Tag Archives: Kayla Benifield Weaver

Mother’s Day 2014

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“Blaming Mother is just a negative way of clinging to her still.” Author Unknown.

Happy Mother’s Day to my readers and to my darling Emma who made me a mom!  I really wanted to spend some time sharing some thoughts today, but have not been home long enough to do this, so I guess it will have to wait for another post.  In any event, I was thinking of Emma all day.  Even with the horrible things she’s done, I still have hope for my baby girl.  I had so many fun times as Emma’s mom.  The early years were simply amazing, seeing this baby grow into a toddler, then a little girl, then a tween, and a teen.  So many times I thought, “This is all I ever wanted, to be Emma’s mom.”  People have asked me if I had the chance to do it over, would I have still had a child? I can’t answer this, and I don’t live in the land of woulda, shoulda, coulda. What’s done is done. I love Emma, and I worry for Emma. I fear that she will continue to ruin her life and hurt those around her, but what Emma does is out of my control  Through all this, I’ve gone on with my life, and through all this, I still find life pretty amazing. That doesn’t mean I don’t have some bad days. When you’ve been through such a horrible experience like this, you are never the same, and it never goes away. You can curl up and die or go on to make the best life you can. I’m still working on it, but I have chosen the latter.

I will get back to writing about Emma and therapy when I have a little more time.

Emmaisms

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Emmaisms
“I have Google in my head.”
Emma always knew she was a smart kid. The first time I heard Emma say this was when she started high school at JCCHS. She came home from 9th grade and claimed somebody asked her how she knew so much, and this was her reply.

Emma’s Descent into Therapy Part 2, Preface to Manna Treatment

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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 suit because she knew her lies were about to be discovered. I am that mother. Emma claims to have toxicology reports showing that I poisoned her with DDT, essentially accusing me of ATTEMPTED MURDER, but refuses to turn over these reports to my attorney. She also claims that while living with her boyfriend’s family, her boyfriend’s mother was afraid I would show up and kill her entire family. When I 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 played Sandy when the church youth group did a dance skit from Grease, while the boy she had a crush on played Danny. The kids did a great job and it was a lot of fun. The cheerleader outfit came from a friend who graduated from Sandy Springs High School, Sandy Springs, Ga

Emma played Sandy when the church youth group did a dance skit from Grease. The cheerleader outfit came from a friend who graduated from Sandy Springs High School, Sandy Springs, Ga

Manna Treatment – Preface
Before I start writing about our experience with Manna Treatment, I want to first mention my complaints I filed with the State Board about Manna Treatment and Dr. Genie Burnett.

We’ve pretty much established that Emma is a teller of tales. If you’ve read my blog this long, you’ve seen the stories and some of the documentation I’ve collected from others about lies that Emma has told. Emma has a long history of lying, and this is something I want to warn parents about. In our case, therapy was detrimental to Emma and our family. Emma was allowed to go into therapy and say who knows what, and the therapist did not let Phill and I know what kind of things she was saying.

