Judge Covering His Own Butt

     I just heard a newscast where Judge Mark Loyd was telling Channel 8 News that he didn't have all the facts in the case when he granted unsupervised visitation to Amanda Smith for little Jacob Smith, age 3. He stated that he wasn't aware of the numerous calls made by Amanda to law officials. He also stated if he had been made aware of this he MIGHT have made a different ruling about the visitation. Then he tried to throw the guilt on Amanda's mother by saying she was the one who made the decision of where and when Amanda could see her son. But then he did say he had received a letter from Amanda this past December requesting one overnight visit per week but that she wished for Jacob to remain in her parents' custody. He admitted that he knew that she had a crack addiction because she had requested help a few years ago because of the addiction and she didn't know if she could take care of her children. Just knowing that she was addicted to crack at one time, he should have ordered a drug screen on her before he made his ruling to grant her petition. He should have gotten information from Amanda's mother about how Amanda was behaving with the child. He could have done a whole lot more than he did but I guess it was just too much of an effort for him. I certainly hope that the voters in Johnson County remove him from office.

     Little Jacob Jesus Smith's funeral will be at the Jessen Funeral Home, Franklin Chapel, 197 E. Jefferson Street in Franklin, Indiana at 2 pm on Friday, March 2, 2012. Visitation will be from noon until service time at the funeral home . He will then be laid to rest at the Friendship Cemetery outside of Trafalgar, Indiana, where his ancestors have been resting for generations.

   R I P Little Jacob

 March 7, 2008 - February 27, 2012

Child's Murder Could Have Been Prevented

     This is my first post and I guess it really is a "flight of fantasy" to think that the justice system would protect our young children from senseless and preventable deaths.

     I found out a few hours ago about the horrific death of a 3 year old little boy by the hands of his mother and it occurred in the small town of Trafalgar, Indiana, where I lived during most of my growing up years. This death was most certainly preventable but because the judge in charge of the case decided that the woman's parental rights were more important than the safety of the little boy, Jacob J. Smith, he died by drowning in his mother's bathtub on Monday, February 27, 2012. 

From what I understand from reading all the accounts of what happened and what went on before, no one wanted her to have visitation rights, but if she had to have visitation then it needed to be SUPERVISED. The judge (Mark Loyd) had proof of her unhinged mental state, her own mom (who was guardian of Jacob) didn't want her to have the child, Jacob's father was trying to go back to court to question the unsupervised visitation and he was trying to get custody, but our judges these days seem only concerned with protecting the rights of the offender. The judge ordered that she was to have visitation one night a week, but it was to be UNsupervised. People ask "Well why did her mother give the boy over to her if she feared for the child's life?" I will let you know why I think she did: she didn't want to go to jail for visitation interference. What good could she do for Jacob if she was in jail? Then her daughter would have Jacob all the time, not just for one night a week. Jacob's mother might have been insane but it was a crafty kind of insane, it seems. She used the justice system for her own ends and knew how to work it. She might have learned how to when she had her other children removed from her care previously. So if her mom didn't hand Jacob over then all Amanda had to do was to inform the court that her mom was in contempt of the court order. And Child Protection Services are not what they need to be in the state of Indiana. The ones that I have had to deal with all seem so apathetic about the children they are suppose to protect. If you call to report someone for something you KNOW is going on, then they treat you like you are on old busybody and don't do anything about it.

     I have been in the same shoes as Jacob's grandmother. I have tried to protect my grandson from his unfit father and before that I tried to protect my daughter from him while she was married to him. But he had her so under his thumb and so scared and he had her self esteem at rock bottom that she wouldn't leave him. When she finally couldn't take his physical abuse any longer she left him. But we still had to deal with him because of their son. And this guy use to watch Law and Order and use it as a playbook. He researched as much as he could as to the law and what he could get away with and when he went past those boundaries and we had to call the cops, the cops wouldn't do anything. They said they couldn't get involved in domestic disputes! He even raped my daughter a year after she left him and still the cops would do nothing! The prosecutor's office told me they had declined to press charges against him. And when my grandson started showing signs of being sexually molested when he was 4 years old, I contacted Child Protection and they told the cops that I was making it up because of a divorce case. They made my daughter sit in the hallway while they questioned my grandson, who had never met these people before in his life and was scared. They only talked to him a short while and then said he was fine and they weren't going to pursue it. They lied to the cops and said my daughter was in the room with her son while they questioned him and they said they questioned him at length. What rubbish! And then my daughter was back in court trying to get full custody and trying to get supervised visitation for her ex. At least this judge DID grant supervised visitation but that was only because he had kidnapped my grandson and only gave him back right before the court hearing. The cops wouldn't do anything about the kidnapping either. But the person that the judge appointed as the supervisor was my ex son-in-law's own mother! The woman responsible for him being the way he was and the person who drove the get away car when they kidnapped my grandson! Talk about putting the fox in charge of the hen house! Thank God my grandson is 7 years old now and can tell us when anything has happened. He still doesn't like to say anything about his dad. When he does let something slip and you ask him about it, he just hangs his head and says "nothing, never mind". My daughter has the poor child seeing a child therapist which I am thankful for. At least he might feel he can eventually confide in her. But my ex son-in-law had threatened my daughter's life and also that of my grandson quite a few times. One time she was trying to escape him and he caught her and dragged her back up the stairs by her hair, held a butcher knife to her throat and said he was going to kill them all because he had nothing left to live for. All of this happened in front of my grandson who was about 2 and a half years old at that time. When the neighbors called the cops, he lied and held the baby as a shield and told them a big whopper of a story against my daughter and the cops believed him and never asked her what her side of the story was. It might have had something to do with his brother being a cop on that city's force. You think? So my grandson might believe if he says anything about his dad, his dad really might kill him.

     I think that Indiana has got to get rid of these judges who are not concerned with the safety of our children. It would be better to err on the side of caution than worry about if the perp's rights have been denied. Let him take it up on appeal. And Indiana needs to change the way Child Protection Services operates. Get some people in there who give a damn about the kids and get rid of these apathetic wimps who are afraid to make waves.

     One of my heroes is the woman who sat in jail for years without ever going to trial because the judge was holding her in contempt of court for not revealing where she was hiding her daughter from her ex husband. She knew her ex was molesting her daughter and she went through the channels she was suppose to and still nothing was being done to protect her little girl. So she sent her away to live and then refused to tell the judge where. She sacrificed seeing her little girl grow up plus her own freedom just so that she could be sure that her daughter wasn't hurt anymore.