Tag Archives: Emily Kirby

Letters to “Lacey” Part 10

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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.” My daughter Emma Katherine Roey lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother (me) of physically abusing her and later of poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother (me, again!) poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. If you read through the blog, you will find many other examples of Emma’s lying. At one point, she even complained about the way her dad touched her and that he called her a “bitch” and a “slut” everyday. (I refused to listen to her when she talked about her dad like that.) As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story. Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com Please continue to share the blog with others.

Phill and Emma when we were on a sightseeing trip in NYC. Phill Roey, Emma Roey, Emma Katherine Roey, Emma Kate Roey

Phill and Emma when we were on a sightseeing trip in NYC. Phill Roey, Emma Roey, Emma Katherine Roey, Emma Kate Roey

Part 10
May 9, 2009
(Emma starts another 5 page letter to “Lacey.”)

Another, “Hey Laura!” and Emma tells “Lacey” that it is 1:10 am and she can’t sleep because she took her migraine meds. Emma talks about her mom teaching part time at a local Christian homeschool arts program and that the parent showcase was the previous night. Emma says that it is a collection of skits by all the classes strung together on a basic story line about happiness, truth, freedom, etc., and says that she went to the performance because A) she had nothing better to do, and B) a lot of people there found her on facebook, so she thought it would be fun to see them again. She didn’t remember until she was actually there, but everyone was so nice. No one told her how she could dress better, but ten people must have told her how pretty she looked. She was amazed how those people cared about her even though they hadn’t seen her in over a year. Coming from public school, it was hard to believe that two communities could coexist……. She states that she hopes to go back there next year now that she really appreciates it. (Funny thing is, we let Emma do online school the following year and she refused to go back to the homeschool arts program which was held on Fridays for ½ day.)

Emma goes on to say that a few people were interested in what public school was like and she was so torn at answering that question. In some ways she would say you have to see firsthand what a public school is like so you can really appreciate that you aren’t there, but in some ways you would be sooo much happier if you never had to go through that. For instance, forgive Emma for putting it bluntly, but when y ou barely recognize the existence of the f-word, you aren’t going to be grateful that people don’t shout it at each other sixty times daily, ya know?

By the way, Emma says, if some of this letter is incoherent, just don’t worry about it. Keep in mind that she is extremely sleep deprived and burning up. Did she mention that the a/c was broken? So whatever temperature it is outside is the temperature inside, and we have a wonderful A/C guy, but the problem is getting him to show up. He can never manage that. He was supposed to be there yesterday. (Ok, the part about the a/c guy is true. Jeff was wonderful and reasonable, but he rarely showed up when he said he would, and he rarely called to tell you he wasn’t coming.)

Later on in the day, Emma continues the letter around 8pm:

Emma says the song “What If” by Nicole Nordeman has been running through her head:

They say the cross will only make a fool of you.
And what if it’s true?
What if He takes His place in history
With all the prophets and the kings
Who taughter us love and came in peace
But then the story ends
What then?
But what if you’re wrong?
What if there’s more?
What if there’s hope you never dreamed of hoping for?
What if you jump
And just close your eyes
What if the arms that catch you, cathc you by surprise….

Emma says she loves the chorus to the song. It makes her wonder about all the world religions, our religion atheism, and reminds her of a couple o her favorite pieces of wisdom she’s picked up over the years:
If Christians die to find out atheists were right all along, what do they lose? Nothing. But if atheists die to find out Christians were right, what do they lose? Everything.

Also, she got this from a guy who spoke at a graduation: At college you will be met with logic that makes sense and sounds good, and also totally contradicts Christ. Yes, there will be proof that Christianity is a lie. To Adam and Eve, there was proof that nothing bad would happen if they ate the forbidden fruit. (Emma says in parentheses that she was listening to this going “wow”…) From the beginning, Satan has used sound logic to trick us. It totally puts terms like “fact, reality, logic” into a new perspective, huh? (I’m thinking Emma fell for Satan’s trick. What about you?)

May 10, 2009

Emma talks about the church’s Mother’s Day Luncheon and Fashion Show and complains that she always ends up in the fashion show. She never volunteers for it, but her name magically appears in the bulleting as a model anyway. Oh, well. Don’t let Emma make too much of a martyr of herself, she goes on, as it wasn’t that bad. There were a couple of new twists in her part this year. They called her Friday night and asked her to play some dinner music at the lunch while people were coming in. Oh, ya, a day and a half of notice, let’s see what she can come up with?

Emma played some of the score to Phantom of the Opera, which she knew fairly well. Emma was pleased and embarrassed that Evan stood beside her and listened from beginning to end……
Emma says she also volunteered to help serve people their food, and this was just as well because it took away from the fact that she wasn’t eating. She tells “Lacey” not to worry because she’s not anorexic, but she doesn’t like the food. Emma tells how she was serving one side of the room and Evan was serving the other.
After everybody finished lunch, Emm ran upstairs to dress for the fashion show, and one of the younger girls told her they heard her playing the piano and how good she was, but that she thought the church would get a “professional” and the girl’s older sister said, “Shhh! She is a professional!” (True? I would guess this was a cute fabrication.)

By the way, Emma tells “Lacey”, whenever she goes to church, she sees to effortlessly accumulate a posse, so it’s not surprising that she ended up on the catwalk with two little girls….


May 11, 2009

Emma says this letter may be a bit short, but she’s going to get it in the mail the following day. She is looking forward to the end of school party the youth grou is having the following Sunday.

Emma talks about getting “Lacey’s” e-mail and about “Lacey’s” mom’s breast cancer. Emma says this must have been really trying, but it makes “Lacey” a huge part of who she is and it is amazing that she can share her experiences so openly because it can be such a blessing for those who are hurting.
(If you’ve read the blog, you already know that Emma lied about “Lacey’s” mom’s breast cancer. There were at least 2 or 3 times Emma claimed “Lacey’s” mother was hospitalized and on death’s door. They didn’t know if she would pull through! Oh the drama! My attorney spoke to “Lacey’s” parents, and I spoke to “Lacey’s” mother myself. She did have breast cancer, but was treated as an outpatient and was NEVER hospitalized, and was close to dying.)
Emma tells “Lacey” that she loves her poems because they express what Emma herself would say if she had the courage to write it down. Going back to not sharing emotions/trusting people. Emma feels like if she doesn’t put it on paper or saved it on a computer, it’s just that much less likely that other people will find out how she really feels. It’s so much easier to talk to “Lacey” because she doesn’t have any expectations Emma has to uphold. Emma doesn’t have to worry about something she may say wrong and shattering “Lacey’s fragile impression of her. Emma says she builds a façade and cultivates it, continually adding detail and chrisma and charm until it doesn’t even occur to people that there might be something deeper. She feels like it is too late to stop. It’s different with “Lacey” though because “Lacey” doesn’t see the face, ya know? Emma says she guesses “Lacey” does the same thing.

Also, about the poem, about looking into your eyes and seeing the real you, (not the façade)….It’s funny, Emma doesn’t even worry about people seeing past it anymore. She realizes now that people only see what they want to see. Emma wonders what they’d think if they knew who she really was, but she also knows that they don’t want to know. They see a sweet, well-spoken, gentle young lady and they like what they see, so they don’t want to look any further. That is both relieving and disconcerting at the same time, you know what she means? It is just nice to know that someone else (Lacey) is going through what Emma is going through. Emma says she looks at Jordan, Evan, Rob… do they ever feel this way? She doesn’t know and she never asks because that would be admitting she feels this way, which Emma could never do. Then she looks at the little girl she babysits who’s life’s ambition is to be a teenager. Will she feel like this, or will it be as great for her as she th inks it is for Emma. It is so hard to think about all this…
Emma says these thoughts remind her of the chorus form a song by Jars of Clay, Two Hands:
I use on hand to pull you closer,
The other to push you away…
I have a broken disposition
I’m a liar that thirsts for the truth..

Emma says the song is about being divided and how we could do much more if we were united.
(I am refraining from commenting here. Too much teen angst, which I know is just part of growing up.)

Emma says she just said this, but she is so comforted to know someone else is going through the same thing she is. It is also nice to have someone to talk to that she feels like she can actually trust. She thinks she can trust “Lacey” because she doesn’t have the expectations that everyone else has. No one tells her what to think of Emma. Does that make sense? She hopes so. It doesn’t make sense to Emma how she can be so h appy sometimes and so utterly depressed other times. Does “Lacey” feel the same way? Emma just looked at this letter and saw that she was all over the place on the emotional side of things.

Emma talks about an older couple that we were friends with at church. The husband passed away the year before, and the wife was now going on hospice.

Then Emma bounces back to see if she can end on a lighthearted note and tells a funny story about Jordan calling her after she sent out the e-mail about the youth group party.
“What day is the party? It doesn’t say.” Jordan asks, and Emma tells her to read Emma the subject line which has “Sunday” in it, and Jordan asks, “Oh, it’s Sunday?”
Emma sas that Jordan will be the first of many who will call or e-mail her with that question, and then mentions she is babysitting the following night, so she can watch Aquamarine again…………
Blessings and Love, Emma-Kate

Letters to “Lacey” Part 9

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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.” My daughter Emma Katherine Roey lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother (me) of physically abusing her and later of poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother (me, again!) poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. If you read through the blog, you will find many other examples of Emma’s lying. At one point, she even complained about the way her dad touched her and that he called her a “bitch” and a “slut” everyday. (I refused to listen to her when she talked about her dad like that.) As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story. Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com Please continue to share the blog with others.

Emma on a youth group church trip where they went scuba diving in a pool. Emma Roey. Emma Katherine Roey, Emma Kate Roey.

Emma on a youth group church trip where they went scuba diving in a pool. Emma Roey. Emma Katherine Roey, Emma Kate Roey.

Part 9

May 7, 2009
The very next day Emma starts another letter to “Lacey.” This one is 3 pages, single spaced. She starts out saying how she resolves to write more light-hearted thoughts about nothing in particular (to compensate for the depressing letter she mailed out this morning). She says this is the last day she is locked in the back room of the counseling office at Jackson County Comprehensive High School. She says she finished her last final and is bored out of her mind. That along wigh feeling bad for not writing “Lacey” last week (because she went to SEFF) is why she is writing so much this week, so she will share all her random thoughts, stories and other stuff she feels compelled to share with “Lacey.”

Hmmmm. Where should she start? Emma says her mom keeps texting her since shes at the school, and of course she has her phone on vibrate, so she jumps when she is not expecting to get a text. It happened during lunch and everyone was laughing at Emma (not with her) when in the middle of a sentence she went, “Ahhh!” She is lucky the administrators didn’t see her look at her phone. Students aren’t supposed to have them on campus. Emma says she is not technically a student, but they treat her like one because they don’t know any different. She is not sure if these qualify as happy thoughts, but she is trying….

(And no, I did not make it a habit of texting Emma while she was at school. If I were to text her, it usually would have been in response to a text Emma sent me. I did not feel like I should text Emma while she was at school. Also, there was no rule about the kids not having cell phones. They ALL had cell phones. They were not supposed to have them out during class, but there was no rule that they could not have them at school. A slight exaggeration there.)

Emma tells “Lacey” just so she knows, Emma deleted the last letter after she printed it yesterday. That way no one can ever find it and trace it back to Emma. She says she will do the same with this letter. It never hurts to be safe.

(Hmmm. I wonder why Emma felt the need to delete her letters? What did she have to hide? I guess she didn’t expect “Lacey” to turn them over to my attorney.)

Emma’s next paragraph starts off saying that Oh, she can think of something that is not depressing! She got an e-mail that Rob tagged her in a note on Facebook. So, she opened up the note, figuring it would be something worth reading, but it was chain mail. Emma says she loves her friends, but does not understand them.

