ID - Robert Manwill, 8, Boise, 24 July 2009 - #4

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Does anyone else find it strange that the mothers letter was all about water? It got to me when I heard them read it out loud yesterday at the funeral.
 
Good observation BobbieBu.
From her letter posted above - "But my memory that I will hold tightly is of you in the ocean. You were frolicking in the waves and shrieking with delight when I called for you. And so Mommy had to hold you and you screamed.
Then you had to go poo and you almost pooed on Papa's feet."


Of all the things for thousands of people to know about...

I'm afraid Robert has many family members wishing they'd done things differently.

Where is bf?? Still hiding out in the hospital?? And better yet, how is there for this long with presumable no insurance???
 
Yeah what about that picture at the funeral of MJ crying. To me it looks a little out of the norm like she's trying to put on a show. Everyone's looking at her...
Either that or the shock has worn off ...
But I really get the feeling she's more worried about what's going to happen now that all the funeral stuff is done.
So where's the b/f now? Out of town? Still in Intermountain? I don't know how unless he keeps saying he's going to kill himself because I'm pretty sure the guy has no health insurance and I don't think he's got money to pay cash for any kind of drug treatment. The evaluation period is over with I'm pretty sure so.....arrest him already.

He must be really playing the suicide card. Of course if I had done something that horrible I'd want to die too.

Now that Robert has been laid to rest.. or at least said goodbye to lets get a suspect in custody.
 
BobbieBu said:
Does anyone else find it strange that the mothers letter was all about water? It got to me when I heard them read it out loud yesterday at the funeral.
Click to expand...

Yes I found it very disturbing that she would go on about the ocean and his screaming. Maybe that's her sick way of justifying what happened to him in her mind. Maybe that's what she's been telling her self what happened so that she could maintain at the press conferences and funeral...memorial services...

and the POO??? Jesus how tactless ...nice. That's all she could come up with? That in itself was disturbing. How about a xmas story? or Bday or ...god anything but that. What was she thinking?
 
its a shame if the best thing you can remember about your child is their screaming and almost pooing on someone's foot.
 
I thought the poo thing was inappropriate and not something to share with thousands of strangers - a very STRANGE thing to write about! Her letter was very short and I cannot imagine a mother not wanting to say a whole lot more to her son as he was laid to rest. It wouldn't surprise me if she didn't even write it herself. I noticed that the Idaho Statesmen left out the poo part in their version of it in the paper today. Weird.
 
Normcar21 said:
One thing rings clear to me from what I have heard and seen so far, this family has some nasty history but I have not heard one negative report about 2 individuals to date: Robert's dad and Ehrlick senior. It appears that Idaho has no nasty information relative to these 2 individuals either, only positive things.
Click to expand...

I checked their records and they do have a few things but nothing in comparison to others.

There are several cases for a Daniel E Ehrlick born 1947, so I assume that is the father. He and his wife Barbara have numerous collections cases against them. He has a 1999 Assault charge that was dismissed, a dispensing alcohol to minors and a contempt of court from 1995. So, nothing major and nothing too recent, but still an assault charge.

The only thing I see for CM, besides a couple of speeding tickets and some collections, is a 1996 Petit Theft and Probation Violation. One interesting thing, though, is that it appears he was married to someone named Judith as they are named together in some collections cases from 1999 and 2000. No divorce, though - maybe it could be his mother or something - I assumed spouse since they were named together. Well, I just checked the obit. and it says Charles' mother is named Joan. So, it seems he may have been married in between Silke (divorced in 1995) and MJ (married in 2001) to someone named Judith (b.1975)?
 
Can someone who understands Child Protective Services and those laws answer a question for me, please?

Let's say ( God forbid) you tripped over the rug while holding your baby. When you fell you contacted the door frame and cracked your baby's head. Skull fracture results. The next thing you do is run (limp) to the hospital with your obviously injured baby. You tell them what happened, your baby will recover, and they believe you. Until they get all the facts, with a skull fracture on an infant, I'm assuming the ER is obligated to notify Child Protective Services. So now CPS gets involved and you relay your story to them. Let's say they believe you and are willing to accept that this was in fact a horrible accident. Is CPS obligated to have you charged anyway, as a safeguard to protect the child, or can they just 'let it go?'

No, I'm NOT saying that what happened to MJ's baby's head was an accident. But the $75.50 fine, 29 days of work release and 2 years probation still have me baffled. If they believed she did it by accident, they wouldn't have charged her AT ALL, would they?

I still can't get past that sentence. It strikes me that there is no middle ground with the incident involving the infant. Either she was guilty and it was intentional, which should have required a stiffer penalty, or she was not guilty because it WAS an accident and the case should have been dismissed...or does my understanding of the laws regarding CPS just suck?
 
