Emma’s Descent into Therapy Part 1 (UPDATED)

Posted on April 13, 2014 by losingemma

***************UPDATED APRIL 13, 2014**********************

PREFACE: 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. Emma is a young woman who made up a story about a story about a cyber friend being raped and claimed it brought up her own “repressed memories” of a priest of molesting her. 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. I am that mother. Emma claims to have toxicology reports showing that her mother poisoned her with DDT, essentially accusing her mother of ATTEMPTED MURDER, but refuses to turn over these reports to her mother’s attorney. She also claims that while living with her boyfriend’s family, her boyfriend’s mother was afraid Emma’s mother would show up and kill her entire family. When Emma’s mother contacted the boyfriend’s mother, she told me that this was “ridiculous.” Emma’s boyfriend/fiance eventually broke up with her when he had his own doubts about Emma.
As always, if you have any questions or comments, contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com

Emma’s first experience with therapy was with the Tree House, in Winder, Ga. The Tree House is an organization that supports children and families in Jackson and Barrow County, Ga. I am appalled that Emma wasted the time of this facility when there is such legitimate need for their services.

As I mentioned earlier, on Emma’s dad’s birthday, March 21, 2010, Emma told us the story of her “repressed memories” and claimed to have been molested by the priest over a period of several months when she was 12 years old. Two days later, a Jackson County DFACS worker, Cecelia Dove and a sheriff’s Deputy (Janis Mangum, who is now the Sheriff of Jackson County) showed up at our home. Emma became hysterical and threw her arms around me, crying that she didn’t want to be taken away. She sobbed and held on to me tightly, and it took a few minutes for the three of us to calm her down. Perhaps she became hysterical because she realized the magnitude of what she’d done no that the authorities were involved. Deputy Mangum assured Emma that she was not going to be taken away and that she was there just to make sure Emma was safe and that the priest no longer had access to Emma. I explained that the priest had been an interim priest at our church for about a year while the church went through the process of hiring a new priest.

I was also very shaken to have DFACS and a sheriff’s deputy come to my home, and it took us several days to figure out who had called DFACS. Emma denied up and down telling anyone other than one of her church youth leaders about being “molested” but we later found out that Emma was failing Physics, so her excuse to her teacher for not doing her work was that she was having problems because she had been molested. It was the physics teacher who called DFACS. I have pages and pages of letters Emma was writing to “Lacey” during this time, and she could also chat with “Lacey” on the computer when she was supposed to be doing her school work. Emma is a very smart girl, and there was no reason for her to fail physics. She wasn’t doing her work, and needed a good excuse, so she used her “molestation” story.

Unfortunately, Phill and I, as well as our Deacon blamed another woman for calling DFACS. After Emma told us about being molested, Phill called one of Emma’s Youth Group leaders, a young woman who was a school psychologist, and he told her about Emma’s accusation. This lady worked in educational testing, not with abuse, but we figured, working for the school system, she felt obligated to turn Emma into DFACS. That Sunday, we went to church, and I saw this woman crying in church because she knew we were angry with her. Emma never said a word. I saw this woman sobbing when she took communion. She was so deeply hurt that we accused her of sending the authorities to our door when she was another one of Emma’s innocent victims. Later on, I whole heartedly apologized to her, and I think she forgave us, but I will never forget the pain we caused her. Shortly after that, she quit working with the youth group.

After telling her story to Deputy Mangum, Cecelia Dove (DFACS Social Worker) spoke to us and gave me the name of the Tree House and said Emma could receive counseling there. Emma was completely opposed to counseling, and I was the one who pushed her to go. I thought she might need some “professional” help. Emma argued with me and claimed that she’d read that girls who’d been molested like she was did just as well talking things over with their friends as opposed to going to therapy. One problem with this was that Emma really didn’t have any friends. She didn’t have any girlfriends she hung out with. She e-mailed and texted “Lacey,” her cyber friend whom Emma claimed had been raped and tried to commit suicide, but the two girls had never met in person. Emma was also friends with Kayla Benifield Weaver, but only saw her for a weekend or so once or twice a year when Kayla was visiting her mom. Emma talked to me a lot about everything, but I really felt she needed someone other than her mother.

Phill had my calendars, so I don’t have the dates, but sometime around May, Emma started therapy at the Tree House. Her counselor was a young woman, Ms. M, who I believe was working on her Master’s Degree at UGA and interning at the Tree House. She was very sweet, and I thought Emma would like her except she had a Hispanic name, and Emma had some bias against Hispanics, complained about the illegal immigrant problems in this country, and complained about Hispanic kids at school.

After 3 or 4 sessions, Ms. M. called me into the room after meeting with Emma and said that there was really no reason to bring Emma to therapy because Emma would not talk to her. Emma later told her other therapists that she did not like the Tree House because they treated her like a little kid and gave her stickers. (She never mentioned receiving sticker to me, although once I think they gave her a snack of a pack of cookies or crackers.)

Phill and I discussed giving Emma a break from therapy. We were planning a trip to visit my sister up north at the end of June, so we thought we would wait until we got back to have Emma start seeing someone else. In the meantime, Emma had quit going to church, and did not want to go with the youth group on the big trip to Cherokee N.C. that they had been planning and raising money for all year. Emma had quit going to youth group. I suspected that part of this was because it was a very small group, and the boy that Emma liked and had spent quite a bit of time with at church activities and youth group, was no longer interested in her, and there was a new girl at church who seemed to be spending a lot of time at church following this young man around. It was just the typical teenage stuff, but I think Emma was no longer comfortable in the group because for a while there, the kids, and even some of the adults thought Emma and this boy were a couple, even though they never actually dated. I think Emma was very hurt when this young man was no longer interested in her. Emma pretty much did nothing but sit around the house. She hung around me a lot, running errands or doing whatever I happened to be doing around the house, and in the evenings she would want to watch a movie or tv with me.

