California Holds Medically Kidnapped Adult Daughter for 14 Years

Jeffrey and Elsie Golin have been fighting against the State of California and California’s San Andreas Regional Center (SARC) for nearly fifteen years to have their daughter returned to them. SARC is a community-based, private nonprofit corporation that is funded by the State of California to serve people with developmental disabilities and works with Stanford University. The Golins are fighting for their autistic daughter Nancy’s right to be able to return home to live with them, and fighting for the right to advocate for their daughter’s best interests. According to their main attorney, Dave Beauvais, there are two main issues that lie at the heart of this ongoing case. The first is the issue of the Golin’s losing all rights to act in their own daughter Nancy’s best interests and the second is the issue of whether a person who is disabled has the same protection under the U.S. Constitution as a non-disabled person does. The two issues the state brought as grounds for removing Nancy from their care were the fact that she wanders away and the fact that the Golins disagreed with the doctors at Stanford University about which medication was best to prevent Nancy’s seizures.

From Child Protection to State-sponsored Child Kidnapping: How Did we Get Here?

When most people today hear of a terrible child abuse case, their immediate reaction is to call on the government to protect the child and bring justice to bear on the situation. This reliance upon government to enforce child protection, rather than families, churches or non-profit groups, is a relatively new concept in history. As American government has grown ever larger in response to society’s expectations that it should be all children’s protector, Americans have discovered these good intentions have created a system that is becoming more and more intrusive, demanding and corrupt. Parents’ protests, state hearings and local media attention are gradually bringing the public’s attention to a Child Protective Services (CPS) system that has the power to rip children from their parents – and do it without any of the civil rights and protections ALL American citizens are guaranteed. How did a government service meant to protect children become something entirely different? How and when did CPS start – and why are Americans facing its growing power without even basic civil rights?

South Carolina Medically Kidnapped 4 Year Old Went Missing From Foster Care, Found After Police Search

The past few months have been a nightmare for the Headley family, but last Saturday night may have been the worst yet for the South Carolina family whose children were medically kidnapped this summer. While 4 year old Jack was under the care of the Child Protective System, he was reported missing by the foster mother. He was found in some bushes about 4 hours later, but the thought of what could have happened to their little boy has concerned family and friends asking for some answers. They don't understand how the state could take their child from them, and then allow him to go missing under their watch. An Amber alert was never issued, and family members question why. Failure to issue an Amber alert or to provide a description and photo when the child is a foster child unnecessarily put the lives of foster children in jeopardy. According to the FBI, in 76 percent of the murders of an abducted child, the child was murdered within 3 hours of the abduction. Time is of the essence in reporting missing children, and the first 3 hours are the most crucial. Do not children who have been taken into "protective" custody by the state deserve to have Amber alerts and accurate descriptions if they are missing? How does the state justify having less, not more, protection of those children in its care? Jack was removed from his own home and his own family out of alleged concerns for his safety, yet it was under the care of a state-provided foster family that he was lost.

Shocked Arizona Mother Finds GoFundMe Page for Medical Needs of Daughter Medically Kidnapped

We have previously covered the medical kidnapping story of Leanna Smith, who had her two daughters removed from her family and eventually adopted out due to allegations of "medical abuse" and Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. Leanna has been fighting in court for several years now to seek justice, and earlier this year her case was heard in the 9th Circuit Court. This week, Leanna found a GoFundMe page put up by the foster parents of her youngest child requesting funds for medical needs and to move out of their home which was infested with mold. Leanna wonders if CPS and the State of Arizona did any investigations with the foster parents as they have publicly admitted that her youngest daughter now has DRESS syndrome, severe rashes, and "serious damage to her liver." Leanna, who has had no contact with her daughter in several years, states: "I fear for my daughter's life. She may need a liver transplant. Every day now I read the obituaries looking for her name."

Accusations of Shaken Baby Syndrome in Tennessee Destroys Family – Lands Parents in Jail

On August 15, 2013, in Jonesborough, Tennessee, Joe Whitaker frantically spoke to 911 as he tried to save his seven month old son, Jaden. According to Joe, the ambulance raced into their driveway. A female Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) jumped out, grabbed Jaden from his arms, slammed the ambulance doors, and sped away. Joe stood in the driveway watching the ambulance pull away, confused with the events that just occurred. What happened? Where were they taking his son? Why did they leave without him? Seconds later, Charlotte Whitaker reached her house and saw Joe standing in the driveway; her heart jumped into her throat. Where was her son? Luckily, the second rescue truck was still in front of her house, and the driver told the terrified parents that their son was being taken to Johnson City Medical Center (JCMC) in Johnson City, Tennessee. Why would the ambulance leave the parents in the driveway? According to Charlotte, this is one of many incidences that would be twisted by CPS to aid them in falsely accusing the Whitakers of child abuse and taking their baby. This question became "Why didn’t Joe Whitaker get into the ambulance with his son?" rather than "Why did the rescue personnel leave the parents behind?" Later that day their other two children would be taken away from their school, never to return home again, while both parents would later be arrested and accused of "Shaken Baby Syndrome."

