Deceased/Not Found AZ - Jhessye Shockley, 5, Glendale, 11 Oct 2011 - #5 *J. Hunter guilty*

[tlcya]

http://www.azcentral.com/community/...ing-girl-jhessye-18th-week-landfill-hunt.html

The searchers -- nearly 200 in all -- are working their way through a single day's trash, enough to fill about 60 railroad boxcars, to find the body of a little girl.

All of them are police or public-safety workers from around the Valley, and they all volunteered. They did so because they are parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles; each with unique backgrounds that steel their resolve for the grim task.

But each holds onto a single image: a smiling Jhessye Shockley, the Glendale girl reported missing last October who police believe was murdered.

And they cling to the same goal: justice and a proper burial.

"We can't let people think they can dispose of this little 40-pound child and get away with it," Phoenix Detective William Andersen says.

The sky is still dark when search-team members board a bus to the Butterfield Station Landfill at 4:30 a.m.

EXCELLENT ARTICLE. MUST READ regarding the search efforts at the landfill. Lots of detail about the searchers, the logistics of exactly how they are performing the search.

 

[tlcya]

Glendale has spent $720,000 so far, and about two-thirds of that money comes from funds seized in drug investigations.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/community/...ye-18th-week-landfill-hunt.html#ixzz1wqMEJfJp

In your face Massen

 

[Donjeta]

Still, Andersen and the others don't want to listen to those who would question the likelihood that Jhessye's remains will be found.

"It's not about statistics," he says. "It's about a 5-year-old girl, and if it were your child, you'd want us to do it."

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/community/...ye-18th-week-landfill-hunt.html#ixzz1wqNsVp5m


Except it is Jerice's child and she probably doesn't want them to find her...

The article made me cry

 

[Knox]

More from TL's Link ...

On a chilly morning early in the search, a sergeant sings softly to himself as he drives the bus into the landfill.

"We're going to the landfill, and we're gonna find Jhessye," he sings, inserting his own lyrics into the cheerful '60s tune about going to the chapel.

Glendale crime-scene technician Gina Carter sits behind him and joins in, inspired by the optimism.

Jhessye's disappearance has been a near-daily part of Carter's life for more than eight months.

Further investigation took police to the landfill where they've been searching. Police got a tip and worked other leads that Jhessye's body was disposed of in Tempe and hauled away in a garbage truck to the trash site. Now, they are focused on less than 1 acre of a nearly 700-acre landfill, which covers an area roughly the size of 525 football fields.

Carter had combed through Jhessye's home the day after her mother reported her missing.

She had watched news coverage after the mother, Jerice Hunter, was arrested on suspicion of child abuse and then let go because prosecutors didn't want to create a situation of double jeopardy if they pursued a murder charge.

Carter had learned about the extended family who raised Jhessye for four years while Hunter served time in a California prison for abusing Jhessye's older siblings.

And Carter had come to know Jhessye through photos taken before she was returned to her mother's care. In one, rose-colored glasses perch on the tip of Jhessye's nose. Hot-pink and purple butterfly clips hold her curls in pigtails.

Carter thinks of that image during her days at the landfill.

The photo and dozens more captured a happy child whose family adored her. "It's so disturbing that she could be so loved and then end up in a landfill," Carter says.

The 10-year forensic technician has spent nearly every workday since February on the search. Although months have passed since she and the sergeant sang, her optimism is unwavering.

Glendale police won't elaborate on the tip that made them so confident they will find Jhessye's body at the landfill. But Carter's confidence is so strong that she worried the entire week she was off work in March. She wants to be there when crews recover Jhessye's body.

"I have no doubt at all," she says. "I know we will find her."

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/community/...ye-18th-week-landfill-hunt.html#ixzz1wqdaG5aU​

Inspiring, heartrending, soul touching. Bless these law enforcement folks who are able perform their job, but remain in touch with their hearts.

 

[tlcya]

I so want this search to be successful and am so grateful that they are so devoted to bringing this baby home to be laid to rest.

