January 2023 – The Carpenter’s Daughter

Our World Changed

January 24, 2023 The Carpenter’s Daughter

Any decision that we make: right, wrong or indifferent affects our lives. What we don’t consider is how those decisions affect others as well. Even the young guys involved in all of this mess were fully aware of this too. They were preached this ideal from the Football coach with his F.A.M.I.L.Y. mantra. (Remember, I brought that up before?) These boys knew right from wrong; they knew what they were and weren’t allowed to do. I also, thoroughly believe that they planned out this entire day knowing fully well what their intent was going to be before they ever came over the night before. When I was going through my discovery packet and disks that our lawyer sent us, it was clear that those parents were told the exact same thing that these boys told me son. All of the parents wrote in the testimonies, and it’s on other reports (I’ll discuss later) that these boys were going to or attending football practice earlier that day. There are text messages from the SH’s mom to him asking him about shirts and clothing she was buying for him to take along to attend the camp where he was being scouted from. The morning of June 16, 2015, she texted him to see if he was awake. She told him that, “he better not be late for practice, because if the coach calls his dad, his dad will be upset”. He replied that he was getting up and heading to practice. (He lied, he never got up and went to ANY football practice). Later that day, she asked him how practice went, and he proceeded to tell her that, “the coach had them running up and down hills and he was exhausted”. (He really piled it on). He then asked if it was ok if he went back to our house to swim with our son. (Which he never left our house, and our son wasn’t home). Instead, they took it upon themselves to stay. They stayed and never left for any football practice. They did however leave. The left our house not once, but about 4 times to go to a convenience store. Here’s my question right off the bat? If I gave them permission to stay overnight and was told they were leaving by 8 am to go to work/football, once they left didn’t that permission end? Who gave them permission to levee and keep returning? We didn’t! Someone tried to tell us that our younger son who was home at the time gave them permission. I’m not buying that either. I think they bullied him to keeping quiet and I’ll tell you why later. Sometime around 11am, they decided that it was going to be a good idea to start drinking. They then videotaped themselves on snapchat doing so and posted it. I didn’t know this until we received the discovery info. SH is seen taking a shot of something quoting the tv show Jackass. My younger son was told they were pretending and drinking water. NA apparently was very upset about his grandfather passing away recently before all of this. He grabbed a bottle of rum that we bought on the cruise we just came home from. It was still sitting on the counter to be put away. Remember, we just got home 2 days prior? We had it sitting there because some of the bottles were going to be gifts. He took a bottle and drink pretty much the entire thing from what we were told. He then passed out in my son’s bed. NONE of those boys thought about calling us, their parents, NO ONE! I believe that once NA became intoxicated that they decided to hang out and wait for him to sleep it off. This is when they decided to take several trips to the convenance store for food, tobacco, etc. As the day wore on and NA still wasn’t awake, I think they came up with a plan. They knew that they had to get out of our house before we got home. There was a time when my youngest son heard me talking about all of this to my mom weeks later. He asked me why I told his Mamaw that NA was drunk. I asked what he meant. He told me that the boys all told him that NA was sick from eating bad meat from the convenience store. (This is how they were going to hide it so my son wouldn’t say anything to us or if he did this was what he’d say). As the clock ticked, they had to call someone to get NA out of there. He wasn’t waking up, so they called his sister CA to come get him. When she arrived and couldn’t wake him up, she did the right thing and called her father. During all of this, CH, SH took my younger son AGAIN to the store to get him out of there. I also believe that they took this little trip to throw away any trash that was laying around. (There wasn’t any when we got home). This day in particular, my husband and I didn’t work a full day. Otherwise, we’d have not gotten home until 5:30 or later for my husband. Instead, we both left work early this day because we had another appointment at 3pm. When the appointment was over, we followed each other home. We stopped at the end of the driveway to get mail and my husband asked me whose car was in the driveway. I had no idea. We walked in to find NM sitting at our kitchen table. He looked like the cat that swallowed the canary! My exact words to him were, “why the hell are you here in my house?” He stammered around and I heard noises coming from my son’s room. I saw a girl peak her head out and of course I think someone is in there having sex. By this time NA’s dad walks in not even 2 minutes behind us. I apologize to him, explaining that we just walked in and weren’t sure what was going on. I told him that we worked all day and came home to “THIS”. He actually started explaining to us how his daughter called him that NA his son drank alcohol and passed out. The guys used NA’s fingerprint to open his phone to call his sister. I believe that they were all hoping that NA would be gone before we got home, they could leave, and we’d never know they were there. They didn’t take into account that they wouldn’t be able to wake him up and have to call his dad. I tried to call 911 three times and was asked not to by NA’s dad. See NA was up for different football awards, scholarships, etc. This would not look so good on him if his name was associated with drinking. I then insisted that we force NA to sit up and start drinking water. Once we did this he started vomiting and coming around. During this time, it was only NM, CA, NA and his dad and my husband and I in the house. NA’s dad was questioning NM ALOT about the happened that day and how his son ended up like this. We were told that NM grabbed the bottle and guzzled it. NM at the time was over 6′ tall and close to 280 or more. I’m leaning too more. NM said, who was going to stop him. He was bigger than all of them. I asked why they didn’t call someone or their parents? He had no answers. I was asking where my son was and was told he went to the store w/ CH and SH. Right on que the three walked in. SH had the guiltiest look on his face. He was shocked to see that we were there, and that NA’s dad was there too. We again asked them what happened and received the same story. NA’s dad then told NM, SH and CH that, “you clowns are going to help me take my son to my car and help me take him into our house”. My husband looked at me and said, “this has got to stop”. Referring back to the conversation we had on the cruise about not allowing people over anymore. These boys then proceeded to help lift NA out of the bed and had carried him from the bedroom, down our long driveway to the dad’s car. Can drunk people carry someone that heavy?

Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/kigoa-football-on-green-grass-during-daytime-209956/

#Teens #TeenDrinking #ParentingMistakes

Thank you

January 20, 2023January 21, 2023 The Carpenter’s Daughter

Sorry, that I haven’t posted as often as I should be. This next piece is very difficult for me, so I need to make sure that the words that I write, express the right things. I can’t tell you how overwhelmed I’ve been with all of the support that I’ve received from my blog. I’ve known who has supported me through this entire ordeal, but to see people I don’t know has been uplifting. As I continue to post and provide the story in my own words to you, the reader I need you to know something. I’m worried and afraid. From the time that all of this came out after the arrest, the victim’s families have been relentless. They have contacted the DA, probation, now parole, and anyone they can to spew lies to hoping for someone to believe them. Unfortunately for someone like me, victims have a lot of sway due to law in Pennsylvania giving them a “Bill of Rights”. (https://www.pccd.pa.gov/Victim-Services/Documents/Bill%20of%20Rights.pdf#:~:text=Passed%20by%20the%20Pennsylvania%20Legislature%20in%201976%2Cthe%20Pennsylvania,of%20crime%20support%20a%20program%20to%20benefittheir%20victims.) I completely get it, and if I was on that side of the fence, I would want protection and rights too. The problem occurs when some take advantage of it for their own gain. So much so that my attorney at the time had to send a letter to the DA’s office asking for the one mother to be investigated for infringing on my due process by not allowing witnesses to talk be questioned. Also, by threatening them in various ways if they did. I have the letter my attorney sent; however, nothing was ever done about it. She went on to then purchase roundtrip airfare for DG’s sister to fly home. When he was questioned about it in court, he got irate with my lawyer stating, “it was none of his damn business”. Until the Judge told him he had to respond, to which he said, “yes”. The two mother’s purchased lavish gifts for some, including engraved watches and paid for graduation parties for at least two of them. That was laughed off by the DA/Judge because they didn’t’ get to do this with their own children. No! That’s not ok, they were witnesses in a criminal investigation. NO ONE should have been able to have access to witnesses let alone buy them off. (This was all recorded in court by the court stenographer). They were all hanging out, exchanging stories I’m sure, and attending gatherings together. When I was originally arraigned. I was told to not have ANY contact with the victim’s, their families, directly or indirectly. The only information the lawyer was given at the time was a paper with initials on it. No names. So, some of the people I had no idea who they actually were. (The DA will claim that I did and basically make it seem like i was playing dumb). I honestly didn’t know who some of them were, even after receiving actual names. Remember CS, how I told you the guys stopped hanging around him because he was smoking weed? Well, I was friends well most all of these people on Facebook. Most either by this point blocked me or I blocked them. However, since there were some, I wasn’t sure if I did miss one or two. One of the boy’s parents posted a picture on Facebook and I commented on it. I then started chatting with her on messenger. I don’t recall the exact conversation, but it eventually ended with me asking if they’d be willing to talk to my lawyer. I was wrong about this person 1000% and the entire thing was bait. Dummy me took it. Next thing I know we were back in court to have to now report to pretrial probation. Unfortunately for my husband, he did too even though he did nothing wrong. I was the one that conversed with her. The argument however was that we had no idea WHO the victims were because we never received a list from the DA’s office. They didn’t care. So, when we reported to the probation office, they asked what happened. She asked me who the victims were so they could update their system. I explained to them that we didn’t know. She asked if we had the list, they gave us. We said, that’s the problem. We never received it. She looked online and through the paperwork. She said, you are correct. There is NOT a list anywhere. She said how where you supposed to know who not to talk to? EXACTLY!!! Nevertheless, we both stayed on pre-trial probation until the actual trial/sentencing. This then opened the door for the one mother to find anything possible to snag me on, hoping I’d end up in jail pre-trial. I closed down my social media pages so there would be no issues there. I provided proof of doing so to my probation