Massachusetts Prosecutors Withheld Exculpatory Evidence in Shaken Baby Case

In the Boston Globe, columnist Yvonne Abraham writes about how prosecutors in the Middlesex County, Mass., district attorney’s office withheld exculpatory evidence in the Shaken Baby Syndrome case against Irish nanny Aisling Brady McCarthy. These prosecutors didn’t just rely on bad science; they actively suppressed evidence that not only should have informed that their theories about these cases were flawed, but was ultimately the evidence that led to the accused getting freed. A just system would sanction them. If they aren’t punished, there’s little disincentive to do it again, or for other prosecutors who might be tempted to shortchange a suspect’s rights.

South Carolina Mother Arrested For Child Abuse After Questioning Doctors and Losing her Children

Danielle and William Headley's four boys were seized by South Carolina Child Protective Services in July, following frustration by the parents over the care that their youngest son, Jack, now 4, was receiving at Greenville Memorial Hospital. A Child Abuse Specialist has accused Danielle of Munchausen by Proxy, and last week, Danielle was arrested on charges of Child Abuse and Neglect. The family is devastated and maintains that Danielle is innocent of any wrong-doing. It has been over 100 days since any family member has been permitted to see the children.

Houston Couple Gagged and Told to Fire CPS-fighting Attorney in Order to See Medically-Kidnapped Child

Earlier this year, in May of 2015, we reported on the story of the Giwa family in Houston, who had their 19 month old son medically kidnapped by Texas CPS. Randy Wallace of Fox News Houston broke the story. Ahmed Giwa, the father of 19-month old Ali, contacted Health Impact News and MedicalKidnap.com at that time about publishing their full story. This was the last statement we received from him by email in May 2015: "Currently waiting for the Police outside the hospital where they have our son because CPS said they should not allow us in. Let us schedule next week outside Monday please. The Police (are) here now." Multiple attempts to contact Ahmed and follow up after this email was received were unsuccessful, and we suspected that a gag order had been placed on the parents in an attempt to stop the media and the public from learning any more about their story. Both Ahmed and his wife Olubunmi have now contacted Health Impact News, and they want the world to know their story. Not only were they issued a gag order and told not to talk to the media, they were told they had to fire their attorney if they wanted to see their son again. The family had retained the services of Attorney Julie Ketterman in Houston, who has a history of fighting back against CPS and standing up for family rights. She has publicly stated: "CPS profits every time they place a child outside the home for adoption. It has stopped being a resource for families in need and has instead turned into an adoption mill." Will the people of Houston and Texas continue to allow these gross abuses of Constitutional rights to continue in their state?

Medical Kidnapping in San Bernardino California: Innocent Mom Goes To Jail?

September 4, 2013, a San Bernardino County social worker instructed the mother of two-year-old Melina to “pack up her daughters stuff…she belongs to the county now.” Heavenly Ramos of Upland California, the mother of Melina, had her daughter removed from her home based on allegations that she had 5 bone fractures, all with different levels of healing, throughout her body. Christopher McCown, who had been with Heavenly and little Melina since she was two months old, raced home after a 2 hour interrogation by CPS, but he was moments too late. In tears, Heavenly recalls him saying, “I didn’t even get to say good bye…they took her and I couldn’t even tell her how much I love her.” Eleven months after that day, CPS removed their other child, newborn son Jacob, hours after his birth. The couple now has no children left at home.

Indiana Parents Who Lost Daughter and Had Lives Destroyed by CPS Awarded $31 Million

The Indiana Department of Child Services has been ordered to pay $31 million to a family accused of abuse in the death of their daughter. In 2005, Jessica Salyer, 14, died from prescription errors. A year and a half later, her parents Roman and Lynnette Finnegan, were arrested on neglect charges -- accused of beating Salyer to death. Investigators said there were signs of blunt force trauma to Salyer's head and multiple signs of internal bleeding. However, experts testified that the internal bleeding was caused by Salyer's heart medication and that the trauma to the head was a result of an autopsy. The Pulaski County prosecutor dropped the charges in November 2007, and a judge dismissed the case with prejudice. However, DCS would not clear the allegations from the family's file. Over the span of 10 years, attorneys for the Finnegan's said DCS made their life "a living hell." Two of their children were placed in foster care for nine months. They also exhumed Jessica's body after she had been buried. After the arrest and accusations, Roman Finnegan lost his job. The family also lost their home and possessions.