Yes I think if I were saying goodbye to my murdered child I would have had a lot more to say... and I would have felt a lot of guilt for what happened to him. For not protecting him from harm, for not being there, for not doing everything in my power to keep negative and potentionally dangerous people out of his life.

I don't know that I would have been able to read it myself, without crying uncontrollably..but I know I would have had a lot more to say. And as another poster said... "if i wasn't guilty of what happened or knowing about it there's nothing that could have stopped me from saying so or screaming it to the media....." you can bet on that.

It's very sad, I too worry about KM...he's probably been through a lot. Even before this tragedy with his little brother.

I feel for him..... he needs someone.. to talk to, to be there for him. I think his myspace is a desperate cry for help. Even if he's not aware of it.:grouphug::grouphug::Justice::praying::sunshine:
 
Just looked at Trisha Jenkins' record:
2005 Drug Paraphernalia
1996 Petit Theft and Probation Violation
Numerous collections cases

She must have recently married, there is nothing under her married name.
 
Forgive me for being morbid...but all I can think about now in her (MJ's) letter is water, holding, screaming and pooing. Like a forcible drowning, get my drift?? Weird choice of words from her at this time.
 
Shutterfly said:
Can someone who understands Child Protective Services and those laws answer a question for me, please?

Let's say ( God forbid) you tripped over the rug while holding your baby. When you fell you contacted the door frame and cracked your baby's head. Skull fracture results. The next thing you do is run (limp) to the hospital with your obviously injured baby. You tell them what happened, your baby will recover, and they believe you. Until they get all the facts, with a skull fracture on an infant, I'm assuming the ER is obligated to notify Child Protective Services. So now CPS gets involved and you relay your story to them. Let's say they believe you and are willing to accept that this was in fact a horrible accident. Is CPS obligated to have you charged anyway, as a safeguard to protect the child, or can they just 'let it go?'

No, I'm NOT saying that what happened to MJ's baby's head was an accident. But the $75.50 fine, 29 days of work release and 2 years probation still have me baffled. If they believed she did it by accident, they wouldn't have charged her AT ALL, would they?

I still can't get past that sentence. It strikes me that there is no middle ground with the incident involving the infant. Either she was guilty and it was intentional, which should have required a stiffer penalty, or she was not guilty because it WAS an accident and the case should have been dismissed...or does my understanding of the laws regarding CPS just suck?
Click to expand...

She was initially charged under a different statute, a felony for intentionally harming her child (which she stated to police) and for not seeking care (baby didn't go to the hospital for a day). She took the plea on the misdemeanor charge and didn't go to trial, but agreed to not fight the custody hold and to do all the things they asked her and the boyfriend to do to get the kid back. The state will say they took the deal because it got her into supervised visitation and classes which is better for the child, and had they gone to trial where she would have changed her story they had no evidence of who actually did what to the baby and how it happened.

In your scenario and in today's day and age of liability I believe the hospital would file a report, cps would come out and do their paperwork, and if they all agreed it was an accident I believe they would just file the appropriate paperwork in your file in case the child was ever in ER again.

I had a girlfriend whose little boy had a spiral fracture from a legit accident, the hospital reports all spiral fractures, they seperated her from her son for interviews, cps came out to ER talked with her, the boy, the doctors, said they wanted to see the home (Seemed like a test to me to see if she was hiding anything or resistant) she said okay and they went to the home. Lots of paperwork was done in a government CYA type approach, but they let her back in to see her son and he came home with her at discharge.

If the stories don't mesh, you have an attitude, don't want to comply, etc... then cps is not comfortable with their paperwork and they pass the buck to the police to see if there is a case. Is my impression anyway.
 
I too feel that the letters from mom and dad to Robert were strange. Melissa's was just odd in the fact that she discussed water so much and then the poo. Seriously? Very inappropriate IMO. And the dad's was akward, because he talked about Robert's attitude and people constantly yelling at him. Come on. Even if these thing are true (which is sad), do you really want that to be what the world hears about Robert? Not that any of this has any bearing on the case, but if my child died, I would be thinking about all the happy memories. Poor Robert. It does appear his life was never about him.
 
Boisechick3770 said:
Yes I found it very disturbing that she would go on about the ocean and his screaming. Maybe that's her sick way of justifying what happened to him in her mind. Maybe that's what she's been telling her self what happened so that she could maintain at the press conferences and funeral...memorial services...

and the POO??? Jesus how tactless ...nice. That's all she could come up with? That in itself was disturbing. How about a xmas story? or Bday or ...god anything but that. What was she thinking?
Click to expand...

That garbage and one other story about Melissa will stick in my mind...
the one about Danny's Dad being afraid to ask if Robert could go fishing and the wrath of Mom making the kid sit on his hands.

