Family Court Is Lethal in Missouri, Too

by Mary W Maxwell, LLB

A lawsuit in the US District Court of Eastern Missouri will be a turning point, I hope. The alleged misdeeds of a GAL: Guardian ad Litem were so egregious that no one can excuse them. In June 2023 it was ruled that the GAL may not have immunity.

I offer you a brief review of the lawsuit that has been filed, by zeroing in on the main parts. I make no claim that the Plaintiff’s statements are correct. Initial pleadings in litigation consist of unverified statements. The burden of proof is on the Plaintiff.   However, the exhibits, such as doctor’s letters and recordings of the children, do appear to back this Plaintiff up.

She, Cindy Haynes, has demanded a jury trial. She is the mother of four girls, one of whom hung herself on November 24, 2018. Cindy is suing G.A.L. Jennifer Williams (and some others but I will focus on the GAL). The bad guy is her ex-husband, Charles Haynes. Upon marriage in 2008, mum already had two daughter, of which one, MSH, became a sex victim of Charles.

Together, the couple had two more girls, the now-deceased daughter, MH, born in 2004 and a younger one called SH who does not figure much in the story. Grandmother Bernice Haynes comes into the story as she, like her son, is a Defendant. At age 89 she got custody of NH and SH, from the Divorce Court.

Cindy Haynes v Jennifer Williams

Case number 1:21-CV-00160-SNL. It was filed in November 2021.

I will list the issues according to my own schedule, and base them on GumshoeNews.com’s five years’ worth of reporting and identifying the horrors of Family Law in Australia. Please read:

Issue A. What in the world could have motivated the GAL to do so many cruel things to the mother and the kids? Or to put it another way — who paid or pressured the GAL to break many rules that attorneys are bound to obey? Was it the law firm she worked for? Was it the Judge in the Divorce case, Judge John Shock? Did she learn it in law school? Did the mafia put a horse’s head in her bed?

There has got to be a reason!

Issue B. What in the world brought legislatures in democratic countries to chip away at parents’ rights to the extent that, if a parent is seen as having neglected the child’s education, the state can take the kids away permanently? (Is THAT going to make him or her educated?) And, into the bargain, the state allows this to happen with no investigation. The Mom can show that her kid has practically earned a PhD in physics at age 12, yet it will fall on deaf ears if a GAL has said she noticed some “educational neglect.”

Zheesh!

Issue C. How in God’s Name does a judiciary allow a case to run on and on? Here there were two cases bearing down on the plaintiff. One was the fact that in December 2013, Charles had been charged with the crime of sodomizing his stepchild, MSH. Yet he was out on bail during the three years covered in this lawsuit, always menacing the other sisters. Police already had Charles’ admission on file, so what was anybody waiting for?  (I think I know. Do you?)

Issue D. Simultaneously, the divorce case was pending. Why should it take so long? All 50 states of the US now have No Fault divorce. That leaves two issues for a court to sort out if the parties don’t agree — money and kids’ custody. And really, shouldn’t the issue of custody be handled by a court that is experienced and fair on this delicate issue? The late Prof Freda Briggs recommended that any issue of child abuse be handled by an Inquisitorial court, not an adversarial one.  I agree!

Issue E. How in God’s Name did it come to pass that a job called GAL, or in Australia, ICL — Independent Children’s Lawyer — would be assigned to a person (maybe not every time) that followed some hidden rule known as Screw the Mother? Or, in this Missouri case, Screw the Child? In 2018, when Dee McLachlan conducted a survey of mums who had had a lousy time in court, her statistics showed that while many people believed the kids’ story of abuse (doctors, teachers, aunts, etc), the ICL’s consistently doubted the kid.  As did also the court-appointed child psychologists. As did, I hate to tell you, the judge.

Kee-rist, who is paying the piper around here?

Now for this lawsuit, Cynthia Haynes v Jennifer Williams, I’ll jot down the bad stuff, and below I will furnish more detail.