20 Year Old Autistic Girl in Michigan Medically Kidnapped Over Treatment Disagreement

Savannah Garcia, or Hannah, as she is known to those who love her, is a fun-loving young lady who is an important part of her community in Traverse City, Michigan. The 20 year old is a regular fixture at her neighborhood ballpark, where she cheers on her favorite players, and she is well-loved by all who know her. She loves her dog, her family and friends, stuffed animals, frappes, and her fiance. Even though she is autistic, she has been living in an apartment attended by a care team, and has been involved in making many of her own choices. Until September 4, 2015. That was the day that 2 doctors at Munson Medical Center filed a petition to remove Hannah's mother as her guardian and to name a person completely unknown to the family, Stephanie Strehl, as her guardian. She is now a prisoner being held against her will, and the will of her family, at Munson Medical Center. The guardian Stephanie Strehl has forbidden every single one of Hannah's friends to see her. Her family, including her brother and grandparents, aren't allowed to visit her. Her mother has been the only loved one permitted by the new guardian to visit her, for 3 hours per day. At the end of last week, Hannah's sister was granted the privilege of visiting her for up to 1 hour a day. She lives and attends medical school 5 hours round-trip away. Her attorney can see her, IF he notifies them 48 hours in advance, and then he is only allowed 30 minutes. When she goes to the bathroom or takes a shower, she isn't even allowed to shut the door. She isn't permitted to attend meetings where people other than her family are making decisions for her life and future. Therapies that were previously scheduled before her confinement at Munson have allegedly been cancelled, and her caregivers all dismissed. Even the right to receive mail, another right retained by convicted felons, has been taken away from Hannah since around September 21.

Child Protection Services is Out of Control – What Ordinary Citizens Can Do About It

Children yanked from loving homes over and over again for the flimsiest of reasons. Parents desperately seeking to bring them home as their rights are trampled, their homes overrun, their lives disrupted, their reputations smeared, their savings bankrupted. Foster care and adoptions ramrodded through the system despite willing extended family members to take them in. And worst, children are lost for years within the foster system, over-drugged, abused, even trafficked into horrible situations. All of these have been documented by MedicalKidnap.com, as well as many others. How has Child Protective Services fallen into what appears to be, in too many cases around the nation, legal kidnapping? Try $6.8 billion dollars – that’s billion with a “B” -- in federal funding that is projected for CPS fostering and adopting out children in 2015.

Kentucky Baby Medically Kidnapped Along with Siblings and Forced on to Formula

Cody and Ashley Miller of Kentucky took their sick 5-month old baby Easton to the Emergency Room of Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee late Saturday evening, September 26, 2015. When Vanderbilt made allegations of abuse against these concerned parents, they could barely comprehend what was happening. Ashley painfully recalled that moment when Shell Peters, the CPS worker (or DCBS in Kentucky) entered the hospital room with 2 officers, and uttered those 2 words: "We’re taking…" Ashley painfully recalls, "My world crumbled when I heard those 2 words. I was nursing Easton one moment, and then they walked in, and then I was balling my eyes out hysterically. He can’t be on formula – I’m breastfeeding!"

A Year After Emergency Room Visit, North Carolina Couple Still Fighting for Medically Kidnapped Newborn

In what is becoming an all-too-familiar scenario, a young couple living in Fayetteville, North Carolina, took their baby to the emergency room when he was not acting right, only to find themselves almost a year later still battling to try to bring their child home out of Child Protective Services custody.

Riverside County California Finds Child Pornography Ring in Foster Care but Does Nothing About it

John David Yoder was a licensed foster parent. He lived in a two-bedroom house with two adopted sons, a preteen boy for whom he was seeking guardianship, and a neighborhood teenager who had moved in after an argument with his parents. Someone called a child abuse hotline, reporting that a parent in Desert Hot Springs was molesting two boys. The caller said the man also kept pictures of boys posing in their underwear on his computer. To these social workers, these underwear pictures were concerning, but they were not concerning enough. Social workers classified the investigation as "inconclusive," then closed their inquiry, according to Riverside County court documents. Today, that same parent, John David Yoder, sits behind bars, a suspect in what officials have called one of the worst child pornography rings in Southern California in recent years. Yoder and three other suspects have been accused of victimizing as many as 15 children in Desert Hot Springs, including some of the boys that lived with him. Yoder was arrested in February as result of a separate investigation by law enforcement in Nevada. The charges he now faces are nearly identical to the allegations that were reported to the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services shortly before Christmas. If social workers had acted differently in December, the boys in Yoder's home could have been rescued six weeks earlier.

