Because I am doing this blog sort of piece-meal, I will preface each entry with a synopsis for new readers who may not know Emma’s story.   Eventually, I will re-do the blog, and put the entire story in order.

PREFACE: At the age of 16, Emma Roey (Emma Kate Roey) made up a lie about a friend  being raped, and then claimed that her friend’s rape brought up repressed memories of being molested by a priest at the age of 12.  Emma told these stories to: DFACS, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department, the Gwinnett County police, four attorneys, 7 therapists, two psychiatrists, two psychologists, the staff at Peachford Psychiatric hospital, friends and family, church officials from two different churches, teachers, her high school counselor, etc.  Emma’s attorney had just contacted us and was about to file a lawsuit on her behalf against the church and the priest, and Emma knew she was about to be caught in a very big lie, so she accused her mother of physical abuse to stop the lawsuit.

Emma Kate Roey
Emma Katherine Roey

A couple days after Emma’s 17th birthday, she had someone call DFACS to say that she was physically abused by her mother.  The police came to our home, and then DFACS came to our home and wanted us to provide a place for Emma to go.  (I was later told the do this so as not to incur any cost for taking in a child.)

DFACS did not tell me that I was the one being accused of abusing my child, only that she needed to leave the home.  During all this, I was on and off the phone with our pastor, Fr. George Ivey, and my friend, Janice.  Fr. George suggested that maybe someone from our old church had called DFACS as retaliation for the lawsuit we were filing against the church.  I mentioned this to Emma, and she kept bringing up the name of a woman for whom she had babysat for.  I thought this odd because this woman had been very supportive to us.  I talked to Emma a couple of times on the phone after she left out home, and she continued to bring up that she thought this woman might have called DFACS.  of course, at the time, I had no idea that this was all Emma’s doing.

Emma kept requesting to go to my friend, Sandra Brooks McCravy’s home, but for some reason I did not feel comfortable with this idea.  Sandra had been one of my closest friends for the past seven years, and Emma had a crush on her son, Johnathan.  I was not aware that there was an inappropriate relationship going on between Emma and Sandra, and the two were on the phone late at night, when Phill and I thought Emma was asleep.  (I will publish the phone records later.)

At 3 am, our pastor, Fr. George(Holy Trinity Anglican Church) and his wife, Paulette, came over and got Emma and took her to their home.  Because they were going out of town, we had to make arrangements for Emma to go somewhere else, and my friend Janice agreed to take Emma.  (I have mentioned Janice in an earlier post, and you can read her comments on Emma’s stay with her in that post.)

We had known Janice for about 7 years, and for the past few years always did Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners with Janice, as well as occasional cook outs for Memorial Day, July 4th, or Labor Day.  Emma and I saw Janice almost every Saturday where we volunteered with a dog/cat rescue.  Emma loved Janice and called her “Aunt Janice.”  When Janice called, Emma would check the caller id, and grab the phone before I could, and frequently ended up talking to Janice longer than I did.  At the end of their phone conversations, Emma always said, “I love you.” to Janice.   Janice proofread Emma’s English papers, and even talked to a friend of hers who was a judge in juvenile court, on Emma’s behalf, when we believed Emma had been molested.   We had been  to Janice’s home many times.  Janice lived in a highly Hispanic neighborhood, and Emma did not like the neighborhood.

While at Janice’s, Emma lied to Janice over and over again.  Although Phill had asked Sandra Brooks McCravy not to contact Emma until her got her home, and we asked Emma not to talk to Sandra, they both lied to us and violated our wishes.  Sandra Brooks McCravy even went to far as to slip Emma a tracphone and hid it in a Christmas gift that she dropped off at the home of Fr. George.

Below are some facebook e-mails that Emma sent to Sandra during the time Emma spent at Janice’s home:

Emma’s FB posts to Sandi

Dec. 24, 4:25 pm

Hey. I am doing okay. I have a house phone in my room and will call you late tonight. I changed my facebook password so they won’t be able to see my messages. I have called Suzie (Suzie McGarvey, Lanier Counseling, Emma’s therapist.) but haven’t heard back yet. Apparently the DFACS worker was here for less than three minutes. What a joke. I hope Fr. George comes back early!! This is just so crazy. And as horrible as it has been, I still miss my family. I hope Suzie can make my dad see reason and I can go to you on Monday. Please, God. I am figuring out how many chocolates, how much popcorn, etc I can eat per day. This definitely qualifies as Worst Christmas of my Life So Far. Hopefully Worst Christmas Ever. My parents DID bring me some clothes. Guess what they brought me?  Shorts.  My summer shorts.  Just exactly what I want to wear on this 42 degree day.  I just hope this is over soon.

NOTE:  I had packed up some clothes for Phill to take to Emma while she was at Janice’s.  As  most of you know, teenagers are not the neatest creatures, and there was no order as to how Emma put her clothes away.  I took some jeans out of a drawer and did not notice that one pair was a pair of capris.  There were no shorts in her bag of clothes, but there was one pair of capris, because folded up, they looked pretty much like the rest of her jeans.

Dec. 24 2010 6:04pm

Have fun at the family’s house. I haven’t heard from Suzie today. I hope will soon, but I don’t know. I am typing this on my phone so I can’t really format or edit it, sorry you have to wade through my stream of consciousness. Oh this is just so scary. My biggest hope is for this week to pass quickly. Thanks for your prayers. We need them. I miss you guys soooooooo much. I wish I could spend Christmas with you, but I know that’s not going to happen. I talked to my friend Rob’s family. They will be home Monday and I hope that if I can’t come to you, I can go to them. We’ll see. But ohmigoodness I just hate this. I know I am loved but I am so far away from the people I’m close to, and it’s so horrible to feel alone. I am really scared in this neighborhood. They are making lots of noise and I don’t know what they’re doing. It’s so loud. I may have to take sleeping meds tonight, I think, if I’m going to get any sleep. I don’t think I’ve slept ten hours in the past two nights. I’m too nervous. Oh I miss you so much. I miss my parents. I just wish I could be with somebody. Suzie my not call me till Monday. I am making a cross stitch but it’s scaring me. It’s birds. It is just not looking good. Oh well. I might try something simpler, this has so many colors. I want to make you one for Christmas. Maybe I will even design my own. At least it keeps me occupied. If I stuffed them with potpurie (oh that is spelled so wrong) they would smell good but would it last? I don’t know. I love you. I really hope I can see you Monday.

Dec. 24, 2010, 7:22

Ohmmigoodness. They are shooting. I hear them. I have no clue what they are shooting but it is LOUD. I can hear it

Note:  Emma claimed to not be sleeping, but she was actually up at night, and Janice told us sleeping a lot during the day.  She did ask Janice for some sleeping pills, but Janice would not have given them to her, even if she had any.  As for the “shooting” that frightened Emma so badly, Janice’s Mexican neighbors shoot off fireworks on every major holiday.  Emma knew this, as she had been at Janice’s many times on holidays, and had heard the fireworks there when we visited on other holidays.  DFACS had checked into the neighborhood before Emma went, and found it to be a safe area.  Fr. George Ivey and Paulette drove Emma over to Janice’s and later told me, from the way Emma described it, they thought they were going into a bad area and were surprised to see what a nice neighborhood it was.