Couple meet when woman works as picker on man’s potato farm. They marry.
Nineteen years later, when Wife is sixty years old, Wife accuses her wealthy husband of cheating on her.
Husband is apparently offended. Husband asks for divorce – at ninety-one years old.
Wife asks the court for alimony and possession of the marital home.
Read more in this [Macedonia] Makfax article: 91-year-old Italian seeks divorce from 60-year-old wife.
Two years ago, a noncustodial Michigan parent snatched a child from school.
Now, would-be visitors trying to gain entrance into at least one Michigan school find it nearly as difficult as getting into a courthouse.
School visitors are “managed” by a dedicated computerized terminal running “visitor management” software.
Visitors must be processed through the terminal, which scans the guests’ driver’s licenses and compares the identities of the licensees against a national database of sex offenders. If the visitors are not in the sex offender database, the terminal prints visitor passes with photo identifications.
That’s the easy part.
The “intelligent” software terminal also maintains child custody and timesharing information, to “manage” child pickup disputes between parents (and potentially others) as well. That sounds as though it must require interpreting as well as enforcing parental timesharing legal rights.
All done by software … in the name of school safety … and if the terminal gets it wrong? ….
Read more about this brave new world in this Muskegon [MI] Chronicle article: Securing our schools.
It began as an ordinary family outing in the car.
Aunt was driving the car. Mother was a passenger.
An off-duty police officer appeared out of the blue and found eight year old Boy on the hood of Aunt’s car … while the vehicle was moving.
According to Aunt, Boy was stubborn and would not climb down from the hood – after jumping on while the vehicle was already moving.
According to Aunt, law enforcement arrived just as she was going to stop and physically remove the Boy from the hood.
Next thing she knew, the police charged her with criminal recklessness and Mother with neglect of a dependent.
And Child Protective Services was there to take Boy and his cousin.
Although Aunt concedes Boy may have been in danger, Aunt believes police overreacted.
Aunt and Mother each face criminal hearings and child custody hearings soon.
Read more in this [Indianapolis] WTHR 13 TV News article: Mother, aunt arrested after boy rides on car hood.
Mother and Father divorce. Each remarries.
But they are both still jockeying for custody of their two kids.
Follow closely.
E-mails sent from Mother’s new husband’s e-mail account contain religious slurs and threats against Mother … and the kids. One message, sent to one of their children, intimidates, if not threatens, their kids.
Who sent the messages? One might be tempted to say Mother … or her new husband.
But Mother alleges that Father … and his new wife …, using information gleaned from “keylogging” software, hacked into an e-mail account of Mother’s new husband’s, and sent the messages from her new husband’s e-mail account.
Mother also alleges that one of the sending computers was a state-owned computer … used by Father’s new wife in her government job.
As luck would have it, Father’s new wife recently quit her job with the state, under scrutiny over use of government equipment in personal matters.
It was alleged that the questionable e-mails were used in an attempt to defraud the Family Court into favoring Father for custody.
Read more in this Nashville City Paper article: Nashville at Law: Lawsuit alleges former TennCare employee under investigation.
A Chicago area child was recently abducted by her father – who allegedly planned to take her to Jordan. Had the father succeeded, the baby girl would likely not have returned home to the US – or seen her US family members again.
Jordan is not a signatory to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction – and custody laws there favor fathers. But the pair didn’t make it there. And the child was home in about a week.
Almost 800,000 children were reported missing in the US in 1999, the time of the last major survey.
And of them, only a handful, 115, were kidnapped by a stranger, for ransom or murder, the kind of kidnapper that most people think of when they think of a “kidnapper”.
115 … out of 800,000.
In child kidnappings, the reality is that the kidnapper is 4 times more likely to be a family member than a stranger, like this baby girl’s father.
In fact, half of child kidnappers are the children’s biological fathers. One quarter, their biological mothers.
But the fact that the kidnapper is a parent or other close relative does not mean that the child victim is safe, in good hands.
Nearly half of family abductions are foiled within a week. Only one-fifth of such cases remain unsolved after a month.
But where things tend to get more complicated is where the family member abductor whisks the child out of the country, particularly to a country that is not a signatory to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. As the Chicago girl’s father reportedly planned to do.
