EllaMae did you follow the Hailey Dunn case? Her Mother Billie was a LVN, she lost her license for a period of time, but has had it reinstated.
Scary isn't it?
We have speculated here that Jerice's parental right were not severed in regards to Jhessye as she was pregnant at the time of the charges levelled against her for abusing her older children. Therefore only those older children were removed and placed in gramma Shirley's care. We do not know this is fact, it is simply the conclusion some of us have come to based on the limited info we have.
But Grandma did not ever have or return Jhessye to Jerice, just the older ones. Jerice took AZ Police over to her cousin's home to forcibly remove Jhessye from the cousin who had raised Jhessye since birth.
I have to believe that some sort of law was broken by Shirley Johnson in choosing to ignore the parental severance and returning those older children to Jerice. I also have to believe that Jhessye was sort of under the radar as far as CA CPS. She was not born yet so rights could not probably be severed. But after giving birth to Jhessye and retuning to CA to be sentenced back in 2006, I am astounded that no one thought to ask, "hey, Jerice, I see you aren't pregnant anymore. Where is the baby you have apparently just given birth to?"
But apparently, no one did
Ugh...just read on one of Jhessye's FB pages that Jerice was released today...am searching for some kind of verification. (If I cant mention this please remove, Mods! Sorry!
I am confident that Shirley violated some California law--but not being a Cal. lawyer, I can only guess what the specific charges might be. Probably child endangerment at least. She was entrusted with those children and turned them over to a known child abuser who had no legal right to them. :furious:
I haven't looked at the AZ child abuse sentencing scheme in a while, but IIRC the sentence (assuming a conviction) would be impacted by prior convictions as well as by things like the harm to the child--and if the harm to the child is discovered to have been death, I am sure a murder charge will be added and the child abuse charge will no longer be her primary concern. But even without a murder charge, my recollection is that serious child abuse can carry a life sentence in AZ.
If forensic evidence is not conclusive, it is likely that at least the 13-year-old would be required to testify. Quite honestly, it might not be too traumatic for her considering her standards of trauma.