I had been discussing with my good friend Sandi (Sandra Brooks McCravy) that I hated Emma just sitting around the house, and I wished she would go with her youth group on their trip, but at that point, several people in the church knew about Emma accusation of being sexually molested, and we had filed a complaint with the church, so I didn’t feel like I should push Emma to go if she really didn’t want to. Sandi suggested that Emma could come help with Vacation Bible School at her current church, Sunrise Baptist Church in Lawrenceville, Ga. http://www.sunrisebaptist.com Since Sandi lived about 35-40 minutes away from us, there in Lawrenceville, she suggested that Emma stay at their home for the week. Phill and I thought this would be a great break for Emma, and I took Sandi up on her offer.

During the week of Vacation Bible School (VBS) the kids were at the church in the morning, and then back home to Sandy’s by early afternoon. During time, I called my oldest sister in Ct., and broke the news to her about Emma’s molestation. We were planning a trip to visit them at the end of June, and I felt like I needed to tell her, and I also needed her big sisterly support.

Also, during the week of VBS, one of our neighbors who also went to our church, was in a hospice facility, dying of cancer. Our deacon had called me and told me that he didn’t have much time left, and this gentleman had trained the acolytes, and had been very fond of Emma, so I really wanted to take Emma to see him. He was alert and happy to see us, and if I remember right, he passed away the next day with his loving family around him.

When I picked Emma up one afternoon to take her to visit our neighbor in the hospice, I told Emma that I’d told my sister about the “molestation.” Emma became furious with me. She asked me why I told her, and I said it was because when we went up there in a few weeks, my sister would know that something was wrong, and also because she loved us and I felt like we needed her support. Emma barely spoke to me that afternoon, and when I took her back to Sandi McCravy’s house, Emma got out of the car without speaking and went into the house without saying a word to me. I went in and spoke to Sandi for a few minutes and told her why Emma was mad at me.

It was around this time that Emma developed a crush on Johnathan McCravy, Sandi and Greg’s younger son. Sometime later, it may have been 6 months later when Phill and I were going through Emma’s room, I found a letter Emma had written to her cyber friend “Lacey” about her crush on Johnathan. There was nothing dramatic in it, just the sweet typical stuff teenagers write about being in love.

At the end of June, we went to visit my sister and her husband for a week in CT. Emma was rude and nasty for the entire week, barely speaking to my sister and brother-in-law the whole visit. This hurt me because my sister had been the greatest aunt to Emma. She spent time with her, sent her cards and gifts, remembered her on every holiday, etc. She had adored Emma her whole life, and at 16, Emma was a rude and nasty brat to her. Several times my sister walked in to find Emma on the phone, and she would quickly get off. It wasn’t until later that I realized all these phone calls were to Sandi McCravy. Sandi Even called Emma while we were at the beach for fireworks, and they talked for about an hour. I was also a little surprised that Sandi knew we were having a family picnic at the beach and she still stayed on the phone with Emma so long that night. I thought it was rude of Sandi as well as rude of Emma, but then again, Emma was being so unpleasant, why not let her talk on the phone and just enjoy the adult company without Emma?

When we came back from CT, Emma started therapy with Dr. Genie Burnett (Dr. Elizabeth Genie Burnett) Manna Treatment, Duluth, Ga. http://mannatreatment.com/home

Coming up in Part 2, Manna Treatment

Southeast Electric Flight Festival

Posted on April 6, 2014 by losingemma

I think this photo was around 2002, when Emma donated a dinosaur puppet for her dad to use in a pilot in one of his planes. It was really cute.

PREFACE: 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. Emma is a young woman who made up a story about a story about a cyber friend being raped and claimed it brought up her own “repressed memories” of a priest of molesting her. 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. I am that mother. Emma claims to have toxicology reports showing that her mother poisoned her with DDT but refuses to turn over these reports to her mother’s attorney. She also claims that while living with her boyfriend’s family, her boyfriend’s mother was afraid Emma’s mother would show up and kill her entire family. When Emma’s mother contacted the boyfriend’s mother, she told me that this was “ridiculous.”
As always, if you have any questions or comments, contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com

It is a rainy Georgia night, and I was thinking about how Emma is probably down in Americus, Ga. for SEFF (Southeast Electric Flight Festival) to work as Jeff Meyers’ “Executive Assistant.” SEFF doesn’t start until tomorrow (April 7-13) but Phill always liked going down early. SEFF was something he looked forward to all year, and as soon as it was over, he was already planning for the next year. Emma didn’t really care about flying, but she liked running things and being in charge, and she is really Jeff’s right hand. She also liked the pay she received. It was very generous of Jeff to pay the “volunteers” who worked very hard all week.

Phill always liked camping at SEFF, but Emma preferred a hotel, so I was just listening to the rain and am glad to know she won’t be camping in a tent tonight. Emma and I were never quite the “roughing it” kind of girls!

With all the “together time” of homeschooling, I had to admit I enjoyed our little break and having some time to myself when Emma went to SEFF with her dad, but then as soon as she was gone, I missed her, too. I could only talk to her early in the morning or late at night, and usually for just a few minutes because she was so busy, but I always enjoyed hearing about what she was doing. Really though, I didn’t hear too much about it until Emma got home, and then she talked and talked and pretty much gave me every detail of her week. Phill got a kick out of hearing Emma’s name paged over the intercom. Who knows, maybe the SEFF experience has prepared Emma for things she’ll be doing in her professional life, in whatever career she decides to go into.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I was thinking of my baby girl and hope she has a wonderful week at SEFF.

Emma Stories – Homecoming and other High School Stories

Posted on March 16, 2014 by losingemma

PREFACE: 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 was recently 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 to have the TOXICOLOGY REPORT to prove that her mother poisoned her with DDT and that she had to move to Ohio to get away from her mother. (My attorney has been waiting for months for that toxicology report.) She also claims her future mother-in-law lives in fear that Emma’s mother will show up and kill her entire family. A while back I received an e-mail from this lady that said, “…. I am not afraid of you or fear that you are going to murder me or my family. That is ridiculous!!!”………… P.S.T., you are very welcome.

Emma Roey, Ready for High School at JCCHS.