After Emma was in the custody of DFACS, Phill and I found a letter she’d written to “Lacey” the cyber friend, mentioning that her attorneys were ready to file the lawsuit and that her mother had Paranoid Borderline Personality Disorder. Or, it may have been Borderline Paranoid Personality Disorder. I will have to dig out the letter and see. It doesn’t really matter. Phill and I couldn’t understand how Dr. Genie Burnett could have diagnosed me with anything as I was not her patient. I sat in on a few partial or full sessions with Emma, but that was all. How in the world does a professional psychologist diagnose someone they are not treating? To me, this certainly seems like unprofessional conduct!
Suzie McGarvey at Lanier Counseling (who is now with North Gwinnett Counseling Associates) later told Phill and I that Dr. Genie Burnett went through a checklist with Emma and said, “Does your mother do this, this, and this?” and that was how I got the professional diagnosis of Paranoid Borderline Personality Disorder from Dr. Genie Burnett. Wow. All those years of college and earning a Ph.D. and that’s all there is to it? I think I could do that job without a college degree, and I wouldn’t charge $135/hour to do it! Phill and I were stunned. I would love to see Dr. Genie Burnett’s notes to see exactly what Emma said about me. With her ability to embellish the simplest story, I’m sure she came up with quite an entertaining tale for Dr. Burnett!
I can understand a “professional” psychologist forming an opinion about a person. When Emma was taking AP Psychology on line (which is where I’m sure she got some of her abuse stories from) she would try to tell me I was this or that. Being a teenager with one Psychology course under her belt of course made her an expert, so in addition to being a “control freak” and “micromanaging” her life, if I put something away I was anal, if I checked to make sure I locked the door, I was OCD. I can’t even remember all the labels Emma gave me. Sometimes it was funny, other times annoying, but there was no doubt Emma was into her Psych class.
When Emma’s GI doctor (Emma had a long history of vomiting issues which she now claims is because I poisoned her for years with DDT.) recommended taking Emma to a psychiatrist to put her on an antidepressant, and he wanted me to check with her psychologist (Dr. Genie Burnett, Manna Treatment) to see if she felt like this was appropriate, I asked around for some names, including asking Dr. Genie Burnett. I was kind of surprised at her enthusiasm about Emma going on an antidepressant. She told me she thought it was a good idea and then said, “I’ve been on and off antidepressants for years!” This comment made me very uncomfortable, and the way she was so glib about it, and I told Phill that it bothered me. I thought to myself, “Hmmmm, even if you were on and off antidepressants for years, would you really want to tell people that?”
I don’t remember the name of the doctor that Dr. Burnett gave us, but we lived in Hoschton, and he was in Roswell, about an hour away. Later on I asked Dr. Burnett if she could recommend anyone closer and she told me that the reason she gave us the name of that psychiatrist was that he was going to be joining her office sometime in the next year.
We were having a difficult time getting Emma to get her school work done because she wanted to sleep all the time. She was vomiting a lot and taking Zofran up to three times a day, but I would also guess that Emma was tired because when we thought she was in bed, she was pretending to be asleep, but she was up at all hours of the night with her other “mommy” Sandi McCravy (Sandra Brooks McCravy) chit chatting on the phone. If I tried to discuss anything with Dr. Burnett, there would be hell to pay. Emma always looked at it like I was “telling” on her, rather than I was trying to work on our family life. Emma cared how Dr. Genie Burnett saw her, and wanted to present herself a certain way, but her mom always wrecked things by revealing that Emma was not this perfect little mature, well-spoken young woman she wanted people to think she was. If I said anything that Emma took as criticizing of her, she would be furious with me once we left Dr. Burnett’s office, so I didn’t say too much on the few sessions I sat in on.
I sent Dr. Burnett and e-mail about some of the problems we were having with Emma and how we were having trouble getting Emma to do her school work. When I took Emma to her next session, Dr. Burnett wanted me to come in with Emma for the first few minutes, and then I was MORTIFIED when Dr. Genie Burnett read my e-mail in front of Emma. I should have stopped Dr. Burnett immediately, but I was so shocked that she did that, I just didn’t think. You want to see one angry child! Once again, the story of my teenage daughter’s life, she was livid with her mother!
The comment about being on and off antidepressants for years, diagnosing me with Paranoid Borderline Personality Disorder, and reading my e-mail in front of Emma were all listed in my complaint with the board about Dr. Genie Burnett at Manna Treatment.

Later, I’ll get into how we chose Manna Treatment and Dr. Genie Burnett and while I have no idea what Emma said during her sessions, I can tell you how Emma acted before and after sessions, and things that she talked about to me after her sessions.

Emma’s Descent into Therapy Part 1 (UPDATED)

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***************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

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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.
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Therapy

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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 claims to have toxicology reports showing that her mother poisoned her with DDT. 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 I 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

I’m going to be working on writing about our experiences with Emma and therapy when I have a a little more time, but I wanted to share some thoughts on kids and therapy. Not long after Emma pulled her “I want to live in a group home.” stunt and told Suzie McGarvey at Lanier Counseling that she was being abused at home, someone I know started therapy with her family (husband and two kids). Her two children were fighting so much, they were making the family miserable.
The therapist wanted to meet with the parents first, and then said she would be working with them as a group. The mother asked if the therapist would see the children privately, without the parents and was told, “Oh, no. That gives the children too much power.” When the mother mentioned this to a mutual friend, this friend called me and had to tell me about what the therapist said. She pointed out that that was what happened in our case, Emma had all the power.
Just as a warning to parents, I want to mention that a child can go to a therapist and say any ol’ thing she/he wants, and if the child is a big fat liar who lies about, well, pretty much everybody, and claims to be abused, by law of course, the therapist has to report it. Also, in our experiences, Emma’s therapists were not going to call BS on Emma. Both Suzie McGarvey (Lanier Counseling, and now with North Gwinnett Counseling Associates) and Dr. Genie Burnett (Manna Treatment) claimed that when they tried to get Emma talk about being molested by a priest, she would turn on her mother. I have to wonder, did neither Suzie McGarvey nor Dr. Genie Burnett not question that Emma might be lying? Did they not feel like there was something odd going on. And yes, I realize that Emma’s story changed and suddenly she was abused by (shock and horror!) her own mother! Omigoodness, Emma’s mother how gave up her career to stay home with her, who home schooled Emma for 5 years, who put Emma in any activity she ever wanted to try (within reason—that her parents could afford) was a child abuser!