officer. I’m sitting at work one day and get a call from my PO that I need to come in asap. There’s a problem. She knew it was BS. I still had to leave work and go in to address the problem though. Someone from my lawyer’s office met me there. Apparently, in messenger there was an email chain that included this one mom. At one time, I was part of this chain as well since back then were all friends. Another person used this old message chain and somehow tagged this mom with it. Well, she said I was contacting her. You could clearly see the message didn’t come from me. We have no idea how or why it occurred, but it was resolved that IT WAS NOT ME. That evidently ticked her off, because then not long after I get called again. This time by my PO’s supervisor. I have to come in for an administrative hearing. This was in front of the Judge. Someone went to great lengths to actually set up another Facebook account with my name. The problem was that it wasn’t spelled correctly, there was no photos and no friends attached to it. My Facebook was still showing as turned off. I had several people go in and try to look to see if I was showing up on their friends lists etc. I wasn’t. They had no proof where this new page came from. Again, my PO knew that it was garbage because heck someone with my same name in another state could have started setting up a page. I would have gotten no benefit from opening another page. You can’t see much if people have their privacy set to certain things. My lawyer and PO even said that I could have had better luck just using someone else’s page to go on and be nosey. The Judge ignored it. What we did find out though is that the other victim’s family has a relative that works in the probation office. I immediately brought that to my PO’s attention and my lawyers. Technically in my opinion my probation then should have been transferred to somewhere else to be handled. No one cared. When I was finally sentenced and sent to jail to start my prison sentence, they no longer had access to me. They weren’t satisfied with the fact that I was already behind bars. Instead, they decided to now go after my oldest son. It started by stating that he showed up at some address where her son was at this particular day. She said that my son pulled up and got out of the car and threatened her son that if his mom didn’t back off that he would hurt or kill him. (I can’t recall which, but she claimed he threatened to harm her son). She filed a protection order against my son to stay away from the entire family, not be within so many feet, etc. Of course, she then made sure that it was published in the paper by her news reporter friend at the time. My husband and son showed up to court and was told to basically accept it and move on. She had no proof he said this, no witnesses, no proof her son was at this house or that my son showed up at this house. We had proof that in fact it was impossible for my son to be there because he was with my husband and my in-law’s eating crabs. Prior to that he was working. After receiving his PFA, a few weeks or so later he went to a high school football game. Next thing he knew, he received a call from the High School resource officer that she was claiming he followed her son around the stadium, stalking him, harassing him, etc. She was trying to get him arrested for violating the PFA. The resource officer called us because he wanted us to know that he already contacted the DA’s office. Why? he went in and pulled the video footage for the entire evening. He said that our son arrived at the stadium, walked over to the bleachers, sat down, talked to some friends and left. Her son was nowhere in sight! She would never be held accountable for filing false reports. They didn’t care. Just take the lumps and move on. The paper wouldn’t rescind the story because, “people don’t want to know the truth.” Remember, I told you that before? Well, here it is. They eventually stopped bothering us. The PFA ended when her kids graduated school. My best friend, who WAS her sister made sure that the Judge, DA and anyone who listens knows that this lady is NO LONGER her sister. She wanted to be sure that her and her family weren’t somehow included in that PFA. My best friend has stood by us even to this day. She even made sure to call my current parole officer to let him know who she was and filled him in on some of the details she felt they needed to know. Every day, I would pray for everyone involved in this entire situation. Why? When you let stuff like this fester in you, and you don’t forgive people, you are the one that suffers. You forgive for yourself, so that you can have peace. Otherwise, not forgiving is like getting up and drinking poison hoping that someone else gets sick from it.