Inspiring indeed.

 

[cocomod]

Bless them for their endurance. I cannot imagine the heartbreak and the frustration of being out there day after day. Little Torrey Brown's body was recently found at the landfill. He was only 7 months old. I still have hope that little Jhessye will be brought home for a dignified burial and for justice to be served.

raying: Prayers for those searchers this week!

 

[tlcya]

http://trivalleycentral.com/articles/2012/06/01/front/doc4fc8f1da3d2c6433229423.txt

PHOENIX — The methodical search of an Arizona landfill for the body of a 5-year-old girl missing for about eight months and now believed to be dead is expected to finish by the end of June, police said Thursday.

“You’re out there in a pile of compacted trash, so it takes a very long time,” Breeden said. “Every inch of it has to be gone through. It’s a landfill, so it smells, and it’s very physically intensive in the heat. It takes its toll.”

From the bottom of my heart, Thank you to each and every person searching.

 

[Knox]

:bump:

 

[Breazy]

Checking in and catching up...

Hoping & Praying Jhessye is found!!!!

 

[EllaMae]

The searchers are some of the most heroic and dedicated public servants I have ever seen.
God Bless them and keep them safe while they try to find Jhessye.

 

[suzyq211]

Sadly it appears this sleezy HOE is pregnant again that makes baby number 8 and also likely by an 8th daddy. Sterilize this woman!!

http://phoenix-on.us/2012/03/23/family-missing-jhessyes-mother-pregnant/

WTH??? Why isnt she in jail? This is preposterous!!!

 

[GrainneDhu]

I got curious and started reading the Jhessye threads but there's just so much there. I've only read about 3.5 of them. Please forgive me if my questions have already been answered or discussed at length.

As I understand it, Jerice Hunter left California to give birth to Jhessye before going to prison in California for child abuse. The children she had at the time of her arrest were placed in the custody of her own mother, Shirley Hunter. When Jerice left prison, she re-claimed Jhessye from the cousin(s?) who were raising her.

Does anyone know why the cousin(s) didn't go to court while Jerice was still in prison to formalise the arrangement so that Jerice would be unable to reclaim Jhessye?

I do have some speculation as to why Jerice has gotten pregnant again. I think that she's trying for a different ending with each pregnancy. Many women who were victims of child abuse do this. They see a baby in a very romantic, idealised way as someone who will give them the unconditional love their hearts are starved for because they didn't get it from their own childhood.

But then they have the baby and sooner or later (usually sooner) the intense, natural and normal neediness of babies hits. Two needy people in a relationship is always bad news, no matter what that relationship is.

A mother who was abused herself as a child and never received adequate assistance in dealing with it usually has poor to zero coping skills. She's at high risk for abusing because that's just about the only "tool" in her relationship toolkit.

Time goes on, her child or children get older and become more difficult for her to deal with because they are now also abused children.

The mother is still emotionally needy and not able to fulfil her needs in a healthy way. And that romantic vision of a baby who will love her unconditionally, that she can cuddle in a pool of sunshine while heavenly music plays from some invisible source all around them starts going through her head again.

It's a cycle.

It is hard to believe but I'm betting that once upon a time, there was a little girl named Jerice with sparkles in her eyes and a big smile for the world, before it was all beaten out of her. When Jerice was four, she probably wasn't so different from Jhessye.

She lost that childhood innocence and she learned by example to use anger to try to get her way.

She's in a perpetual state of fighting for her life and she doesn't even realise that the enemy is... herself.

 

[AmandaReckonwith]

Volunteers are still braving the heat to put up fliers.

http://www.azfamily.com/news/Keeping-Jhessye-Shockleys-memory-alive-158311725.html


Jhessye's Case Archive is updated as often as there is news.

http://s296.photobucket.com/albums/mm166/crankycrankerson/Jhessye Shockley -AZ-/

 

[LCoastMom]

I got curious and started reading the Jhessye threads but there's just so much there. I've only read about 3.5 of them. Please forgive me if my questions have already been answered or discussed at length.

