Monthly Archives: August 2013

Morning Musings and Happy Memories

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(If you are new to this blog, you may want to read the posts “In a Nutshell” or go to July 2012 and read “Sending out a Letter.” Both of these posts give a brief description of what happened. As Emma’s mom, I am blogging my experiences with Emma and the things she did/does. This is a child who made up a story about rape, accused a priest of molesting her, and then as her attorney was about to file a lawsuit against the priest and the church, Emma accused her mother of physical abuse to stop the lawsuit because she knew her lies were about to be discovered. Emma is now claiming she is engaged to Tyler Buchheim, an architecture student at Notre Dame, living in Liberty Township, Ohio at the home of her Tyler’s grandparents, Albert and Merrie Knopp, and  attending Wright State University http://www.wright.edu/. Emma claims her mother poisoned her with DDT and that she had to move to Ohio to get away from her mother. She also claims her future mother-in-law, Sherry Knopp Buchheim, lives in fear that Emma’s mother will show up and kill her entire family.)

I received an e-mail from Tyler’s mom, denying that Emma and Tyler are engaged. I am kind of curious. I can’t say too much because it would give away my sources, but Emma has recently talked to people about getting married (soon) and even asked someone other than her dad to give her away. I really don’t know if Emma has had a tift with her dad, so she’s finding a replacement, or is he against her getting married at 19? He has done everything Emma has wanted thus far, so I can’t imagine he’d be opposed to the marriage. Then again, the upcoming wedding could just be Emma’s wishful thinking, and she may be planning all this, but Tyler may not be aware of what’s going on in Emma’s head. I had a long conversation with a friend of Phill’s recently who mentioned an encounter not too long ago where Emma acted rudely, and Phill looked at the friend and said, “It’s all about Emma.” without mentioning to Emma how rude she was being.
For some reason, I could just picture Phill saying, “It’s all about Emma.” It certainly is.

In 2004 Emma played softball at North Metro First Baptist Church in Lawrenceville, Ga

In 2004 Emma played softball at North Metro First Baptist Church in Lawrenceville, Ga

I’ve renewed the blog for another year, so I guess I will keep writing. Some of it seems so silly to write about now, everything we went through when we thought Emma had been molested, etc., but I will keep telling the story. I know Emma has taken the wrong path and made some poor choices, and I realize she is 19, and she may continue on this path for years. I may or may not be around when or if she turns her life around, but she’s still my daughter and I will always love her. As one of Emma’s victims, I’ve been very hurt by Emma and her lies. I not only lost my daughter, but lost my husband and my marriage. After being a stay at home mom, I’m back in the work force and struggling to get on my feet. It has been absolutely horrible, but I have had some wonderfully positive experiences as well. You either live and grow from your hearbreak and trials, or you die. I have too much life left to live.

Most of you know I homeschooled Emma for 5 years (grades 4-8). I’ll save the thoughts on homeschooling Emma for another posting, but the other day I was talking to another homeschooling mom, and we got to talking about our kids playing ball. I told her this story about Emma, and she said I needed to remind Emma of these stories or write them down, so I thought, along with Emma’s story, I would not just tell the bad, but share some of those funny kid stories that all moms treasure.

When we homeschooled, Emma played softball for a couple of years at North Metro Baptist Church in Lawrenceville, Ga. This was a big church with some wonderful sports programs that a lot of homeschoolers took advantage of. Emma always complained of not being athletic, and I used to joke that Phill and I didn’t have a jock gene between us, but part of it was that kid thing that Emma didn’t like doing much of anything if it didn’t come easily to her. She was always good in school, but not so good at sports. What we loved about North Metro was that being a Christian program, winning a game was not the major concern. I’d heard too many stories from other parents about team sports and that with some of the Rec leagues, if your child wasn’t good, they wouldn’t get to play much. At North Metro, all the kids played, and they got to play all different positions. After every game, one child was awarded the “Game Ball” usually for making some kind of good play.