1. The GAL operated very unethically by being the paid attorney for Charles in the divorce case while also posing at being the kid’s attorney.

2 In those two roles she demonstrated her loyalty to Charles, and ignored, or worse, the kids.

1. She somehow got appointed by the court as the girl MH’s actual attorney with the right to decide whether she could be hospitalized and, if so, who could see the records (not their mom) and who could visit them (not their mom).

2. She always let the kids know that she would recommend, in Charles’ criminal trial, that he be given probation. (That did not happen, he was sentenced to 7 years in 2018, is possibly out on parole now.)

3. Some doctors (the ones in this story have got integrity, yipee) — told GAL Williams that MH was suffering, such as cutting herself, out of fear of being raped by Dad. Yet she did not pass this on.

4. The bureaucracies don’t come across too bad in this Missouri case (I know they do in some other states). Indeed, Family Service Department intervened to help the kids, yipee!), but they did not go far as to ask for punishment for the wrongdoers.

5. The kids were placed, together, in two foster homes, which meant a change of schools and being bullied as “whores” by classmates. But then they got into the foster home of Mr and Mrs Rideout, who did all good things, yipee!

6. Eventually, the kids were restored to Mom’s home, not paternal grandma’s home. Oh, and while they were at Grandma’s, the kids said Grandma tried to kill Mom by sending her an apple pie with rat poison in it. But GAL told the kids not to tattle (Seppo for dob).

7. Constantly, GAL told the kids that if they spoke badly about Dad she would see to it that they got no more visits with Mom.

10.GAL similarly threated Mon constantly with an end to visits if she reported this or that to authorities.

1. Finally, two days before Charles’ trial, 14-year-old MH committed suicide, apparently out of fear that Dad would go free and rape her. (The doctors think he was already raping her, though she never said so.)

Back to the issues.

Issue F. I can’t be glad that the girl died, but since she did die, I’m pleased and relieved that this has turned into a lawsuit against a GAL. The Plaintiff is trying to make the Defendant pay damages under a Wrongful Death Act.  This is not as difficult as trying to prove that someone criminally caused a death.  I sure hope the case gets publicity for the sake of the many protective parents who have a hard time letting their neighbors know that a GAL, or in Oz an ICL, does not in any way live up to the dream of speaking on the child’s behalf. In Australia the ICL usually never meets the kid.

Issue G. But where is the judge? In Missouri, judges are elected, not appointed.  Oh dear, this raises the specter of rigged elections.  Yet even if Judge John Shock’s election, in 2014, was as kosher as you can get, who was he to let such outrages occur in his court? Blind Judge Freddy can see that a GAL’s persistent reference to a mother’s educational neglect, and nonconcern for anything else, is a bit peculiar. Seriously, who is he answering to?

Issue H. Um. Where is the disciplining of a runaway GAL? Her colleagues in court, and her bosses at the law firm (who also are Defendants in Plaintiff’s suit) can’t be unaware of her behavior. Everyone at the Divorce Court must know that she has an almighty conflict of interest, being on the side of Charles, while also being the nominal attorney for the kid. Is there an ethics board?  In some instances, GAL seems to have broken criminal law, as the Missouri rules for lawyers includes punishment beyond the mere loss of one’s license to practice.

Issue DAD. Whatever else is going on, and I, for one, find it all quite hard to understand, there is the question: How did Charles get to be such a rough guy? A part of the lawsuit that I find quite informative deserves some space here. It is about cycles of abuse. I am quoting Paragraphs 23 to 34 of the pleadings:

23. During Plaintiff’s marriage with Charles, Plaintiff and her daughters struggled
through cycles of Charles’ abuse. The verbal abuse started early in the marriage, with Charles often calling Plaintiff “stupid bitch,” “stupid Bible thumper,” “cunt,” “whore,” and “dumb andlazy bitch, who deserves to die.” Often, Charles’s disparaging epitaphs toward Plaintiff were expressed by shouting at the top of his lungs in the presence of their minor daughters and
stepdaughters.