Emma could tell some great stories. Of course, whether they were true or not is another question. If you’ve been reading along, I mentioned a story about Emma going to the youth group of an acquaintance she knew from school in 9th grade at JCCHS (Jackson County Comprehensive High School, Jefferson, Ga.) and how Emma came home and reenacted the evening of some horrible things the youth leader said about his dog being run over and how his life was like a country song, making his two daughters, who were in the youth group cry. Emma had also claimed that his wife, who kept a home daycare, took off, leaving the children unsupervised, and how one of the children had had a bloody nose had had gotten blood all over the bedroom and all over the comforter of Emma’s school mate.
The most entertaining part of her story of that evening was when Emma told me about giving her “testimony” to the youth group of how she was “saved.” Emma gave me a long, drawn out story, and it was hilarious. Of course, later on, I got in touch with Emma’s schoolmate’s father who was also the youth leader of the church (Walnut Fork Baptist Church, Hoschton, Ga.) and discovered that pretty much most of what Emma told me was a lie. He assured me that the teenagers did not give testimonies during Youth Group. There were a few elements of truth, the family dog had been hit by a car, and Emma took them and went off spinning her own tale in a whole different direction. (At one time, Emma considered politics for a career. I think she could definitely work behind the scenes as a spin doctor! Just a different kind of doctor from being a pediatrician, which was something Emma talked about being from about 2nd grade until she got into high school. This saddens me because we all know with the Healthcare Crisis, that there is a shortage of doctors. Emma has the smarts that I think she could have been an excellent doctor, or anything else she wanted to be, but she has chosen to use her gifts in a much more destructive way.)
Back to my story…….. When Emma attended Jefferson High School, in Jefferson Ga., she was in 11th grade. It was fall, and Homecoming was approaching. There was a young man in a couple of Emma’s classes ,that she did not like for whatever reason, and his named Bryson Quinn, if I have the spelling right. I’m sure Bryson was a perfectly fine young man, but when Emma didn’t like someone, that was pretty much it, and there was no going back. According to Emma, she was standing outside of a classroom, waiting for the previous class to be dismissed so that her class could go in. Bryson went up to her and asked her to go to the Homecoming Dance with her. She panicked and said, “I can’t.”
Bryson asked, “Why not?”
Emma said, “Uh…………………..my boyfriend wouldn’t like that.”
and then she claimed that an older boy named Cody, who was in her drama class, came up behind her and said in a deep voice, “Yeah. I wouldn’t like that.” and Bryson walked off.
Then Cody looked at Emma and said, “You don’t really have a boyfriend do you?”
to which Emma replied,”Ummm, no.”
Of course, just telling the story is not near as funny as seeing Emma act it out. Was it true? Who knows? Emma had told Phill and I that she and a group of girls were not interested in going to homecoming, but they wanted to dress up and go out, so they were going to put on pretty dresses and go bowling. I thought this sounded like a great idea for a night of fun and I encouraged it, telling her I’d be happy to drive her (and anyone else that needed a ride) to the bowling alley. These plans never materialized, and except when Phill and I had Emma invite a group of girls to a cookout at our house, Emma never hung out socially with anyone from school.
I’ve more or less been writing Emma’s story as a series of essays because I don’t think I could sit down and write a book, and because I get one topic stuck in my craw for a while and decide that is what I want to write about. (“Squirrel!” for those of you that saw UP. Phill, Emma, and I went together to see that movie, and we all enjoyed it.)
I want to start writing about our experiences with having Emma in therapy, but later, I’ll be posting stories Emma told from both JCCHS (Jackson County Comprehensive High School) and Jefferson High School. It wasn’t until I started writing them down that I realized Phill and I should have been looking into Emma’s stories. While at JCCHS, Emma claimed one of the coaches, Coach Beaver, was also a policeman in Statham, Ga. Coach Beaver also taught Emma’s Freshman Focus class, and she claimed he was always telling them about all the drugs in Statham and what a problem drugs were there. Of course, Emma talked a lot about drugs and sex while she attended JCCHS. She claimed just about everyone she knew smoked, used drugs, had sex, went to drug parties, and that drugs were sold on the bus, that kids smoked on the bus, etc. I mentioned earlier how Emma talked about the drug parties where everyone took pills from their parent’s medicine cabinets and threw them into a bowl, and then took a handful of these mixed pills, and how Emma had gotten that story from the Reader’s Digest.
Also during Emma’s time at JCCHS, we saw a story on the news about a young man who preferred to dress as a girl, wear makeup, etc. I don’t even remember what the story was about, if it was a lawsuit or what, but I remember the video of the boy fixing his hair, applying makeup (I remember the eyeliner because that is a skill I never mastered!), and some time after that, Emma claimed there were a couple of boys at school who dressed as girls by wearing dresses, pantyhose, and makeup, and the school would do nothing about it, even though it violated the dress code. I remember being a little shocked that the school would allow this, but other than that, it didn’t affect me or my daughter, so I wasn’t too concerned. I will mention that in all my visits to JCCHS, I never saw any young men dressed as girls. I never called the school to see if this was allowed, and at this point, it doesn’t really matter.
We had two neighbor boys who went to JCCHS and were very active in school, and Emma talked about how they always looked stoned in the mornings, and how the younger boy, who later turned down an appointment to West Point to attend UGA, was known for his partying. To be honest, I think when these two boys went to school in the morning, they were typical teens and just not quite awake that early in the morning.
Emma also like talking about a feud between Coach Beaver and our neighbor, Dr. Cora Andrews, who is the head of the PE department at JCCHS. (When Emma claimed there were at least 10 pregnant freshman, it was Dr. Cora Andrews who assured me the high school had had two pregnancies that year.) According to Emma, during PE, Dr. Cora Andrews might walk through and ask Emma to have the class do something simple like leaving the volley ball nets out because she had the next class, but if Emma tried to do what Dr. Andrews asked, Coach Beaver would make sure the opposite was done. If Dr. Andrews asked them to leave something out, Coach Beaver made them put it away. Was there a feud between the two teachers or was this just another entertaining story? And, just how does a coach work a second job as a police officer? I’m kind of guessing Coach Beaver was a coach and a teacher, but the policeman part was Emma’s imagination.
I will get back to more of Emma’s High School stories later, but for now, I want to work on writing about our experiences with therapy, so that’s coming up next.