Emma says she just texted Jordan and asked what was a funny youth group story, trying to think of something to tell “Lacey” and Jordan texted back “idk…….monopolyzng? :P” Emma says to remember that Jordan can’t or won’t spell… and anything that she says includes “idk” whether she really knows or not). Emma says she THINKS she knows what Jordan means by that, and it’s a story she doesn’t think she’s told “Lacey.” The kids were at youth grou one night, talking about “norms” which basically meant Ms. F. was talking about how to run the group and a few of them were half paying attention while the rest were off in na-na land (teenagers do not listen well at 7:30 on a Sunday night). Ms. F. was talking about how everyone needs to feel comfortable sharing their ideas, and this won’t happen if one person keeps talking. To back up her point, she told us about an instance in the book club where one adult participant (whom she did not name) was monopolizing the conversation and because of that, other people were too intimidated to contribute. Then she asked the kids to share their experiences with this problem and Evan, who was still processing the book club example raised his and and said, “But Father T. is the priest…..isn’t he supposed to monopolize the converstation?” Everybody, Even Ms. F. started laughing.
Emma goes on to say that most of them knew that adult she was referring to was Mrs. L, who’s family Emma wrote about earlier, and everyone knew it was not Father T.
(Ok, the only problem here is that Ms. L. never attended bookclub. I attended book club, and Emma often went with me, but never went without me. Mrs. L. never participated in the book club Just an opportunity for Emma to speak ill of someone she didn’t like. It did not matter if it were true or not.)

Emma goes on to say that Jordan is sort of upset with her bacuse she asked Emma what she would say if she were to speak at Jordan’s funeral. Emma gets more verbose telling the story, but basically says she would want to tell a story that people would remember Jordan by, so she would tell about when they were at camp and Jordan was performaning her color guard routine with the mop.
“What?? That’s what you want people to remember me by?? Why?? That’s mean!!”
Emma says that the problem was that Jordan knew exactly what she wanted Emma to say before they started talking, but unfortunately, Emma didn’t, so now Jordan is mad at her for saying the wrong thing at her imaginary funeral. And how does Emma end up with friends she can’t understand?

Emma’s next paragraph starts out with, “Guess what?” Emma says she still has an hour and fifty-seven minutes to talk to “Lacey” and isn’t “Lacey” thrilled. She also changed to a smaller font so she won’t have to print out as many pages. Let her see, what life changing venture can Emma tell “Lacey” about now? Oooo, she got a camera. It’s a Kodak and it’s dark purple. It stores almost 2000 pictures. Now she can take pictures of her friends and be assured she is not in them. Of course, she will have to be careful not to let it out of her hands… She is sure her friends would be absolutely delighted to torture her with her own camera. They have enough fun pulling out cameras or phones and pointing them at her. Oh, and there’s a really funny video Jordan has of Confirmation last summer. When you hit play, everything is blurry and then it focuses on the group and they all make funny faces. Then you her Jordan say, “I’m taking a video…” and everyone drops their poses and grumbles. Lol.

Then Emma says oh wow, Jordan just texted her. All it says is, “c pretty butum.” And Emma actually does not see the pretty button because apparently Jordan forgot the picture she ment to attach. Or knowing Jordan, she may have even forgotten to attach the pretty button video she thought to take for Emma’s viewing pleasure.

What other useless material does Emma feel like sharing. She may tell Jordan about the time the pool collapsed….then Jordan texts again with a video attachment that is labeled “pretty butun” and the video is 23 seconds long, but it’s very dark, so it is hard to tell if it is a button on Jordan’s knee under her desk. Emma says she can hear Jordan’s Geometry teacher in the background saying, “And with the second prep, I want you to do for homework…I will take this up” and the video cuts off.
Next Emma goes on to tell the pool story about how she and Kayla Benifield Weaver collapsed our inflatable pool, but they were fine and came out miraculously unscathed except for Kayla hitting her head on a tree.
(Another Brian Wiilliams/Emma Roey moment here, as I was there when the pool collapsed, and no, Kayla did not hit her head on a tree. I wonder if Emma had to duck from sniper fire as well?)

Emma writes a little more fluff, killing time about looking out the window and all the things she sees in the parking lot, how she has an hour and 15 minutes left, complains about the 2 hours she spends on the school bus, talks about an upcoming church youth group trip… Emma complains about needing a bathing suit, but the only thing she can find in her size is a bikini, and she would like to order a tankini, but they are so expensive.…. and then signs off with the usual:
Blessings and Love, Emma-Kate


(One last note about the bikini. I don’t know why Emma felt the need to say the only thing she could find in her size was a bikini. At that point, we were busy finishing up with school and did not go shopping for a bathing suit until probably sometime in June. In fact, I had ordered Emma a tankini from Land’s End, but after she got it, she decided she didn’t like it and refused to wear it. If only she’d told me that before she wore it so I could have returned it. I don’t understand this need to say the only thing she could find was a bikini. Emma never would wear a bikini, and we did find a lovely black and white suite at Kohls’s that met with her approval. See Pic……….. )

Letters to “Lacey” Part 8

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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.” My daughter Emma Katherine Roey lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother (me) of physically abusing her and later of poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother (me, again!) poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. If you read through the blog, you will find many other examples of Emma’s lying. At one point, she even complained about the way her dad touched her and that he called her a “bitch” and a “slut” everyday. (I refused to listen to her when she talked about her dad like that.) As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story. Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com Please continue to share the blog with others.

For about 7 years, Emma, her aunt, and I went to the William Holland School in Young Harris Ga. every summer for a week. In 2010, Emma spent a week learning how to cut Cabachons.

For about 7 years, Emma, her aunt, and I went to the William Holland School in Young Harris Ga. every summer for a week. In 2010, Emma spent a week learning how to cut Cabachons.



Part 8

May 6, 2009

Emma starts out this letter to “Lacey” with and “Ugh” and says that she is at Jackson County Comprehensive High School for three days of EOCT testing. It only took her a few minutes on the bus for her to remember exactly why she hates JCCHS and the people there so much. From the moment she got on the bus she saw more evidence of “their” backstabbing definition of friendship. Emma supposes they consider crucifying a ‘friend’ for what she’s wearing, because it’s not in style, to be good for her. At least that was how Emma interpreted the situation. Today, they were criticizing K. for her flip-flops that she wore three days ago. Emma says she did not see the flip-flops, but apparently they were not in style and she is refraining from using the profanities they uttered repeatedly, but she is sure “lacey” can imagine.

Emma tells “lacey that is is so strange. When they are on the bus, Emma is totally and completely disgusted with them and can’t wait until she can get off the bus and run to the counselor’s off ice (that’s where she tests and uses the computer) and get away from them. But then she at lunch with them because it is better than eating alone, slightly, and they were talking and saying they miss Emma and they were talking about friendships, and C. put her arm around Emma and said, “Emma and me, we’re tight, man!” Emma asks “Lacey”, if C. honestly believes that??? After all, C. had not seen Emma in months. In those few moments, Emma felt like maybe, just maybe she could be friends with the girls , but that was until Bo flicked a ketchup-loaded lettuce leaf in her direction, and Emma said, “Hey! These are my new jeans!” so Bo told her that she shouldn’t wear them to school. Emma talks about being sick and having lost 10 lbs., and keeping her clothes nice (not grungy) and modest, which is unacceptable to her friends.
(A slight exaggeration on the weight loss. Emma would lose two or three pounds during her vomiting episodes, but the only time she lost 10 pounds was when she had Rotovirus.)

Emma says she will tell “Lacey” about her “friends.” She starts with C. and says that she met her when she started volunteering with the animal rescue group that we worked with and she liked her for years. Emma noted that C. did curse a lot, but she seemed nice other than that. C. also assured Emma that she and her friends would take Emma under their wing when she came to high school, but Emma did not realize that C’s bringing her into the clique would impact Emma so greatly. Shortly after Emma started at JCCHS, C. had her first abortion, and Emma says that that shook her to her core. You see, until then, everything had been great. Emma felt loved and accepted and overlooked the things she didn’t want to see like the backstabbing and the drinking and drugs. Basically you name it, and C. does it, but the abortion was too much for Emma to ignore.
(If you have been reading the blog, I have already told the abortion story. It was a lie. Emma made it up.)

After C.’s “abortion,” Emma says she started to open her eyes. She began to realize that the people here were not people she wanted to be around, much less look up to or be in a ‘group’ with. When Emma looked at what went on, she was still amazed that the people like her church friends still existed. If there was anyone at JCCHS like her church friends, Emma had yet to find them, and she has tried! So many people Emma used to think a lot of have turned out to be unworthy of her commentation..she can’t think of one at school that she truly admires.
KB is another “friend”. BTW, all these friends live in Emma’s neighborhood, she states. The other friends tell KB she is stupid, although they use a much less polite term. KB believes them and even says it herself.

M. is who Emma considers to be the most intelligent “friend.” She is just as cruel as any of them, but she is also a bit more aware. She has half a clue about politics, although she’d probably tell you she had a whole clue. She thinks she knows it all. “It all” entails the huge government conspiracy that’s out to get us. M. agrees with Emma’s political views, but is much more radical than Emma and Emma and is an extreme right winger. She wants conservatives to rule the world, basically.

A more lighthearted moment, Emma talks about being on the phone with Jordan the night before and talking about Twilight, and then goes into a long descriptive story about Jordan and a spider…

Emma goes on to tell another story about Jordan and when they were at camp the previous summer. Emma claims that she found Jordan out cold on the bathroom floor, and when she came to, all she could whisper was “Spider” and Emma killed it because she didn’t want to risk losing Jordan again.
(Ok, seriously, does anyone believe this story happened? It makes a great story, but Jordan doesn’t really faint that easily.)

Emma’s last paragraph tells about “the wonderful world of grandma” because her grandmother sent her a card and Emma couldn’t understand why her grandmother bought a 50 cent card and then sent it priority mail. Emma complains that Grandma signs “Love” but never writes a personal message.
Emma signs off and says if she writes anymore it will be about the Bad Place where she is, and that would just be depressing.

Blessings and Love, Emma-Kate.

Letters to “Lacey” Part 6

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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.” My daughter Emma Katherine Roey lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother (me) of physically abusing her and later of poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother (me, again!) poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. If you read through the blog, you will find many other examples of Emma’s lying. At one point, she even complained about the way her dad touched her and that he called her a “bitch” and a “slut” everyday. (I refused to listen to her when she talked about her dad like that.) As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story. Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com Please continue to share the blog with others.

Emma played soccer with the Jackson County Recreation Department in preschool. Emma Roey, Emma Kate Roey, Emma Katherine Roey

According to Emma, inbetween preschool and playing soccer at the Jackson County Recreation Department, her parents pressured her about college and we must have ruined her childhood! Emma Roey, Emma Kate Roey, Emma Katherine Roey

Part 6
The following day, Emma starts yet another letter to “Lacey”:

April 15, 2009

Emma starts off this letter telling “Lacey” about a dream she had about Jackson County Comprehensive High School. In her dream, she doesn’t want to go to Biology, so she goes with a friend to Gym instead. Emma says this is weird because she hates Gym, too. Everybody is playing basketball, but Coach Algard won’t let Emma play because he remembered that she will pass out if she does much of anything and in parentheses, she states that this is true-to-life. Then Emma goes on about riding the bus back to the main campus and she was glad she had run into her friend because no one had been nice to her that day and in parentheses writes “Just like my old school!” and she was so grateful that she was going to write a thank you note…….

(I feel the need to point out again that Emma was not the weak and frail little flower that she makes herself out to be, passing out at the drop of a hat. Here in the south, I guess we would say she got the vapors—-and for those of you that know me, I will pronounce it for you. There is no “R.”  Also, Emma was yet again the victim at school. No one was ever nice to her.)

April 20, 2009

Emma tells some cute stories about Sunday school, and complains about being “forced” into the Mother’s Day fashion show at church, and how she was always forced into it.
(One again the victim, Emma was asked to be in the fashion show, and the lady that asked her provided her with a top that came from her daughter’s shop. Emma also played the piano during the show. The next year, Emma volunteered to play the piano again. She loved all the attention she got playing music from Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera. There was another young man who played classical piano, and Phill and I were a little embarrassed when Emma monopolized the piano and this young man was standing there waiting to play.)

