Tag Archives: Emma Katherine Roey

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I want to change the name of the website since there is a teen novel called Losing Emma by J.L. Weil, as well as a short film with name Losing Emma that was part of some sort of 48 hour film festival. I have not read the book nor seen the film. The name Losing Emma was just what popped into my head when I decided to write about Emma’s story. I’m still thinking on this.

For those of you that may be wondering, I have offered to take down the blog and let Emma keep this between me, her dad, and herself, but Emma chooses to go on with her lies, so I’m going to call her out on it, even if it is from afar. I have wanted to contact some of Emma’s acquaintances to ask them for their input, and I do have list of all her facebook friends from not too long ago, but I don’t really feel like this is necessary. I would like to accumulate even more of Emma’s stories from people who came in contact with her, but I really don’t want to bother people by contacting them. During the divorce, my attorney told me I had plenty of documentation on Emma’s lies and really didn’t need any more. I think if you read through the blog, you can see that is the case. I’m just sort of curious and would like to know more about stories she told. (I’m sure the DDT story wasn’t the only outrageous tale Emma told!) I do plan on sharing more of the stories that I’m aware of, but I sort of want to go in a different direction right now and will get back to that later.

I think my next topic is going to be on our experiences with therapy from my point of view. Of course, I can’t tell you what Emma was saying to her therapists, but I can tell you what I saw, heard, observed, said, what was said to me by both Emma and her therapists. Someone suggested that I leave reviews for the therapists on review sites such as Yelp, and I am considering this. First, I want to write here about our experiences. Then, if I choose to write some reviews, I can add a link to the blog where the readers can see a little more about what I have to say. Parents need to be aware of what kind of risk you take putting your child in therapy. For so long, Emma treated me like her best friend. I was always the one she wanted to talk things over with. Silly me, because she had so few friends (She had many acquaintances, but I would not call them friends.), when Emma started therapy, I thought it would be good for her to have someone besides her mom to talk to. I had felt the same way about Sandra Brooks McCravy. She was really my friend, but I thought it was good for Emma to have another adult she could talk to. Knowing how teens are, I knew that being Emma’s mom, some things I said went in one ear and out the other. I was only her mom and not somebody cool to talk to.

Later on, when I get to discussing Emma’s time with Suzie A McGarvey, North Gwinnett Counseling Associates, LLC http://www.ngcounselingassociates.com/ (Suzie was formerly with Lanier Counseling http://www.laniercounseling.com/) I will go into how Emma was rewarded for being a victim. I will be mentioning a lot of names on the web site, but most are just incidental. There are a few personal details I will have to mention in regards to one couple that Emma stayed with, just because when I tell you how Phill helped them out, you will understand why they were so eager to return the favor and take care of a poor, abused child. I really don’t want to hurt anyone Emma took advantage of, and I don’t want to mention any children on the blog.

Next up: Emma’s Descent Into Therapy

What’s Coming in 2014

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

Jan 1, 2014

I have had some topics rolling around in  my head, just things I want to work on, but I haven’t sat down to do it.  I think it is both painful and therapeutic to write, and I just need to get a little more organized in setting aside some specified writing time.  I want to tell Emma’s story, and if my experience helps even one other family, it will be worth it.

To those of you who’ve asked if I’ve heard any more from Emma, no, I haven’t.  I received a rather hateful e-mail from her in Sept., and that is it for the past 2 1/2 years.   I remember in the past meeting people who were estranged from a child, and I wondered how in the world they survived it.  Well, now I know.  You just do.  I thank God for friends and family because I’m not sure I would have survived this without the help of some very special people in my life.

I think from my  previous posts, we can pretty much establish that Emma has a lying problem.  She lies about people she knows, people she doesn’t know, people she likes, people she doesn’t like.  She lied about friends, neighbors, teachers, kids at school, people from church etc.  She lied about her best friends “Lacey” (cyber friend) and Kayla Benifield Weaver.  She lied about Kayla’s husband’s family, Kayla’s parents and grandparents who were all so generous to have Emma as a guest in their homes many times.  I had no idea how much Emma lied until I stated investigating.  Sadly, this is something Phill and I should have done much sooner, but we had no idea that Emma had such a problem with making up stories about other people.

I want to share more of Emma’s lies, and I may work on more of her stories, but if you’ve been reading the blog, I don’t think I need to share much more to convince anyone that Emma has a problem.  Some of the lies get more interesting when Emma started high school both at Jackson County Comprehensive High School and Jefferson High School, so I’m going to be working on these and will get to posting them eventually.  Some of Emma’s stories were downright entertaining even if they weren’t true.  I keep thinking back to when Emma was in about 2nd grade, the kids all voted on what they thought each other would be when the grew up, and Emma was voted most likely to be an author.  I guess she was good at telling stories even back then.

Emma also takes stories that happened to other people and makes them hers. She heard a story about her priest and his wife calling 911 on their child, and made the story about herself. She became the babysitter who had to call 911 on the priest’s child. She heard about someone else’s molestation and made the story about herself. She heard about someone else’s alcoholism and told the same stories to DFACS only changing them to her mother so that she could be the victim. I don’t know enough about what kind of diagnosis this would be. What do you call someone who steals other people’s experiences and then claims them for her own?