Emma and SEFF (Southeast Electric Flight Festival)

Posted on February 25, 2014 by losingemma

***UPDATED MARCH 9 2014***
If you are new to this blog, you may want to read the posts “In a Nutshell” or go to July 2012 and read “Sending out a Letter.” Both of these posts give a brief description of what happened. As Emma’s mom, I am blogging my experiences with Emma and the things she did/does. This is a child who made up a story about rape, accused a priest of molesting her, and then as her attorney was about to file a lawsuit against the priest and the church, Emma accused her mother of physical abuse to stop the lawsuit because she knew her lies were about to be discovered. Emma was recently living in Ohio at the home of her fiance’s grandparents, attending Wright State University http://www.wright.edu/, and talking about getting married to T. Emma claims to have the TOXICOLOGY REPORT to prove that her mother poisoned her with DDT and that she had to move to Ohio to get away from her mother. (My attorney has been waiting for months for that toxicology report.) She also claims her future mother-in-law lives in fear that Emma’s mother will show up and kill her entire family. A while back I received an e-mail from T’s mother that said, “…. I am not afraid of you or fear that you are going to murder me or my family. That is ridiculous!!!” P.S.T., you are very welcome.

As a child, Phill built and flew RC planes, but had quit them before I’d ever known him. Years ago, at my job, I met someone who flew, and told this gentleman, “Oh, my husband did that as a kid.” He made it sound like so much fun, I went home and talked to Phill about it and encouraged him to get back into it. (It didn’t take much encouragement.) He picked out a plane for his birthday, and his hobby grew and grew. It wasn’t long before our house was full of planes, plane parts, radio parts, materials for building, and odds and ends that I couldn’t have identified.

Phill got involved with some local groups like the Scenic RC Flyers in Winder/Statham, and the Electric Drones in Jackson County, near our home, but his favorite RC event was SEFF (Southeast Electric Flight Festival) which is held in Americus, Ga. http://www.seffweek.com/ This year, SEFF will be held April 7th-13th. Phill talked about SEFF all year long. Before SEFF, he spent months planning what planes he was going to build and take, and after the event, he talked about it for months and made plans for the next year. He volunteered with SEFF, which paid for his trip and hotel, and his main job was being in charge of the raffle. It is a big raffle where vendors donate lots of prizes, and Phill always bought a lot of tickets, so he came home with at least a few prizes. Because I was homeschooling Emma, and worked at an arts program where the end of the year program coincided with SEFF, plus the fact that we had 3 dogs and a foster dog at home, I never attended but finally planned on going in 2011, the year Emma’s really turned into a mess. Although her actions stopped me from attending, I don’t think it stopped Phill, and I believe he took Emma with him. Phill’s family could be falling apart, but he was not going to miss his big week of airplanes.

I don’t remember what year it was when Phill took Emma with him to Seff. I believe she was in 7th or 8th grade. Phill had volunteered the year before and thought it would be great if Emma could go and help. It sounded like a good opportunity for Emma to get to try something new, and as a homeschooling mom, it gave me a break as well.

Phill had tried to get Emma interested in RC planes, but she never was. She built a simple plane with his help when she was about 10-12, and she would take the controls if he took her out to the field, but she was never that interested. It just wasn’t her cup of tea. SEFF, however, would become an event that Emma looked forward to every year.

I’m not sure of his title, but SEFF was run by a man named Jeff Meyers of the Fayetteville Flyers. He may have started the event, I’m not really sure. From what Phill and Emma told me, it’s a week long RC event where there are vendors, “pilots” (the folks who fly RC planes) and lots of socializing with dinners, drinking, poker, entertainment, contests, etc. It became the largest electric RC plane event in the U.S. or maybe the world, and one year they broke the world record of the most planes in the air at one time. Phill was partiulcarly proud of being part of this event which can be seen here:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/meojwdw

Seff takes place in Americus Ga. at Mac Hodges field:

Hodges Hobbies‎
428 Neil Hodges Road
Andersonville, GA 31711
(866) 924-9505
hodgeshobbies.com‎

Phill liked to camp at SEFF so that he could be in the middle of the action all the time, but Emma was not a “roughing it” kind of girl and preferred to stay in a hotel. She was also afraid of staying in a tent, that the boogie man would get her. If Emma went to bed at night, from what Phill told me, he was close by, drinking beer with the guys or whatever, but never far away from Emma. Emma was the kind of kid who got nervous taking a walk in the neighborhood by herself, so it didn’t surprise me that Emma didn’t like going to bed by herself when Phill was still up. They always ended up compromising and spent a couple of nights in a tent, and then the rest of the time in a hotel.

The first year, Emma’s duties were fairly minimal. I remember her talking about things like labeling the beer bottles. (One of the RC members made an annual “SEFF Beer.”) Every year, her duties grew, and she loved being Jeff’s right hand and was given the title “Administrative Assistant.” Phill and I were both very proud of Emma and the job she did every year at SEFF. The child who, in typical kid fashion, couldn’t do her chores at home, or who lied about having done them until mom or dad went to check, worked her tail off at SEFF and did a great job. No one had to remind her what her jobs were and no one had to tell her over and over again to do them. Maybe she was growing up! One year after SEFF was over, I believe Emma was in about 9th grade, Jeff sent out a nice e-mail about SEFF and while I can’t remember word for word what he said, there was something in there about how he thought he was going to quit SEFF until Emma came along and made his job so much easier. Phill and I couldn’t have been more proud.

During SEFF week, Emma and I talked on the phone every day, although sometimes not for long as she was very busy. When she would get home from SEFF, she would talk to me for hours about everything that went on. One of the things Emma was responsible for, as she told me, was vendor placement, and she had to deal with vendors complaining about their spots. She got a little frustrated with some of the vendors giving her a hard time, but it sounded like, from what she told me, that she handled her responsibilities well, and I thought she was getting some great experience for what would be coming down the road for her in real life one day. To make things even better to Emma, Jeff started paying the volunteers. I believe Emma came home with something like $300-$350 after spending a week at SEFF. For a kid who’d never done more than babysat, that was a nice chunk of change! Even though this was supposed to be “volunteering,” I couldn’t object to Emma being paid because from what she and Phill told me, she put in some long hours for the week she was down there.

