WA WA - Shantina Smiley, 29, & Azriel Carver, 8 (fnd deceased), Olympia, Mar 2010 - #5

[sorrell skye]

Or they could be like me and not realize it can be set to private LOL

I'm old too... I joined just to see what it was all about, but found it far too confusing.

And for the longest time I couldn't figure out who this damned "Tom" guy was....

lol lol lol!!!

 

[Calliope]

lol lol lol!!!

I actually complained about that to my daughter.

She just said "Mooooooommmmmm" and gave me *that look*.

 

[Alaska4959]

... Suffering from alcoholism is hard to get over, and it is a constant fight. Its not something that you overcome, and then never think about again or struggle with again. .

luckymommy I respectfully snipped your post to save space. I realize this is your opinion but it seems you are speaking of alcoholics in general and I do not agree with that generalization.

Your statement may be true for some but please do not think it is true for all alcoholics. As I have stated, I am an alcoholic who has been in recovery for 17 years. Though I have had and still have stress, trauma and loss in my life I am as committed to sobriety today as I was on January 3, 1993 when I began my life as a former drinker. I do not believe it has been a struggle or a constant fight to stay sober. I believe some of us are stronger than that. I believe each individual deals with their addictions/sobriety differently and unless/until Shantina comes on here and tells us how she dealt with it, I prefer to believe she was stronger than some people think.

Again, I know this is your opinion and I respect that.:truce:

 

[elf69]

18 years ago I had an experience with CPS -- something I was ashamed to share for many years. I had been a very good mother. I was single and very young and not on welfare. I had a good job which ended (didn't get fired). I got another job which was better and making a lot of money ($2,300 at 23). It was a huge change for me -- a good change -- but one I couldn't handle. I didn't handle change very well. Also, I did my fair share of partying, but always took care of my son. After this huge change my "recreational" use of cocaine got out of control. I had gone from a perfect mother to a neglectful mother. CPS was called. When they came to my house they said that there was obviously a tremendous amount of love between my son and I and no problems, offered their services and went on their way. I didn't take them up on their services and continued doing what I was doing. After 8 complaints my son was removed from my custody -- not one of those complaints was ever for physical or sexual abuse of my son. Prior to being ordered to complete various requirements in order to have my son returned to me, I did all of those on my own accord. One of those requirements was treatment. My son was returned to my custody after a 4 month time period. I was told by a CPS worker that there was more damage done to my son being removed from my custody than what I was doing. Not one of those complaints was ever for physical or sexual abuse -- just neglect (which isn't ok either). One thing I learned about myself, was that I would unconsciously sabotage anything good in my life because deep down inside, I felt I didn't deserve anything good. I never, ever, relapsed and would never go back to that state of mind. I had to change everything about my life and at times it was very lonely but I took it very seriously and succeeded.

It seems to me as if SS didn't take things too seriously for whatever reason. It also may be that, due to her tumultuous life that she has had, maybe she too believes that she didn't deserve anything good that came her way and as a result relapsed, met someone, etc. and tragically, her son died. I guess part of the point I am making is that CPS should have pushed harder and maybe her son's life could have been saved. I also wonder if her supposed relapse a week ago has actually been an ongoing thing and RS doesn't want to admit it. After all, there are all those cub scout parents that could be saying how could you knowingly let our sons be in her care when you knew she wasn't ok. Just a thought as to why he didn't openly admit it in the first place. All too often, love protects too much that all it is doing is enabling.

I just thought I should throw in my few dollars after all the comments on CPS issues. I do believe that CPS, in our state, has a very bad rap. They don't protect the kids. I don't know what happened between 18 years ago and now. If you could see the complaints that were against me, you would understand how trivial they were; although, I am thankful that they saved my life. Sadly, there are way more detrimental complaints that are not being acted upon.

Oh and one other thing -- The reason for my success -- I did it for me. I didn't do it to "get my son back." If that were the case, as it is in too many deferred types of cases, I would not have succeeded. The only way a person is going to battle any type of addiction is to do it only for themselves. Once that occurs, everything falls into place as long as you don't get complacent.

