UPDATED ** Jan. 27, 2014

(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 Ohio at the home of her fiance’s grandparents, attending Wright State University http://www.wright.edu/, 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.)

So, just what happened on the day Emma had Dr. Genie Burnett http://www.mannatreatment.com/ and Sandi McCravy call the police? Keep in mind that it is a little more than three years later as I write this. I did write it up at the time, but Phill has all the family computers that we had at that time.

Dec. 21, 2010

In Dec., we had just changed therapists from Dr. Genie Burnett http://www.mannatreatment.com/ to Suzie McGarvey http://www.ngcounselingassociates.com/ mostly at Phill’s insistence. Emma had been seeing Dr. Genie Burnett since July of 2010 and did not seem to be dealing with her molestation issue. She vomited frequently, missed school, and had to take a lot of Zofran. She was paranoid and very afraid the the priest who supposedly molested her was going to come after her. She was thinking about college and wanted to go to Pensacola Christian College because it was gated and she would feel safer there. She became very angry when Phill and I did not agree with her college choice because it was not an accredited school. Emma also had begun seeing a psychiatrist, Dr. Chahin in Athens, Ga. Emma’s GI doctor had recommended that Emma see a psychiatrist to go on an antidepressant because she vomited so much. Emma was on one antidepressant and complained about it, so Dr. Chahim switched her to another. I don’t remember the order, but the two antidepressants she took were Lexapro and Celexa.

Phill had insisted that we change therapists. He had gone to an appointment with Emma, and when he came home he said that he felt like Dr. Genie Burnett http://www.mannatreatment.com/ really did not like me from some of the things she had said, and he felt like she was not helping Emma. I didn’t care much for Dr. Genie Burnett, but I felt like Emma needed someone to talk to, and if Emma had a good rapport with her, it was ok with me, but at Phill’s urging we looked for another therapist. Phill called someone who worked with abuse victims, and she gave us some names and numbers. Emma and I went to a couple of therapists, and we both liked Suzie McGarvey http://www.ngcounselingassociates who at the time worked at Lanier Counseling http://www.laniercounseling.com/index.html , so we made the switch. Later, when I took Emma to see Dr. Chahim for the last time, Emma was very rude and disrespectful, while we sat in Dr. Chahim’s office. She was working on an art homework assignment, and would not even look at her psychiatrist when Dr. Chahim spoke to Emma. I had to ask Emma to put away her art project and pay attention to the Dr. Emma continued with her rude behavior, acting disinterested and giving one word responses to the Dr. Any of you that know Emma know she is very verbal, and can talk up a storm. On the way home, I scolded Emma for her rude behavior to Dr. Chahim. Emma got very angry and screamed at me that I took her away from Dr. Genie Burnett just because I knew Emma liked her better than she liked me.

Emma’s birthday had been Sunday, Dec. 19th. She turned 17. At that time, Emma didn’t really have any friends except for Kayla Benifield Weaver, whom she saw once or twice a year, and “Lacey” her cyber friend. Emma had dropped the church youth group and we changed churches, so there wasn’t anyone to invite to a party. Even when Emma was in the church youth group, she loved going and being the secretary, and sort of running things as much as she could, but she did not hang out with the kids in the group outside of church much. Phill and I tried to encourage her to have friends over and were always willing to cook or take her and her friends somewhere, and Emma did have people over a few times, but not very often.

We got up Sunday morning, and Phill complained of feeling sick, so he decided to stay home and Emma and I went to church at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Flowery Branch Ga. http://www.holytrinityflowerybranch.org We went to Sunday school, coffee hour, and then the worship service. Holy Trinity was a very small church, and there were probably about 10 people there for Sunday school that day and then maybe about 25 in church. Fr. George Ivey had gotten very involved with Emma’s abuse story and had talked to people on our behalf including Bishop Foley Beach http://adots.org/about/bishop-and-staff/ who was also interested in Emma’s story. Fr. George Ivey had also gone with us to talk to attorneys and was very helpful in answering the attorney’s questions about the church. He had met the man Emma accused of molesting her and was obviously not a fan. When we first told Father George about Emma’s accusation of being molested by a priest, he said that before Emma told him who it was, that particular priest was who he thought of as the possible “molester.”

Before Sunday School, being the proud mom, I told Fr. George it was Emma’s birthday, and everyone wished her a Happy Birthday, and then during the church announcements, Fr. George mentioned Emma’s birthday, and it was also the birthday of a young man, a year older than Emma, who was not at church that day. Emma enjoyed all the attention she received with folks wishing her a happy birthday, but later, after claiming I physically abused her, she told Phill that I embarrassed her by mention her birthday. Knowing Emma as I do, I have no idea why she said that. This is a child who loved attention.

We had planned on going out to dinner for Emma’s birthday, but when we came home from church, Phill still wasn’t feeling well, so he told Emma that we would take her out on Friday. Phill works for UPS, and he and his partner, Carl Lehmann, of Dacula Ga., would leave late Monday night, and get home either late Thursday night or early Friday morning. Emma seemed ok with this, although later, she told her therapist Suzie McGarvey http://www.ngcounselingassociates.com/ that her birthday was “not special enough.”