The only thing that concerned me was that Emma never seemed to get along with kids her own age. Not that there were a lot of kids at SEFF, but one year, a couple of girls who I believe were the granddaughters of one of the “Hodge Hounds” (some of the SEFF regulars) who wanted to volunteer. Emma, for whatever reason, didn’t get along with these girls and complained frequently about them. From what she told me, the drove the golf carts which were used as shuttles, and they were lazy and didn’t work as hard as Emma did. Emma always seemed to have trouble making friends her own age. I’ll get more into this topic later when I talk about Emma’s schools and schooling, but just like the church youth group, Emma loved running things, but didn’t seem to make friends if she was around anyone for any length of time. She could see them once or twice a year and leave messages on facebook, but she never had any close friends that she saw regularly. She got along well with adults, and younger kids, like the little girls of Mike and Wendy Timms, who also went to SEFF. Emma loved being “big sister” to younger kids like the Timms girls, who were also homeschooled. (Emma would later take advatage of the Timms family while claiming to be “abused” but more on that later.

Another interesting note is the year that Emma claimed to be “molested.” On March 21, 2010, her dad’s birthday, Emma confessed to her dad and me that she had been molested by the priest at our church a few years before when she was 12 years old. She made up a story about a cyber friend being raped and claimed that this friend called Emma from the hospital ER. Emma then claimed that this incident brought up her “repressed memories” of her own molestation. SEFF 2010 was held about a month later, April 22-25, 2010, and Phill was not going to miss it. We talked it over and decided it might good for Emma to go to get away from all we’d been through dealing with the police, detectives, the church, DFACS, the sheriff’s department, etc. in the wake of Emma’s accusation.

Phill took Emma to SEFF 2010, but he told me she mostly hid out in the tent. It sounded like she did not do much in the way of assisting Jeff like she had in previous years. I spoke to Emma on the phone every day, and she was very paranoid about the priest finding her and coming after her. I tried to reassure her that the priest would have no way of knowing that she was at this RC event down in Americus, Georgia, but Emma was adamant that he would find out and come after her. Phill finally had to tell Jeff what was going on because Emma wasn’t doing her job. Of course, Emma got lots of attention and sympathy for being the sexually abused child. I now suspect that her paranoia was her guilty conscience, although I have often wondered if Emma has a conscience. I’m not sure how Phill now justifies Emma’s behavior. He knows Emma made up the rape story, and he knows Emma wasn’t molested. I wasn’t there, in Americus, when Emma was acting so fearful and paranoid about the priest coming after her, but from what Phill told me, and from speaking to Emma, I can picture just how she behaved. Does Phill actually still believe this child was sexually molested by a priest?

As always, if you have any questions or comments, you can e-mail me: losingemma@gmail.com
Sorry, no time to proofread, so bear with me and I’ll work on it later.

The Police At the Door

Posted on February 9, 2014 by losingemma

The Police At the Door
#####UPDATED and EDITED Feb. 23, 2014#####
Feb. 9, 2014
If you are new to this blog, you may want to read the posts “In a Nutshell” or go to July 2012 and read “Sending out a Letter.” Both of these posts give a brief description of what happened. As Emma’s mom, I am blogging my experiences with Emma and the things she did/does. This is a child who made up a story about rape, accused a priest of molesting her, and then as her attorney was about to file a lawsuit against the priest and the church, Emma accused her mother of physical abuse to stop the lawsuit because she knew her lies were about to be discovered. Emma claims to have the TOXICOLOGY REPORT to prove that her mother poisoned her with DDT and that she had to move to Ohio to get away from her mother. (My attorney has been waiting for months for that toxicology report.)

After a shopping trip to Kohl’s, I made Emma a necklace and some earrings to go with this outfit she picked out.

I’ve already written about the events of the day of Dec. 21, 2010, a Tuesday, but to sum it up, Emma had a morning appointment with Suzie McGarvey of Lanier Counseling in Buford, Ga. (Suzie now works for North Georgia Counseling Associates in Suwanee, Ga.), and then we went to Kohl’s so Emma could buy her dad a Christmas present, stopped at Starbucks for Frappes, and went home. It was a cold, rainy, nasty day. I did some things around the house, and Emma entertained herself on her new notebook computer, etc. We had a quiet dinner, and there wasn’t anything we wanted to watch on television that night, so Emma spent most of the evening in her room before coming in to hug and kiss me goodnight. I don’t remember what time she went to bed, but it was pretty early, probably around 8:30 – 9pm. Christmas was coming, and we were looking forward to that as well as to taking a trip to N.C. to visit a friend for a few days while Emma had some time off from school. I read for a while and went to bed at 11:00pm. Keep in mind that I am writing about something that happened over 3 years ago, and I was in total shock over what Emma did, so some of my details my be a little fuzzy.
I only thought Emma had gone to bed early. That day and night, she had made several calls to Sandra Brooks McCravy:
3:16 pm for 26 minutes
8:41 pm for 27 minutes
10:44 pm for 1 minute
10:45 pm for 4 minutes
11:02 pm for 2 minutes
12:54 pm for 1 minute
and the following day, on Dec. 22, 2010 Emma made another 14 or so calls to either Sandra Brooks McCravy or Johnathan McCravy

On the topic of phones, let me note that Emma was supposed to leave her phone in the kitchen when she went to bed at night. Several times, I caught her sneaking out to get her phone and she would make up some excuse as to what she was doing. After getting caught too many times, she started taking one of the portable land-line home phones to bed with her, so she could talk on the phone with Sandi, or perhaps Johnathan McCravy, whom Emma had a crush on. I don’t have access to the home phone records, but on more than one occasion, Phill or I discovered one of the home phones missing and located it in Emma’s bed. She claimed she wanted it in case of an emergency. I am sure if I could access the land-line home phone records, we would see many more examples of Emma breaking the family rules, and many more hours of conversations with Sandra Brooks McCravy at all hours of the night when Phill and I thought Emma was asleep. In any other child, this would be typical teenage behavior, but most kids would be calling their teenage friends, not a 45 or so year old woman.
Also, I will also mention that when DFACS had taken Emma from our home, she stayed with our pastor and his wife, Fr. George and Paulette Ivey (Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Flowery Branch, Ga.) Sandi called Fr. George and wanted to deliver a Christmas present to Emma. She took some gifts to Fr. George’s home, and stashed inside one of the gifts was a tracfone, so again, there were many more calls I have no record of. Interesting behavior from a woman who frequently called me her “best friend.” If you’ve read my earlier posts about Sandi (Sandra Brooks McCravy, you know that I was privy to many details in the Brooks/McCravy families such as stories of infidelities and wife-swapping, or what Sandi called “Swinging” in her family. I bring this up to reiterate that at one time we were very close friends. I don’t think you would share these shameful family secrets with just anyone. That was why I was surprised that Sandi was going behind my back, telephoning my daughter at all hours, having a relationship with Emma that Phill and I were not aware of, and that Sandi would again go behind our backs to sneak Emma a tracphone.