This is a first grade boy.

I hope she rots for her abuse of the children and her stupid tears just well.... puke.
 
Perhaps my disciplinary 'tactics' are different than MJ's, but what purpose is there in forcing a child to sit on his hands???? What exactly does the child learn from this?
 
Shutterfly said:
Can someone who understands Child Protective Services and those laws answer a question for me, please?

Let's say ( God forbid) you tripped over the rug while holding your baby. When you fell you contacted the door frame and cracked your baby's head. Skull fracture results. The next thing you do is run (limp) to the hospital with your obviously injured baby. You tell them what happened, your baby will recover, and they believe you. Until they get all the facts, with a skull fracture on an infant, I'm assuming the ER is obligated to notify Child Protective Services. So now CPS gets involved and you relay your story to them. Let's say they believe you and are willing to accept that this was in fact a horrible accident. Is CPS obligated to have you charged anyway, as a safeguard to protect the child, or can they just 'let it go?'

No, I'm NOT saying that what happened to MJ's baby's head was an accident. But the $75.50 fine, 29 days of work release and 2 years probation still have me baffled. If they believed she did it by accident, they wouldn't have charged her AT ALL, would they?

I still can't get past that sentence. It strikes me that there is no middle ground with the incident involving the infant. Either she was guilty and it was intentional, which should have required a stiffer penalty, or she was not guilty because it WAS an accident and the case should have been dismissed...or does my understanding of the laws regarding CPS just suck?
Click to expand...

OK, so this response will probably make me unpopular, but here goes.

Let me start by saying that Idaho's laws may be slightly different (in each state CPS is governed by it's own administrative code written by that state’s lawmakers) and I can only speak for the states I've worked for, but I'm sure they're similar.

In your hypothetical case, the fact that the hospital reported the incident says a lot. Mandated reporters are only required to report suspicions of abuse; not all injuries involving children are reported. Ergo, the hospital reported the fracture = they were not buying that the injury was an accident.

Now that CPS is involved, there are a couple of things that could happen.

CPS determines you're telling the truth and tripped and that the injury really was an accident. There is no evidence of abuse. Case ends here.

Let's say however, that you were drunk when you tripped. It was still an accident, but your actions (being drunk) put your child at risk of injury. It's likely that there would be a determination of abuse due to negligence. Now you have a CPS record, but this case never sees the inside of a courtroom.

Another possibility is that the investigator determines that the injury was not an accident. The case is founded for abuse. Again, you now have a CPS record. You MIGHT get charged criminally.

CPS, law enforcement, and the DA are all separate entities. Law enforcement may decline to charge, or the DA may decline to prosecute. I used to work in a locality where the State’s Attorney really liked his high conviction rate. If there wasn’t a guarantee that there would be a plea or conviction, the abuser was rarely charged. It is my experience that this numbers game is not uncommon. You guys would be physically ill to know how may parents/caretakers have founded CPS cases but are never charged. Even sex abuse cases. (FYI - that also means those people don’t have to register as sex offenders and the public will never know they exist)

So with regard to MJ, the CPS worker did well just to get MJ charged, IMO. The fact that she WAS charged says to me that NO ONE involved bought her story that the baby’s skull fracture was an accident. Her sentence SUCKED, but was typical. That part I can’t explain. It’s up to the judge to determine the sentence.

As a side note, I guarantee that the CPS worker who removed the baby had an absolute fit about that baby going home, especially so soon. Again, this decision would be made by the judge. Typically, judges follow a recommendation by the foster care worker (usually a different person than the CPS worker) regarding returning a child home, but the final decision is the judge’s to make. I was a foster care worker for several years before switching to CPS, and I doubt the FC worker wanted the baby returned either. There are just too many risk factors associated with the case.
 
snoelle1 said:
Let's say however, that you were drunk when you tripped. It was still an accident, but your actions (being drunk) put your child at risk of injury. It's likely that there would be a determination of abuse due to negligence. Now you have a CPS record, but this case never sees the inside of a courtroom.
Click to expand...
So what happens if there is a history of things that dont make the courtroom? Is there a point where 3 strikes and it finally goes to the court?

Makes me wonder if they suspected drug use or something when this happened.
 
Idaho-native said:
So what happens if there is a history of things that dont make the courtroom? Is there a point where 3 strikes and it finally goes to the court?

Makes me wonder if they suspected drug use or something when this happened.
Click to expand...

Usually the decision to charge criminally is based on the merits of each individual case. CPS, however, relies heavily on any available history when making a determination of abuse and when deciding what action must be taken to provide for the safety of the child/children. If the history is there, it probably justifies removal.

And for the record, I'm not giving any abuser three strikes - I'm taking the kid way before that point! Once is an accident, twice is a trend...
 
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