There are other topics that have been weighing heavily on my mind though, and I think these are what I want to work on now.  Sometimes, the thought of writing it out is pretty overwhelming for me, one who is so NOT a writer, and I appreciate you readers who bear with me and read through anyway. 

I would like to get a copy of the police report where Emma accused me of  physically abusing her, and I want to share that here as well as the events of that night.  I hope to get over to the Jackson County’s sheriff’s office in the next couple of weeks to obtain that.

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Emma’s 17th birthday, Dec. 19th, 2010.  She got a notebook computer which she nicknamed Mark.  This photo was taken a couple of days before Emma called (or had someone else call) the police to say she was being abused.  This was also the day she went in her bathroom and kicked her cabinet so hard that she screamed and Phill and I ran in to see what happened.  She asked me to look at her foot to see if her toes were broken.  Later, she showed DFACSs and the police her foot and claimed that her mother kicked her foot.

Someone commented to me that Emma seemed to have an obsession with sex.  I’d never really thought that much about it until they pointed out to me how Emma used rape, molestation, abuse, and some of the other things she said about kids at school, how so many young girls were pregnant, how everyone she knew was sexually active, but Emma bought herself a “purity ring” and wore it.  Why did Emma accuse the priest who baptized her dad of molesting her? I think partly because Emma was upset with a boy who liked her and then dropped her, but Emma had been annoyed with the church for it’s liberal leanings.  Could that have contributed to her turning on her own church?

Another topic I’ve wanted to write about it therapy.  I’ve talked to numerous social workers, counselors, etc, and I’ve heard so many negative stories from other people about their own experiences with therapy.  Personally, I think therapy has it’s good points, and sometimes people need an outside opinion to help work through things, but after our experience, I definitely want to warn parents about therapy.  I’m not opposed to therapy or therapists, but one therapist told me they felt like 4 out of 5 therapists weren’t worth their salt.  That’s kind of scary, isn’t it?  I think in our case, we had a young lady who was too smart for her therapists.  I want to write about our each therapist and our experience with each. 

One more thing that has been weighing heavily on my mind is all the rewards Emma received for being a victim.   Emma really took advantages of friends of neighbors who wanted to help this poor, abused child.  She stayed with friends, neighbors, friend’s of Phill’s from his RC airplane group.  She was fed, treated like a beloved guest, taken out to eat, taken to plays, given clothes, taken to the beauty shop, etc.  The whole victim thing really worked out well for Emma.  She got a lot of attention.  I definitely want to share more about this.

Anyway, these are the topics that have been on my mind and probably what I will be working on next.

As always, if you have any questions or comments and don’t want to send them through the blog, you can contact me at:  losingemma@gmail.com

 

Emma and Kayla Part 2 – With Friends Like This

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

Emma and Kayla, Part 2 – With Friends Like This (See Part 1, Below)

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Emma and Kayla in 2010

 

As I mentioned in the last post, as Emma got older, her stories about Kayla’s family got more interesting and more vicious.  Emma knew, not knowing Kayla’s family well, that I would not question Sheree about some of the personal and private things that Emma told me.  She also knew where to draw the line.  For example, if she’d told me Sheree and Jeff took the girls out and were drinking and driving, I would not have allowed Emma in their home, so she always made Jeff out to be a heavy drinker if they went out and claimed Sheree was the designated driver and only told stories about Sheree’s drinking at home.  If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you can see that Emma accuses a lot of folks of drinking too much.  I would also like to say that I never saw or heard anything inappropriate from Kayla’s parents or grandparents.  There was never any reason for me to feel like Emma would not be in safe hands at either of their homes.  These are Emma’s stories, and I find them in no way to be credible.  From what little I know of them, I thought Sheree and Jeff Barwise, and Roy and Velda Benifield to be fine people.

 

Kayla’s mom lived about 20 minutes from us, and Emma and Kayla got together usually a couple of times a year when Kayla was down visiting.  Later on, Sheree and Jeff bought some property close to us, but it was a while before they started building their home.  After visiting Kayla one weekend, Emma came home and told me various complaints that Kayla had about her parents.  I didn’t pay too much attention to them because all kids complain about their parents.  One story was about how when Kayla had Spring Break, her mother made her babysit the neighbor’s kids her whole week off even though Kayla did not want to do this.  At the time, I thought Emma was exaggerating and that maybe Kayla was babysitting to earn some spending money.  Who knows if she was babysitting at all. 

 

Emma claimed Kayla told her that Sheree and Jeff had made friends with their next door neighbors in their new subdivision, and they went over there every weekend to hang out on the property and drink with the neighbors.  Emma said Kayla hated having to go with them because they usually stayed until about 2:00 in the morning before heading home, and poor Kayla just had to sit there with a bunch of drunk adults because they would not allow her to stay home.  Another story I thought odd, but as long as Emma wasn’t involved, I wasn’t going to get into it.  I did sort of wonder that if Sheree and Jeff were friends with the neighbors, wouldn’t it have been more likely that they went over to the neighbor’s home rather than hang out on an empty piece of property?  (The lots in the neighborhood were very large and the homes in that section were quite a distance apart.)

