CO - Jessica Ridgeway, 10, Westminster, 5 Oct. 2012 - #23

[Victoriouswon]

In what prisons do prisoners have access to the internet? Not in Texas. Anyone can correspond with the inmate, but the inmates cannot solicit pen pals on the internet.

They have friends or family members set up the site and list the inmate's address ,they even post pictures of the inmates. They try to tell a sob story so people will send them money and letters.

 

[human]

I have a very close friend who has a step son that has lived with her and her husband for the last 10 years. He is 12 now. Since he was around 7 she told me that she is afraid of him. She often thinks of divorcing because of the step son. He has ADHD, has some autistic issues, he has always been on medication. She sleeps with her bedroom door locked and sleeps with a gun under her pillow. The husband does not see anything wrong with his son. He buys him guns every year for Christmas. My friend has said she does not want him to have access to guns but her husband uses the excuse that HE is the biological father and can decide these things. The husband is retired military. After my friend shared everything with me I stopped seeing her. I have a son the same age and I felt limiting the contact was appropriate. I have known her for over 30 years. I have to admit that her kid scared me from the first day I met him. He does what he wants, how he wants, talks back in a menacing way and now that he is physically taller and bigger than my friend she is even more scared. However she does not see a way to help him. He is always kicked out of school for violence and he hurts her dogs. The last time he hurt her doxen (sp) he broke her 2 front legs. Lied about it but since they were the only 2 home she knew it was him. she lied to the vet.

Until he kills someone what IS there to do? She says the step son needs her for stability and does not want to give up on him.She has no biological children of her own. Everyone in her family wants her leave but she just won't. she feels that he would get worse with just his father but at the same time she has no legal recourse due to being a step parent.



From what I gathered he was born this way, was a very difficult baby, his mother abandoned him while his father was overseas,he just exudes evil to me. It's the look in his eyes or rather the humanity that is missing in his eyes.

What would you do if you were my friend?

I doubt if he was born that way. He may have been difficult, but it was probably because of a mother who did not bond with him. It sounds like attachment disorder.

Is there anyone at school that could help or is she not allowed to discuss anything with school personnel.

Or she could call some mental health professionals for advice.

At some point, she has to save herself.

 

[nikb]

a few years ago I started getting letters from a prisoner. I received about 5 letters in 3 days. The addressee had Mrs. and then his name. I admit I was a nosy porker and read them as I could not ascertain what neighbor they belonged to and it was my address on them. Well its a good thing I did read them. They were long ( 10 pages at least-front and back) talking about her letters to him and all the love they shared. He even discussed his crimes. The letters were from a prison in my state. When I read the part that he couldn't wait to come see me and stay with me I completely freaked out! <snipped for space>

he never showed up but I was very uneasy for a long time.

Oh my gosh I'm relieved for you! That had to be scary.

 

[nikb]

<snipped for space>
What would you do if you were my friend?

Honestly? Run like he** and then feel guilty later when something awful happens and I wonder if I could've prevented it, even knowing I probably couldn't prevent it.

My heart is of course primarily with the crime victims and their families, but my heart goes out to the loved ones of the suspect(s)/perp(s) too - I can't even imagine the pain, and in some cases I'm assuming guilt too.

 

[Dr. Know?]

I have a very close friend who has a step son that has lived with her and her husband for the last 10 years. He is 12 now. Since he was around 7 she told me that she is afraid of him. She often thinks of divorcing because of the step son. He has ADHD, has some autistic issues, he has always been on medication. She sleeps with her bedroom door locked and sleeps with a gun under her pillow. The husband does not see anything wrong with his son. He buys him guns every year for Christmas. My friend has said she does not want him to have access to guns but her husband uses the excuse that HE is the biological father and can decide these things. The husband is retired military. After my friend shared everything with me I stopped seeing her. I have a son the same age and I felt limiting the contact was appropriate. I have known her for over 30 years. I have to admit that her kid scared me from the first day I met him. He does what he wants, how he wants, talks back in a menacing way and now that he is physically taller and bigger than my friend she is even more scared. However she does not see a way to help him. He is always kicked out of school for violence and he hurts her dogs. The last time he hurt her doxen (sp) he broke her 2 front legs. Lied about it but since they were the only 2 home she knew it was him. she lied to the vet.