As I understand it, Jerice Hunter left California to give birth to Jhessye before going to prison in California for child abuse. The children she had at the time of her arrest were placed in the custody of her own mother, Shirley Hunter. When Jerice left prison, she re-claimed Jhessye from the cousin(s?) who were raising her.

Does anyone know why the cousin(s) didn't go to court while Jerice was still in prison to formalise the arrangement so that Jerice would be unable to reclaim Jhessye?

I do have some speculation as to why Jerice has gotten pregnant again. I think that she's trying for a different ending with each pregnancy. Many women who were victims of child abuse do this. They see a baby in a very romantic, idealised way as someone who will give them the unconditional love their hearts are starved for because they didn't get it from their own childhood.

But then they have the baby and sooner or later (usually sooner) the intense, natural and normal neediness of babies hits. Two needy people in a relationship is always bad news, no matter what that relationship is.

A mother who was abused herself as a child and never received adequate assistance in dealing with it usually has poor to zero coping skills. She's at high risk for abusing because that's just about the only "tool" in her relationship toolkit.

Time goes on, her child or children get older and become more difficult for her to deal with because they are now also abused children.

The mother is still emotionally needy and not able to fulfil her needs in a healthy way. And that romantic vision of a baby who will love her unconditionally, that she can cuddle in a pool of sunshine while heavenly music plays from some invisible source all around them starts going through her head again.

It's a cycle.

It is hard to believe but I'm betting that once upon a time, there was a little girl named Jerice with sparkles in her eyes and a big smile for the world, before it was all beaten out of her. When Jerice was four, she probably wasn't so different from Jhessye.

She lost that childhood innocence and she learned by example to use anger to try to get her way.

She's in a perpetual state of fighting for her life and she doesn't even realise that the enemy is... herself.

This is a very thoughtful post and you maybe right that little Jerice had all the good beaten out of her. Possibly Shirley did too. I'm sorry for that child in them but that's as far as my sympathy goes. At some point adult Jerice made choices and she was told over and over they weren't good choices. Now a child on her watch is probably laying in a landfill. I have no compassion left for anyone who could treat a child (any child) so callously.

IMO Jerice never should have been allowed near any child after her conviction unless she was doing supervised visitation. I doubt she would have made the effort.

As to your question Jerice got a very early release from her sentence in CA, I wonder if the cousins were caught unprepared. I'm speculating that they thought they had more time.

 

[Knox]

Volunteers are still braving the heat to put up fliers.

http://www.azfamily.com/news/Keeping-Jhessye-Shockleys-memory-alive-158311725.html

Photo credit to "Where is Jhessye Shockley Facebook Page" and the wonderful women seen in the news video.

 

[GrainneDhu]

This is a very thoughtful post and you maybe right that little Jerice had all the good beaten out of her. Possibly Shirley did too. I'm sorry for that child in them but that's as far as my sympathy goes. At some point adult Jerice made choices and she was told over and over they weren't good choices. Now a child on her watch is probably laying in a landfill. I have no compassion left for anyone who could treat a child (any child) so callously.

IMO Jerice never should have been allowed near any child after her conviction unless she was doing supervised visitation. I doubt she would have made the effort.

As to your question Jerice got a very early release from her sentence in CA, I wonder if the cousins were caught unprepared. I'm speculating that they thought they had more time.

I found a website (it may have been mentioned on WS!) that expressed something I think is important:

http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php?page=2

Her work is about the role of an enlightened witness in breaking the cycle of child abuse. She comes up with the best answer I've read so far for the question "why is it that not all abused children grow up to be abusers?" To vastly over-simplify, her answer is that an abused child who has a witness who can validate that child's feelings and show them that the way they were treated is not normal is crucial.

It isn't enough to change a person to tell them that they are making bad choices. If bad choices are the only options they can think of, then that's like telling a starving person in the desert they should be eating five servings of vegetables and fruits a day. It is true but irrelevant to their circumstances.