24. Charles abused his daughters, M.H. and S.H., and his stepdaughters, Mindy and M.S.H. physically and emotionally during his cycles of abuse. He referred to his minor daughters and stepdaughters as “stupid,” “whores,” “cunts,” “worthless bitches,” “dumb bitches,” “failure,” “queer,” “freak,” “scum,” and “sluts and cunts, just like your mother” often outside of Plaintiff’s presence.

25. Generally, the first phase of an abuse cycle is the “honeymoon phase,” where the abuser creates a safe place filled with love and a sense of security in the relationship. The victim is drawn close to the abuser by a powerful sense of belonging. The victim is enticed by the abuser’s ability to say and do the right things at the right time.

26. The second phase of the abuse cycle is the “tension building phase.” It begins when the victim becomes aware of the tension increasing in the relationship. The abuser uses a variety of techniques to maintain control over the victim, such as the silent treatment, jealousy, mind games, blaming, and gaslighting. The victim tries to appease the abuser in order to decrease the tension.

27. The third phase of the abuse cycle is when the abuse is exposed or the abuser feels a loss of control. This “explosive phase” begins when the victim becomes the target of extreme
verbal, emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse at the whim of the abuser.

28. Charles repeatedly cycled through all three phases of abuse.

29. Plaintiff was naïve to the fact that she was a victim of domestic and intimate partner violence as she dutifully and lovingly met her daughters’ needs for emotional support, loving parenting, and access to appropriate medical and mental health treatment even while Charles was abusing all family members.

30. Throughout the time Plaintiff lived with Charles, Plaintiff continued to focus on her daughters, on their positive behaviors by motivating them to do well academically, to engage in extracurricular activities and spiritual training, to engage them with their emotions, to accept responsibilities at home, to improve their social skills, and to be respectful towards their family members.

31. Plaintiff continually attempted to provide support to her daughters to decrease the impact of Charles’s explosive anger cycles. However, Plaintiff was not able to protect her daughters or herself from Charles’s never-ending abuse. Plaintiff failed to end her marriage in the early cycles of abuse. Initially, Plaintiff was not aware of Charles’ physical and sexual abuse of her daughters.

32. On May 7, 2011 Charles assaulted Plaintiff at their home. Plaintiff heard Charles screaming at his stepdaughter, M.S.H., who was playing with her friend in her bedroom with Barbie dolls. Charles demanded that M.S.H. open Barbie doll’s legs “to do some nasty!” When M.S.H. refused “to do the nasty,” Charles started yelling and screaming at M.S.H. demanding that M.S.H. “then do the nasty!”

33. Plaintiff rushed into the bedroom and asked Charles to leave M.S.H.’s room. Instead, Charles assaulted Plaintiff by punching Plaintiff’s face breaking her nose and cheek bone in front of M.S.H. and her friend. Plaintiff, bleeding profusely and suffering a terrible headache, rushed to the Southeast Health Center of Ripley County where she was hospitalized and treated for her injuries.

34. Plaintiff filed for divorce, but then Charles immediately transitioned into the “honeymoon phase.” He begged Plaintiff to forgive him because he was “a changed man” who would never again hurt Plaintiff and his daughters and stepdaughters. In reliance on these promises, Plaintiff naively dismissed her divorce with Charles.

Comment by MM — It’ll be easy to follow this case on Internet. Case number 1:21-CV-00160-SNL. I recommend that every law school in Australia require the students to write an essay as to their personal reaction on this kind of behavior coming from their chosen profession.  And then write up a list of any criminal charges that may flow from what is reported in this case.

It is a big breakthrough that the judge did not dismiss the case on the grounds that a GAL has ‘immunity.’ My guess is that Defendants will settle the case privately rather than face Discovery. And the bad guys would be dreading spillover to similar cases!