There is not a day in my life that I do not look at my children and marvel. It is simply beyond my belief how well they cope with life. We are approaching the fifth year of craziness, half of Montie’s life.

            Five years ago Patricia thrust Montie into a cold shower until he admitted he loved her. A couple of months later Patricia’s temper forced me to physically intervene as she assaulted our twelve year old son Glen. The children tell me the physical abuse started several months before, but I dedicated my life to stopping it the moment I discovered the abuse.

            I tell Patricia to seek help or we will leave. She decides to file for divorce. Within a few weeks she is accusing both our oldest son and myself of various acts of abuse – domestic, child, and animal. During 2002 she files a police report on almost a weekly basis targeting either Glen or myself.

            By July, Glen is living with me 24/7 without any visitation with his mother. Jessica (9) and Montie (5) are imprisoned in the top floor of the house from 7:00 pm to 7:00 am each night, not seeing their mother and forbidden to come downstairs. They hoard food, sleep with the night on, and leave the television on all the time.

            Almost two years passed before I came to the realization that the children’s horrors included a possible attempt by Patricia to poison Montie during December 2002.

One of Patricia’s mental health diagnosis is Munchausen by Proxy, hardly a month of our fifteen year marriage did not include a visit to the doctor for one of the children and treatments for various ‘aliments’ made up a significant aspect of our daily lives. Thus, I did not pay particular attention to an argument Patricia made in Court about my neglecting Montie’s ‘asthma’ resulting in a serious attack a few days earlier. This was an old accusation. When Patricia and I first separated, I took the children into the doctor and discussed their health. He was not convinced Montie had asthma; the only evidence was Patricia’s representation. For the next several months Montie stayed with me each weekend and did not experience any asthma problems. This also true of the three and one half years since December 2002 when he lived with me full time.

            I just presumed Patricia took Montie to the ER and told the doctor he was sick. She did this time and time again in the past.  It was not until I wrote a blog about Jessica’s courage during those days that Montie told me not only was this unique attack real but that it was the worst of his life. He could not stop coughing.

            You draw your own conclusions, one single ‘attack’ in over four years and it just happens to coincide with Patricia’s attempts to modify custody to avoid paying child support. Listen to the December 2^nd Hearing. I also remember Patricia’s own attempt to poison herself in March of 2004.

            The allegations backfired and the children came to live with their father. They have not spent a night with their mother since December 2002. Child Protective Services concluded the children were not safe with their mother.

            Patricia made a suicide attempt is January and involved the children in the attempt, calling them and telling them her final farewell. We immediately called the police and they discovered Patricia safe. She had apparently been talked out of jumping off a cliff by a friend on the cell phone.

            Next, the children entered the strange world of supervised visitation and long periods where Patricia simply refused to see the children to include Glen And Jessica’s birthdays. She would call and tell them she scheduled a visit and leave me to tell them it was not true. I ambushed her once in Court after she had no contact with the children for several weeks. Even then she argued with the judge that it was the children’s fault. Listen to the June 16, 2003 hearing.

            The second custody evaluation supported the status quo – only supervised visitation for mom. Patricia responded with another suicide attempt/gesture, trying to gas herself in her garage.

            November 2003 and Patricia comes close to unraveling everything, talking the Court into a third psychological/custody evaluation in a single year. The Court Clinic Director tells me in front of the children that they are taking me in front of the judge to throw me in jail when I protest the confusion surrounding the events..

            I am taken before the judge and she yells at me, asking me why I think we are exceptional , telling me that she is not going to listen to me as to what is best for the children, she is going to listen to the “experts”.

            How many families have you ordered into three evaluations in a single year I ask? None, never she replies. Well I guess that make us exceptional, I note. That is when she decides I am right and we end the hearing with her telling me that I should let her put Patricia in jail for not paying child support. Listen to the November 21, 2003 hearing.

            I return to my children after a half hour in court. No, Daddy is not going to jail.

            This seems a watershed, our lives improve. Visitation and communication occurs on a regular basis. I tell the judge at a hearing Patricia does not show up at that we are doing better and that I think we may finally be on the way to some peace.

            I gave Patricia Jessica’s sport schedule and told her she was welcome to show up at any game she wished. She finally took advantage of this and for the first time saw me with another woman, Michelle.

            That night Patricia went out on the Internet and sought my death. A week later we are in all of the papers and on all of the news broadcast as the grainy video of their mother meeting with the “hit man” on that cold February night and then in the orange jumpsuit as she made her arraignment. See the Media Section.

            The only time the children see their mother is on television. When she pled guilty, when she tried to get her bail reduced, when she was sentenced, and the parole hearings. Lots of television coverage, most of it I created.

            It took a lot to convince me that my children did not need their mother, altogether about fifteen years. It was the combination of our own success as a new family and the final realization that she was absolutely nuts and not safe.

            There was not a week after Patricia’s arrest when someone assured me that Patricia would be out the next week – the DA, the media, victim services, all of the ‘experts’.  Despite the events occurring two years after our separation, a year and one-half after our divorce, the experts seemed to look at the crime as a crime of passion. Again, this was despite Patricia telling the deputies she had considered the act for over two years and actively planned it over a week.

            Given Patricia’s lack of criminal background, given her Phi Beta Kappa college degree, and given she was teaching school on the day of her arrest, the experts believed Patricia would be released quickly. Indeed, I am sure the only reason Patricia pled guilty was because she believed that was the quickest way out of jail.

            I enlisted the media to bring the glare of public attention on the acts of the Courts, District Attorney, and the Parole Board. I believed it worked, I believe Patricia and the family’s one chance at a safe life rested in her receiving the help she desperately needed. I believed her life, my life, and the life of the children stood in danger until such time as she received this help. A couple of days in prison translates into two and one half years. The Court said Patricia would require three years to finish the mental health programs she required.

            Dad is guilty of putting our family on the evening news or airing our laundry in public. I did not always do it; I did not do so during this last crazy incident with the Parole Board. Another burden my children face each day.

            And I am sure for no other reason then to prove me right, the craziness continued.

            Another suicide attempt in March after her sentencing with another to follow in April of this year.

            And in between -- Grandpa Joe.  Patricia entered into a relationship with a man she claimed was her actual biological father. The truth was that he was the father of a fellow inmate of Patricia’s at Grants. He told me that if Patricia did not get to see the kids, he would, in the same conversation where he fronted himself as another hit man.

            Fortunately, I got it all on tape and won the restraining order. Listen to the Hearing .

            The worse part of this is that I have only covered half of the events; I left Montie’s sixth birthday, the police encounters, Jessica’s birthday, an innocent afternoon at the zoo, and on and on.

            Through this all, we try a build a normal life -- baseball, softball, drama, cars, school, friends, birthdays, and on and on. Dad climbs the stairs at night, peaks in on his sleeping children and wonders how they deal with this.