Back to my story…………. Since Hoschton Ga. does not have a police department, the officers who came were from the Jackson County County Sheriff’s Office. I will say they were all courteous and professional, and I understand that their job was to make sure Emma was safe, not really to investigate into whether or not she was telling the truth.
Around 11:30, I was awakened by the sound of a car door slamming. My heart was pounding, and for a moment, I thought it was a dream. I got up and looked out the bedroom window and saw a police car in the driveway, and an officer walking up the sidewalk towards the front door. All I could think of was that Phill had been in an accident with his job at UPS. He had left Mon. evening and was on the road with his partner, Carl Lehmann, and would return home sometime late Thurs. night or early Fri. morning. I always worried over any late night phone calls when Phill was on the road.

I opened the door to the police, and if I remember right, there were two officers and a moment later, a 2nd car showed up, so there ended up being a total of 3. One of the officers told me that they’d received a call concerned with the safety of Emma, and I told him that she was asleep, although Emma wasn’t asleep, but at the door to her room, listening. When the officer asked to speak to Emma to make sure she was alright, Emma immediately appeared wearing her pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers. The officer took Emma out on the front porch and spoke to her privately. This went on a few times during the nearly 4 hours they were they were there. Emma would go out and talk to the officers and then come back in and tell me she told them everything was fine. One of the officers stayed inside the house the entire time. I’m sure, as the officer stated, Emma was terrified. She had crossed a line, and she knew she was in trouble. The only way out was to continue with her lying.

According to the police report, Emma told the officers that her mother suffered from “Paranoid Borderline Personality Disorder.” Phill and I did not find out about this until later when we talked to Suzie McGarvey of Lanier Counseling (Now with North Gwinnett Counseling Associates in Suwanee, Ga.). Suzie told us that she had spoken with Emma’s former therapist Dr. Elizabeth Genie Burnett (Dr. Genie Burnett, Psy.D., Manna Treatment, Duluth, Ga.) and Dr. Burnett had gone through a checklist with Emma and had diagnosed me. I find this interesting as I was never Dr. Genie Burnett’s patient, and only sat in on a few sessions with Emma, or with Phill and Emma. Suzie McGarvey seemed as shocked both Phill and I did over the unprofessional conduct by Dr. Genie Burnett in diagnosing me when I was not even her patient. Suzie was also shocked when Sandi (Sandra Brooks McCravy) called her, crying, trying to get her to let Emma come stay with her at the Sandi and Greg McCravy’s home in Lawrenceville, Ga. Dr. Genie Burnett (Manna Treatment, Duluth, Ga.) also called Suzie and tried to get her to let Emma go to Sandi’s home. I know, when Suzie told Phill and I of these phone calls, she found them quite disturbing.
Another interesting point that Suzie McGarvey told Phill and I after speaking to Dr. Genie Burnett was that Dr. Genie Burnett told her that whenever she tried to get Emma to discuss the molestation, Emma would turn on her mother. Ok, I’m not a psychologist, but as a lay person, I think I would start to question the whole molestation story at that point.

I don’t remember how one of the officers brought up DFACS, but I explained to him that Emma had been involved with DFACS back in March when she told us about being molested by a priest. The officer told me he would need to contact DFACS since they had been involved with Emma in the past. I later realized this was a ruse and he wasn’t going to out and out say that he was calling DFACS because Emma was accusing me of abusing her. (Who knows what might have happened? Since we didn’t own any guns, I might have gone postal and pulled out a water pistol and shot everyone. But that’s ok because I would then “block it out” and wouldn’t have remembered it later anyway……………………..Sorry, sometimes my sarcasm gets the best of me.)

In the police report, Emma claimed to have been abused over the past couple of weeks. Soooooo, after being a mom for almost 17 years, all of a sudden I began physically abusing my daughter. Yeah, right. Hmmmmm, I’ll bet if we could check the calendar, Emma’s story of abuse started right after she found out the big Atlanta law firm who had taken her case, had e-mailed me to tell me they’d be filing the lawsuit at the end of Dec. or beginning of Jan. Emma was in pure panic mode. She had to stop the lawsuit, and didn’t care how she did it or who she hurt in the process. What’s one more lie when there were already so many?

Another interesting point to bring up about Emma claiming the abuse had started a couple of weeks before, is that at this time, I was completely comfortable with the progression of things. In Oct., we’d gone with Fr. George Ivey of Holy Trinity Anglican church, to meet with the attorney’s who’d taken over Emma’s case. Earlier, I’d felt the church had tried to sweep Emma’s complaint under the rug, and later, when the church sent an attorney to investigate Emma’s accusation, this woman was supposed to be objective, but it was clear she was an adversary when she questioned Emma. The church paid her salary, so I’m not sure how she could have been objective. That December, I felt we were in good hands with the attorneys who were looking out for Emma. I just wanted to let them do their job. Emma and I had talked about how the attorneys would have to talk to her friend “Lacey” who’d been raped since that was what stirred up Emma’s memories of being molested. Emma had told me that was fine and “Lacey” would be ok with talking to them. Secretly, Emma was in a panic. The whole rape story was a lie, and if the attorneys talked to “Lacey” Emma’s big lie would be discovered!