Emma opened her gifts. I don’t even remember now everything she got, but her big gift was a notebook computer, and we also got her some clothes. That evening, we had some premade cheese fondue which Emma loved, and we had gotten her usual request of a cheesecake instead of a birthday cake.
My sister had sent her an outfit and a very cute bracelet that I guess you would call “recycled jewelry” made out of piano wire. Because Emma played the piano, I thought this was such a clever and thoughtful gift for Emma. Later, when my sister called Emma, Emma told her that I’d taken her shopping for clothes earlier, and she claimed that we didn’t even get her a birthday cake. (Well, the cake part is true anyway.) Emma was thrilled with the computer, and didn’t even mention it to my sister whom Emma had been very close to up until I told my sister about the “molestation” and then Emma tended to avoid her. Emma was also pretty rude to my sister and brother-in-law, when we’d gone up for a visit that summer. She was furious with me for telling my sister about the “molestation” but that is for another post.

I wrote about Emma’s bathroom kicking incident earlier, but since it it tied in with the police report, I will mention it again.

Our home on Buck Trail in Hoschton had split bedrooms. Our bedroom was on one side of the house, and Emma’s and a 3rd bedroom were on the other. Emma’s bathroom was between the two bedrooms.
That Sunday afternoon, on Emma’s birthday, Phill and I were in separate rooms when we heard a SLAM and then heard Emma scream. We both ran through the living room, towards her bathroom, just as she came out of her bathroom. We asked what happened, and Emma claimed to have accidently kicked the cabinet in her bathroom. I did not understand how she could have done this as she had a very small bathroom composed of a toilet, a sink with a cabinet below, and a tub. There was enough room to turn around in it, but not much more.

I was more concerned about Emma’s foot than I was about how she managed to kick her cabinet, so I examined the foot and checked to see if she could wiggle her toes. Emma asked me if she broke her toes, and I said I didn’t think so because she could wiggle them. The next day, Emma did not complain about her foot, and I had no idea about Emma using popsicle sticks as splints, and actually find this kind of amusing.

Monday was a quiet day, and Phill left for work Mon. night. Every other week, it would be his turn to drive out, so he would take a nap in the evening before work. He usually slept in the bed in the spare bedroom, and if Emma and I watched television or anything, we usually watched in my bedroom since that would be the television furthest away from where Phill was sleeping. Phill had hooked up a computer to the tv in the bedroom in addition to the computer in the breakfast nook, and the laptop he kept on the sunporch. Emma and I had gotten into watching Criminal Minds (Kind of ironic, I know.) and she found some websites where we could watch from the beginning. We wanted to catch up to the current 2010-2011 season.

Emma had tried to get Criminal Minds from a website, but it wasn’t working right. Phill had warned me that some of these sites could be dangerous for your computer. I don’t remember if he said they could put a virus on or what, but I felt like if they did not work right, I did not want to mess around with them.
I told Emma that we should just skip it and wait until Daddy was home to help us. If I remember right, there wasn’t anything else we wanted to watch, so I picked up a book and was reading in bed, and Emma went to her room.

On Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2010, Emma had an appointment with Suzie McGarvey http://www.ngcounselingassociates.com/ at Lanier Counseling in Buford, Ga. http://www.laniercounseling.com This may have been Emma’s second appointment alone with Suzie McGarvey. Emma had been acting kind of off, as I mentioned earlier, giving me hateful looks (as a friend of mine describes as “eat shit and die” looks) and when I would catch her at it, I asked her what was wrong, and she would say, “nothing” and quickly turn away. I should have known she was up to something, and I think deep down, I did.

It was a nasty, cold, rainy day, and we were going home, but Emma needed to get something for her dad for Christmas, so we stopped at the Hamilton Mill Kohl’s. I had one of our dogs with us, so I dropped Emma off at the door, parked the car and walked the dog in the rainy drizzle, and then put him back in the car and went in the store to meet Emma. Emma, being always the bargain shopper, found two shirts on sale that she got for her dad. We left Kohl’s and Emma wanted to stop at Starbuck’s for a frappe, which was something we did occasionally, but it had gotten to whenever we got in the car, Emma was asking to stop and eat at Chik-Fil-A or Starbucks or a few other places, but these two were probably her favorites. I had gotten tired of Emma expecting to go out to eat every time we got in the car, and I said somewhat sarcastically, “What, are you buying?” and Emma said yes, so I agreed. We stopped at Starbucks, and I sat in the parking lot while she went inside. I may have called Phill while I waited on her, but I really don’t remember now.

We came home, and with the nasty weather, we didn’t go out again. That night, we had a simple dinner.

I went to bed about 11:00 and was awakened at about 11:30 by the sound of a car door slamming.

Coming up next, The Police at the Door…