Hope I didn't ramble too much and if I did, I guess I needed to do so.

 

[elf69]

luckymommy I respectfully snipped your post to save space. I realize this is your opinion but it seems you are speaking of alcoholics in general and I do not agree with that generalization.

Your statement may be true for some but please do not think it is true for all alcoholics. As I have stated, I am an alcoholic who has been in recovery for 17 years. Though I have had and still have stress, trauma and loss in my life I am as committed to sobriety today as I was on January 3, 1993 when I began my life as a former drinker. I do not believe it has been a struggle or a constant fight to stay sober. I believe some of us are stronger than that. I believe each individual deals with their addictions/sobriety differently and unless/until Shantina comes on here and tells us how she dealt with it, I prefer to believe she was stronger than some people think.

Again, I know this is your opinion and I respect that.:truce:

Very well said!! :clap:

 

[Allyne]

It's possible that the visit to the stepfather might have triggered the memory of her Mother's suicide.....and caused all the stress, the desire to drink. But I don't think she would have knocked on the door at 10 pm if she were planning that......It's all very perplexing.....I think it is possible that she was in some way bi-polar, but something is still not adding up.......I do see why you could think that, for sure, though...

Was it definitely a suicide?

 

[Allyne]

Maybe on the freeway? Would they be able to get to Lacey that quickly? It was about 50 miles away (I believe the diner was in Lacey)

An hour and 15 minutes to get from Castle Rock to Zangle Road

 

[Allyne]

Thank You Allyne!!!

When I first looked at the "brass/bronze/mysterious object" my initial reaction was that it looked like an old weathered bullet cartridge. But the chrome thing on the end threw me off. I think you may be right - it very well may be a keychain bullet cartridge. People make keychains out of all kinds of things.

You're welcome.

 

[Allyne]

Someone posted this link, which I can't find now, to quote the actual post...

IMPO this is RS & the person he's referencing is TW

 

[Allyne]

One hour & one minute to get to the diner.

 

[PaulR]

This map shows that there is a lot of shoreline to search. The van was in Olympia ( middle of map bottom) and Azril ended up over near Tacoma ,Fox island ( the oblong island).
Since I'm not local I was trying to see the area. If I am incorrect about anything let me know. I had to look at another map to figure out Fox Island.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Puget_sound_map.png

Just to clarify:

Van was found near the pink "blob" directly north of Olympia.
Fox Island (where Az was found) is directly NW of Tacoma; it looks a little bit like Manhattan at a 45 degree angle.

I don't think there is a practical way of searching all the shoreline in Puget Sound.

 

[Allyne]

Some interesting information on SAR here.

 

[Nancee Drue]

Who is the woman. telling (posted message) a person named Candy, that she must tell what she knows? She urges Candy to tell the truth because there's been so much pain, already. And, who is Candy? Is she a friend or relative of SS's?:waitasec::waitasec:

This was posted six days after AS was found, on shore.

 

[ajfa]

Thanks for the maps. Below is a link to another map of the area that labels the islands. I found it very helpful since I am not familiar with the area at all.

http://aroundthewaterfront.com/

If you click on "Fox Island" at the website, the map takes you to a video flyover and fly-around of the island with narration. Very helpful to me in picturing and understanding the place. For example, I did not know the island was so populated.

 

[90Nine]

Who is the woman. telling (posted message) a person named Candy, that she must tell what she knows? She urges Candy to tell the truth because there's been so much pain, already. And, who is Candy? Is she a friend or relative of SS's?:waitasec::waitasec:

This was posted six days after AS was found, on shore.

Candy is the step mother.

 

[yosande]

This is more recent. It's the last article I've seen:
http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/kitsap/ckr/news/89305097.html

I don't know how they can say that there is no sign that a crime has been committed, Az is an 8 year old kid. He wasn't out there swimming for crying out loud. He didn't get into the cold water in the middle of the night b/c he wanted to.

