Articles labeled: Michigan

A West Bloomfield, Michigan man accused of raping his 15-year-old daughter had all charges against him dropped, because his daughter — who is severely autistic — could not testify.

The case was controversial from its beginning because the 15-year-old girl, who cannot speak, made the claims through facilitated communication, a widely discredited method of communication in which a teaching aide helps such students type words into a keyboard. Experts testified that scientific evaluations of the method have proven that the teaching aide, consciously or unconsciously, authors the messages.

Oakland County Assistant Prosecutors Paul Walton and Barbara Morrison defended their decision to press the case until it became clear the girl would not testify.

“We wanted to make sure we were giving her the same kind of opportunity to have her voice heard in court as every other kid,” Morrison said.

“We’re never going to feel good about this case,” Walton said. “Have we sent a child back to a potentially dangerous situation?”

We were first prone to outrage when we read the headline and first paragraph of the story until we got to the bit about “facilitated communication” — prosecutors might as well have said the girl told them she was raped by ESP. On the surface, this makes the Duke lacrosse team rape case look well run in comparison.

Here’s more on the farce of facilitated communication, which serves only to cruelly give parents of these kids false hope.

Alexis Goggins, a “soft-spoken” 7-year-old from Detroit, Michigan, is slowly beginning to recover from the six gunshots that wounded her last December.

The young girl bears several scars from the Dec. 2 shooting, including a long, thin surgical line stretching from one side of her hairline to the other. Her right eye, which was blinded in the attack, has also been removed.

Goggins was shot when she threw herself between her mother, Seliethia Parker, and Parker’s former boyfriend, Calvin Tillie.

The mother and daughter were getting a ride from a friend when Parker’s former boyfriend emerged from the shadows outside Parker’s house and jumped into the vehicle. He then forced the friend to drive at gunpoint for several minutes.

Under the pretense of needing fuel, Parker’s friend stopped at a Detroit gas station to call 911.

Inside the SUV, Parker pleaded with the gunman not to shoot. As he was about to open fire, Alexis cried, “Don’t hurt my mother!” and jumped into her mother’s arms from the back seat.

Despite her daughter’s efforts, Parker was shot twice.

The story of Jeff Hagenbuch is a tragic one — he went to being an elated father of triplets, to a grieving widower when his wife, Tina, died during childbirth last December. The Kalamazoo Gazette, has followed up with Jeff and reports that he is “carrying on” and slowly readjusting to life as a single father of 3:

In the weeks and months since Tina Hagenbuch’s death, her husband said he has had to learn to be patient and physically and emotionally demonstrative with his triplets.

“The biggest challenge so far is taking care of them without getting mad or frustrated,” Hagenbuch said.

Tina and Jeff Hagenbuch had been married for 18 months, but together for six years. They met on a blind date.

“I never wanted to get married until I met her,” Hagenbuch said of his late wife, Tina. “She was all about giving me a family.”

Tina Hagenbuch had two daughters, Skye, 22, and Tylar, 16, from a previous marriage, both of whom have stepped in to help out with their stepsisters and stepbrother.

At first when we read this we thought it was an update to this story, which is eerily similar.

Life can be so cruel, so unfair…in a blink of a moment, a mother and her 4 children, ranging from newborn to elementary age, were killed by a drunk driver.

Bethany Griffin, 36, Jordan Griffin, 10, and Verde Griffin, 6 months, all of Parkville, Md., were killed along with Lacie Burkman, 7, and Haley Burkman, 10, both of Redford Township, Mich., near Detroit, according to the Lucas County Coroner’s office.

Both drivers tried to avoid each other, but the crash ripped a side door off the minivan, throwing out some of the victims.

An infant seat wrapped with pink baby blankets landed in the roadway.

“It was among the worst I’ve seen,” assistant fire chief Luis Santiago said.
A man and two other children from the minivan were taken to St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center with life-threatening injuries, Santiago said.