Emma talks about her friend Rob, and Rob’s little sister trying to get the two of them together and asks why does she seem to find cute little girls who idolize her and want to run her life at the same time? Is there any reason??? What did she do to deserve this??? Is God trying to show her that she really doesn’t need siblings???

Emma talks about her youth group meeting and how Jordan is mad at Rob, but they have no clue as to why, and how Jordan was in her own little world at the meeting with her itouch and didn’t even hear Rob calling her a loser. *SIGH* Emma says she has given up on understand her friends. It just doesn’t work.
Emma goes on to give an entertaining description of her Red Cross First Aid/CPR course that she has to take as part of her Health class. She claims to have had the weirdest instructor who kept telling them, “I can teach y’all this stuff, but ya’ll know half the time it ain’t gonna work.” She was also full of other encouraging sentiments like, “Them’s just pieces of plastic. Them’s dead…that one’s definitely dead…Dead on site!!” Emma claims the teacher yelled these things out randomly in the middle of CPR practice and also talked to the videos, “Look! Look! He done gone stuck a screw in ‘lectric box!! Everybody knows you don’t go sticking them things in ‘lectric boxes!! Course he’s gonna get shocked! He deserved it, too!…. He shoulda known she was havin’ a heart attack! Everybody knows that’s what happens fore they have a heart attack!!…Well what’s he thinkin’? He done gone and left his buddy in the middle of a river. Course he’s gonna fall in! Ain’t nobody there to help him neither.”
(My Goodness! I wish all my CPR classes had been this entertaining!)

Emma mentions getting a postcard from Arkansas that “Lacey” sent and talks about having to babysit and how she will have to watch the movie “Aquamarine” once again.

April 22, 2009

Emma talks about getting depressed again and seeing the little kids in the Sunday school class she assists with and says she can’t help but to think back to when she was that age and how they are seeing the world for the first time and they seem so content and happy. Emma says she honestly doesn’t have those memories. She remembers her parents talking to her about college when she hadn’t even started kindergarten. Everybody talks about how mature Emma was and how mature she is and she wonders if it is really as great as they make it out to be. She was listening to her friends talk, and whenever they talk about childhoods, Emma was always the responsible one. She feels like she had to grow up so fast, she never had time to be a kid. She was always thinking how she couldn’t wait to get into high school, to be a teenager, and now that she is here, she wonder’s what the big deal is. Then she looks at her future; her parents want her to finish high school in three years and get a head start on college. I apply for scholarships at least twice a week. She runs the youth group and her (adult) youth group leader admits Emma knows more about what’s going on that she (the leader) does. And through all this, Emma’s parents are behind her, pushing her to the limit and often well past it. Really, what are they so worried about? What’s the worst that could have happened….that she might have grown up to be normal?


April 23, 2009

Emma ends this letter with one sentence saying she is late getting it in the mail because she has been busy this week, and then adds “Write soon!.”

(Where is my violin? Teen angst and outright lies! I remember being a moody teenager myself, so I get that part, but her parents talking about college before Emma had started kindergarten? Let’s get real. A preschooler has no concept of what college actually is!
Emma may be referring to how when she was about 3-4 and would frequently stick a doll under her shirt and say, “Look, I’m having a baby!” and then perform the delivery and but the baby to her breast to nurse. Phill and I would ask Emma some questions and taught her how to reply. It went something like this:
Mom or Dad: And when are you going to have a baby, Emma?
Emma: After college. When I’m 30. And when I’m married.

Emma, sweetie, it was a joke. We weren’t putting pressure on you about college! Sorry if we scarred you for life!

Phill and I never had any intention of Emma finishing high school in 3 years.  We knew that some homeschoolers were able to start college their senior year of high school and count it as both high school and college, and that was sort of a way homeschoolers got around needing a high school diploma to start college.  We had thought Emma might like to to that when the time came, but we were not trying to rush her through high school.
After 10th grade, Phill and I considered letting Emma start college. Since she was interested in nursing, we looked into Gwinnett Technical College and let Emma go over and take a test to see if she could get in.  Emma was the one who was dying to start college.  10th grade had been a pretty lousy year of Emma sitting in front of a computer for school everyday.  We really did not want her to do school on line again. When she passed the entry test to Gwinnett Tech, we were definitely interested until the college told us Emma would have to take the GED to be allowed into college.     I did some research and talked to other people, and Phill and I were not comfortable with Emma getting into college via that route. We’d heard too many negative things about having a GED instead of a diploma, so we decided Gwinnett Tech was out. Of course, Emma blamed me for not letting her start college. Oh, that evil mother, again!
As for the youth group, Emma definitely had some control issues. She liked running things, and she liked being in control. If they planned an event and she didn’t hear back from some of the kids as to who was going, she would call to find out. Emma wasn’t forced into this position. She kind of took over.
I have to laugh at the last few sentences. We had gone to a meeting at JCCHS and one of the speakers talked about all the scholarships out there and how one young woman applied for so many and ended up getting something like 80 scholarships. At first, I looked around at scholarships and encouraged Emma to apply for a couple that I thought she might be eligible for, but I gave up on that after about a week. You could not force Emma to do anything she did not want to do, and it was not worth the bother. At one time, Emma wanted to go to medical school and to go to Yale, and I thought if she was serious, she’d better be looking for scholarships, but I wasn’t going to be a Sandi McCravy and do it for her. Much to her credit, Sandi, (Sandra Brooks McCravy) applied for every scholarship for Derek that she could get her hands on and it paid off. Some of them were very small, like a couple hundred dollars, but hey, there’s a textbook! I was not near as dedicated to scholarships as Sandi was.
And who knew? Phill and I pushed Emma to her limit and well past it? Really? I guess I must have blocked out that part. While we did require she do her school work, we didn’t push Emma into anything.
What was the worst that could happen? That Emma might have brown up to be normal? I’m not even going to comment on that one right now. I’m sort of wondering how mom gets all the credit/blame for everything wrong in her life, but no credit for everything right? Oh, that’s right. Somebody has to be the bad guy.

From about 2nd grade up until she started high school, Emma said she was going to be a pediatrician when she grew up.  She’d read a children’s book about Dr. Ben Carson, and that inspired her.  I was amazed that she held on to that idea for as long as she did.   Around 10th grade Emma was leaning towards nursing, but then with  all the wonderful therapy she had, she decided to major in counseling.  After what’s been going on in the news, I couldn’t help but wonder if Emma had ever thought about being a news anchor.  I hear there might be an opening for Brian Williams’ job!  Just a thought.)

Letters to “Lacey” Part 5, Medieval Times, Atlanta

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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.” My daughter Emma Katherine Roey lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother (me) of physically abusing her and later of poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother (me, again!) poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. If you read through the blog, you will find many other examples of Emma’s lying. At one point, she even complained about the way her dad touched her and that he called her a “bitch” and a “slut” everyday. (I refused to listen to her when she talked about her dad like that.) As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story. Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com Please continue to share the blog with others.

Emma and Kayla Benifield Weaver at Medieval Times, Atlanta 2009, Emma Kate Roey, Emma Katherine Roey, Emma Roey

Emma and Kayla Benifield Weaver at Medieval Times, Atlanta 2009, Emma Kate Roey, Emma Katherine Roey, Emma Roey

Part 5, Medieval Times, Atlanta

On April 9th, 2009, Emma started another 4 paged, typewritten letter to “Lacey.”
After Emma’s mother so cruelly would not let her go with Kayla (Kayla Benifield Weaver) and her grandparents to Dollywood because she was too far behind in her schoolwork, Roy and Velda Benifield, Kayla’s grandparents from Martin, Ga, offered to take Emma with them to Medieval Times, a dinner show and tournament in Lawrenceville, Ga. This letter is mostly about that night and is a lot of great story telling. I don’t know if it is all true or if some of it is somewhat exaggerated. Emma came home that night, and told me in great detail about the whole evening, but when I read through this letter a few years ago, it seemed a little different than what Emma had told me that night, so I’m guessing this letter is a little fluffed up to make good story telling. I’m not going to go into this letter as thoroughly as I have with some of them because it just doesn’t matter. I will share a few parts so you can get a feel for it.

Emma talks about how she and Kayla are polar opposites because Kayla wants to stay in the crowd and watch people make fools of themselves, but Emma wants to jump right up there with them. Emma talks about a knighting ceremony where you could go up and kneel before the king and be knighted, except no one wanted to do it when they asked for volunteers, and Kayla muttered, “No you don’t!” and well, of course Emma did. She walked up on stage, which Emma calls her 2nd home and knelt before King Phillipe and was now the Lady of the Castle, and Kayla was totally and completely mortified to have to claim Emma. Emma says, honestly, you’d think she’d become a delinquent instead of a Lady.

Emma talks about going into the dungeon and how Kayla could not read the framed sheets of information, so Emma read them out loud and then talks about how after she read them, people around them clapped for her. Emma says she’s fine with people appreciating her drama when she is on stage, but was a little embarrassed to have an audience and not even know it.

After walking out of the dungeon, Kayla’s grandmother was there, waiting to ambush them with the camera and then in her lovely Southern Drawl declared rather loudly, “Girls! There ya’ll are! Have Ya’ll found ya’llselves any handsome boys to get ya’lls picture taken with?” Emma states that she was mortified and Kayla was ready to crawl into a hole.

Emma writes more on April 13 and April 14 and then finishes the letter.

Just a quick note about Kayla. Kayla was also involved in the Drama department at her high school, so I just can’t imagine her being as reserved and “mortified” as Emma makes her out to be.

Part 6 coming up next!

Letters to “Lacey” Part 4

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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.” My daughter Emma Katherine Roey lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother (me) of physically abusing her and later of poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother (me, again!) poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. If you read through the blog, you will find many other examples of Emma’s lying. At one point, she even complained about the way her dad touched her and that he called her a “bitch” and a “slut” everyday. (I refused to listen to her when she talked about her dad like that.) As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story. Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com Please continue to share the blog with others

Part 4

(Interestingly enough, Emma started another 4 page letter to “Lacey” the same day she finished the last letter.)

Another mother and I took the church youth group on a bowling trip. I guess you can tell Emma wasn't a great bowler, but it was fun anyway! Here she is hamming it up after her gutterball.

Another mother and I took the church youth group on a bowling trip. I guess you can tell Emma wasn’t a great bowler, but it was fun anyway! Here she is hamming it up after her gutterball.

March 30, 2009

This letter again starts out with the “Hey Lacey” salutation and goes on to talk about how Emma is taking a break from school to write “Lacey.” She mentions that we watched part of PBS’s presentation of Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens the night before. Then she complains about how we are having Cornbeef [sic] and Cabbage for dinner. (One of Phill’s favorite meals.) (What is kind of funny is that Emma says that she is not that picky, and I think Phill would even tell you that Emma was VERY picky. She liked meat and bread, and pretty much the only vegetables she liked were green beans, corn, and potatoes. Ok, two of those don’t really count as healthy vegetables, but to Emma. I have to wonder if Emma’s taste has changed in the past 3 ½ years since Ive seen her.)

(Emma must have taken a break.)

The very next paragraph, Emma complains that dinner was just as awful as predicted and that after her on line class that evening, “they” want to talk to her. (not sure why the “talk” was italicized) Emma says this could be really good or it could be really bad. It could mean that her parents had decided Emma was mature enough to get her permit (oh please Lord, pretty please….) or it could mean her parents are mad at her for some inexplicable reason. She “*really*” hopes she is not in touble. Emma states that we usually don’t have huge fights more than once a month so it is too early to have another one yet. Orr I could be something random like her medication is making her depressed and it’s time to see about changing it. Emma says that idea would not fall into either category, but it is not a bad idea. (Suffice to say this is more teenage angst. Occasionally we had loud arguments, but I don’t think we timed them out to be every month. Also, Emma makes a much bigger deal about her medication, depression, side effects, changing her medication, etc. Emma took her medication, the only problem she had with it was that it increased her sensitivity to sunlight, and she had to be careful in the summer because if she was out in the sun for too long, she would break out. That’s all. There was no depression, no changing of medications.)