Journey of Faith

The night before

January 15, 2023January 15, 2023 The Carpenter’s Daughter

After getting home from work and adjusting to being back after a week in paradise. Ugh. We just wanted to come home and fall asleep. Our son started pestering us if his 5 closest friends could come over for the night. I repeatedly said NO! After, being bugged for the longest time I finally said to him, “Look! you need to get at and be at the school the next day before 7am. I need to get to work and so does your dad.” He proceeds to tell us that the guys just want to come over and see each other because they won’t be able for almost 2 weeks. It was a week with him being away prior, the one boy, NA was leaving I believe it was that Wednesday for a week’s vacation. One boy was going to a football camp for a college that was scouting him. Also, that the next day NA, NM, and SH had to go to football practice at the High School. One boy CH was going home, and the other DG had to be at work that morning super early. I asked then why they wanted to come over if they all had plans? He said because they wanted to see each other. I was told they were going to be watching movies in the basement and then go to sleep. We had an above ground pool. Our son, NA and their girlfriends were swimming before the other guys came over later. I believe that NM, CH, and DG came close to 7ish. By this time, no one was swimming. No other people were there, and no one showed up that I or my husband was ever aware of. In fact, I was in bed and never saw SH come in. My son came up some time around 9-10ish to see if I could take his girlfriend and NA’s girlfriend to her house. He didn’t realize that I went to bed. He never asked me to take her home, I assume her parents were coming to get her. I knew they weren’t spending the night. What happened was that SH arrived and our son then asked if he could help him take the girls to his girlfriend’s home to drop them off. SH was his girlfriend’s cousin. I was then told by her mother, that when they boys got there, they came inside for a little bit. SH hadn’t seen the parents in a while and wanted to say hello. Her mother testified that neither appeared to have drank or to be intoxicated. Neither girl came to their house smelling of booze, wasn’t drunk, etc. They stayed there and chatted about a half hour or so with her mom and the dad popped his head out to say hi. The boys left and returned to our house. Now this part confuses me a lot and I’ll tell you why it makes NO sense to me! SH’s house was 19.9 miles one way or 30 minutes one way to our house at the time. Apparently, he had just came from there before realizing he was going to be asked to take the girls home. The girl’s house was maybe 15 minutes away in the opposite direction-one way. The DA claims, that the kids said that night that SH, left our house. He drove then to beer distributor that I mentioned before that he’d go to in another county (and was caught at by a family member). Depending on which way he took, he would take him 40-50 minutes one way from our house at the time to this beer distributor. Not only that, but according to their hours now, they close during the week at 9pm. He never dropped of the girls until almost 10! That’s simple police work so someone is lying! To pad the case, what they then did was had the kids say that the alcohol that. I so stupidly bought in April had leftovers. That was what they were drinking. Um, no that’s not the case either, Sir! What I did provide to my attorney and AGAIN IT WAS DISREGARDED was screenshot of a text message where CH went to this same beer distributor and purchased a case of beer just a day or so before. He was questioned on the stand if he knew where this place was and he said, “um, uh..I’m not sure, I believe it’s across the Norman Wood Bridge somewhere”. Well, he knew where it was when he shared a text with his buddies bragging how he purchased a case of Bud. (I apologize the quality is poor because it’s a screenshot of a screenshot). I was NOT part of this text. I was given this by someone who was. So, it would be nice if this person was reasked, “do you know where this business is? I advise you not the lie under oath!”.

So again, according to the police/DA and these kids that were now changing stories about what occurred they stated that several people came over that evening of the 14th. If you listened to the story in court, they were apparently drinking around a campfire, jamming to loud music (which would have been right outside my bedroom window), but apparently, I was awake, and they were walking around the house back and forth to the basement with drinks. I believe the did try to state that my husband was sleeping. Which again begs the question, wouldn’t he have heard the noise and came out to see, “what was going on?” So, I can assure you that there was no loud party going on. Do I believe it’s possible people can be at your house, and you don’t know? Yes, I can. After, I was arrested, someone was talking to me about their son. They happened to mention in the conversation how their son got up and went to work. She thought she was alone. She went to the basement to do laundry and here a friend of his was sleeping. He was at work! Now again, this was a person who they knew well. So, I stopped, and I looked at her. I said so you had no idea he came over, and that he was there? Do you know if they were drinking the night before? She said no. (Now her son was of ae, but she knew why I was asking). I was trying to make a point. I remember growing up and I would go to my one friend’s house that lived a few blocks away. There were times her parents went away or mine would go away. No one ever thought anything of it. So, to me being raised this way-I didn’t find this strange at all. There was no beer cans or trash thrown around. No loud music. That next morning, I woke up and got ready for work, my husband was up getting ready, one boy left like he said he was going to. That was DG. My son came upstairs and said he was ready. I was worried I was going to have a hard time waking him. He told me again that the other 3 guys were getting up soon to leave for football practice. The other CH was going home. I dropped my son off at the High School before 7am on the 15 of June, 2015. I was to work on time and thought it was just another day.