Until he kills someone what IS there to do? She says the step son needs her for stability and does not want to give up on him.She has no biological children of her own. Everyone in her family wants her leave but she just won't. she feels that he would get worse with just his father but at the same time she has no legal recourse due to being a step parent.



From what I gathered he was born this way, was a very difficult baby, his mother abandoned him while his father was overseas,he just exudes evil to me. It's the look in his eyes or rather the humanity that is missing in his eyes.

What would you do if you were my friend?

I get too frustrated with the "but I love him" so I let him treat me like chit, hit me, abuse me, tell me I can't do something by law, drama. Grow something. He's a jerk. I'd tell her to fight to get this boy some help now. Bite the dh. I will fight for any child even if not my own. jmo

 

[The Farm]

Yes, Ted Bundy had a child with the woman he married during the Kimberly Leach trial.

At that time, guards in that prison would accept bribes from prisoners to look the other way if unauthorised contact between a prisoner and visitor was taking place. According to Ann Rule, prisoners would pool their money for a bribe, then draw lots after it was accepted to see who got to be the, er, lucky one.

Again, according to Ann Rule, Bundy's wife moved away from Florida before he was executed. She changed her name and her child's name. That child is now a young adult, has apparently done well in college and is pursuing a post-bachelor's degree.

I always wondered what happened to her and that child. So they could be our neighbors and we would not even know it!

 

[Eireannach]

http://www.jessicaridgeway.com/2012...he-jessica-ridgeway-foundation-are-under-way/

The initial stages of The Jessica Ridgeway Foundation are under way.
– Posted on November 9, 2012Posted in: Featured, Featured Slider, News

Click Here to like the Facebook page of this.

In honor of Jessica Ridgeway the family is going to start the Jessica Ridgeway Foundation. The planning for this will be developed over the next year. There are many ideas that are floating around and these all will be considered.

A Message from the Family

The Ridgeway family has been overwhelmed with the support we have received from people all over our state, the country and even the world. Jessica’s story has touched so many and we would like to give back to the community in her name.

Jessica was a gift to our family. She brought us so much and her smile was the fuel that helped propel us through each day. Though she is no longer with us, her spirit is, and that spirit can help many other children to achieve what she was denied. She has inspired many to come together and we want that gift to continue on in the community. Her joy in living, dancing and exploring her world is what will continue on. With your help in the future, we would like to bring that joy to other children through our foundation.

Understandably, our family is still grieving and we need to take each day one step at a time. We ask that you allow us the time we need and continue to support our efforts until we are able to define our plans more completely. Being part of such a caring community has given us so much in this terrible time and we are committed to returning this gift tenfold.

May there be Peace in Jessica’s name


Works In Progress With The Jessica Ridgeway Foundation

RENAMING CHELSEA PARK AFTER JESSICA

* The motion to rename Chelsea Park has passed the advisory Board of the Parks & Recreation Dept. in Westminster!
* Waiting to see if City Council will pass the motion to rename Chelsea Park. This will take place on November 26, 2012 at 7 PM.
* The new name for the park that is now called Chelsea Park has yet to be decided, but it will be renamed in Jessica’s memory.

Jessica Ridgeway Memorial Gardens
* The Jessica Ridgeway Memorial Gardens will be part of what is now called Chelsea Park and is in it’s planning stages.