Lt. Mealy himself said that road/path was hard for him to locate during the day. Yet she found it, when she couldn't find the freeway, on a dark night?
I don't bellieve she stumblied upon that road/path.

If she knew where the road/path was, someone should just tell us, the public. jmo

I do hope the truth comes out, and we find what really happened that night, and why Az has died.

He deserves justice. He lost his life. It wasn't of his own making.

ugh.

 

[Calliope]

I don't know how they can say that there is no sign that a crime has been committed, Az is an 8 year old kid. He wasn't out there swimming for crying out loud. He didn't get into the cold water in the middle of the night b/c he wanted to.

Lt. Mealy himself said that road/path was hard for him to locate during the day. Yet she found it, when she couldn't find the freeway, on a dark night?
I don't bellieve she stumblied upon that road/path.

If she knew where the road/path was, someone should just tell us, the public. jmo

I do hope the truth comes out, and we find what really happened that night, and why Az has died.

He deserves justice. He lost his life. It wasn't of his own making.

ugh.

Exactly. Well said.

 

[SMK]

Right: The past is the past, what matters is how did things wind up as they did that night? Regardless of the problems Shantina had in her life prior to this, it must be probed, how she and Azriel wound up down that dark, almost unseeable road to the water that night. Many hours are unaccounted for.

 

[luckymommyo2]

luckymommy I respectfully snipped your post to save space. I realize this is your opinion but it seems you are speaking of alcoholics in general and I do not agree with that generalization.

Your statement may be true for some but please do not think it is true for all alcoholics. As I have stated, I am an alcoholic who has been in recovery for 17 years. Though I have had and still have stress, trauma and loss in my life I am as committed to sobriety today as I was on January 3, 1993 when I began my life as a former drinker. I do not believe it has been a struggle or a constant fight to stay sober. I believe some of us are stronger than that. I believe each individual deals with their addictions/sobriety differently and unless/until Shantina comes on here and tells us how she dealt with it, I prefer to believe she was stronger than some people think.

Again, I know this is your opinion and I respect that.:truce:

I am sorry if I came across rude in that post or bad. I do understand that everyone is different when recovering, and some dont even think about going back to their old ways. I wasnt trying to offend anyone, or sound too opinionated . Its kind of hard to get a point across on here, without it sounding harsher than I really meant it. I guess what I was trying to say is that she could have been struggling still, and upon receiving that bad news from her boyfriend, she could have just wanted to escape from it, by drinking again. Some people just dont have any other ways of coping. I again want to say that I feel sorry for Shantina. I really do feel like she finally had her life together, things were going good, and then she was given the devastating news that her boyfriend is ill. I just really feel that she did sincerely care about her son, and I dont feel like she would purposely harm him.
BTW- Congratulations on overcoming that addiction in your life. I realize how hard it is and I am happy that you dont ever think about drinking again. It really does take an enormous amount of strength and support.

And another note: I think it might be different in each state when reports are made about child abuse/endangerment. Because when they got the report on me, they actually called and scheduled a time to meet. I did find that pretty stupid because yes, like you said, I could have just cleaned up and stashed the drugs if I did them. I think it makes more sense for them to just show up.

 

[SMK]

I don't know how they can say that there is no sign that a crime has been committed, Az is an 8 year old kid. He wasn't out there swimming for crying out loud. He didn't get into the cold water in the middle of the night b/c he wanted to.

Lt. Mealy himself said that road/path was hard for him to locate during the day. Yet she found it, when she couldn't find the freeway, on a dark night?
I don't bellieve she stumblied upon that road/path.

If she knew where the road/path was, someone should just tell us, the public. jmo

I do hope the truth comes out, and we find what really happened that night, and why Az has died.

He deserves justice. He lost his life. It wasn't of his own making.

ugh.

Right, thanks for this - and what bothers me is, where is the proof that Shantina and Azriel were sleeping in the van, and simply surprised and swept away by high tide? Do we really know this?