Emma stated that I became violent when I was unable to view a pay-per-view television program without paying for it and struck her right shoulder with a cooking pot. Well, for starters, we didn’t have cable or dish and did not have pay-per-view. Later when I spoke to DFACs, I was told I struck her with the handle of a pot. I looked at our caseworker and said, “How would you even do that?”

I won’t repeat Emma’s story of kicking the bathroom cabinet and then claiming I kicked her foot into the dishwasher, as this story is already posted in the blog elsewhere. I do think the cherry popsicle sticks added a nice touch, don’t you?

One of the officer’s called the Department of Family and Children’s Services for Jackson, County, Ga., and it took a while for the social worker to arrive, as I believe they told me the social worker on call had to come from Athens, Ga. to our home in Hoschton, quite a distance away. Caseworker Tamara Hardy was a short, obese, black woman who seemed to have a chip on her shoulder. I don’t take it personally that she seemed to dislike me. After all, her job was to protect children, or as one psychologist told me, “DFACS job is to keep its name out of the paper.” I have known enough former and current DFACS employees to know what a horrible job it is with low pay, horrible hours, understaffing, under-appreciation, stress, high turnover, etc.

Just like the police, Tamara Hardy spoke to me privately and to Emma privately. Emma, meanwhile, was hugging me, putting her arms around me, holding on to me, when we were together, and telling me that she didn’t know who would have called the police. I wondered outloud if someone from the church, who knew we were about to sue the church, made the call in retaliation for our upcoming law suit. Emma jumped on this idea and kept bringing up the name of. B., a woman who had been through a trial against her ex-husband who was accused of molesting their daughter. Before and during the trial, Emma often babysat for B.’s daughter, the alleged victim. She would come home after babysitting and tell me stories about B. preparing for the trial, about the child’s behavior, about special things Emma had to do and how she had to treat the little girl because of the abuse. I’m not going to repeat the things Emma said, and now I doubt any of it was true. Emma probably said these things to make it look like she was in the know of the situation.

I had no idea who it was that was supposed to be abusing Emma. I thought back to when Emma accused the priest of molesting her, and a Jackson County DFACS social worker, Cecelia Dove (mentioned in the police report of Dec. 21, 2010) and an officer from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department, who is now the sheriff of Jackson County, Janis G. Mangum came to our home unannounced. Emma cried and held on to me, afraid she was going to be taken away, but the social worker and officer Mangum assured us that they were just there to make sure Emma was safe and that this man no longer had access to Emma. I was thinking of this earlier visit and wondering if they thought Phill and I did not keep Emma safe and someone was reporting that she’d suffered some other kind of abuse.

Tamara Hardy was insistent that I find a place for Emma to go away from home. I understand now that had Emma been placed in foster care, it would have cost the state (or county), so Ms. Hardy was pressuring me to find a place for Emma to save money. At this point, it was after 1am, and I was reluctant to start calling people to see if Emma could go to their homes. Emma kept telling me she could go stay with “Aunt Sandi” (Sandra Brooks McCravy) , that “Aunt Sandi” would come get her, etc. For whatever reason, my gut instinct was that there was something not right about that. I had no idea that Emma had been on the phone several times that day, calling Aunt Sandi and planning her little event out. I called my friend Janice, and she would have taken Emma, but she does not see well enough to drive at night. The police or the social worker could not drive Emma to another county, and I said I could take her to Janice’s, and Ms. Hardy made it clear that I could not take Emma anywhere. At some point Tamara Hardy made a slip to indicate that I was the one accused of abusing Emma.

I was stunned. Someone was accusing me of abusing my own daughter? I can’t even describe what was going through my head. This was crazy. Later, my attorney who handled the divorce would say, “How do you go from stay-at-home-mom, homeschooling mom, to abusing your daughter when she turns 17? This doesn’t even make sense.”

I out and out asked Tamara Hardy, “You mean someone accused ME of abusing my daughter?” and she looked very sheepish, embarrassed that she’d let that slip out. Now, at least I understood why Ms. Hardy was giving me such attitude.

This whole evening, on and off, I called Phill and kept him updated on what was going on. When I told him that Emma wanted to go to Sandi’s, he did not feel right about it either. I don’t remember if it was his idea or mine, but I called our priest, Fr. George Ivey (Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Flowery Branch, Ga.) Emma got an overnight bag together, and I think Fr. George and Paulette picked up Emma sometime after 3:00 AM, and took her to their home in Buford, Ga., about 20 minutes from our home in Hoschton.
In Case you missed it in an earlier post, again here is Emma’s police report for the night of Dec. 21, 2010:
Emma’s Police Report
Case Number 2010-76730
Jackson County S.O. Incident report
Narrative
Reporting officer: T. Burke
Statement Date 12/22/2010
284 Buck Trail,
Hochton, GA
Narrative:
On Cec. 21 2010, I was dispatched to the above location regarding a welfare check. I was informed by dispatch via telephone that they had received requests from two separate persons to check on the wefare of a seventeen year old female who resides at the location. Dispatch stated that one of the requester was a doctor (Jeannie Brunette 770-289-xxxx http://www.mannatreatment.com/our_staff) who provides care to the person, and the other was a friend (Sandra McCravy 404-547-8xxx) of the person and both were concerned for her well being. Dispatch also stated there may have been physical abuse of the person (Daughter, Emma Roey), by the mother, over the past two weeks with one incident possibly occurring on this date. Upon arrival to the residence, I made contact with the mother, who stated everything was okay, and that her daughter was asleep. I then asked to speak to the daughter to ensure everything was alright. The daughter immediately came to the door, apparently she was standing behind the door when I arrived. I asked the daughter, Emma, if she would come outside so I could speak with her in private. When Emma came outside, she appeared to be terrified, and stated she was afraid of her mother who she stated suffered from “Paranoid Borderline Personality Disorder” and would become violent with little or no provocation then not remember the incident. Emma said that earlier in the evening while watching television her mother became irate when she was unable to view a pay-per-view television show without paying for it and ultimately struck her on the right shoulder with a cooking pot from the kitchen. I asked Emma if the assault resulted in any visible injury and she stated no but it could possibly produce a bruise in the near future. Emma did show me the area and I saw no sign of injury. Emma continued her account of the abuse she had suffered over the past couple of weeks saying that at one point in time her mother had kicked her right foot into the dishwasher which resulted in what she initially thought was three broken toes however the pain had subsided and she did not believe they were actually broken, but that she did apply a splint made from a popsicle stick to them for several days. Emma said the red discoloration to the toes was due to the fact the popsicle stick obtained from a cherry flavored popsicle. Emma stated her mother’s disorder stemmed from an incident where she (Emma) had been sexually assaulted by an assistant pastor at a local church which came to light this past May. Emma continued to relay that she would be assaulted by her mother when I left if I did not remove her from the residence, and was in fear for her own safety. I then spoke with her mother, who stated she had spent the day with Emma and there had been no problems or incidents. After a consultation with Sgt. S. H. I attempted to contact a representative of the Department of Family and Children’s services, and was able to do so after numerous attempts. I spoke with Cecilia Dove and advised her of the situation, and she contacted her caseworker Tamara Hardy who responded to the scene. I remained on scene until Ms. Hardy was able to complete her investigation and establish a plan of action to resolve the issue.

