children's crowning achievement: to swim the English Channel, England to France, a crossing that in 1950 had been completed only four times.
And so began the
short, sad celebrity of the Aquatots, another chapter in America's morbid fascination with children pushed by parents and coaches beyond overachievement into the realm of
abuse and
endangerment.
[more inside]
posted by stupidsexyFlanders
on Sep 5, 2008 -
30 comments
Auroville Funded by Governments all over the world, the city of
Auroville is an ongoing experiment 'whose stated purpose is to realize human unity in diversity' through yoga. Unfortunately, it seems the 'rule free' society has attracted some of the least welcome of humanity's outliers, namely
child sex tourists.
[more inside]
posted by asok
on May 27, 2008 -
16 comments
Arrest in real-time abuse case. "An undercover police officer in Toronto's child exploitation unit, who says he's seldom surprised what he sees any more, was shaken to the core Sunday when a suspected pedophile he was chatting with on-line allegedly began sexually assaulting a preschooler and sending images of the attack over the internet to him in real time." Detective Constable Paul Krawczyk: "My heart just started going, sweating, and I felt like throwing up." Police tracked down and arrested the man within an hour and a half.
posted by russilwvong
on Nov 2, 2006 -
71 comments
In the emotive world of
child abuse, Professor Sir Roy Meadow became a celebrity in the last 25 years. He described
Munchausen's Syndrome by proxy in which parents were said to have confabulated symptoms in their children in order to obtain medical treatment. Among child and health workers, Police and Social Workers, his eponymous law held that multiple childhood deaths in individual families were indicative of abuse and infanticide.
He was of course a popular forensic expert and his testimony resulted in murder convictions and removal of at-risk children from their families. But the Court of Appeal in UK has found that Prof. Meadow's statistical assertions and scientific
reasonings were themselves confabulated and there have been a number of convictions overturned. He is now
fighting for his professional reputation before the General Medical Council in London.
[More Inside]
posted by peacay
on Jun 28, 2005 -
17 comments
KXLY News 4 Mayor Jim West of Spokane Washington has been accused of sexual abuse of a male child. Mayor West announced in the local Spokesman Review newpaper that he plans on staying on as Mayor.
posted by Ignition
on May 7, 2005 -
43 comments
Updating this mefi story
here where a set of extremely abusive parents who abused their children into their teens were sentenced to only 9 months prison. A judge now deems that sentence "demonstrably unfit" and resentences the mother and father to 5 and 4 years in jail, respectively.
Thanks to t r a c y for the update.
posted by shepd
on Nov 5, 2004 -
4 comments
Illegally imprison children for 13 years, make them do degrading things, deny them food to the point of degrading them further, force them as teenagers to wear diapers, tie them up, even give them mental problems! Get 9 months in a prison yourself. That's an expense rate of just about 17 : 1! Why not come to Canada and enjoy these exceedingly low rates today before they're gone?
posted by shepd
on Jul 6, 2004 -
55 comments
Jesse Friedman's Web Site from the incredibly powerful and amazing documentary
Capturing the Friedmans. A "documentary on the Friedmans, a seemingly typical, upper-middle-class Jewish family whose world is instantly transformed when the father and his youngest son are arrested and charged with shocking and horrible crimes." When watching the film from start to finish I went back and forth on their guilt or innocence and when the film was over I'm still not sure. In the time of the mass media hysteria and questionable police tactics what would you have done?
posted by suprfli
on Mar 26, 2004 -
3 comments
From the NYT (reg req.'d) This is the saddest story I can imagine.
"It was only a week ago that the tiny body of Stephanie Ramos was found in a plastic bag in a garbage truck in the Bronx, discarded by a foster mother who told the police that she panicked when the severely disabled girl died.
It was an ugly ending by any measure, but particularly cruel in this case because the little girl's life began the same way: wrapped in a plastic bag and discarded on a New York City byway."
Has anyone ever been a foster parent? A foster child? Are things often this bad - and this good? (That'll make sense when you read the story.)
posted by Jos Bleau
on Jul 18, 2003 -
9 comments
How sick are we as a nation when this is done is public and no one notices. Of course, the coast was clear, as the mom checked before she launched this attack. But then, to read that the family, seeing the videotape of the beating, still protects their daughter, I have to come close to burning rage inside.
Enough to make me wish she gets caught and prosecuted in Texas, where she has some links.
posted by Busithoth
on Sep 19, 2002 -
50 comments
Infant kept on life support for the sake of the father. Moises Ibarra is being held in jail on child abuse charges and if his 7 month old son is taken off LF, Ibarra will be charged with murder (doctors say the son is basically brain dead and will not recover from his injuries). Meanwhile, the mother wants her son off LF so he can "go to heaven." (Looks like a real life soap!)
posted by Why
on May 3, 2002 -
7 comments
Veganism nearly kills baby? A New york couple is charged with reckless endangerment after there baby is taken to the hospital underdeveloped and near death. The article doesn't specifically say veganism was the reason for the baby's poor health but strongly impies it.
[link via plastic]
posted by drezdn
on Apr 30, 2002 -
55 comments
In one of the
worst cases of child abuse in Canadian history, Tony and Marcia Dooley stand trial for the second-degree murder of Tony's son Randall, who was 6 at the time that he was killed.
The autopsy found that he had 14 broken ribs, a lacerated liver and multiple head wounds. The coroner has said that the wounds inflicted are consistent with being
stomped on by an adult.
I don't understand how
people like this can be allowed to have children in their custody. The case both saddens and sickens me, and (without starting a huge debate on the merits on capital punishment - that's old hat) sometimes makes me wish we were a little harder on our criminals up here in Canada.
posted by PWA_BadBoy
on Apr 17, 2002 -
38 comments
Damn, that's just sad. 13 kids. 4 moms. 1 dad. No dairy products, no sunshine, and apparently no clue. One child is dead of malnutrition, others have ricketts, and none of the adults are cooperating with authorities.
posted by ilsa
on Feb 11, 2002 -
25 comments
Another stupid parent story, without which your day just wouldn't be complete. Mother and Stepfather, who lobbied for a stricter definition of 'rape' in Ohio, are charged with raping their daughter (via artificial insemination). I hate people.
posted by mudbug
on Jul 27, 2001 -
22 comments
The Thoughts of Anonymous Pedophiles While researching an unrelated topic, I found a site called
The Pedophilia Survey. This survey asks people who have sexual desires involving children to submit a paragraph or two on their feelings on the topic.
One of the respondents said: 'Pedophilia is a legitimate sexual orientation.' But, is it? Pedophilia seems so widespread that should, perhaps, we be researching the causes of pedophilia instead of just condemning it?
posted by wackybrit
on Jun 5, 2001 -
46 comments