UCLA Doctor to Face Jury Trial in Medical Kidnap Case

As the new pediatric specialty of "Child Abuse Specialist" continues to expand and take children away from parents based on suspected "medical abuse" or "medical neglect," it was inevitable that one of these cases where a child was wrongly taken away from good parents based on the expert opinion of these "Child Abuse" doctors would make its way through the courts. Recently the Ninth Circuit Court ruled that Dr. Claudia Wang, the medical director of UCLA's Suspected Child Abuse and Negligence (SCAN) team, does not have immunity from civil lawsuits. Those of us here at Health Impact News and MedicalKidnap.com believe the Ninth Circuit made the correct ruling, and we truly hope that others will be able to file complaints in Civil Court and prosecute over-zealous pediatric Child Abuse Specialists who wrongfully take children away from loving parents and homes simply based on medical tests. Doctors who make mistakes due to negligence that result in traumatizing children and families, the results of which can affect them for the rest of their lives, should be held accountable for their actions.

Los Angeles Father Who Had Son Die in DCFS Care Loses Custody of Daughter Also

Yesterday we reported the story of Jason Janbahan and how he lost custody of his 5 year old son to LA County DCFS due to a charge of "medical neglect," and then saw his son die from medical complications while staying in a foster care group home. Mr. Janbahan told his emotional story during an interview with the National Safe Child Show. On Monday September 28, 2015 Mr. Janbahan returned to dependency court in Los Angeles regarding the custody of his only remaining child, his daughter Sarah. Unfortunately for Mr. Janbahan, just months after the death of his son who died a tragic death while in DCFS care, he also lost his daughter when a judge in dependency court put his daughter into permanent placement. Before the hearing, Jason went to the sheriff's station to file charges against the social workers and county counsel alleging illegal conduct, fraud and collusion.

“Terrorism” of Child Welfare System to Families to Be Addressed in Arkansas Legislature

Families caught up in dealing with Child Protective Services nationwide are frustrated with a system which allows families to be terrorized and destroyed, often based on unproven allegations and even outright lies. Legislators in Arkansas will be hearing from families and attorneys on Thursday, October 1 at 1:00 pm in a Joint Performance Review Committee meeting, who will be explaining why there needs to be an overhaul or even elimination of the current child welfare system. Hal Stanley represents one of the families who will be present at the hearing. Their homeschooled children were taken away from them in January on the basis of a mineral supplement in their home that the FDA has warned against, but is not illegal. The children are home now, but the Stanleys are determined to have legislators understand the incredible damage done to innocent families, like theirs, when Child Protective Services separate children from their parents without evidence of wrong-doing.

Medically Kidnapped Child in LA County DCFS Care Dies – Father Vows to Expose Criminal Social Workers

A report written about LA County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) revealed that during an 18 month period, of the thousands of children who were taken away from their parents and family members, 571 of them died while under the supervision of LA County DCFS. On Sunday September 28, 2015 Jason Janbahan appeared on the National Safe Child show to tell his story, and how a corrupt social service agency in LA County was responsible for the kidnapping and death of his 5 year old son. Having his son removed from his home due to a charge of "medical neglect," in spite of the fact that medical reports showed that his son was in normal health, once under the care of a foster mother in a group home, the 5 year old boy's fragile immune system deteriorated rapidly, and he died while in the custody of LA County DCFS.

3 Oppressive Texas CPS Agents Receive Felony Indictments

Criminal charges against CPS employees related to their actions in child protective services cases are rare. Indictments were handed down last Thursday to 1 of the 3 Child Protective Services (CPS) subordinates who were charged with Oppression, tampering with evidence, and falsifying and forging documents to conduct illegal searches and seizures, which are third degree felonies, punishable upon conviction by a maximum sentence of from two to 10 years in prison and an optional fine of up to $10,000. 60 year-old Laura Marsh Ard, the former program director for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services office in Rockwall, received one indictment for tampering with physical evidence. Reynolds, of Fate, received three indictments for official oppression, and one indictment for tampering and fabricating physical evidence. All these charges stem from an alleged case where all three conspired to use false documents in an investigation of the mother of a murdered teenager Alicia Moore from Greenville. Thonginh and Reynolds conducted unlawful searches and seizures in association with CPS investigations. The tampering with physical evidence indictments say that all three defendants collaborated together back on November 6th, 2012. “to use a record and/or document to wit: the risk assessment involving Aretha Moore … with knowledge of its falsity and with intent to affect the course or outcome of the investigation.”