Thank God a neighbor heard their cries…the mother has still not been found.

(I categorized this under “child abuse”. If the mother is found to be harmed or dead, I will re-categorize. Right now, it appears that she just left them.)

DETROIT — The grandmother of three small children who were found home alone on Thursday took the children in on Friday.

The children were taken from their Detroit home Thursday morning after police found them alone.

The children, ages 4, 2 and 1, told police they had been by themselves for at least three days.

They were discovered when the 4-year-old went to a neighbor’s home and said they were hungry.

There is a very special place in hell for “parents” like these:

DETROIT — Detroit police investigating injuries to a 1-year-old boy say they found the skeletal remains of a baby who is the brother of the living child.

Police say the mother told investigators that Deante Miller died two years ago. Authorities say the couple burned him in a barbecue grill and hid what was left of the baby in the ceiling of a home.

Families that drink together, get dumber together.

When you hand over designated driving duties to your drunk, 13 year old son, you just might be a redneck.

CLIO, Mich. — A police officer checking on a truck that got stuck in the mud at a city park was startled to find a 13-year-old boy behind the wheel.

The officer also was surprised that the boy appeared to be drunk.

So did the teen’s father, who was riding in the front seat. He told police that he had turned over the driving duties to his son because he’d had too much to drink.

Open containers of beer and liquor were found in the vehicle, said Clio Police Chief James McLellan.

“[The boy] even said he didn’t want to drive because he was too drunk,” McLellan told The Flint Journal for a story published Thursday.

In a world in which bad news dominates, it’s so nice to hear about an out-pouring of support and help for a mother down on her luck (not only is she down on her luck, she also just gave birth to triplets!).

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Offers of help are pouring in for a homeless Michigan woman who recently gave birth to triplets.

“We have received hundreds of calls,” said Janie Bergeron, who directs Green Gables Haven, a Barry County shelter where Monica Roberts, her babies and her mother are staying.

Bergeron’s staff is working overtime this week to return telephone messages.

“There are literally hundreds of people we’re trying to call back,” she told The Grand Rapids Press for a story published Tuesday.

Invitations to take in the 33-year-old mother and her babies have been proffered by people in Holland, Kalamazoo, Lansing and beyond.

How can anybody do this to an infant????

And the family of this man who did this were said to have been fainting and crying??? Cry me a river. What about that poor little baby. Thank God this monster is going away for life. My preference would be to have him set on fire while somebody put the flames out every so often and then kept doing it over and over and over again…

Detroiter Jimmie Reed Jr. is to spend the rest of his life in prison after a judge found him guilty of shooting his ex-girlfriend to death in her Pontiac apartment, then setting their newborn baby on fire in an apparent attempt to avoid paying child support.

Both Reed’s family and that of the victims, Markeda Byas, 31, and 2-month-old Arctavia Reed, cried as Judge Fred Mester pronounced Reed, 31, guilty of first-degree murder, felony murder, arson and using a firearm to commit a felony.

Is no place safe anymore?:

SAGINAW, Mich. — A shooting near a middle school football game left a high school student in critical condition and injured three other people, officials said Thursday.

A 16-year-old boy was shot in the neck about 5:15 p.m. Wednesday near South Middle School, Detective Sgt. Brent Vanderhaar said. He was in critical condition Thursday, said Safiya Mosley, a Saginaw Public Schools spokeswoman.

The three other victims, two adults and another high school student, were treated and released, some after being grazed by bullets.

Police were questioning a 15-year-old boy whom Vanderhaar described as a “person of interest.” The boy remained in custody Thursday morning, said Detective Sgt. Mark Lively.

WARREN, Mich. (AP) — A 4-month-old baby was fatally mauled by a Rottweiler while her mother had stepped away to warm her bottle, according to police and broadcast reports.

Stepped away to make a bottle?? Are the police buyin’ that bull? Like she wouldn’t hear a baby crying while a big dog was tearing its limbs apart?