Photo by Florencio Rojas: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-wooden-pinocchio-toy-in-close-up-photography-6172025/

#Lies #FakeFriends #CourtCase #TeenDrinking #Parenting #ParentingMistakes

Journey of Faith

Back to work

January 12, 2023 The Carpenter’s Daughter

Our cruise was over after 7 beautiful days aboard a Carnival cruise ship. We went to Cape Canaveral, Nassau Bahamas, and to Freeport Bahamas. My husband and I had been to Nassau several times before, but Freeport was a first for all of us. The boys had never been out of the country let alone the Bahamas. The day leaving a cruise is always tiring. There’s a debarking process, that seems to have actually sped up since the first cruise we ever took. It still seemed to take forever though just to get off the thing. We then went through customs in Baltimore, then had to sit and wait for our ride to take us home. I have the cutest picture of my youngest son leaning against the suitcases with his straw hat he bought. He looks exhausted, but it’s adorable. I called it “the weary traveler”. My husband and I both had to return to work the next day, Monday. So, we were all anxious to get home, changed and unwind to prepare for the week ahead. Our oldest son had been asked to join the competition cheerleading team as a lifter. He and 2 other boys that he hung out and played football with joined the squad. Also, his new girlfriend at the time was on the team as well as one of the other boy’s girlfriends. They ended up enjoying it more than they expected. When we got home on June 14th, our son had to prepare to leave for a weeklong cheer camp leaving bright and early on Tuesday June 16th. The other two boys ended up not being able to go to this camp because the one was leaving to go on a week’s vacation with his family June 17th, and the other boy’s parents didn’t want to pay the expensive fee for the camp plus the $300 for the required clothing. I admit, we weren’t excited about it either. They were able to raise some of the money through fundraisers. My youngest son was out of school for the summer. We were just starting to allow him to be able to stay home alone. I worked about 10 minutes from home at the time and he knew he could call with anything he needed. Honestly, he was and still is one of those kids that would sleep most of the day, so I didn’t have much concern of him getting into trouble. When he was awake, at the time he was playing video games. He knew how to microwave himself certain things, I would buy him lunchables or he’d eat cereal. All things he really liked. I remember going into work that Monday and so excited to see my friend Jess. We’re still friends to this day! I showed her some pictures from our trip, she filled me in on the latest and greatest gossip from work while I was gone. There wasn’t much her and I didn’t share with each other. I think it made some people mad how well her and I got along. Over time of getting to know each other, we discovered that our stepdads were work partners at their job, she knew my cousin and his wife through a side hustle she’s done since she was a kid and where her dad works. Then years later, we found out that my nephew and her brother were friends all through high school. So yeah, we were meant to be friends and in each other’s lives. She would become one of my supporters through this ordeal. She was one of the ones that saw the entire thing unfold the day it happened. She told me recently that she still remembers that day like it was yesterday. How wrong the police and DA got it. To hear the media make it seem like I didn’t care or wasn’t remorseful. She is the one that saw me come to work and bawl my eyes out at my desk. She was the one that helped pull me together while at work. The days that I called out because it was too hard to get up and come in. Was I worried about me? NO! Remember they never filed charges until almost 1.5+ years later. I can never thank her enough for her love then and now. For her families love and support of all of us. I’m stalling to tell you what took place next. It’s hard. It hurts and sucks a lot. It makes me feel sick to think about it again. Everyone keeps telling me it’s WAY overdue to tell my story. I pray they are right. I pray that you are ready to hear it with an open heart.