 

Later on, after the home was complete, Emma claimed that Kayla always had to keep her bedroom door locked because Kayla’s room was in the basement, and that when the neighbors were over one night, and everyone was drinking, the drunk man from next door wandered into Kayla’s bedroom in the middle of the night, looking for the bathroom.

 

Another story was when Jeff and Sheree took the girls and the neighbors to a sport’s bar for dinner one Saturday night.  Emma said that they went to dinner at 6pm and stayed in the sports bar until midnight.  She claimed that all the adults were drinking except for Sheree since she was driving.  Emma said that she and Kayla sat at their own table, away from the adults, and it was fun at first because they ate and played video games, but then they were bored and had to just hang around while the adults talked and drank.  She enjoyed telling me that Jeff was a big liberal (Emma is very conservative, politically.) and that Sheree and the neighbors argued with him over politics.  I have no idea about Jeff’s politics, but because he worked for a well-known liberal news channel, I am wondering if that is why Emma chose to tell a story about his politics.

 

Emma liked to make fun of Sheree, saying that she had this beautiful kitchen but did not cook.  Emma claimed Sheree and Jeff ate out everyday, but one time Emma and Kayla went to the grocery with Sheree and Emma said she spent over $400 on groceries.    Emma told stories about Kayla and herself tracking down items for Sheree.  That same shopping trip, Emma claimed that Sheree pitched a big fit in the grocery until the store gave her the Senior Discount.  Emma went on and on about Sheree fighting with the manager, refusing to show her driver’s licence , claiming she didn’t have it, and Emma told me how embarrassed she and Kayla were at the big scene.  It occurred to me some time later that this had been a Saturday, and I thought Senior Day was usually Wednesdays.  Also, as I thought Sheree was under 40, I just couldn’t picture her trying to pass for a senior citizen.

For a few years, Sheree wasn’t working or in school, and not long after Sheree and Jeff were married, I believe this was sometime around early 2010, Emma came home after spending the night at their home, telling me how Sheree and Jeff were fighting over her latest purchase of a work-at-home scam. Emma told me that Kayla had told her that Sheree spent a large sum of money on this scam that of course was not legitimate, and that Sheree and Jeff were fighting because she had fallen for these scams before and always ended up throwing away money.  

 

Emma told a story about Kayla making some soup that was something like chicken broth with strips of tortillas in it, and that was what they passed off as cooking in that house. 

 

 

Kayla’s Grandparents

 

Kayla lived with her grandparents, Roy and Velda Benifield in Martin, Ga.  We met them the first time we met Kayla at church camp, and a few times, they picked Kayla up at our home.  They seemed like very nice, very sweet, country folks.  One time, they took the girls to Medieval Times in Lawrenceville, Ga.  According to Emma, they had good seats, but then paid extra to get the very best seats.  Emma said they also paid extra for every little thing that the girls wanted or wanted to do such as taking a tour of something that was like a little museum of weapons or a torture chamber.  At this point, I don’t really remember what it was.  Emma made it sound like Kayla’s grandparents spent a fortune on them after already spending quite a bit for the tickets.

 

Emma made fun of Kayla’s grandmother, saying that she kept embarrassing them by saying things like, “Go stand over there next to that cute boy, so I can get your picture!”  Emma did come home with a picture that was taken by Medieval Times of Kayla, herself, and one of the knights.

 

On another occasion, Kayla’s grandparents very generously offered to take Emma with them to Dollywood over Spring Break, but because she had missed to much school due to her vomiting issues, and we had to take Emma out of 9th grade and have her get caught up at home, Phill and I decided she could not spare the time to take off for 5 days.  It really hurt to say no, because I knew Emma would have a great time, but she was just too far behind in school.   Emma was furious with me for not allowing her to go and couldn’t understand that we weren’t punishing her, but she only had a limited amount of time to finish 9th grade, and we weren’t sure she was going to be able to do it.  Emma was never very good about listening to reason, and to her it was just that I didn’t want her to go or that I just didn’t want her to have any fun.    (I will  talk about Emma’s vomiting issues at a later date.  According to Emma, she threw up because her mother was poisoning her with DDT.  That is a chapter unto itself!)

 

When Kayla was looking at colleges, Emma claimed Kayla was interested in going to Ga. Tech, but said Kayla’s grandfather was a diehard Georgia Bulldog, and if she wanted to go to Tech, he would not pay for it.  I wondered if her grandparents would really rather send her all the way to Marist, in NY state, rather than have her go to a rival school.