Cheerleading Camp
Jessica really wanted to do Cheerleading and this will be something that will give a positive part to her memory.
* A cheerleading camp in Jessica’s name is in it’s planning stages

:heartbeat:

 

[Tennlyn]

http://www.jessicaridgeway.com/2012...he-jessica-ridgeway-foundation-are-under-way/

:heartbeat:

Is this one truly supported by the Ridgeway family and not a sham like that other charity? I don't do Facebook, so I can't investigate this on my own. Thanks for double checking for me!

 

[Eireannach]

Yes, this was posted on the official site at JessicaRidgeway.com. That's the site run by a friend of the family and has been legit since day 1.

 

[otto]

I have a very close friend who has a step son that has lived with her and her husband for the last 10 years. He is 12 now. Since he was around 7 she told me that she is afraid of him.

<snipped for space>

From what I gathered he was born this way, was a very difficult baby, his mother abandoned him while his father was overseas,he just exudes evil to me. It's the look in his eyes or rather the humanity that is missing in his eyes.

What would you do if you were my friend?

Parenting is a huge responsibility and it never stops. It sounds like the people closest to this child abandoned that responsibility when he was very young and impressionable. If he doesn't respect boundaries, it's because he didn't have consistent boundaries as a young child.

Children are basically good. Studies were done in psychology (no link, just a vague memory from a psych class) where educators were told that some children were dumb and others were smart. As a result, educators reinforced what they were told. The children were treated according to what educators were told about the children and it influenced how the children performed. Low expectations = poor performance, high expectation = reaching for the stars.

It sounds like this child has been treated as a problem for a long time, and that is a problem. It sounds like people gave up on him as a young child, and possibly, as a result, he seeks negative attention - as it's better than no attention. Buying guns for a child like this sounds extremely irresponsible ... like throwing money at a child, or trying to be a "cool friend" rather than a "parent".

Last night, my 17 year old son asked me to drive him to a high school party. I asked him to touch base with me at 10:30. I told him not to rely on public transit after the party because it is really cold outside ... to take a cab. At 10:30 I received a call and I could tell that he was walking outside. What happened? Everyone at the party was getting stoned ... really stoned ... and they were pushing him to get really stoned too. He asked me to pick him up. I didn't want to pick him up because the roads were really slippery, it was cold and late ... but I did. He knows that he can be honest with me and rely on me. That's what children need ... not guns and fear. Children need to also be confident in themselves and to be able to see the world beyond the peer group, so that they can resist peer pressures.

Your friend should try really hard to listen to what is not being said. Children communicate their concerns, but it's often written between the lines. We have to genuinely stop everything we're doing, concentrate on what we are heariing, put ourselves in their shoes, and choose our words carefully. The wrong set of words can be heard in all the wrong ways and can lead to children making the wrong choices (eg: rebellious rather than cooperative).

He's 12 ... it's not too late ... try to re-focus him ... get him involved in something that captures his interest (this takes a lot of time and effort). If he wants guns, it's because he thinks it makes him tough and cool ... but inside, he's probably a scared child trying to understand his confusing world.

that's my 2 cents

 

[Footwarrior]

The last few pages of discussion don't seem to have much to do with the Jessica Ridgeway case.

 

[tlcya]

The courts gag order + the threads gag order on profiling AS psychology = not much left to be able to discuss. All that remains is more circutious debates on where he grabbed Jessica or what he did to her and with her remains, none of which will be confirmed til trial, if then.

 

[Tennlyn]

Yes, this was posted on the official site at JessicaRidgeway.com. That's the site run by a friend of the family and has been legit since day 1.

Super! Thanks for confirming!