Photo by mododeolhar: https://www.pexels.com/photo/anonymous-female-friends-embracing-on-spacious-meadow-5241772/

#FriendsForever #FriendSupport #WeAllNeedFriend #Friends #FemaleFriends

Journey of Faith

Big Girl Panties

January 10, 2023 The Carpenter’s Daughter

I’ve been struggling the last few days. I’ve had a lot going on since I got home in June, good and well stuff that’s a pain. Not long after I got home my retina detached in my right eye AGAIN. I had two retinal detachments in the past. One in each eye. When this occurs, you eventually then need to have cataract surgery because of the trauma to the lenses in your eyes. I had that done back when I had the original retinal detachments. After the one in my left eye occurred, I developed scar tissue that needed to be removed. When you have cataract surgery, you develop a film eventually over the eye that needs to be zapped off with a laser. That’s NOT fun. It’s like someone snapping a rubber band in your eye. Luckily, I guess you could say that when I had the scar tissue removed, they took care of the film in that eye too. So, I didn’t need to be “aware” when that was being done to that eye. The surgery that I’ve had in my right eye this time has been upsetting to me. It’s not what I expected at all, and I’m frustrated. When you have a detachment, they go in and fix it a few different ways. One of the ways can end up with a gas bubble which is what I had before or an oil bubble which is what I had this time. There are definitely differences to both. Gas, I had to lay face down and it took months to absorb to go away. You also can’t see through it. The oil, you can see through it. You need to then have another surgery though to have the oil removed. Apparently, they will NEVER be able to get 100% of the oil out. I have been fighting constant eye pressure issues ever since the original surgery in June. I went to see my family in November and ended up getting sick on the plane because my pressure went crazy. It also seems that my hip and knees want to act up. They have been hurting constantly. I’m sorry, I’m complaining to all of you. It all just hit me yesterday and I was depressed. I’ve been through ALOT, and it just never seems to end. I’m not sure what the secret is to just not having one problem after another. I finally went and laid down on the sofa after working and fell asleep for a while. Today, I put on my big girl panties and I’m giving it another go. Wish me luck!

Photo by Roy Reyna: https://www.pexels.com/photo/wonder-woman-illustration-3180273/

#SuperWoman #Depressed #StrongWoman

Journey of Faith

The Cruise

January 4, 2023 The Carpenter’s Daughter

Mother’s Day long passed, and we were getting excited as a family to go away. We decided to take the boys on a cruise to the Bahamas. I was also excited, because one of the stops was in Cape Canaveral, FL which meant that while others would be rushing off the boat to shop, I was going to see my friend Chris. Her and I have known each other before my husband, and I were a couple. We lost touch for a while, but then when I was working on the other side of Lancaster County, I ended up finding out that she was living close by. We met up for lunch and haven’t lost touch since. Our Cruise was going to be out of Baltimore for 7 days, June 7-14th. School was going to be out; we took off work. Everything was planned. We had another friend taking us to the airport and had arranged to make sure the dogs were taken care of. While we were on this trip, one of the many conversations we had with our older son was the fact that when we got back things were going to be changing regarding his friends coming over. Again, if you remember we went from the occasional sleepover and stop in, to them stopping by whenever they wanted. I would come out of my bedroom and there would be a kid lurking around with my son. I just didn’t like not knowing that someone was in my house without me knowing about it. I mean, what if I was half dressed? I didn’t make a habit of that, since we had sons, but you understand what I mean. We explained to him that, “this has got to stop”. Enough was enough. We felt taken advantage of and couldn’t figure out why they were clamoring to come over so often. I also, didn’t care for the fact that NM’s mom wanted to blow up my phone looking for her son that she couldn’t find. I had asked my son several times about this, because something just wasn’t sitting right with me. I had this feeling in my gut that something wasn’t right, but Stephen just said I was being overly dramatic. What I later found out was that this poor boy was afraid to go home. He was bouncing between our home and his aunt’s home, so he didn’t have to face his step father. From what I was told by family members, firsthand was that a few nights before this incident that I’ll get to later happened, his stepfather beat him with a 2×4. I don’t see anything wrong with spanking a child on the rear end but beating a kid with a 2×4 isn’t punishment. NM confided in my son and told him this. He tried to bring it up when he was on the stand but of course the DA shut it down immediately. No one wanted to paint the parents in any sort of bad light in front of the jury. Unfortunately, had we all known that this was one of many reasons that he didn’t want to go home and liked staying where he was loved, could laugh and feel safe, well There was even a time after we were arrested that two of NM’s sisters were not speaking to their mother. They went in front of the original judge and told him that they were not associated with her and were going to be testifying on our behalf. Some of the evidence that we received came from both of them during that time. The evidence that they provided to us, I will disclose later. Right before we went on this beautiful vacation, our oldest son fell in love. It just so happened that this girl’s father and SH’s father were cousins. NM’s aunt and I are best friends. This is a fact that no one ever knew and would barely come out. He spent a lot of our cruise trying to Facebook message or Facebook call her. We seemed to become instant friends with her parents and remain friends with them to this day. If I did something so terrible, would the family members like the cousin, great aunt/uncle of one boy and the aunt/uncle/cousin and numerous other relatives want to even talk to me? From the day that this all happened, instead all of them rallied around us and tore the case apart. Uncovering the lies, defending us when we didn’t even know about it. There was a time when I recall being at this girl’s graduation party. (My son’s new girlfriend). One of her dad’s aunts came up to him and apologized to him. She said, and I overheard it, so I know I wasn’t hearing incorrectly, she said, “I have found out a lot more about this case that I knew before and I’m sorry for the way I acted. I wish I would have known all of this before it was too late.” I don’t know who told her, how she found out, but someone set her record straight. This has happened continuously for us. I just wish that everyone that could see between the lies and crack were one of the twelve on the jury.

Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/sea-holiday-vacation-blue-69122/

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Bible Study

The Quiz

January 3, 2023January 3, 2023 The Carpenter’s Daughter

I thought this was an appropriate post for the beginning of the new year. Over the holiday, I heard this from someone one else. I can’t claim it as my own. A teacher walked into her classroom and passed out a paper to each of her students. On the paper was a small black dot. The rest of the paper was blank. She said, this is a quiz. I’d like each of you to write about what you see. After the quiz was over, she read the papers and what each student had written. She addressed the class. She said, “I gave each of you the same task. All of you wrote about the black dot on the page, but no one wrote about the white paper. We do this in life. We tend to focus on the blemish only and not the good that comes from it or all of the positive things that our life has provided. We only focus on what went wrong.” This struck me to want to tell you the good things. The things that no one seemed to want to talk about. I did share a great deal of the good things that happened to me while I was incarcerated. Aside from that, my life has always been pretty good because I have a great family, wonderful husband, I was blessed with beautiful sons and friends that love and believe in me. One of the things that would occur when these boys would stay over, was in the mornings we would make breakfast. I remember this one day in particular with NM woke up and asked if he could cook everyone toads in the hole. I think everyone calls them something different, but it’s basically toast with a hole in the middle of it and an egg cracked in the hole. You cook it until the eggs cooked and then serve them. This gave him so much joy to be able to cook for everyone and show off his cooking skills. DG never seemed to have a girlfriend. One time, he showed up at the house with a blow-up doll. I was embarrassed for him. I didn’t think it was appropriate to bring this, but then it was funny. It was DG. Always the jokester and trying to make everyone laugh. One of the things that SH would do every single time he left was he would stop and say to my husband and I, “thanks for having me over”. This phrase still lingers with me to this day. One of the other things that the DA wanted to try to make an issue out of, was the fact that they all called me “Momma Jods”. I didn’t ask them to, but I suppose it was better than the alternative that NM called his mom which was “The Warden”. When I went to jail/prison anyone younger than me automatically called me Mom, Mommy (which seemed to be a Spanish thing), Momma T, etc. So, this was obviously more a sign of respect rather than calling me Mrs. X. I wasn’t any different to those there than I was with these young gentlemen. I wasn’t serving them alcohol either obviously. One example that occurred while I was at Cambridge was my roommate came in and said that a young girl was looking for me that she had a question. My roommate was shocked because she said, “am I finding out something new about you?” I said, “I’m not sure, it depends on what she wants.” I went out and here she wanted to know who the artist was that sang a particular song. Apparently, It got out that I had a wide genre of music on my tablet. Also, that I was pretty good at naming the title of the song and the artist. I’m sorry if that shocked anyone, but I got this honestly from my parents. They both have/had a love of music. My dad used to get frustrated with me because I knew the words to songs more than my math homework. It was silly things like this though that helped me develop a rapport with other inmates and not get my ass kicked. I believe that these young men also respected me because I respected them and treated them respectfully and didn’t treat them like children. If this is the black dot on my white paper. I’m sorry.

#Teens #Teenagers #TeenDrinking #TeenAlcohol #Parenting #ParentingMistakes #Parenting101