At one of Emma’s games, she was put on 3rd base, and I was sitting along first base. Her coach and assistant coach were inside the fence right in front of me. Emma’s team pitched the ball, and the batter hit a line drive straight to Emma. For a split second I saw a look of terror on Emma’s face as the ball came at her, and she closed her eyes tightly and shoved her glove out in front, more like she was trying to shield herself than to catch the ball. The ball went right into her glove, and when she opened her eyes, she was completely surprised to realize that she’d caught the ball. How I’d have loved to have caught that play on camera! Her two coaches stifled their laughter and then the head coach said, “There’s the game ball, right there.” I guess sometimes being a great athlete requires a little bit of luck!

Whew!

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(If you are new to this blog, you may want to read the posts “In a Nutshell” or go to July 2012 and read “Sending out a Letter.” Both of these posts give a brief description of what happened. As Emma’s mom, I am blogging my experiences with Emma and the things she did/does. This is a child who made up a story about rape, accused a priest of molesting her, and then as her attorney was about to file a lawsuit against the priest and the church, Emma accused her mother of physical abuse to stop the lawsuit because she knew her lies were about to be discovered. Emma is now living in Liberty Township, Ohio at the home of her fiance’s (Tyler Buchheim, a student a Notre Dame) grandparents, Albert and Merrie Knopp, attending Wright State University, and talking about getting married. Emma claims her mother poisoned her with DDT and that she had to move to Ohio to get away from her mother. She also claims her future mother-in-law, Sherry Knopp Buchheim, lives in fear that Emma’s mother will show up and kill her entire family.)

I keep wanting to get back to Emma’s story, but have very little time to write. I’m trying to work on what happened after she first told us she was “molested” and will get into all the experiences we had with Emma and therapy, but while I have a minute, I just wanted to share that I received an e-mail from Emma’s future mother-in-law, and she said she is NOT afraid I am going to show up and kill her whole family. I wonder why Emma would be telling people that? Does it just sound good? I forgot to ask Sherry some of the other things Emma said about Tyler’s family, but I will get to that later. I do have to admit, several of my friends have found the DDT story and the thought of me killing a whole family kind of humorous.

Also, several people have asked me about the Protective Order that Phill took out. I will be happy to share that, and will publish it here. I just have to get it scanned into the computer and write up that part of the story as well.

Emma and Kayla 2005

Emma and Kayla 2005

We probably don’t need to read any more of Emma’s lies, but I’ve been compiling a list of stories Emma told over the years about a close friend of Emma’s since 2003. Emma told some great stories about this young woman, her mother, her grandparents, and even her then boyfriend’s family. Looking back now, I’m trying to understand why Emma would tell these tales about her friend and her family. These people were all very good to Emma, so it just doesn’t make sense to me.

Thanks for your support. More to come……………

The Other Question I Get Asked

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(Edited Aug. 22, 2013 I forgot about the cruise)

(If you are new to this blog, you may want to read the posts “In a Nutshell” or go to July 2012 and read “Sending out a Letter.” Both of these posts give a brief description of what happened. As Emma’s mom, I am blogging my experiences with Emma and the things she did/does. This is a child who made up a story about rape, accused a priest of molesting her, and then as her attorney was about to file a lawsuit against the priest and the church, Emma accused her mother of physical abuse to stop the lawsuit because she knew her lies were about to be discovered. Emma is now living in Liberty Township, Ohio at the home of her fiance’s grandparents, attending Wright State University, and talking about getting married. Emma claims her mother poisoned her with DDT and that she had to move to Ohio to get away from her mother. She also claims her future mother-in-law, lives in fear that Emma’s mother will show up and kill her entire family.)
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Phill got our Buck Trail, Hoschton home in the divorce. I couldn’t have afforded it by myself anyway. While Phill got the house, I still own half the items in the house. Phill has only let me have a few things out of the house. I have no idea if he still has my things or has gotten rid of them. When I tried to call him in Dec. of 2012, he had my phone number blocked. Before that, the last time I spoke to him on the phone was in Sept. of 2011. (Maybe I called him too much?)

The question I get asked quite frequently is if I thought there was something odd going on between Phill and Emma, and I’ve already answered that. No, I didn’t.