It can take much longer to retrieve those children … if they can even be retrieved at all.
Read more in this Chicago Southtown Star article: Most parental kidnappings end with child back home.
Affluent suburban New York couple appear to have it all. Husband owns a high end jewelry store.
Wife is a nutritionist in suburban schools. Married 18 years, the couple have a 12 year old daughter and a 14 year old boy.
Then something changes. The couple is getting a divorce.
And then Wife disappears. Nearly a month goes by, without a word from her, yet no sign of a body or injury.
The Husband comes under immediate suspicion of police. And, before long, of neighbors.
Finally, the Husband reportedly confesses. Husband is charged with murder.
The couple’s two children have been taken into child protective custody.
Read more about this case, and the sidebar recalling several other recent domestic violence murders in the region, in this [Lower Hudson Valley, NY] Journal News article – Cops: Cortlandt husband admits killing missing wife.
Sadly, it is not unheard of for one spouse to murder (or attempt to murder) the other spouse in an effort to avoid paying spousal support or child support. I have posted on more than a few such stories.
A strange variation on that theme comes out of India.
Indian Husband files a case for theft against his Wife.
After that, Wife files for divorce.
Somehow or another, Husband’s Uncle is served with the divorce, instead of Husband.
Uncle forgets to pass the papers on to Husband.
The divorce Court enters an order for Husband to pay Wife spousal support, since Husband doesn’t show up to oppose.
Husband finds out.
Husband attends hearing in his theft case.
Before leaving the courthouse, Husband and his mother take poison … to avoid the spousal support obligation.
Husband and his mother are taken to the hospital for treatment.
Read more in this Times of India article: Mother, son attempt suicide.
Brazilian Mother and Chinese Father have Child together in Brazil. They all live in Brazil.
Until Mother dies when Child is about 4 years old. Then Father takes Child with him back to China.
Then Father dies. Child’s Chinese uncle takes him in.
A year or two later, Child’s Grandmother in Brazil sues for custody of Child. Grandmother wins.
Child goes back to Brazil with elderly Grandmother in 2004. And now Grandmother dies.
And now the Brazilian child welfare agency has placed Child into foster care, presumably because he has no other living relatives in Brazil.
But he still has living relatives in China. They are considering seeking custody of Child again.
Read more in this Tapei Times article: Iruan Ergui Wu now in foster care.
A 22 year old Minnesota man has been convicted of strangling his 19 year old ex-girlfriend … in front of their 2 year old son.
For his murder weapon, the man constructed a noose from shoelaces – and allegedly killed her because the young woman was a half an hour late picking him up for a shopping excursion.
After she was dead, he set fire to her body in her car.
At the time of the murder, the man was in the process of finishing out his probation for a previous assault on the young woman.
Under the terms of his probation, he was required to attend anger management … and avoid contact with the young woman.
It is unclear whether he attended the anger management …
The man now faces multiple life sentences.
The couple’s baby boy is now staying with his mother’s mother and her husband. The boy’s maternal grandparents are pursuing custody of the child and hope to adopt him.
The poor toddler sees a psychologist for night terrors.
Read more in this Twin Cities [MN] Pioneer Press article: Man guilty of murder for strangling ex-girlfriend with shoelace.
Oregon’s Coquille Indian Tribe’s Tribal Council, the six person governing body for the Tribe, recently passsed an Ordinance allowing domestic partnerships and same sex marriages with a member of the Tribe.
Now, one Tribe member is challenging the approved Ordinance and petitioning to have the Ordinance put to a vote by all Tribe members, numbering approximately 600.
The Ordinance could extend Tribal financial benefits to more people.
The Ordinance would first require the passing of laws to unravel such domestic partnerships and same sex marriages by divorce and to determine child custody. That is expected to take months.
The Ordinance would also recognize domestic partnerships and same sex marriages validly entered in jurisdictions that permit them.
If 200 members of the Tribe join the petition, the Ordinance will be put to a general vote.
The activist cites as his primary concerns about the Ordinance that it imposes vital statistics record-keeping chores that the Tribe does not currently have and that the Ordinance is reportedly contrary to Oregon law as well as federal law
Read more in this Coos Bay Oregon World article: Tribe’s gay marriage law faces challenge.