 

[GrainneDhu]

I have a very close friend who has a step son that has lived with her and her husband for the last 10 years. He is 12 now. Since he was around 7 she told me that she is afraid of him. She often thinks of divorcing because of the step son. He has ADHD, has some autistic issues, he has always been on medication. She sleeps with her bedroom door locked and sleeps with a gun under her pillow. The husband does not see anything wrong with his son. He buys him guns every year for Christmas. My friend has said she does not want him to have access to guns but her husband uses the excuse that HE is the biological father and can decide these things. The husband is retired military. After my friend shared everything with me I stopped seeing her. I have a son the same age and I felt limiting the contact was appropriate. I have known her for over 30 years. I have to admit that her kid scared me from the first day I met him. He does what he wants, how he wants, talks back in a menacing way and now that he is physically taller and bigger than my friend she is even more scared. However she does not see a way to help him. He is always kicked out of school for violence and he hurts her dogs. The last time he hurt her doxen (sp) he broke her 2 front legs. Lied about it but since they were the only 2 home she knew it was him. she lied to the vet.

Until he kills someone what IS there to do? She says the step son needs her for stability and does not want to give up on him.She has no biological children of her own. Everyone in her family wants her leave but she just won't. she feels that he would get worse with just his father but at the same time she has no legal recourse due to being a step parent.

From what I gathered he was born this way, was a very difficult baby, his mother abandoned him while his father was overseas,he just exudes evil to me. It's the look in his eyes or rather the humanity that is missing in his eyes.

What would you do if you were my friend?

Find a therapist for myself who has a good track record in helping parents of difficult children. Such therapists are not exactly thick on the ground, so I would be prepared to travel up to a 180 mile radius of my home in order to find one.

The stepson should also be in therapy. If the therapist is not making a noticeable difference, find him a different therapist. The most important thing with the stepson's therapy is that the stepmother should have a private meeting with the therapist first and outline all her concerns with absolute openness.

Finally, quit with the lying. After he injured her Dachshund by breaking both of the dog's front legs, she should have reported him to the POLICE. As counterintuitive as it sounds, often the best way to help kids who are on the edge like this one is to let them get involved in the juvenile justice system. In many places, that opens up access to therapists and programs that are qualified to deal with kids like this one.

Yes, your friend may have had the dog taken away from her. At this point, I can't help but think that could only be a good thing for the dog; having the dog in her home has led to that dog being tortured by the stepson.

Lying to cover up this kid's bad deeds is sending him totally the wrong message: if you do something bad, your parents will make sure you don't suffer the consequences.

As for his being born that way, I don't think anyone knows. One of the saddest benefits of the Iraqi/Afghan wars is that we're learning more about low level brain injury than we'd ever known before. And it turns out that even very low level brain trauma can have profound effects on mood and behaviour in adults.

Who knows? He may have had a difficult birth and sustained a low level brain injury then. He may have had a fall as a toddler learning to walk that didn't seem serious that gave him some sort of brain injury. It is also possible that his biological mother was a less than adequate mother (how would her ex know? he wasn't there to see it).

And if you can find it in you, please stay in contact with your friend. Be honest if you're afraid to see her stepson. What helps every human shape reality is contact with other humans. If your friend is stuck with her husband (who is in massive denial) and her stepson, then that reality is what will seem normal to her. If she has contact with people who tell her that it is not normal to lock your bedroom door for fear of other occupants of the household, it's not normal to sleep with a gun under your pillow, etc, it will help give her a sense of just how far from normal her life has strayed.

Something your friend needs to consider is that she is also contributing to her husband's level of denial. If she stays, no matter how frightening her stepson gets, he can tell himself that there's nothing wrong because hey, she's still around. If she was that afraid, she would leave, right?

And your friend needs to face that her husband is part of the problem. She doesn't have a partner in life with him, what she has is a 12 year old stepson with problems and an adult kid who refuses to see or do anything about his own son's problems.

If you want to send your friend the link to this individual message, well, feel free to do so. If I knew her myself, this is all stuff I'd say to her face (and I have more but restrained myself in the interests of space).

 

[GrainneDhu]

I always wondered what happened to her and that child. So they could be our neighbors and we would not even know it!

Oddly enough, from what I've read about them, I think both mother and daughter would make wonderful, caring, involved neighbours.

Everyone has blind spots. Most people are lucky in that their blind spots aren't on public display.