The other question I get asked is if there was another woman. Well, at first I didn’t think so. I loved and trusted my husband. What can I say? Maybe I was stupid. At times, I joked that Emma was the other woman, and in some ways she was. After Phill had me thrown out of my home, he and Emma did everything together: drinking beer with the neighbors (Emma didn’t drink, but it was odd for a 17 year old to be sitting over at the neighbors with 6 or 8 middle aged people who were sitting around drinking beer.) Occasionally, we went out to dinner with some of Phill’s coworkers from UPS, and Emma posted on her facebook about doing that. She was taking her mom’s place. Another time, Phill posted on his face book a picture of Emma at some bar/restaurant where they went to to hear a band. Phill took Emma to the Georgia Aquarium, something I’d talked about us doing as a family, and he took Emma white water rafting, something I’d asked him about doing with the church youth group. Phill took Emma out more that he took his wife out. Also, we’d been talking about some kind of big family trip after Emma graduated high school. Phill and I never took a trip on our 20th anniversary or our 25th anniversary, so I always knew we’d do something special on our 30th in 2014. We were planning on taking some kind of trip as a family after Emma graduated high school. Well, Phill and Emma took a cruise, but I wasn’t invited.

Was there another woman? I have no idea. Phill had always said if he wanted to have an affair, he was smart enough to cover his tracks. He was an over the road truck driver, a computer geek, and way smarter than I’ll ever be. I know this was true, but I always thought he was committed to the marriage and I didn’t have anything to worry about.

Before Phill and I were married, we agreed that if we ever had problems, we would go to marriage counseling before calling it quits. Phill went to marriage counseling one time, and he took Emma with him. We could not ride together because he wanted to take Emma. (During this time, Emma was staying at a neighbor’s.) Phill dropped Emma off at the mall, and we met at the counselor’s. I remember how odd it was that he wanted to hold my hand while we sat in the counselor’s waiting room, but when we were in her office, he told the counselor he believed Emma that I was a child abuser. When I tried to point out how some of the things Emma said could not be true, he wouldn’t hear it.

Things did not go well with the therapist, but Phill agreed to a second appointment. A few days later he refused to go back, and I had to cancel the appointment. After we left the therapist’s office, he picked up Emma and they went out to dinner while I went home alone. The only reason I found out that they went out to dinner was because later, Phill carelessly threw the receipt away in the bathroom trash basket, and I happened to notice it.

Later, after Phill had initiated the divorce, I turned over some of the lies I had uncovered about Emma to my attorney, and he in turn, turned over everything to Phill’s attorney. Of course, the biggest lie was that the supposed catalyst for Emma remembering being molested, the rape of her friend Lacey, never happened. I thought that Emma would have to back down on her story, and Phill would apologize and maybe there was hope for saving the family, but for whatever reason, Phill’s excuse was that all the lies I uncovered were because other people told them to Emma. Lacey told Emma she was raped and that she tried to commit suicide. The girl down the street told Emma she was pregnant and had an abortion…………….. Phill refused to believe Emma made up any of these stories. It was all someone else’s fault.

Was Phill that stupid that he was completely snowed by his daughter’s stories? I’ve been told I’m a fool not to believe there was another woman. The only thing I know is that right after the divorce was final, an old girlfriend of Phill’s showed up on his facebook. When I first met Phill, he was in love with Ruth Lindemann, of Danville Ill. She married a friend of his named Eric, and the only time I knew of Phill hearing from her was when she sent him a Christmas card the first year we were married. As a young wife, I was pretty insecure about my husband receiving a card from a former love, especially because to track down his address, I was pretty sure she would have known he was married, and yet my name was not included on the card. Also, she did not sign her husband’s name on the card, but simply, “Love Roo.” Perhaps she was already divorced at the time. Could it be a coincidence that 30 years later, just as his divorce is final, Ruth showed up on Phill’s facebook page? When Phill was home, he spent hours everyday out on the sun porch on the computer. I did not often know what he was doing, and did not try to look at what was on his computer.