 

I don’t remember when it was exactly, but sometime around 10th grade, Emma went up and spent about 5 days at Roy and Velda Benifield’s home in Martin, Ga.  I remember talking to Emma on the phone, and she spoke rather conspiratorially, whispering and making fun of Velda’s decorating because there were many Gone With the Wind items in the home.  Emma even sent me a few cell phone pictures which I still have.  Then Emma got mean and claimed that Roy was a Nazi sympathizer, a racist, or some sort of white supremacist.  She claimed that he had one room decorated with posters, signs, and memorabilia  which showed his prejudice towards blacks and Jews.  She also claimed that Roy and Velda used the N-word quite frequently in conversation.  I was pretty shocked,and I told Emma I did not believe what she was saying, but Emma kept insisting that it was all true. I never would have imagined these people as Emma described them, but what was I going to do, ask them if they were “racists”?   

 

Kayla’s Boyfriend (Now Husband)

 

I don’t remember what year, but I remember Kayla was in 11th grade, when Emma told me she had a boyfriend who was a 9th grader, like Emma, and his name was Blair Weaver.  I remember Kayla being at our home some time her senior year, before going off to college in NY, and speaking of Blair, and there is nothing that I remember particularly standing out.  It sounded like they were a couple of high school sweethearts, and Kayla seemed very happy.  I remember Kayla talking about how they were to be helping with Vacation Bible School, but I don’t remember if it was at her church or his.  Kayla loved children and talked about being a teacher.  When Kayla went off to college, I expected that would be the end of the high school romance, but I guess it wasn’t, as Kayla married Blair Weaver in Aug. of this year. 

 

When Kayla was still in high school, Emma began with the stories about Blair and his family, and to be honest, I don’t even remember most of them.  I didn’t even know these people.  The one story I do remember was about Blair’s sister, whom I will call Lori.  Emma told me that Lori had all these health problems such as brain damage, learning disabilities, and seizures and claimed that Blair and/or Kayla were frequently called out of class when Lori got sick or had a seizure, and one of them would have to attend to her until the parents got there to take Lori home.  Emma made it out that Kayla was having trouble getting her school work done because she was frequently attending to this sick young girl.  I thought the story odd, but let it go.

 

Another time, while Kayla was still in high school, Emma claimed that both Kayla’s family and Blair’s family expected them to marry and take care of Lori as she would never be able to live on her own.  Emma made it sound like Kayla was being forced into a marriage that she wanted no part of, and that she would be saddled with a sister-in-law to take care of for the rest of her life.  I remember arguing with her about how ridiculous this sounded as Lori was still in high school and Kayla was planning on going to college and moving away from Blair.  Kayla was a bright young woman, and I could not picture her entering this life of servitude that Emma described.  Kayla had plans for her future, and I could not imagine her marrying anyone at this age.  When I pointed these things out, Emma got quiet and did not discuss it any further.  Kayla went off to college after high school, and did not get married at that time.

 

Emma frequently called “Lacey” her best friend, but she was a cyber friend whom Emma had never met in person.  Emma told many lies about Lacey and her family:  Lacey being raped, Lacey’s mother on her deathbed in the hospital, Lacey’s family threatened by her “rapist”, etc.  Now I have presented some of the stories Emma told about her other close friend, Kayla.  Of course, Phill’s excuse for Emma was always that Emma didn’t lie, these other people told Emma these stories and Emma was just repeating them, so I would assume Phill believes Kayla told Emma all these stories about Kayla, her parents, grandparents, and husband.  The problem can’t be Emma.

 

Do I believe any of the above stories?  Not really.  As her mother, I look back on so many things Emma said over the years and doubt almost everything she ever said after finding out about lie after lie.  Now, I look at all these stories and wonder how we did not see that Emma had a problem, but one also has to consider that the above stories were told over a period of about 7 years since Emma only saw Kayla once or twice a year.  I think if Emma had told all these stories at once, I’d have definitely caught on to Emma’s lying.  I sure hope so.  I hate to think I’m that stupid, but as parents, we want to believe the best about our children, so we overlook a lot of things, thinking they are just a misunderstanding. 

 

I have a lot more of Emma’s stories to share.  Some are about friends, neighbors,church members, her church youth group, her high schools (Jackson County Comprehensive High School http://www.jackson.k12.ga.us/jcchs/) and Jefferson High School http://jhs.jeffcityschools.org/, Gwinnett Young Singers http://gwinnettyoungsingers.com/, SEFF (Southeast Electric Flight Festival, Americus, Ga., hosted by the Fayette Flyers of Georgia) http://www.seffweek.com/, http://www.fayetteflyers.com/, etc.  I think sharing the stories Emma told about others helps to paint a good picture of the young woman she has become. 

 

If you have any questions or comments, or your own Emma story, you can contact me at Losingemma@gmail.com  Anything you ask me to keep private, I will not share on the blog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emma and Kayla —–With Friends Like This…

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Updated Nov. 22, 2013

(If you are new to this blog, you may want to read the posts “In a Nutshell” or go to July 2012 and read “Sending out a Letter.” Both of these posts give a brief description of what happened. As Emma’s mom, I am blogging my experiences with Emma and the things she did/does. This is a child who made up a story about rape, accused a priest of molesting her, and then as her attorney was about to file a lawsuit against the priest and the church, Emma accused her mother of physical abuse to stop the lawsuit because she knew her lies were about to be discovered. Emma claimed she had to move in with her boyfriend’s family in Ohio to get away from her mother, and later claimed her boyfriend’s mother was afraid that her mother would show up and kill the entire family. (I have confirmed with the boyfriend’s mother that she never feared any such thing.)