Emma’s next paragraph starts with story from church where a father of one of the girls in the class Emma assisted with asked her if she was in college. Emma was “abashed to admit” she was a lowly high school in freshman. Emma says she knows he is mature beyond her years. She’s gone through more strife than most adults will in a lifetime, and it’s definitely shaped her, but college? She didn’t think she seemed that old! Emma says there are times she feels so young compared to her friends…Evan, Rob, and Jordan are sophomores and there are a few juniors and seniors in the group, but no other freshmen. Her only close friend out of church (besides Lacey) is Kayla –Kayla Benifield Weaver, a junior. Emma was proud that someone could think she was that mature. She says it might balance out my inferiority complex just a big. Yes, she says, she fluxes between being totally self-assured to feeling utterly inept.

March 31, 2009

Emma writes that *the talk* was just disappointing. Her mother won’t let her go to Dollywood with Kayla (Kayla Benifield Weaver) on spring break. And Kayla’s grandparents were going to pay for it, so Emma is ticked off! Emma would love to spend three days with Kayla. She doesn’t get to see her much because she lives in Martin. Her divorced mom lives close by, so she’s sees Kayla when she is at her mom’s maybe 5 times a year. Last time Emma saw her was when they went bowling on Kayla’s birthday in Februrary.

(Ok, let the evil mother speak here. Emma hated attending Jackson County Comprehensive High School and was throwing up so much that we had to pull her out of school Emma had to finish school on line, but she also had a lot of school work she had to finish for JCCHS, so it was almost like she was doing double school to make up for missing so much. It was not her evil mother who decided she could not go to Dollywood with Kayla and her grandparents, it was a decision made assignments done, and Phill and I were both proud of her for getting through that semester.
Another thing was that the trip was not 3 days. I spoke to Kayla’s grandfather over the phone, and the trip was to be for five days. Emma was so behind in school, she did not could not take 5 days off. As a mother, this was a very difficult decision, as I’m sure other mothers out there can understand. I racked my brain trying to figure out how Emma could go to Dollywood because I know she would have a great time, and she didn’t have many friends, so I really wanted her to go. Emma told “Lacey” that she got to see Kayla maybe 5 times a year, the truth was that Emma, at that point, saw Kayla once or twice a year. It came down to the fact that Emma had deadlines on her school work, and there was no way she could meet them if she took the five days off. We’d already been warned that Emma might have to repeat 9th grade, so we were just trying to make sure she got through the year. I think I was as disappointed as Emma was that she could not go to Dollywood with Kayla, but Phill and I agreed that it was not possible.)

Emma goes on to talk about her plans to go on a mission trip in June with one of our neighbors who runs an organization called Eternal hope of Haiti. Emma mentions being a little nervous about it. (Ironically enough, another woman in the neighborhood, a nurse practitioner, who frequently went on the mission trips to Haiti with Eternal Hope, was also the victim of Emma’s lies. If you’ve read through the blog, I’ve mentioned this story, but it seems appropriate to mention it here. The NP who was our neighbor, and one of her daughters, went with Emma on the trip to Haiti, and was especially kind and kept an eye on Emma. She also let Emma use her phone to send a message home. When this lady needed a dog sitter, Emma went over to her house after she got home from work to go over what she needed to do for the dog. Emma came home and told me how the woman was drunk, and imitated her, putting on a good show. I was kind of shocked, but Emma was pretty funny with her acting. I later told Phill about it. Too bad it was another one of Emma’s stories.)

Emma then says a couple of neighborhood girls stopped by the house. They had heard a rumor that Emma had brain cancer. Emma says she felt like saying, “Oh wow, I’ve been out of school for two months and NOW you decide to check on me. Ya, that means a whole lot.” See, Emma used to consider about 4 girls in the neighborhood to be her friends, but that was until she opened her eyes and realized that they didn’t act at all like friends. According to her friends, the hairbands Emma wore were childish, the jeans she wore weren’t in style, her shoes weren’t cool, her backpack made her look d funny, her shirt looked like something an old lady would wear, she was too innocent, Christian, and naive for her own good. (Their words, not Emma’s, according to Emma.) Unfortunately, by the time Emma realized she had chosen the wrong confidants; it was too late to change things. At Jackson County Comprehensive High School, your associations are set in stone the moment you arrive. Changing them is strictly forbidden. Emma could not leave the group because they were always around her. They claimed her and there was nothing she could do. While it was possible to leave them, it was not possible to find another group identity.
Emma says if she were in the same situation again she would have done things differently. She realizes now that it is better to have no friends than friends that bring you down. However, she can’t change the past, so she has to deal with the repercussions. She is just grateful that she has a strong faith and a few close friends, even though she doesn’t see them often.
Emma says she wishes she’s forgiven the girls, but she hasn’t. Some things, like the insults will be forgotten in time, however, other damage is irreparable. They took her trusting nature and turned it against her. The awful things she saw and heard took away her innocence. Because of them, she is suspicious of strangers. Because of them, she is not who she used to be, and she can’t change that no matter how hard she tries…………….

(Ok, the part about the brain tumor is true because I was there when the girls came by, but this is more teen angst, dramatization and exaggeration. I know some of this exaggerated angst is normal with the age Emma was at the time, and teenagers teasing each other is normal as well, but most of this part of the letter is laughable. Emma didn’t really try to make friends. The girls on the bus tried to include her and invite her to things, but often she would not go (because of Emma’s claims there would be drinking and drugs at whatever they were doing). Also, Emma was the one who would not allow any of these girls to be her friend on facebook. They sent her friend requests, but she ignored them. I think Emma didn’t want to associate with these girls, so she made them sound like horrible people so that I wouldn’t give her a hard time about not accepting an invitation to do something with them. After all, what kind of mother would I be if I encouraged my daughter to hang out with a bunch of promiscuous, foul-mouthed drug users? Well played, Emma because I fell for it.)

Emma writes about texting Kayla and how since her “rents” won’t let her go to Dollywood, she wanted to meet Kayla at Hartsfield International Airport and fly to New York, and that when she got a role on Broadway, she would pay Kayla’s college tuition. Emma also writes about how she wants to start a Bible Study with her youth group.
(As for the Bible Study, like the music program Emma was going to start, it’s more talk. Emma never actually talked to anyone about doing any of these things. I think she was just trying to impress upon “Lacey” what a good Christian she was.)

April 6, 2009

Emma tells “Lacey” some cute stories about church and a couple of funny stories about the mother of one of the boys in her youth group and how this woman is bipolar.
(I’m not going to bother writing about these stories because I suspect they were just that, stories, but they sounded good and gave her something to write about. I suspect the stories and Emma’s diagnosis were all lies as well. Although I didn’t know this woman real well, we were friendly, and I attended some small group things where she was a part of the group as well. I never asked her if she was bipolar, and at this point, I’m not going to bother. Since our group often discussed personal things going on in our families, and we talked about a young man in church who was bipolar, I feel that this woman would have mentioned it, or I would have found out from someone else in the group. I’m calling pretty much all this part of the letter BS.)
Emma asks “Lacey” if she has Facebook and tells her to look up “Emma Kate Roey” and says that it is her socialization. (Note: Emma no longer uses her real name on Facebook.)

April 7, 2009

Emma chit chats about getting a little snow, and how her friend Jordan loves the Twilight series and can relate anything in any conversation to Twilight. She talks about how she is going shopping for an Easter dress after lunch. (Actually, Emma wasn’t driving at the time, so it was her mom taking her shopping and paying for the Easter dress, but those are Eminor detail. I realize Emma wanted to sound grown up and independent.) Emma signs off and says this 4 page typed letter is fairly short because not a lot was going on this week.

Two days later, Emma will start another 4 page letter to “Lacey.”

More to come………………………….

Today’s Thought

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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.” My daughter Emma Katherine Roey lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother (me) of physically abusing her and poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother (me, again!) poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. Emma still claims to have health problems because of this “poisoning.” As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story. Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com Please continue to share the blog with others.

Emma, learning about repelling from Phill's partner, Carl, who, along with his wife Connie, replled into a lot of caves.

Emma, learning about repelling from Phill’s partner, Carl, who, along with his wife Connie, replled into a lot of caves.

If you’ve been following the blog, I’ve been going through Emma’s letters to “Lacey” the friend she claimed was raped and attempted suicide. “Lacey” was the supposed catalyst for Emma’s repressed memories of being molested by a priest when she was 12 years old. Emma told many other lies about “Lacey” and her family.

This past week, I’ve had some interesting conversations with some people who just happened to be put in my path. One couple, whom I’d just met, found out I was divorced and then, without even knowing about Emma, started telling me about the problems they’d had with their daughter when she was a teen. Their daughter is about 10 years older than Emma, and turned out ok, but they had some rough years. Then, the husband said to me that they even had friends who’d gotten divorced because of the problems with their own daughter. Bingo! I was just surprised to be having this conversation, and these people are telling me these things before I’d even told them anything about my situation.

Today I was thinking about how when the church sent a so-called impartial attorney to interview Emma about the molestation. At this point we should have had an attorney, but perhaps I was trusting and naive. (I will write out the whole story on the investigation at some point, but for right now, it’s not a big priority.) This attorney wanted to question Emma without me present. Phill was at work, and that was probably another mistake. I should have had Emma questioned with an attorney present, and the appointment should have been made when Phill and I both could have been there.

Emma was sixteen at the time, and since our deacon (a woman) who’d been very supportive of Emma was there with us, I agreed to let the attorney question Emma without me being present and went outside with our priest (who had also come over) so that the attorney could talk to Emma. It did not go well, and it sounded like the attorney was more than being an objective interviewer, but was rather adversarial. After she was finished, Emma came running out to me, crying, saying she hated the woman. Emma was obviously upset, and everyone quietly left. When I later talked to our deacon, she told me that she did not like the woman attorney either.

Partly, I feel like this woman could not have been objective as she was hired by the church and she was a member of the church. That seems a little bit like conflict of interest, but that’s just my opinion.

What I was thinking about today though, was how after the attorney had left, Emma told me she’d turned on the recorder on her phone and recorded most of the interview. I was proud of Emma for having the presence of mind to do that. Not that anything became of the recording, and I really only listened to a few minutes of it. Emma had her phone under the table, maybe in her pocket, I can’t remember now, and the sound quality wasn’t that great. I find it interesting that Emma accused me of pushing her, shoving her, kicking her foot into the corner of the cabinet, hitting her with the handle of a pot (still haven’t quite figured out that one!) and yet there is no proof of those things. Emma claimed I went into a rage several times and then blocked it out. Phill never saw me do any of those things. There is no proof. I just thought it was interesting that Emma never thought to record these incidents, especially since Emma’s cell phone was practically another appendage of her body. It was either in her pocket or in her hand.

Hmmmmmm… Perhaps if something seems too bizarre to be true………….

I am thankful to have survived all this with my sense of humor intact. Some of Emma’s lies have been downright laughable, and I would just like to ask her what she was thinking when she said them. There’s a cute little song that’s very popular right now and it always makes me smile and think of Emma. I just want to say, “Hey, Emma! Your Lips are Moving.”

I will continue with the next letter to “Lacey” coming up. Sorry for the delay. I have had a busy couple of weeks! Thank you all for support. I will keep writing!

Letters to Lacey Part 3 (UPDATE Completed– 1/18/2015)

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*********************COMPLETED JAN. 18, 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.” My daughter Emma Katherine Roey lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother (me) of physically abusing her and poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother (me, again!) poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. Emma still claims to have health problems because of this “poisoning.” As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story. Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com Please continue to share the blog with others.

When Emma was in 6th grade, we went on a bird banding trip to Jekyll Isalnd, Ga.

When Emma was in 6th grade, we went on a bird banding trip to Jekyll Isalnd, Ga.

Emma’s next letter is a 6 page (typed) letter that she wrote over March 24-28, 2009.