 

[onebyone]

There is having a blind spot and then there is hooking up with Ted Bundy when it was well known what kind of person he was. That's more like a black hole.

I know the wheels of justice are slow, but I am really anxious to know more about this case and the perp. It still seems just nuts that someone his age would do something like that, and i bet that the story is going to turn out to be even more gruesome than we know.

 

[The Farm]

Oddly enough, from what I've read about them, I think both mother and daughter would make wonderful, caring, involved neighbours.

Everyone has blind spots. Most people are lucky in that their blind spots aren't on public display.

Then how did she get hooked up with a pyscho that was already in jail for killing numerous women? She does not sound all that with it to me but that is not to say opeople can change, I guess.

 

[The Farm]

There is having a blind spot and then there is hooking up with Ted Bundy when it was well known what kind of person he was. That's more like a black hole.

I know the wheels of justice are slow, but I am really anxious to know more about this case and the perp. It still seems just nuts that someone his age would do something like that, and i bet that the story is going to turn out to be even more gruesome than we know.

I myself wish the wheels of justice would move the the speed of sound.

 

[GrainneDhu]

Then how did she get hooked up with a pyscho that was already in jail for killing numerous women? She does not sound all that with it to me but that is not to say opeople can change, I guess.

It's easy to judge in hindsight.

At the time of the marriage, according to Ann Rule (who knew her personally) and other Bundy biographers, the only evidence against Bundy was circumstantial, mostly consisting of proving that Bundy was within 75 miles or so of each woman he was suspected of killing at the time she disappeared.

There was one main eyewitness (Caral DaRonch) who got some important details wrong, such as the colour of the car of the man who abducted her. One of the eyewitnesses to the Chi Omega attacks initially described the suspect as being Asian and named one of the sororities employees as the attacker.

So when Bundy went to trial in Florida, it was far from a slam-dunk. So far, in fact, that prosecutors offered him a pretty good plea bargain but Bundy turned it down because he couldn't stand the thought of having to stand up in court and plead guilty.

The woman who married Bundy really did believe that he had the worst luck in the world. She had known him before he was ever a suspect and she couldn't believe that the man she knew could be the Lake Sammamish Ted. She wasn't alone in that feeling; Ann Rule wrestled with it and so did Bundy's GF at the time.

Plenty of other people have said how charismatic Bundy was and how persuasive he could be in person. Imagine how much more so he would be to the women who loved him.

She left Bundy and Florida when Bundy started confessing his crimes.

To tie this back to Austin Sigg, I'm not reading much about someone who was glib and charismatic. Even the people who have come forward as his friends seem to be describing someone who was intelligent and interesting but not charismatic or able to sell sand to a beach dweller.

 

[nikb]

I've seen prisoners being able to communicate via email. I'd have to dig back but some prisons do allow it. One guy I saw was accused of chopping a poor young teen up here in AZ. He had a profile and all. I went looking for it the other day and can't find it now.

<snipped for space>

Not an advocate for prisoner ease for communications at this point yet. jmo

BBM possibly of interest, I stumbled across this while looking for something else:
http://www.bop.gov/inmate_programs/trulincs_faq.jsp

"The Trust Fund Limited Inmate Computer System (TRULINCS) is a new program currently being deployed by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to provide inmates with some limited computer access, to include the capability to send and receive electronic messages without having access to the Internet. This program is designed in part to assist in the inmate's eventual release to the community."

<snip>

Effective February 2, 2011, all BOP operated facilities have TRULINCS. Contract facilities do not operate TRULINCS.

It sounds like it's pretty heavily regulated, screened in terms of who they can send email to and vice versa, and access is only granted to those with good behavior. I have mixed feelings on it, but IMO it's probably easier to monitor and keep track of than the activity through contraband cell phones. I also wonder if it helps to limit the contraband phones.

ETA: sorry, I know this isn't about Jessica. It may be somewhat relevant to ARS someday though.