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Emma Kate Roey and Kayla Benifield Weaver at church camp in 2003. (Kayla is now a computer science student at Armstrong University in Savannah, Ga.)

Emma met Kayla Benifield at church camp in 2003 when Emma was 9 years old. Kayla was a couple years older. The two girls were in the same cabin and became friends. On the last day of camp, the parents come to see a performance, pick up their kids, and have dinner in the dining hall. Phill and I sat at a table with Kayla’s parents and grandparents. At one point, I told Kayla’s mom and dad that we’d love to have Kayla over to visit, and I got sort of a noncommittal response and sensed something odd. Later, I was to find out that Kayla’s parents were divorced, and Kayla was actually being raised by her grandparents who lived in Martin, Ga., but Kayla’s mom Sheree Benifield (later Barwise) lived not far from us in Buford. Later, she moved even closer to us in Hoschton. I never found out why Kayla’s grandparents were the ones who raised her, and I never asked. When I met Sheree, she was working for a vet and going to school. She seemed like a nice lady, and she was probably a good bit younger than I, so I always assumed maybe she’d married young and wasn’t equipped to be a single mom after the divorce.

Kayla came down to visit her mother now and then, and Emma and Kayla would get together a couple of times a year. Emma said Kayla only visited her mother twice a year because her grandparents had custody and that was all the time Sheree was allowed to have Kayla. Sometimes Kayla would come to our home and spend the night, but probably a little more often, Emma went to Kayla’s because Kayla was never down for very long, and we didn’t want to take away from time with her mom.

Kayla was always the perfect guest in our home. She was kind of quiet, shy, well behaved, and never a bother. She loved butterflies and had almost platinum blonde hair, and when she got a little older, she started dying some of her hair bright pink. It sounded odd when Emma told me about it until the first time I saw it, but it was cute and seemed to fit her personality. Anytime she was down visiting her mom, we were always happy to have her over, although that “we” usually meant me because when Kayla first started coming over, Phill was working out of town on the weekends. Of course, I was relegated to cook and maid, but at that time, we were homeschooling Emma, so it was always nice for me to get a break from her. As well as mom and teacher, and even though Emma was in many extracurricular activities, I was usually her playmate, breakfast, lunch, and dinner companion, the one she wanted to play a game with, sit and watch a movie with, and the one who read to her in the evenings before bed. During the 5 years that we homeschooled, I never got much of a break, so in addition to not having Emma constantly at my side, it was fun to be more of an observer and get to see Emma and Kayla having fun together.

I think Emma was in 10th grade when Kayla graduated and went off to Marist College in New York. Recently, I heard that Kayla married her longtime boyfriend, Blair Weaver. I wish Kayla and Blair a long and happy marriage.

Now that I’ve introduced you to Emma’s childhood friend, next post I will share some of the lies and stories Emma told about Kayla and her family over the years. I haven’t verified all these stories, but I will let the reader decide what sounds plausible and what doesn’t.

Emma’s stories about Kayla and her family may have started innocently enough. One of the first “stories” I remember would have been in about 2004, when Dan Rather, with CBS, attacked President George W. Bush’s service with the National Guard. Since Phill and I were fans of WSB talk radio, a radio was usually on in our home or our cars all the time, so Emma heard a lot about this story, and she learned a lot about politics.

Kayla had been down visiting her mom, and we’d taken Emma over to Sheree’s home to spend time with Kayla. After Emma got home, she said, “Mom! You are not going to believe this!! Kayla’s mom got married?”

She was right, I didn’t believe it because I’d have thought we would have heard about it when we either dropped off or picked up Emma, so I said, “She did? Who did she marry?”
“Dan Rather!”
I said, “Ha. Ha. Very funny, Emma.” And thought to myself that this was Emma’s funny sense of humor.

When Emma was little, maybe about 3 or 4, she got into “Knock Knock” jokes. It was always when we were riding in the car, and whatever she happened to see would become part of her joke.
“Knock, Knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Tree.”
“Tree, who?”
“Tree, Lampost!” and then she would burst out into a fit of laughter.

“Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Cloud.”
“Cloud who?”
“Cloud, Stop Sign!” and again with all the laughter. It was so precious. This could go on and on and on, but I never got tired of it because each time, Emma laughed like she’d just told the funniest joke in the world.

But, the Dan Rather story didn’t seem to be a joke. Emma tried to convince me that Sheree had married Dan Rather, and that he was Kayla’s new stepfather. At first I went along with it and said things like, “Oh, really?” and “Hmmm.” And Emma went on and on until I finally said, “Emma, I know Kayla’s mom really didn’t marry Dan Rather.”