Phill and I have now been divorced for over a year. I have no idea who he’s involved with or if he is remarried. It doesn’t really matter. You can live up to the vows you make, but that’s all you can do. You have no control over your spouse, and if he chooses to break the vows he made, you just have to move on.

I really want to get back to Emma’s story, but since I have been asked these two questions so many times, I wanted to take the time to address them.

Emma and Her Dad

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I’ve been asked this over and over again, I will address it and move on. Did I think my husband was molesting out daughter? The police and attorneys told us that in many cases, children accuse someone of this crime because the someone who is molesting them, is someone closer to them, such as a family member.

No, I have never, ever thought that Phill was molesting his daughter.

Another question I get asked is why did Phill want a divorce? Why, after finding out about all Emma’s lies, was Phill so complicit in going along with Emma? Why would Phill not want to get to the bottom of whatever the problem was and save his family? Why did Phill not want to get to the truth? What kind of man lets his wife take the blame for something he knows she didn’t do? Was there another woman? Was Phill using Emma because he wanted a divorce, just like Emma was using Phill to cover up her lies?

As a matter of fact, an old girlfriend, whom I didn’t even know Phill had been in touch with for all the years of our marriage, showed up on his facebook as soon as the divorce was final. Coincidence?

I will tell you about her in my next post.

About Those Criminal Charges…

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(If you are new to this blog, you may want to read the posts “In a Nutshell” or go to July and read “Sending out a Letter.” Both of these posts give a brief description of what happened. As Emma’s mom, I am blogging my experiences with Emma and the things she did/does. This is a child who made up a story about rape, accused a priest of molesting her, and then as her attorney was about to file a lawsuit against the priest and the church, Emma accused her mother of physical abuse to stop the lawsuit because she knew her lies were about to be discovered. Emma is now living in Ohio with her some of her boyfriend’s family, attending Wright State, and talking about getting marriede.)

A few people contacted me by phone or e-mail, concerned that I was actually going to be facing criminal charges, but that last post was more of a joke. (It’s been 2 1/2 years of hell, but I have survived with my sense of humor intact.) Emma did not do her research this time and has been going around telling people that her mother poisoned her over the years with DDT. She claims to have the toxicology report that proves it. Those of you who know Emma know that she had issues with frequent vomiting, so her excuse is that she threw up because her mother was poisoning her. Depending on whom her audience is, she may accuse me of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy or outright attempted murder. Sometimes she has claimed that I started poisoning her because I was angry that she was “molested.” My attorney would love to have a copy of the toxicology report, but I think we’ll be waiting quite a while on that one.

(As for the Van Munchausen by Proxy, no, Emma, I did not enjoy all those doctor visits, hospital visits, tests, etc. It was definitely not my idea of fun, but something I did because I wanted you to get well.)

I’ve recently heard some things Emma has been saying about her fiance’s family.. Of course, I don’t know what is true and what isn’t, having never met these folks, but I think when some of these stories get back to the Buchheims, Emma my wear out her welcome with Tyler’s family. Tyler’s grandparents have so graciously taken her in so that she could live closer to Tyler.

Of course, as a mother, I want to see Emma get her act together, try to make amends for some of the damage she has done, and get on the right path. It is difficult and painful to see this very bright young woman, who once dreamed of being a pediatrician, a politician, a nurse, or a counselor, hurting so many people. She had such a promising future, and she still could, but right now, I’m afraid for anyone in Emma’s way of getting what she wants. One of my biggest fears is that Emma seems to lack a conscience.

Early on, when Emma turned on me, I saw something like this on a friend’s facebook page:
Parent's Promise
I was afraid to post it because Emma would probably accuse me of threatening her. In may case, just ignore the part about “hunt you down” and “stalk you.” I just want to make that clear, otherwise Emma’s going to be calling the police and accusing me of stalking her. Right now, I feel pretty safe posting this while she is in Ohio, and I am several states away!

Again, I thank those of you who have contacted me and offered encouragement or shared your stories about your experiences with Emma. If you want to contact me privately, you can do so: losingemma@gmail.com I will keep all e-mails confidential.

More to come…..