March 24, 2009

This letter starts out with Emma saying she’s bored so she thought she’d start a letter to “Lacey.” Emma says the pen-pal thing is good for her, she thinks, and she can copy and paste parts of it to her grandmother who lives in New Jersey. Emma tells “Lacey” about her grandmother has two sons, Phill who’s older, and Andy who is younger, and that Andy was always her favorite, so Andy’s kids are her favorite too despite the fact that they had problems with drugs and one of them made her a great-grandma by having a baby when she was a teenager and then says that this cousin is now pregnant again and still not married. Emma says she is not bitter or anything, although she hated her grandma for a long time in part because her mother resents grandma for neglecting Emma which she can understand. Emma goes on to say that she saw a picture recently of her grandma and felt stupid for resenting a frail looking old lady, so she started writing her and grandma was thrilled. Emma says she doesn’t want to talk to her on the phone and is afraid she hasn’t forgiven her grandmother completely. Emma goes on to say that her grandmother was in Atlanta visiting Andy, and stupid Emma thought her grandmother would want to see her too, but she doesn’t and that really hurts.

Emma goes on to tell Lacey about something silly from her church youth group, a joke they had about “light pollution.” And then she talks about a church retreat where Emma’s friend, Jordan, wanted to do her color guard routine, but didn’t have a flag, so Emma told her there was a mop outside, and Jordan did her color guard routine in front of the whole camp with a mop.

Emma again brings up the prank about burning her hand at the lock-out and calls that her classic-Emma-Kate-moment, and goes on to say she loves being infamous and that she is the secretary and they need her, so they can’t kick her out because she is irreplaceable! Emma adds that in case “Lacey” hasn’t noticed, self-esteem is not one of her many problems, but when she brags, she means it as a joke and not to show off.

Emma tells a cute story about church, and her Sunday school class, and then says she hopes she hasn’t bored “Lacey” with stories about her friends, and then says if “Lacey” is every coming down in our area, she would love to meet her and maybe “Lacey” could come visit for a week or two.

March 25, 2009

Emma starts of this part of the letter saying she hopes “Lacey” isn’t sick of her depressing life and goes on to talk about the neighbor boy who died again. Then she promises that she is done with the depressing stuff now, and tells “Lacey” about a silly dream she had. She mentions watching Beverly Hills Chihuahua, and says she wants to get a Beta fish.

The next paragraph, Emma is excited about having talked to “Lacey” on Elluimnate (part of her on-line school program) and says “You think you won’t get sick of me!” and goes on to say she presumes she is annoying, or at least anyone like Emma would annoy Emma herself, but it is hard to judge herself. She imagines things. She overreacts, unfortunately…

Emma tells “Lacey” about out ladies’ Bible study group and how we were starting The Star, The Cross, and the Cresent, an Andy Stanley program (North Point Community Church northpoint.org), and Emma says that she cannot imagine following the Koran. She wonders why those people don’t embrace Christ’s forgiveness and love, but the Bible says it is not for her to judge, so she supposes she won’t.

March 27, 2009

Emma tells “Lacey” about our Bible study that we attended the night before, and tells her a little about what we listened to on the DVD and how that four thousand year old scripture sounds a lot like modern times, doesn’t it? Then Emma adds that our wonderful new president has a great solution: since they want to kill us, let’s talk to them!

Emma says she doesn’t know how Lacey feels about politics, or if she even cares, but Emma herself is strongly Conservative (and she is not just repeating her parents—-they disagree with her on most issues!) (Though Phill and I were fairly conservative, Phill used to joke that Emma was Right of Right.) Emma does not understand how anyone can follow a leader who wants to condone the murder of an unborn child. Partial-birth abortion especially gets her and she firmly believes they do not have the RIGHT to legalize gay marriage. Marriage was a sacrament way before our government existed and they have NO right to define HER beliefs!

Ok, done with her tirade, Emma says she debated her AP Government class last year (the other 12 students were for legalizing abortion) and you know what’s funny? Emma says that everyone admitted she won. Of course that is because they were only reiterating their parent’s/friends’ dogma, and had no clue why they felt the way they did. She was not trying to sound superior, it’s just true.

Emma talks again about the youth group and how the younger kids think teenagers are these awesome alien creatures and how she loves that the younger kids think she is cool.

Emma goes on to talk about how she is supposed to make something edible to serve after church and how Emma + Cooking = Disaster. She says she is absent minded and tends to mis-measure or altogether exclude certain ingredients. Did she put Cayenne pepper in? She guesses she will do it again to be sure, and how she can ruin even the just-add-water muffin mixes. (This part is pretty much all exaggeration. Emma could cook if she wanted to. She could read and follow directions just fine. Emma really didn’t cook unless it was to make herself an egg or bake something for church. Once she made a jello salad for a Thanksgiving dinner with friends. Emma didn’t really like to cook. The only time I can remember her making a meal was after she went on a mission trip with Eternal Hope of Haiti. She came home and googled a recipe to find something similar to a dish she had there, and she made Phill and I a wonderful baked spaghetti dish. It was very sweet that she wanted to do cook for us, and it was very good! Oh, and Emma would not have cooked ANYTHING with cayenne pepper in it! She did not like spicy food!)

Emma tells “Lacey” that she’s been fighting a bout of depression lately. She was looking through her homeschool program’s yearbooks and counted the signatures. She never did see ten signatures. Emma says she tries to be this happy, exuberant, outgoing person, like the people who are always in the middle of things, the ones whose opinions are like the law…..a magnet to those around them…happy, confident, sure of themselves in their own little worlds. That is who she wants to be, but she is always on the fringes, close enough to watch without being noticed.

Emma hopes “Lacey” doesn’t find her letters horribly depressing. She thinks it helps her to be able to talk to “Lacey”, to know she will listen, and because “Lacey” doesn’t see her every day, “Lacey” doesn’t tell her all the things she should do differently. That was all her friend, Jordan, did was to tell Emma how she should change, and she tried, but she just couldn’t. She is who she is and she can’t change so radically that she is a different person altogether. She guesses she will have to do something differently if she wants her life to be different, but she hadn’t figured out yet what she can do, and that is why it hurts so badly. She wants to be the way Jordan is, and by staying close to her, she thinks she was trying to change herself into part of Jordan, but it didn’t work and now Jordan is gone.

(I have a couple of things to add here. Some of this is just teen angst, but for whatever reason, Emma quit liking the homeschool group where she took classes and I worked part time. She complained about her classes and withdrew from the other kids. She wanted to take Drama, but her biggest complaint was that they always made the plays so that everybody had a part—in other words, she wouldn’t get to be the star. She thought that was stupid. Emma became a sulky teenager and didn’t even try to be friendly. Once she went on facebook, she could post hundreds of comments and “likes.” But when Emma didn’t like something, she could be quite rude. She was not one of the popular kids, and she was unhappy. It probably didn’t help that I had a great time with my kids. I had a lot of fun teaching and worked hard at it. Phill often complained that I spent too much time preparing for class at home for the small salary I received. I always said I was lucky to teach an elective because the kids who were in my class were there because they wanted to be there. I didn’t think Emma and I were in a competition, but she was jealous that I kids who wanted to take my class and who thought I was “cool.” As I mentioned earlier, when I was telling Phill and Emma, over lunch, about my kids one day, Emma had to remind me that those kids don’t like their own mothers either.)

In the next paragraph, on pg. 4, Emma says how grateful she is to have “Lacey” to write to. If “Lacey” doesn’t mind, to please keep Emma in her prayers. Right now she feels like she is just going through the motions, and she really wants to change that. She is putting on an act for everyone around her. Because she is one of those people who likes to make others dependent on her. Her Sunday school class would be empty without here. She is the backbone of the youth group and it would fall apart without her, but what happens when Emma needs to depend on someone? She keeps smiling every day, doing everything she does, and then sh.e cries herself to sleep when nobody’s watching. There is a line in one of the most moving poems she has read, “I smile when I have to / I break down when I don’t/ I know I can be strong/ But I also know I won’t.” That is basically how Emma feels right now. She is tired of being strong, and the things she used to do aren’t working anymore. She turns up her praise music as loud as she can, and sings the words she knows so well and nothing happens. She doesn’t feel the joy she used to. The happiest time in her life right now is the moment before she goes to sleep because no matter how bad or wonderful her day has been, it is over and she can quit. She doesn’t have to act. She just lies there and thinks. The curtain is closed after the final act and she doesn’t have to be anyone she is not anymore. She really wonders if that is her problem; she has practiced being so many different people that she has forgotten to be herself.

Emma thanks Lace for letting her vent, and this is something she could never talk to her parents or her youth group friends about. Her friends look at her health problems and they treat her differently already, so she doesn’t want to give them anymore reason to set her apart. That is the only time she resents her lot in life. It is really embarrassing when she is serving with the other acolytes at church and just slumps over in front of the whole church, just passes out for no reason at all. She hates it, so she has to make an effort to seem normal around her friends. (Another great exaggeration, as Emma frequently vomited, but I think there was only one time she got pretty woozy at the altar. She didn’t actually pass out.)
Emma tells “Lacey” that this song has been running through her head lately:

You would think only so much can go wrong
Calamity only strikes once
And you assume that this one has suffered her share
Life will be kinder from here
Oh, but sometimes the sun stays hidden for years
Sometimes the sky rains night after night
When will it clear?

Natalie Grant, Our Hope Endures

Emma ends this section thanking “Lacey” for listening to her and says please don’t think she is some horribly depressed person. She has just been having a bad week. She thinks one thing she needs to contemplate is that none of us will ever reach our full potential. We all fall short of what God wants us to be, and we can’t expect too much of ourselves. It is good to set high goals, but you can’t give up when you fall short, and basically she wants to be perfect, but it’s not going to happen.

March 28, 2009

Emma continues with her letter to “Lacey” and starts of this section about how she ended up making brownies for church and they even came out pretty. She was so proud. She says she has fun mixing the brownies but the baking most of it and eating the rest while it bakes. Then she gets to cut them and arrange them on a pretty platter except the platter happens to be an heirloom and she would be murdered if she broke it, so that somewhat dampens her fun. When she had the brownies out of the ban and on a cutting board to cut them, her *dad* {sic} decided to stick his *finger* into the batch! So, one brownie has a somewhat smoothed out finger print in the middle of it. SIGH…. (Hmmmm. Where to start? Ok, who takes brownies out of the pan to cut them? We always cut them in the pan, and Emma did too, so I’m not sure where the need for that embellishment came from. And Phill walking by and sticking his finger in the middle of the brownies. Nope. That is not Phill. He wouldn’t deliberately mess up something she was doing. THEN, there’s the whole heirloom thing. Heirloom? Really? Uh…. Not hardly. We had a couple of cheap glass trays that were Phill’s dad’s, and they were special to us because they were his dad’s, but no, they were not heirlooms. I didn’t have any serving platters, so we always used his dads glass pieces when we were taking something somewhere because they were bigger than our dinner plates. But, Emma can sure dish out a good story, can’t she? “Heirloom” sounds so much more interesting than dime store dish!)

On the bright side, Emma continues, she is not nearly as depressed as she was yesterday. She looked up her new medication (don’t ask why she didn’t do that before) and depression is indeed a common side effect. As are mood swings. And suicidal impulse. Soooo, that explains a bit of this. She is glad she is not just randomly sinking into states of general self hatred. Emma says she may stop taking her medication if it makes her like this though. She was seriously upset yesterday. (Note: I don’t remember which medication Emma was on at the time, but I don’t remember the side effects depression or suicidal impulse. The one problem she had with the medication she was on was that it caused increased sun sensitivity, and Emma would break out of she was out in the bright sun too much. It wasn’t a big deal. When she was younger, with her throwing up episodes, she’d been on medication, such as Elavil. During the whole, “I was molested by a priest.” thing, Emma was on Celexa and Lexapro at some point. I don’t remember which one it was she tried first, but then told her psychiatrist that she was depressed and having suicidal thoughts, so the psychiatrist switched her. Emma would always look up the side effects of her medications and then claim to have those side effects.)

Emma says it has been raining all day and sometimes she likes the rain, but she didn’t today because it made her sad. She kept thinking about God crying…. But, as she said, she was not nearly as bad as she was yesterday. Emma talks about her cousin who lives Co. and has two children……

Emma talks about how she picks her own family members like here mom’s friend Sandi (Sandra Brooks Mccravy) who wants to be her mom and has a dysfunctional extended family. She says that Sandi goes to family gatherings and then afterwards, wonders why she bothered.