This just seemed to make Emma angry, and she tried harder and harder to convince me until I just let the subject drop and ignored anything else Emma said about Kayla’s mom and Dan rather.

I remember later telling Phill about it, and how I thought it was a joke, but how Emma got so upset when I didn’t believe her. It was just really odd behavior. You Psych people will have to tell me what you think, because to this day, I wonder if they way Emma was acting should have been an early warning sign of a potential problem.

Another early story was about Sheree’s boyfriend (now husband), Jeff. Emma might have been about 10 or 11 when we found out Sheree had a boyfriend. He wasn’t usually around when Phill and I dropped off or picked up Emma at Sheree’s house, so I can’t remember how we found out about him, but fine, whatever.

One day, after being over at Kayla’s, Emma and I were home, and she was talking about her visit. She mentioned Jeff, and I asked if he had any children, and Emma told me he had a three year old boy, but the boy lived with his mother. Oh, ok. Sounds plausible, right?

It had to be a year or so later when Emma had been over at Sheree’s home to see Kayla, and she was telling me about what they did that weekend, etc. and I asked if Jeff’s little boy had been over that weekend. Emma told me that Jeff didn’t have a little boy. I reminded her that she had told me some time back that he had a son. Emma denied it, and I figured it wasn’t worth arguing about, and thought perhaps she’d been confused. Maybe it was a neighbor who had a three year old or whatever and Emma didn’t have the story straight. I let it go, but it bothered me for quite some time because it just seemed odd. Later, when I found out about many of the lies Emma had told, I wondered if this was one of those times where she didn’t know the answer when I asked if Jeff had any kids, so she just made it up.

As Emma got older, her lies got more interesting and a little more vicious. More to come……….

 

 

Mental Illness? Personality Disorder? Or Lack of Conscience/Character?

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(Edited and Updated Nov. 10, 2013)

Some time back, one of Emma’ friends called me to fill me in on some things Emma was saying at the time.  Some things were about me, and some things were about others.  I was wondering about Emma’s propensity for telling stories about others.  Is she deliberately lying just to talk or for attention?  Does she lie to hurt people, although many folks don’t often know what she says about them?  I was speaking with this friend, and I asked if this person thought Emma actually believed that she was sexually molested by a priest and did she actually believe that the mother who raised her, homeschooled her for 5 years, took care of her, loved her, encouraged and took her to any extracurricular activity she wanted to try, etc. could actually have hurt her.  I was a little shocked and saddened when this person, someone close to Emma, told me they thought Emma was very manipulative and knew exactly what she was doing. I am also saddened to say that this answer didn’t surprise me. I think I knew this all along. 

Isn’t that an odd place for a mother to be?  You love your child, and you do the best you can to raise them to be a decent human being, and then you find yourself in a place almost wishing she were mentally ill just to explain the horrible things she’s done.  I’ve never liked dealing with mental illness.  I’ve known people with it, seen how it affects families, and often it is just too difficult.  There aren’t any easy answers and everyone hurts.  Often, there is no happy ending.  Yet, here I was thinking I’d rather believe my child is mentally ill than to believe she would do all the hateful, hurtful things she’s done with no regard for anyone but herself.  I tried to raise Emma to do right.  It’s not complicated.  Just do right, or in the psychobabble that Emma loves so much, to “Make Good Choices.”  Instead, I am wondering if I raised a child lacking character, and perhaps even lacking a conscience. Also, Emma is a coward.

A few mental health professionals that I’ve spoken with have suggested that Emma could have a personality disorder such as antisocial personality, delusional thinking, schizophrenia, etc.  I will go into more on these later.  Of course my knowledge is very limited on these topics, but my knowledge of Emma runs pretty deep.

I have a lot to say on Emma’s descent into therapy as well, and will tell you all about our experiences with Emma’s therapists:
Suzie A McGarvey, North Gwinnett Counseling Associates, LLC http://www.ngcounselingassociates.com/ (Suzie was formerly with Lanier Counseling http://www.laniercounseling.com/)
Dr. Elizabeth Genie Burnett, Manna Treatment,http://www.mannatreatment.com/our_staff
Dr. Richard Born, Applied Psycholocgical Health http://appliedpsychhealth.com/
Rachelle Hutchinson, Emily Kirby,Tamesha, Candace Whitman, of the Social Empowerment Center (DFACS therapists) http://www.socialempowermentcenter.com/
Heather Thompson, Jefferson High School, counselor http://jhs.jeffcityschools.org/faculty-directory.html
Peachford Hospital (Charter Peachford) http://www.peachford.com/
Jackson County DFCS http://dfcs.dhs.georgia.gov/jackson-county-dfcs-office

Another goal of mine is to expose Emma’s lying.  As I mentioned before, I’d been thinking a lot about Emma’s lying and wondering how far back it goes.  When did Emma cross over from normal childhood lies into something worse? 