Emma As a church Acolyte in 2002

Emma As a church Acolyte in 2002


I have wondered why Suzie McGarvey (since we were not seeing Dr. Genie Burnett at that time) did not question Emma about the timing of her accusation against her mother. Let’s see………. Emma’s attorneys were about to file a lawsuit against the church, the diocese, AND the priest that Emma accused of sexual molestation and they were going to need to talk to Emma’s cyber friend who had been RAPED, and Emma would have to go to court and testify, so what does Emma do to bring everything to a screeching halt? Emma accuses her mother of physical abuse. Why did Suzie McGarvey not get to the bottom of Emma’s story? This is the therapist who told Phill and I that she felt very comfortable with us and we were only the 2nd couple that she felt she would trust with her own children. (Suzie McGravey and her husband, a financial planner, have two daughters whom Suzie brought to PetsMart when Emma and I were doing fundraising pet pictures with Santa. I still have the photos.)
Ok, so Suzie McGarvey felt like she could trust Phill and I with her own children, and she let Emma spew her lies during her sessions and never called her on it? I guess if you make your clients angry by calling BS, they stop going to you, and it affects your income. I don’t know. Maybe Suzie just isn’t a very good therapist.
I have more to say about therapy and I’ll be writing about our experiences with each of Emma’s therapists from the Treehouse in Winder, Ga. to Manna Treatment, Lanier Counseling, Social Empowerment Center, and Dr. Richard Born at Applied Psychological Health in Athens, Ga.

More to come………..

DDT again………..

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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.</em

Emma accused her mother of poisoning her with DDT, and I just can't figure out if I was trying to kill her or was it that I enjoyed all the attention Emma received from all the dr. visits because of her vomiting? (I'll write more about Emma's GI issues somewhere down the road and give my readers the full story.) Was it attempted murder or Van Munchausen by Proxy?

My attorney has been waiting for months for Emma to turn over the toxicology report she claims to have, proving that her mother poisoned her, and yet, she won't do it. I wonder why? I would like to move on with my life, but if I'm going to be accused of yet another crime, I would like to go ahead and deal with it. Emma, since you said these things, I wonder wny you won't own up to them?

I've been really busy with work, but thank you to my followers who have written. I hope to have time this weekend to start working on our experiences with Emma and therapy.
As always, if you have any questions or comments, you may contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com

Emma and SEFF (Southeast Electric Flight Festival)

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***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.

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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.

Emma’s Police Report

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Edited Jan 19 2014
(If you are new to this blog, you may want to read the posts “In a Nutshell” or go to July 2012 and read “Sending out a Letter.” Both of these posts give a brief description of what happened. As Emma’s mom, I am blogging my experiences with Emma and the things she did/does. This is a child who made up a story about rape, accused a priest of molesting her, and then as her attorney was about to file a lawsuit against the priest and the church, Emma accused her mother of physical abuse to stop the lawsuit because she knew her lies were about to be discovered. Emma is now engaged to Tyler Buchheim, an architecture student at Notre Dame,  living in Liberty Township Ohio at the home of her fiance’s grandparents, Merrie and Albert Knopp, and attending Wright State University .http://www.wright.edu/. Emma claims her mother poisoned her with DDT and that she had to move to Ohio to get away from her mother. She also claims her future mother-in-law, Sherry Knopp Buchheim, lives in fear that Emma’s mother will show up and kill her entire family.)
Emma 001

At least once a week, I run into someone or hear from someone who asks me about Emma. Where is she? What is she doing? What is wrong with her?

The other day, I went to the Jackson County, Ga. Sheriff’s office to pick up a copy of Emma’s police report. Or, I should say ONE of Emma’s police reports. This has been on my mind for quite some time, but I never seemed to get out there. I forgot to ask for the report on her molestation accusation, and the report where a car turned around in the driveway, so she thought her mother was stalking her, so I will be going back to get those.

After I picked up the report, I e-mailed Emma and told her that I had the report and asked her if she would like to discuss it before I published it on the blog. Today, I got an e-mail from a Katherine Smith, but it was signed by Emma Katherine Roey. (Maybe Emma has changed her name?) It was basically the same e-mail Emma sent me over a year ago telling me not to contact her by phone, text, e-mail, etc., and written just exactly as her attorney told her to. At the end of the e-mail, she threatened to take legal action against me if I contact her again. I guess I shouldn’t hold my breath on a facebook friend request from Emma.

I am sort of wondering about this. Emma can send me a “drop dead” e-mail, and then some time later Emma can contact me, but then if I e-mail Emma, she can send me another “drop dead” e-mail and threaten me with legal action if I contact her again? I know I was just a dumb housewife and mother (Emma described her dad, a truck driver for UPS, as someone who “Just sits on his butt all day.”), but I don’t think this argument would hold with a judge. I don’t think you can tell someone not to contact you, threaten them with legal action, and then contact them whenever the mood strikes you. Hmmmmm, maybe this is a question for Handel on the Law. No worries though, I have no intention of contacting Emma, however my door is always open should she wish to contact me again.

After going to the sheriff’s office, I went by DFACS and had an interesting conversation with one of the social workers. Apparently, having your child accuse of you abusing her is not all that uncommon.

I’m attaching Emma’s police report below. I did insert the link to Dr. Genie Burnett http://www.mannatreatment.com/our_staff into the report. In the next post, we will take this police report apart, line by line, and I will tell you exactly what happened.

I had to type in the police report because I couldn’t get the scanned copy to load, but if anyone would like a copy of the police report, just e-mail me at: losingemma@gmail.com and I will send it to you.

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.

 

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.)

Image

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……….