Coming up next:
Emma and SEFF (Southeast Electric Flight Festival, Americus, Ga.) http://www.seffweek.com/ hosted by the Fayette Flyers of Georgiahttp://www.fayetteflyers.com/ April 7-13,, 2014, SEFF is held at: Hodges Hobbies Field, 428 Neil Hodges Road, Andersonville, GA 31711 https://www.facebook.com/HodgesHobbies

Emma

Emma and Kayla —–With Friends Like This…

Posted on November 16, 2013 by losingemma

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.)

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……….

A Worried Mother…..

Posted on October 15, 2013 by losingemma

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

Sandra Brooks McCravy lying for Emma

Posted on June 18, 2013 by losingemma

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Chapter 1 The Big Lie That Started it All

Posted on January 20, 2013 by losingemma

(If you are new to this blog, you may want to read the posts “In a Nutshell” or go to July and read “Sending out a Letter.” Both of these posts give a brief description of what happened. As Emma’s mom, I 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 attending Piedmont college in Demorest, Ga. She has been telling people she is engaged to a young man named T. Emma does not care who she hurts to get what she wants, and I hope for T.’s sake, Emma gets some help before she gets married. )

Why would a child make up a story about rape? Let me give you some details of what was going on with Emma in Dec. of 2010, when Emma made up the rape story about on on-line friend she had never met in person. Could all this have been over a boy? Read on and see what you think.

On Emma’s 16th birthday, her dad and I went to pick her up at her church youth group. Upon entering the parish hall, Emma ran up to me to tell me that her on-line friend from an English class pen-pal project had called her during her youth group meeting. Emma claimed that the friend, whom I will call “Lacey”, called Emma from the hospital after being raped. Emma was so shocked and shaken up, I really believed something had happened, but the whole thing seemed so bizarre. Emma went off with her friends, and I talked to one of the youth group leaders for a few moments, sharing with her what Emma had told me. One of the youth leaders had gotten a cake for Emma’s birthday, so everyone had cake and ice cream at the end of the meeting. Later, when we got in the van to leave, Emma was very angry with me for talking to the youth group leader about what she told me.

Over the next few days, Emma claimed she tried to call Lacey several times, but couldn’t reach her. She said she spoke to her older sister. Over that week Emma changed the story and said that Lacey had been raped some time previously and was in the hospital because she tried to commit suicide. Emma said Lacey’s extended family had been over for a family gathering, when Lacey had taken some pills, laid down on her mother’s bed, was found unresponsive by a family member, and then taken to the hospital. I did not know Lacey or her family, so I was not going to call them about such a personal matter. This turned out to be a big mistake. Later on, Emma said that Lacey told her that the man who raped her threatened to kill her family if she told anyone who he was so Lacey was afraid to talk about what happened. Over the next couple of months , I asked Emma how Lacey was doing . Emma said that Lacey was in therapy and didn’t want to talk about what happened. Emma told me that Lacey also had been molested as a child and volunteered with a group at her church that counseled or supported other victims of molestation.
Sometime during the summer of 2009, Emma told me that Lacey’s mother had breast cancer. She said Lacey had been homeschooled, but was going to public school for 10th grade because her mother was too sick to homeschool her. Emma told me that Lacey had called or texted her to tell her that her mother was hospitalized several times that summer. On at least two occasions, Emma told me that Lacey’s mom was in the hospital and was so sick, that the doctors thought she might not survive. Later, I was to find out that about the only truth to all the things Emma said was that Lacey’s mom did have breast cancer, but she was never hospitalized and never close to dying. She did outpatient Chemo and was never on death’s door as Emma led us to believe.

What would make Emma create such a bizarre story about her friend? Was it so she could get upset at youth group, feign concern about an emergency phone call, and let all her friends know how upset she was?

Over the summer and fall, Emma had been spending a lot of time around a young man in the youth group. The two of them seemed to like each other, and it was all very sweet, but after a while the young man pulled away from Emma. While it is my goal to get to the truth, it is not my wish to embarrass Emma as to why the boy lost interest in her, but Emma was still very interested in this young man. She talked about him frequently, had told me that he said he loved her, and said that when his dad was visiting from Va., the boy wanted Emma to meet him. I thought that seemed like a stretch considering the two had never even been on a date, but I just let it go.

I’ve spoken to a psychologist, a couple of social workers who work with problem children, and a Ph.D. counselor who told me that teenage girls often get so engrossed in young love, thinking that their love interest is “the one” whom they will spend the rest of their lives with, that these young girls don’t take it well when they are rejected. Is that what happened with Emma? She didn’t get the boy she wanted, so she made up all this drama? Did she just want attention, or was she hoping all the drama would get this boy’s attention? Kids lie all the time. We all know that, but wasn’t this a bit extreme? All this over a boy?

More Lies

Posted on November 11, 2012 by losingemma

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

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

Emma Kate Roey
Emma Katherine Roey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Emma’s FB posts to Sandi

Dec. 24, 4:25 pm

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

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

Dec. 24 2010 6:04pm

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

Dec. 24, 2010, 7:22

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

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

Losing Emma

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The Police At the Door