Albert, the greeter at Costco (Buford, Ga.) is her uncle. A lot of people at Costco know Emma’s dad because they see him in his UPS uniform, and they know about Emma’s health problems, so they are nice to us. She says we see Albert the most and he always asks about her, so he gets to be her uncle. (I didn’t even know Emma called this man her uncle, and I think she only did this in her letter to Lacey, but he was a very nice man. I think that is in the job description. He was nice to everyone.)

Emma goes on to talk about one of the volunteers from the dog/cat rescue and tells “Lacey” how we do Thanksgivings and Christmases and other holidays with our rescue friends. (This part was true. Emma did call three of our friends from the rescue, “Aunt.”)

Emma says she really wonders what “Lacey” thinks of her. Does she think she is insane yet? As she’s said, she really is, but “Lacey” may or may not be convinced of that. (At this point, I’m sure “Lacey” probably thought Emma was just another teen, but I do have to wonder what she thought after she found out Emma was telling people that “Lacey” was raped and attempted suicide!)

March 30, 2009

Emma starts off with a couple of cute, silly stories about her the kids in Sunday school. (Maybe true, maybe not.)
Emma then writes about how Jordan is still not speaking to her and she is annoyed at Rob for treating her like an invalid. Emma talks about carrying a child and she was going to carry one of the crosses, when Rob took it upon himself to carry the cross because everyone is afriad she is going to pass out. (Another exaggeration. Emma wasn’t quite the frail little waif she makes herself out to be in her letters to”Lacey.”)
More musings about how there is going to be a donkey in the service for Palm Sunday, that she has to follow in since she will be crucifer. Whe is afraid the donkey will have an accident and she will ruin her shoes.
Emma says she’d better sign off before this letter goes over the postal weight limit—–she is not supposed to do that, and she did it last week, so she’d better not do it twice in a row……She is so blessed to have double-sided printing. (Really? The last letter was shorter than this one. Also, we had a scale so we could check if mail went over the 1 oz. limit. We also had plenty of extra stamps, but Emma had better not go over the postal weight limit? Really?)

Love and Blessings, Emma-Kate

More letters coming up…………

Letters to “Lacey” Part 2 (updated 1/13–see note at bottom)

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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.” My daughter Emma Katherine Roey lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother (me) of physically abusing her and poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother (me, again!) poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. Emma still claims to have health problems because of this “poisoning.” As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story. Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com Please continue to share the blog with others
Emma, on the way to a Blessing of the Animals service at our church.

Emma, on the way to a Blessing of the Animals service at our church. Emma Roey, Emma Katherine Roey, Emma Kate Roey

Emma, on the way to a Blessing of the Animals service at our church. Emma Roey, Emma Katherine Roey, Emma Kate Roey


May 19, 2009
Emma begins this letter with “Hey Lacey!” in a cute font and then switches to something more readable. She starts out saying what a day it was because we went to her friend’s funeral. (The young man Emma calls a friend whom she probably said hello to maybe twice in 10 years.) Then she goes on to talk about (names changed) seeing a boy she babysat for named Jason with another boy she babysat, Gage. She goes up to them and asks Jason if he is having fun. Jason tells her that Gage doesn’t understand that everyone is sad because Ollie (name changed for young man who died) didn’t wake up, and she hugged Jason and they both cried. Great story, only it probably didn’t happen as Emma was glued to my side the whole time we were at the home after the funeral AND Emma NEVER babysat Jason.

Emma goes on to say that that was nothing compared to the next day when she happened to be babysitting Jason (7 yrs) and his brother Conner (5 yrs) the following day. She said she got there at 9am and Cooner wasn’t awake yet so she went in to check on him at 10am and could tell he wasn’t asleep, so she said, “Come on, Conner! Breakfast time!” Conner didn’t open his eyes and told her he wasn’t getting up. When he said it, he called her, “Miss Em.” Emma told him that yes he was and they would go to the lake after breakfast. Conner tells her that he was going to sleep until he woke up with Ollie.

Emma tells “Lacey” how she totally lost it and picked up and held Conner in his arms and cried. Then she saw Jason standing in the doorway, and he came over and sat on the bed, putting his arm around Emma, saying “It’s ok, Miss Em. He didn’t mean it. Miss Em? It’s ok.” Emma says they must have been quite a sight. (Great story! Sadness, tears, the cute kid thing! Only thing is that I have a documented statement from Jason and Conner’s mom that Emma NEVER babysat for them! Also, another point to bring up would be that at the funeral or at Ollie’s home (I don’t remember which) a neighbor, who had several children that Ollie played with, told a similar story about his little boy waking up and asking about Ollie, and he went on to tell about the conversation he had with his son about Ollie’s death. Emma creatively stole this story and turned it into her own about Jason and Conner.)

Then Emma tells Lacey how she’s done with the depressing stuff now. She talks about the youth group lock-out at the church and how much fun she had. She goes on about her friend Jordan’s cousin Olivia who Emma says she hit it off with right away. She tells some silly stories about the lock-out (maybe true, maybe not, maybe greatly exaggerated) and then goes on about how Olivia’s uncle killed himself the November before, and how Emma and Olivia stayed up talking about very late talking about her uncles suicide for three hours. (I never looked into whether or not this story was true or not. I still have Jordan’s mother’s phone number, so I could call and verify, but I don’t care enough to bother. I’m just going to bet this was another one of Emma’s creations.)

Emma goes on to talk about her friend Jordan throwing herself at rob and looking like an idiot, and how Jordan was mad at her. Then Emma has a pity party about how she and Jordan used to be close but weren’t anymore, and Jordan was the only girlfriend she had and knowing she lost her hurt. What’s kind of funny here is that Emma adds, “And I’ve never had a close relationship with my mom.” I know this was said out of teen angst and for drama, and now it’s just kind of funny as well as sad. Emma and I did almost everything together. Even at the age of 16 we would read a book together (usually I was the one who read aloud), she snuggled up to me to watch tv and usually wanted me to put my arm around her or she would hold my hand. I taught her my hobby (beadwork) and we worked on projects together. Emma talked to me about everything from books to current events to the boys she liked. She frequently told her dad we were having “girl time” if she was talking to me and he walked in the room, and she made him leave the room. Up until she was 16 years old, Emma frequently slept in my bed when her dad was on the road. She only quit because she complained that I got up to early in the morning and it disturbed her when I let the dogs out, took a shower, etc. The women in our bible study group were shocked by Emma’s actions. Frequently at our group, Emma wanted to sit by me and snuggled up against me. Ask any homeschooling mom, and they will tell you that to get out for a couple of hours among other adults, as a mom, the last person you want to sit with or talk to after being with them all day every day, is your kid. I was happy to get to visit with others, but Emma was usually right there with me even then, or as a friend in the group so bluntly put it, “She was always up your ass!!” (I love you. You know who you are.) Nope! Emma and I never had a close relationship.
Then Emma states that she’s sort of depressed, not as in suicidal, just unhappy and adds a great big “*SIGH.*” (Maybe one of the side effects of DDT poisoning is depression?)

Emma gets back on the topic of what fun she had at the youth group lock out and how she played a trick on Ms. Karen, the youth group leader, when she pretended to burn her hand in the fire. (Cute story, and yes, she actually did this, but may have exaggerated some of the details.)

Next Emma goes into how she was looking through the bible and found that the universal call to worship, Psalm 117 is the shortest Psalm and the longest one is 176 verses, and says ok, she finds strange ways to occupy her time.

Next Emma talks about how very honored she was after church when Elizabeth, a little girl from the Sunday school class Emma assisted with wanted to sit with her during coffee hour, and how after church, Elizabeth’s mom cam running out to our van and said Elizabeth wouldn’t stop crying because she hadn’t hugged “Miss Em” goodbye. (Actually, Phill, Emma and I were walking out to the van at the same time Elizabeth’s family was leaving and Elizabeth did want to hug any goodbye, but there was no crying. This story sort of happened, but not quite the way Emma wrote it. Emma goes on to say how Elizabeth just loves her and would come home with her, and how Elizabeth adores Emma, whom she sees for two hours a week, but misbehaves for her parents, so see why she doesn’t want kids? (Kind of like Emma?)

Emma tells a few more cute stories about school, the neighborhood, and shares a quote she likes, “Dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you in the car, in case the need should arise for them to bark violently at nothing right in your ear.”
Emma also mentions how she’s been singing Praise you in This Storm (Casting Crowns) and types out the lyric in a curly-que font just in case “Lacey” hasn’t heard it:

I was sure by now
God, You would have reached down
And wiped our tears away
Stepped in and saved the day
But once again, I say “Amen” and it’s still raining
So I will praise You in this storm
And I will lift my hands
You are who You are
No matter where I am
And every tear I cry
You hold in Your hand
You never left my side
And though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm….

Blessings and love from Emma-Kate

Note: If you are a regular reader to this blog, you have already noticed, but since I seem to be picking up new folks who maybe haven’t had time to go through the whole thing, I will mention it here. Above, I wrote about Emma taking the story of the neighbor and his little boy after Ollie’s funeral and turning it into a story about herself. This seems to be a theme with Emma and you will see it over and over again in the blog. One prime example is when Emma claimed to have babysat and had to call 911 and lock herself in the bathroom because one of the children, who happens to be bipolar, was so out of control. Emma HEARD the story about the parents having to call 911 on their bipolar son because he was out of control. This did happen, but not to Emma.
I don’t know if there is a name for this kind of behavior. It is useful for writing fiction, but not in real life, and not when you make innocent people your victims. I wonder if Dr Richard Born (Applied Psychological Health, Athens, Ga. http://www.appliedpsychhealth.com ), Genie Burnett (Manna Treatment, Duluth, Ga. http://www.mannatreatment.com ) or Suzie McGarvey (North Gwinnett Counseling Associates http://www.ngcounselingassociates.com , formerly with Lanier Counseling http://www.laniercounseling.com ) or maybe even Emma’s therapists at the Social Empowerment Center http://www.socialempowermentcenter.com Rachelle Hutchinson, Emily Kirby, Candace Whitman, Lori McCarthy or even Emma’s DEFACS caseworker Alicia Yearwood and Maria Wyatt (I will have to double check that last name, but I believe that was it.) could shed some light on this for us. A girl can’t have too many therapists.

Letters to “Lacey” – Preface (UPDATED 01/06/20115)

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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.” My daughter Emma Katherine Roey lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother of physically abusing her and poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. Emma still claims to have health problems because of this “poisoning.” As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story. Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me, Emma’s mom. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com
Thank you to my readers for your support and please continue to share the blog with others.

Letters to Lacey –Preface (How Emma ended up in on-line school, and connecting with the penpal she claimed was raped and attempted suicide.)

When we homeschooled, Emma won a local spelling bee and then lost out in the next level, but I think she had fun anyway, especially because she beat out a couple of boys that were older than she was!

When we homeschooled, Emma won a local spelling bee and then lost out in the next level, but I think she had fun anyway, especially because she beat out a couple of boys that were older than she was!

After five years of homeschooling, we decided to quit and put Emma in public school. I’m still a huge fan of homeschooling, but for Emma, it was probably a mistake. At first, I thought we did everything pretty well. In addition to school, Emma was involved in many, many activities. I wanted to make sure that Emma was well “socialized.” Over the years while homeschooling, Emma was involved in an arts program and took other homeschool group classes, she was on a kayaking team, in a homeschool chorus, church choir, church newsletter team, Sunday School, piano lessons, softball, a knitting group, a neighborhood bible study, a church book club, was a church acolyte, sang with the Gwinnett Young Singers under Lynn Urda and got to sing with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and we also went on homeschool field trips to places like the UGA Vet school, WSB TV/Radio in Atlanta, Coca Cola, the William Harris Homestead, the Capital, etc.