In the coming pages, I will document more of Emma’s lies since that is what has been heavily on  my mind.  Emma told so many stories about school (when she did go to public school), kids she knew from school and church, pastors (Priests), choir directors, teachers, drugs and sex going on in school, pregnant teens (some of this I’ve already mentioned if you skim around the blog). Did Johnny really try to kiss her when they were in the play together at Jackson County Comprehensive High School? And why did Emma tell me one story, but make it sound so much more sinister for her friend “Lacey?” (I’ll share more about this later. I have to go through all of Lacey’s letters again to find it.) Emma claimed that Johnny was in 11th grade and was engaged. Really? Were all the girls who worked on the backstage crew at JCCHS really lesbians?  

Coming up next, I’m going to share some stories Emma told about her friend Kayla and Kayla’s family.  Emma and Kayla were friends from about 4th grade, and now Kayla is a married lady. Over the years, Emma told stories about Kayla, her husband, her sister-in-law, her mother, and grandparents.  When I share what Emma said about these folks, you are going to wonder, with friends like this………………..

A Worried Mother…..

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Worried

Thank you to the person who sent this to me. Very cute, and oh, so true!

Strange Behavior from an “Abused” Child

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Oct. 3, 2013

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

Emma loved having very finely tweezed eyebrows.

Emma loved having very finely tweezed eyebrows.

I’ve been thinking about a few things that I thought about some time ago, and for some reason, they popped back into my thoughts.

How do abused children act? Emma told her therapist Suzie McGarvey of Lanier Counseling (Now with North Gwinnett Counseling Associates, Suwanee, Ga.) during our March 14th, 2010 visit, that she wanted to go to a group home because she didn’t want to be in the same home with her mother.

Let me tell you how Emma was acting up until a couple of days before March 14th when she hatched this little idea.

Emma had pretty much quit going to PetsMart for Adoptions on Saturdays, and I usually went alone. She begged off saying she had too much school work, but I think the real reason was that she could not face our friend Janice, at whose home she stayed during her first accusation of abuse. Emma had adored Janice, and Janice loved Emma. That Christmas, since Emma had taken up sewing, and Janice was an excellent seamstress, Janice bought Emma a sewing basket and all kinds of notions she needed for sewing, and at my suggestion was going to give Emma a sewing day, where she could come over with whatever she wanted to make, and Janice would be there with her expertise to help her. I thought Emma would love this. She thought the world of Janice and spending the day with her, sewing, sounded like a great gift.

After all the lies Emma told to Janice’s face (You can read them in another part of the blog.), I think Emma couldn’t face Janice. Janice knew the truth about Emma and knew that Emma could look right at her and lie. Once someone caught on to Emma, she no longer had any use for them.

So………….getting back to my topic about the abused child. A couple of weeks before Emma wanted to be removed from our home, I came home from Adoptions, tired out, and Emma was jumping around, acting all silly, begging me to take her shopping. It was the last thing I felt like doing, having had been out most of the day, but I wonder how many abused children beg their abuser to take them out. Don’t abused kids typically avoid their abuser?

If I had been paying attention, I would have caught on to Emma’s actions. Up until a couple of days before March 14th, when Emma hatched her little plan to get out of the house, Emma was always very affectionate. Before she went to bed, she would hug me and kiss me when she said good night. If I were in bed, reading, she would lie on the bed next to me and want to cuddle and talk for a while before she went to bed. I remember how a couple of nights before March 14th, this stopped. I just let it go, figuring she was being a moody teenager, but it was much more than that. Emma was a cold, calculating young woman, and had I been paying attention, I’d have realized she had something up her sleeve, having seen her act this way before.

Another thing Emma did has to do with her eyebrows. In 9th grade, when Emma was going to Jackson County Comprehensive High School, she rode the bus and sat with 4 other girls from our neighborhood. At first, Emma was crazy about riding the bus with them, and said she would never go back to being homeschooled. After a month or so, I’m not sure what went on, but maybe she just wasn’t fitting in. Emma complained to me about school and told me she wanted to be homeschooled again. She accused me of giving up on her. One of the girls on the bus later told me that Emma complained about the school and exaggerated the drug problems of the high school. Emma complained about there being too many lesbians in the drama department, and she complained about the black kids getting special treatment at school.

One of the girls Emma rode the bus with, was the daughter of a beautician. One day, this young lady plucked Emma’s eyebrows into a very thin line. It looked fine, but being somewhat lazy about my own make-up, it was not something I would have attempted on me, but if Emma wanted to do it, that was up to her. She liked the look, but when her eyebrows started growing back in, she realized that this look took a little maintenance. Emma did it herself for a while, and she went a little too far and took out the middle of her eyebrows so it looked like she had two half brows over each eye. It looked pretty odd, and I got on to her about not over-plucking her brows.

Emma didn’t like plucking her eyebrows herself, so she would come to me with a pair of tweezers and put her head in my lap, wanting me to pluck her eyebrows. I didn’t really mind, as it seemed like another time we would have some “girl talk” as I plucked her brows for her. I am wondering though, does this sound like the behavior of an abused child? Later on, when I mentioned to Phill how Emma hugged and kissed me every night (while often “forgetting” to say goodnight to her dad), Phill tried to claim that Emma only did this because she would have to face my wrath if she didn’t say goodnight to me. Uh, yeah. Right. I guess he thought I went into a wrath if I didn’t get to pluck her eyebrows too. Yep, I lived to pluck those eyebrows. My day just wouldn’t have been complete otherwise.