A field trip to Atlanta with some homeschool friends. To Emma's left is Johnathan McCravy, and the other redhead is Derek McCravy, the sons of my good friend Sandi McCravy (Sandra Brooks McCravy)

A field trip to Atlanta with some homeschool friends. To Emma’s left is Johnathan McCravy, and the other redhead is Derek McCravy, the sons of my good friend Sandi McCravy (Sandra Brooks McCravy)

Homeschooling started out great. Emma and I both enjoyed it. Seeing your child get excited about learning is an amazing experience. If Emma wanted to spend extra time on a subject, it was no problem. As a parent, I saw how so many things could turn into a learning opportunity. We would be out in public somewhere and see something that brought to mind something we learned in school. Or we would hear of something and want to know more about it, so Emma would do some research. For example, one birthday or Christmas, my sister sent Emma a prayer box necklace, and we were curious, so Emma looked up the history of prayer boxes and shared with me what she found. Thank goodness for Google!

Emma Katherine Roey, Derek McCravy, and Johnathan McCravy on a field trip to the Governor's Mansion in Atlanta.

Emma Katherine Roey, Derek McCravy, and Johnathan McCravy on a field trip to the Governor’s Mansion in Atlanta.

I probably should have stopped homeschooling in middle school, as after 2 or three years, it got more and more difficult. If I left the room, Emma kept books hidden in the school room, so she would pull out a book and read instead of doing her school work. We could have easily been done with school by 2pm every day, but Emma started dragging things out to 5pm, and sometimes later. I didn’t like doing school in the afternoon because I was always very tired in the afternoons and felt better in the mornings. I didn’t know at the time what was wrong, but I later found I had a medical condition causing the fatigue. School was Monday through Fridays, but sometimes Emma would drag her feet so much that we would have to do school on Saturdays. Part of the problem may have been that I had a child with a higher IQ than I have (I don’t know for sure about my IQ, but I’m guessing it is not as high as Emma’s!) and that Emma had no respect for Phill and I as authority figures. That may have been our mistake. We were a tight little family and we did everything together. Phill and I probably shouldn’t have included Emma in on so much, but we often treated her more as an equal in the family rather than the child. Because we both adored our daughter, her wishes often overrode our own, so yes, she was spoiled, but I reasoned that all kids seem to be spoiled nowadays.

Emma, showing her silly side after decorating an Easter Egg from a kit my sister sent one Easter. Emma Roey, Emma Katherine Roey, Emma Kate Roey

Emma, showing her silly side after decorating an Easter Egg from a kit my sister sent one Easter. Emma Roey, Emma Katherine Roey, Emma Kate Roey

In addition to reading when she should have been doing her school work, Emma did things like lying and cheating. If Emma needed to re-do some math problems, I would write the pages and the problem numbers on the board, and we would recheck them later. Emma started erasing the board, hoping I would forget about the work she needed to re-do.

I had to hide my teacher’s manual, so that Emma couldn’t cheat. One time, she hid one of my books, and I’m not sure as to the reasoning behind that. I guess she was trying to get out of math class that day.

I think I’ve mentioned Emma’s affinity for sweets, and how we would have to lock up things like chocolate chips, marshmallows, etc. or Emma would steal them. I would be all set to bake and not have what I needed because Emma had eaten them all. We also had to lock up the Halloween candy, and even with that, Emma discovered where the key was and I found dozens of candy wrappers in her room. One year, at the end of the school year, I was cleaning up our school room and found dozens of candy wrappers hidden out there between books, under things, and crammed in anywhere Emma could hide them that I might not look. She had a lot of arts and crafts that she used both for fun and for school, and these were things that I didn’t bother with much, so she knew where to hide things so I wouldn’t see them. It seemed funny to me that she was too lazy to bother to throw all the wrappers away. She could have easily hidden them in a piece of paper and thrown it in the garbage a few at a time, or even shoved them deep, down in the trash while I wasn’t looking or when I was outside or not home.

Emma’s attitude also soured, and after hearing a clip on the radio about a news anchor whose mic was on when she was talking about her sister-in-law, calling her a “control-freak” and “micromanaging,” those became Emma’s two favorite phrases to describe her mother. She called me these things over and over again. Emma decided it was time to challenge my authority as her teacher, and all of a sudden, I was the idiot who knew nothing, and she was the teen who knew it all. She seemed to think my whole goal in homeschooling was to make her life miserable.

Because I couldn’t trust Emma to get her work done, I ended up being her babysitter or maybe “warden” is a better word. I couldn’t leave the school room to do other things because Emma would stop doing her work. Homeschooling took a lot of time, for me as a parent, but then it became endless. It was sad to me because I knew so many kids at the arts program who were homeschooling and did not have the attitude that Emma had. I didn’t know what I was doing wrong. I enjoyed homeschooling with Emma the first few years. I think I learned as much as she did, but when she was supposed to becoming more mature and independent and able to do her assignments on her own, without me there at every step, Emma just didn’t do it. Maybe it was her way of rebelling, I don’t know. I just knew homeschooling wasn’t working anymore, and it was time to quit. I felt like a homeschool failure, but I knew I had seen many kids in the arts program quit to attend public school. Some parents worried they couldn’t deal with the difficult subjects like biology and algebra. Other parents, like me, couldn’t deal with the nasty teenage attitude.

Jackson County Comprehensive High School

High School seemed like a good time for a fresh start, and we enrolled Emma in Jackson County Comprehensive High School in Jefferson Ga. I remember, later on, a friend who knew Emma personally commenting to me that Emma seemed to have a fascination or obsession with sex. Emma was always commenting on the kids at school being sexually active. Sometime the summer before Emma started her freshman year at JCCHS, we’d seen an article in the local paper about the number of kids in Jackson county who were sexually active. It seems like I remember reading that 70% of the kids in high school had had sex. Once Emma saw that, it must have stuck with her and to her, everyone (except Emma, who would later buy herself a purity ring) she knew was having sex. Emma talked about the kids at school having sex a LOT. If it wasn’t sex, it was about someone being pregnant or thinking they might be pregnant.

Before school started, Emma, along with all the other freshmen, had to ride the bus to school and find their classes in an effort to make their first day easier. If you’ve read my earlier posts, Emma claimed that on the bus she sat next to a girl who was a freshman for the 2nd time and who had a 4 year old. This turned out not to be true. Emma also claimed that there were about 10 pregnant freshman girls, but later when I checked with our neighbor who was a P.E. teacher at the school, Coach Cora Andrews (Dr. Cora Andrews), she told me there were only two pregnancies that year at the school.

About the first month or two, Emma LOVED school. She loved riding the bus with three girls in our neighborhood who were all sophomores and one neighbor who lived in Quail Crossing, a subdivision close to our Deer Creek Subdivision, who was also a freshman. I remember Emma coming home after a week or so of school and defiantly telling me, “You could never make me homeschool again!”

After a couple of months, Emma’s tone changed and she wanted to go back to homeschooling. She hated school and had nothing nice to say about the girls on the bus that she started out calling her “friends.” All of a sudden, the stories changed and these 4 girls were all having sex, drinking, doing drugs, stealing alcohol from their parents, etc. Emma no longer called them friends, but referred to them as acquaintances. She made up stories about one the brother of one of the girls who lived on our street, claiming that he had been arrested for pot possession for the second time, but the parents didn’t know. She complained about how much time was wasted in class, and how much time was wasted riding the bus. One day, she gave me a blow by blow account of her day to tell me how little work she actually did. One day Emma got very angry with me for not pulling her out of Jackson County Comprehensive High School. I will never forget her screaming at me how it was my fault because I “gave up on her.”

Besides the “acquaintances” Emma rode the bus with, she had nothing nice to say about anyone on the bus. She claimed that kids smoked on the bus and the bus driver didn’t notice. She claimed that drugs were sold on the bus. If you’ve read my earlier posts, you’ll remember that Emma claimed she was drug searched when a neighbor boy turned in her name along with her “acquaintances” because he had a grudge against one of the girls. (This story turned out not to be true, and I confirmed it with one of the school administrators, Kendra Phillips, who told me that if Emma had been drug searched, Ms. Phillips would have been present for it. I also checked with some of the girls Emma rode the bus with, and they never saw anyone selling drugs on the bus.) After reading a Reader’s Digest article on teenagers having drug parties, where they took medication from their parent’s medicine cabinets and threw everything into a bowl and then took handfuls of pills, Emma claimed that these parties went on at Jackson County Comprehensive High School, and she mentioned one of the girls, in particular, as a participant in these parties. (This is the same young lady Emma made up the story of having an abortion that fall, and then at the end of the year claimed she thought she was pregnant again.) Also, one day we saw a news clip about a boy in another part of the country who wanted to dress as a girl, do his hair, wear makeup, etc. Shortly after that, Emma claimed there were boys at school who dressed as girls, wore makeup and pantyhose, etc. I remember I just sort of blew this off thinking Emma didn’t have her facts straight. JCCHS had a fairly strict dress code, so I couldn’t imagine this going on, but Emma insisted. It wasn’t something I cared enough about to investigate, so I never did.

From what I could tell, Emma’s “acquaintances” still thought of her as a friend. They tried to invite Emma to do things with them, but Emma frequently refused. She didn’t want to associate with these girls. I didn’t think about it until later when a friend pointed out to me that Emma seemed to always think of herself as superior to everyone else. All the kids at school were drug users, having sex, having abortions, drinking, etc., but my daughter was the “good girl.” She complained that her “aquaintances” made fun of her for attending church, being involved in the youth group, being a goody two-shoes, being smart, etc. She also claimed they made fun of her for being smart, the way she talked, the way she dressed, said she had a big nose etc., etc., etc. If most of us look back to high school, we can remember some teasing, and maybe even some bullying, but these girls tried to befriend Emma, and I have to wonder if any or all of Emma’s accusations were true. I can imagine some teasing going on, but the girl Emma claimed to have had an abortion and then possibly a 2nd pregnancy (in addition to taking drugs and drinking), was nothing but kind to Emma when Emma started public school. She was very helpful in explaining what to expect, what she would need, telling her about classes, teachers, etc.

Emm's old lady shirt. Emma Roey, Emma Kate Roey, Emma Katherine Roey

Emm’s old lady shirt. Emma Roey, Emma Kate Roey, Emma Katherine Roey

One particular complaint I remember was about a shirt Emma wore. (See picture.) Phill had picked up this shirt at Sam’s or Costco, thinking Emma would like it. I don’t remember if we just gave it to her or saved it for her birthday, but in any event, it was very similar to what we saw lots of teen girls wearing, and it looked cute on her.

One day, Emma came home complaining that her “acquaintances” had made fun of her wearing this shirt. I asked how that could be as it looked pretty much like what all the other girls wore. Emma said that they told her that hers looked like an old lady shirt. Ok, dear readers. If you are familiar with this style, would someone please explain to me how Emma’s shirt looks any different from the dozens and dozens of this style that I have seen on teen girls?

I had tried to encourage Emma to get involved in school activities, and offered to take her to music lessons if she wanted to join the band. Since Emma played the piano, I knew she could easily learn another instrument and get into the band since I had learned a 2nd instrument in high school so that I could play in the jazz band. At least one, and maybe two of Emma’s “acquaintances” on the bus were in the band, and one of the girls had told me about the band trips. Remembering my own band trips, I thought this was something Emma would enjoy, but she claimed that the band trips were known for drinking, drugs, and kids having sex on the bus. She was definitely not interested.

The Drama Department at JCCHS

Emma got the lead in the play Metamorphosis by Mary Zimmernan under her Drama teacher, Bonnie Roberts. Jackson County Comprehensive High School.

Emma got the lead in the play Metamorphosis by Mary Zimmernan under her Drama teacher, Bonnie Roberts. Jackson County Comprehensive High School.

Emma did get into Drama I, and she loved it. She hated the kids who were just in there because they had to take an elective and were not serious about Drama. Emma tried out for the play Metamorphosis by Mary Zimmerman and got the lead. I remember meeting her teacher, Bonnie Roberts, and Mrs. Roberts told me about Emma walking into the audition and when she spoke, “Meryl Streep’s voice came out!” Emma has a great voice that projects well.

Emma was in her element once she found Drama. She absolutely loved it and loved Mrs. Roberts. Like everything else, Emma began telling stories about the Drama group. I don’t even remember all the stories now, but one was that all the girls who worked on the crew were lesbians. I didn’t really buy it, and I wondered if Emma came up with this story from listening to Neal Boortz. (Phill and I were huge Neal Boortz fans, so our radio was always on whether at home or in the car, and Emma grew up listening to his program. In retrospect, I wonder if Emma lacked the maturity for this kind of program.) Several times on his program, we’d heard Neal talk about Lugs (Lesbians Until Graduation), girls who were experimenting with their sexuality or who just took on the roll of being a lesbian because they didn’t find anyone at their high school they wanted to date. According to Emma, ALL the girls on the drama crew were lesbians and I remember her talking about two off them being a couple. Whether or not this is true, who knows? It wasn’t something I cared about one way or the other.

An Early Accusation of Sexual Assault

One evening, when I picked Emma up after rehearsal, she was very upset. She claimed that she went backstage for something, and that the male lead, a young man named Johnny Boddie, a boy Emma described as very arrogant, had tried to kiss her. Emma told me she slapped him and ran away, and then she begged me not to tell Phill about the attempted kiss. At first I questioned Emma about the story. What was she doing when she went back stage? What was Johnny doing? What did they talk about? Why did she think he was trying to kiss her? Was he just reaching for something that happened to be in her proximity? Later on I wondered if this Emma’s first attempt at claiming sexual assault? This would have been about a year and half before Emma alleged to have been sexually assaulted by the priest. Was this a practice run or her dress rehearsal for the next big show? Later, when I go through Emma’s e-mails, you will see how she describes the story in a much more sinister fashion to her pen-pal, “Lacey.”

Emma was adamant that Johnny had tried to kiss her, although she never really gave me in details of how the event occurred. If that were the case, I told Emma that I thought she handled it just fine, but of course, I didn’t keep too many secrets from Phill, so I told him the story. A couple of weeks later, we were leaving church, and I don’t remember what we were talking about, but Phill brought up the story of Emma slapping Johnny Boddie, and Emma was FURIOUS with me for telling her dad. When I contacted Johnny Boddie and asked him if I could ask him a few questions about his time with Emma at JCCHS, he stated that his communications with Emma were minimal and that they had worked on one play together. He stated he had no recollection whatsoever of any conversations over topics other than the play or school work, so I never really got to ask him if he had attempted to kiss Emma. He ended his e-mail with a comment about how I should respect my daughter’s privacy or some such thing. One of Emma’s former friends told me that while Johnny was pompous, he was not aggressive. I have to admit, from his e-mail, he sounded pretty much just as Emma and her friends described him. I’m sure if he’d been disciplined for attempting to sexually assault another student, he might have felt a little differently about Emma’ right to privacy.

Emma told other interesting stories about Johnny Boddie, who was a junior when Emma was a freshman. Emma claimed that Johnny was engaged, which I thought sounded a little bizarre for a 16 year old in this day and time, and I did question her about it, but there again, I wasn’t going to go up to this 11th grade kid and ask him about the engagement. Then, that fall, not too long into the school year, Emma said that Johnny’s fiancé had moved away, and although he was a notorious flirt and cheated on his fiancé, he was still engaged. Again, I was not interested enough to investigate this story.

When the play Metamorphosis by Mary Zimmerman was put on at JCCHS, there was a scene where Johnny was shirtless, and it looked like he was pigeon chested. I don’t know if Emma had never heard of or seen this type of deformity before, but after the play, she brought it up and told me that the reason Johnny’s chest sank it was because he had been run over by a car when he was a child. Ummm, ok. I didn’t quite believe it, but I didn’t exactly give the kid a medical examination to check, so I let that one go.

Lies about Losing the Drama Competition

Jackson County Comprehensive High School's Drama Department put on the play Metamorphosis by Mary Zimmerman Emma's freshman year.

Jackson County Comprehensive High School’s Drama Department put on the play Metamorphosis by Mary Zimmerman Emma’s freshman year.

The drama department performed Metamorphosis for a district competition, and if they had won, they would have gone on to state. First, the play was put on at the high school during school, and then two nights for the parents. Sadly, the attendance was pretty poor, but Mrs. Roberts and the drama department did a wonderful job. Phill was working on the nights the play was put on, so he went to the dress rehearsals and video recorded the play for Mrs. Roberts and made copies. (Maybe one day he will give me a copy.) By recording the production for Mrs. Roberts, Phill was able to see the play, and I went to both shows.

Mrs. Roberts had a photographer taking photos of the cast, and the parents could buy a disc of the photos, so of course I did. I remember asking the photographer about the photos and she asked who my child was. At that time, Emma was going by Emma Kate Roey, instead of her usual Emma, so I told the photographer, and she said, “Oh! She’s the lead!” I remember being surprised because I really didn’t know anything about the play and while it sounded like Emma had a big part in it, I certainly didn’t know she was the lead. She did a wonderful job though, and I was very proud of her.

I don’t remember where the competition was, but I had to have Emma at the school early one Saturday to board the bus with the other drama kids to go to their competition. I was nervous and excited for her, and knew Emma would have a great time.

That evening, when I picked Emma up, she was not happy. Her group had not done well. Emma told me that another school had tampered with their sound equipment and ended up messing up the whole show. I really didn’t quite understand what she was saying, but according to Emma, another school had messed up their performance and they didn’t get a chance to do it over, etc., etc. I know these things have rules, and I wasn’t there, but the long and short of it was that they lost the competition. It really wasn’t until a few months ago that I contacted Bonnie Roberts to ask her about this story. Surprise, surprise! There was no tampering or vandalism as Emma claimed. Mrs. Roberts told me that her disc was not formatted properly for the equipment that they had to use at the competition. It was pretty simple really, but I guess Emma needed someone to blame for losing, so she made up another story.

Emma Complains of Racial Favoritism at JCCHS

Phill used to joke that Emma was a little racist. Emma could be very judgmental about other cultures. Emma frequently complained about reverse discrimination at her school. She thought the school showed favoritism to the black students and that the black students got away with stuff that the white students would not get away with. It’s been a few years, and her complaints were so petty, that I don’t even remember what they were. I’m not sure where this attitude came from unless it was just from our quiet life and Emma growing up in Jackson County, Ga. Phill grew up in Brick Town New Jersey, around different cultures, and I grew up overseas as well as in the U.S., moving every 2-3 years, so we both had been around a lot of different kinds of people.

One day, Emma complained about another 9th grader, a black young man, who was in Emma’s drama class. Emma told me that this young man accused her of being a racist. I have no idea what led up to the accusation, but Emma complained about this boy several times over the course of the semester. She made it very clear she did not like him at all. I remember her telling me this particular story of him saying to her, “You don’t like black people.”
She told me that she replied, “I don’t like SOME black people. I don’t like SOME white people.”
She also told me that she said, “I prefer to judge people on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.” And then she exclaimed, “Mom! He didn’t even get that I was quoting Martin Luther King!”

Truth or Fiction? I’ll let my readers guess for themselves if this story even occurred or was it another one of Emma’s dramatizations.

ROTC

Private Emma had nothing nice to say about ROTC at Jackson County Comprehensive High School.

Private Emma had nothing nice to say about ROTC at Jackson County Comprehensive High School.

Before school started, Emma had to pick her electives. In addition to Drama, she had to pick another elective. I was very surprised when she chose ROTC. My daughter? Emma was not the military type. When she explained her choice to me, she told me that the period she had open for an elective her only choices were Drama or ROTC, and she said, “And Mom, I suck at dance!” Emma didn’t have a lot of experience with dance, but I thought she could have taken it and learned something, but Emma was the type, if she wasn’t good at something, she didn’t want to do it. It didn’t matter to me, and ROTC sounded pretty neat, so I hoped she would like it, but she didn’t.

ROTC brought pretty much the same complaints as Emma had about the rest of school. Sex, drugs, drinking… Emma claimed her platoon leader was mean. (This was the young man that she said accused her and her friends of having drugs on the bus, causing them to be drug searched.) Emma claimed that one of the ROTC girls in her class had a baby, and I found out later from another girl who was in ROTC with Emma that no one had a baby in ROTC that year. This classmate also told me that if you had a baby, you were out of ROTC and couldn’t rejoin.

While in ROTC, Emma told a great story (mentioned earlier) about a girl named Kristin who lived next door to us with her mother and stepfather, and how Kristin would get so nervous when she had to do presentation that she ran to the bathroom to throw up. The ROTC instructor sent Emma to check on Kristin, and Emma told me how funny it was and reenacted the tale of Kristin with her head over the toilet, laughing and saying that she didn’t know why she got so nervous and then would throw up again. Great story, but one of Emma’s ROTC classmates told me that it was just that, a story. This young lady told me that Kristin was a good speaker and later became a platoon leader.

Emma’s second semester, she had to take P.E. and Health, so she didn’t get to take Drama that semester. She was very unhappy at school, and never made any friends in 9th grade. She never invited anyone over, and the only time she was invited to someone’s home was along with some other girls to work on an English project. If you’ve read my earlier posts, that was the night she also went with this classmate to the church youth group at Walnut Fork Baptist Church, Hoschton. I won’t repeat the story again here, but Emma lied about her classmate, her classmate’s family, what went on at the youth group, etc.

One of Emma’s classmates told me, “Honestly I think Emma just really wanted attention and she wasn’t getting it from anybody but you. Any attention is better than no attention for her whether it be good or bad. She got absolutely no attention at all at school. People didn’t really get along with her there.”

Emma told me she couldn’t try out for the play that 2nd semester because it was only for the kids in the drama class, so she was disappointed about that since it was the only class she liked. Emma became more and more miserable and started throwing up more and more. She missed so much school that we had to pull her out and she finished 9th grade on line. It in her on-line English class where Emma was paired up with a young lady whom I will call “Lacey” who was another 9th grader from a different part of the state.

As I understood it, Emma had an English project where each child was assigned a pen-pal, and “Lacey” was Emma’s. They were supposed to write letters, but other than that I don’t remember how it worked. They may have had to copy their letters and turn them in to the English instructor. Emma got really into the letters and complained that “Lacey” did not write as often as she was supposed to.

Emma seemed to really enjoy the pen-pal relationship, and when the class was over, the two girls continued to e-mail and text each other. Emma began making up stories about “Lacey” and her family. Some of these stories were as follows:

Emma claimed “Lacey” had been molested as a child and volunteered with her church helping other kids who’d been molested. (Lie)

Emma claimed that “Lacey’s” mother had breast cancer (true) and was hospitalized and nearly died two or three times. (“Lacey’s” mother did have breast cancer, but was treated as an outpatient and never required hospitalization.)

The reason “Lacey” had to go to public school in 10th grade was because her mother was too sick from cancer to homeschool her anymore. (Lie. See above.)

When “Lacey” was in 10th grade, Emma claimed “Lacey’s” periods were so bad that she frequently had to leave school. (I never verified this one, but would be willing to bet it’s not true.)

And then, a few months after starting the pen-pal relationship, on Dec. 19, 2009, Emma’s birthday, Emma went to her church youth group, and when Phill and I picked her up, she claimed that she had received a call from “Lacey” who was at the ER near her NW Georgia home, after she’d been raped in her home during a Christmas get-together. For Emma’s 16th birthday, we’d planned on going out to eat, but because Phill was sick, he asked her if we could postpone. Emma was all involved in her youth group, but didn’t really have any friends to invite to a party, so it was a pretty low key birthday, and later Emma would complain to Suzie McGarvey, (North Georgia Counseling Associates, Formerly of Lanier Counseling) that her birthday wasn’t special enough. This was also the birthday where I’d taken Emma shopping several times and spent well over $400 (I want to say $460, but I can’t remember the exact total at the moment.) on her, a good bit more than we usually spent for a birthday or Christmas.

I keep thinking back to the comment made by one of Emma’s classmates, how she didn’t get any attention at school. Was the rape story because Emma did not get enough attention on her 16h birthday?

In any event, I will share with you some of the e-mails that Emma wrote to “Lacey.”