Coming up Next, the movie that influenced Emma’s decision to accuse a priest of sexually abusing her.

DDT

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DDT?  Really, Emma?………………….More coming.  I just don’t have a lot of time this week.

 

  I was hunting for a cute photo and wanted to share a funny story, but I haven’t found it yet, so here is one of Emma one Christmas when she got a Magic Kit.  She had a lot of fun performing tricks.

Image

  

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Chapter 4
The Snowball Begins to Roll

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

Today’s post is to follow the numbered Chapters in the blog as I tell the story of Emma, so you may want to go back and read Chapters 1-3. I plan on putting the Chapters all together on a separate page. I appreciate those of you who have hung in there with me as I tell this story. This is really a rough draft as I will keep writing and re-writing until I get it all done and edited the way I want. It is a very slow project.)

Emma serving as an acolyte in 2002, aged 9.

Emma serving as an acolyte in 2002, aged 9.

Chapter 4

On Monday, March 22, 2010, the morning after Emma told us her story of “being molested” neither Phill nor I were sure what to do. Emma was adamant about not wanting the police involved. I called our Deacon, and left her a voice mail, and Phill called and talked to Emma’s youth group leader who also happened to be an educational psychologist who did school testing.

I had a dentist appointment, and remember I could hardly think straight to get through my dental
check-up. Because I’d called the cell phone and not the home phone, and our deacon was home that day, she didn’t notice the message on the phone until later in the afternoon, at which point she called me and wanted me to come to her home, not far from ours, to talk to her.

I went to Deacon F.’s home, and tearfully told her what Emma had told me. She told me that she had been planning to call me that day because Emma had been confiding in the assistant youth leader about being molested, who in turn spoke with the deacon, and legally, they could not keep this to themselves. We talked for a while, and the Deacon F. wanted me to call Phill and Emma and have them come over. When Phill and Emma came, we all talked and cried with our deacon.

Over the next week, we spoke to Deacon F. several times. That week, she also went down to the diocese in Atlanta to see what we needed to do to file a complaint against the priest. Deacon F. was a very caring, calming, kind person. For a while, she met with me once a week, to help me deal with my thoughts and feelings over what I believe had happened to Emma. Now, I hate knowing how much of her time we wasted, as she was a very busy woman and always ministering to others. She spent so much time ministering to our family over what, I think now, turned out to be a teenage girl’s desperate need for drama and attention.

During that week, I remember being surprised that we never heard from anyone from the church. I would have thought the bishop would have called us to let us know the church would be looking into what we reported. Our priest, being a new priest, preferred to let the deacon handle our situation and never called or came to see us. At that point, we hadn’t told any of our family or friends of Emma’s allegations, so I felt very isolated, not having anyone to talk this over with. Emma was home all the time because she was doing 10th grade on line that year.

On Tuesday, March 23, 2010, Emma and I took the dogs for walk in the afternoon. As we were coming up the driveway to go into the house, two cars came up. One was a Jackson County DFACs social worker, and the other was an officer from the sheriff’s department. Emma and I were both shocked and shaken, and Emma fell apart, crying and holding on to me, afraid that they were going to take her from her home. Of course, now I wonder if Emma’s hysterics were partly because she’d realize what a serious situation she’d created in involving the authorties. Both the officer and the social worker assured us that Emma was not going anywhere and that they just had to investigate and make sure that this priest no longer had access to her.

The DFACs worker recommended a place to take Emma for counseling, and the woman from the sheriff’s department told us she would be turning our information over to Gwinnett County, since the incidents took place in Gwinnett County.

Two days later Deacon F. came over and picked us Emma and I and took Emma and me to Mayfield Dairy for an ice cream. I was a nice day, and we sat outside at a picnic table, ate our ice cream cones and talked. Deacon F. asked Emma what happened, but Emma did not want to talk, so I told Deacon F. the details of what Emma had told me. Emma nodded and agreed to what I or corrected me if I didn’t say something right.

That evening, I received a call from a Gwinnett County Detective who wanted me to bring Emma to the police station for questioning. (I still have the detective’s card, but out of respect for his privacy, I will not post his name here.) Emma and I were shaken and scared that we had to drop everything and go, so I called Deacon F. and she agreed to meet us and go with us. As usual, here presence made both of us feel better.

If I remember right, I had to speak to the detective alone, Emma and I had to speak to the detective, and Emma had to speak to the detective alone. I think there had to be a witness in with Emma so she was not alone with the detective.

The detective told us they would be investigating the priest, and he would keep in touch with us. I didn’t know what to expect from the investigation. We had given the detective names of other acolytes at the church, so we knew the police would be talking to those families.

I don’t want to go into details of the priest’s life, as it would give away who he was and that is not my intent. I will just say he was in the public eye and Emma very nearly ruined his life with her accusations.

(To be continued….)