Sadly, as a society, we show what priority our children have by how we allocate taxes for services. I'm not aware of any state where that state's equivalent of Child Protective Services isn't grossly underfunded and overworked.

 

[tlcya]

I got curious and started reading the Jhessye threads but there's just so much there. I've only read about 3.5 of them. Please forgive me if my questions have already been answered or discussed at length.

As I understand it, Jerice Hunter left California to give birth to Jhessye before going to prison in California for child abuse. The children she had at the time of her arrest were placed in the custody of her own mother, Shirley Hunter. When Jerice left prison, she re-claimed Jhessye from the cousin(s?) who were raising her.

Does anyone know why the cousin(s) didn't go to court while Jerice was still in prison to formalise the arrangement so that Jerice would be unable to reclaim Jhessye?

I do have some speculation as to why Jerice has gotten pregnant again. I think that she's trying for a different ending with each pregnancy. Many women who were victims of child abuse do this. They see a baby in a very romantic, idealised way as someone who will give them the unconditional love their hearts are starved for because they didn't get it from their own childhood.

But then they have the baby and sooner or later (usually sooner) the intense, natural and normal neediness of babies hits. Two needy people in a relationship is always bad news, no matter what that relationship is.

A mother who was abused herself as a child and never received adequate assistance in dealing with it usually has poor to zero coping skills. She's at high risk for abusing because that's just about the only "tool" in her relationship toolkit.

Time goes on, her child or children get older and become more difficult for her to deal with because they are now also abused children.

The mother is still emotionally needy and not able to fulfil her needs in a healthy way. And that romantic vision of a baby who will love her unconditionally, that she can cuddle in a pool of sunshine while heavenly music plays from some invisible source all around them starts going through her head again.

It's a cycle.

It is hard to believe but I'm betting that once upon a time, there was a little girl named Jerice with sparkles in her eyes and a big smile for the world, before it was all beaten out of her. When Jerice was four, she probably wasn't so different from Jhessye.

She lost that childhood innocence and she learned by example to use anger to try to get her way.

She's in a perpetual state of fighting for her life and she doesn't even realise that the enemy is... herself.

Welcome to the thread Grainne, so glad to have you on board. you are right, Jerice will never be mother material. Abuses of her childhood may have made that impossible. In the pdfs regarding her incarceration in CA, there was a report by a mental health professional who evaluated Jerice. that report contains a very sad tale of her life as a child, abused by her crack abusing mother, Shirley. She became pregnant as a teen and thus her career of popping out kids she was ill equipped to raise began. Shirley puts on a very Godly face to the world nowadays, but I believe the tale Jerice told the evaluator. Her excuse for abusing her children was it is how she was raised.

As to why the cousins who were entrusted with Jhessye's care did not go to court and sue for custody of Jhessye. I can only guess that since the custody was unofficial and simply amongst family, when the police showed up with Jerice to reclaim Jhessye, they had no legal leg to stand on. You cannot simply go into court and sue your cousin for custody of her child.

You can report her to DHS if you feel she is being abusing or neglectful (which the family members did, several times). My own thoughts are since the LEOs were involved with this baby being returned to the monster that birthed her, and since the extended family members had nothing in writing saying they had any right to have or keep this child, they felt helpless.

 

[GrainneDhu]

Welcome to the thread Grainne, so glad to have you on board. you are right, Jerice will never be mother material. Abuses of her childhood may have made that impossible. In the pdfs regarding her incarceration in CA, there was a report by a mental health professional who evaluated Jerice. that report contains a very sad tale of her life as a child, abused by her crack abusing mother, Shirley. She became pregnant as a teen and thus her career of popping out kids she was ill equipped to raise began. Shirley puts on a very Godly face to the world nowadays, but I believe the tale Jerice told the evaluator. Her excuse for abusing her children was it is how she was raised.

As to why the cousins who were entrusted with Jhessye's care did not go to court and sue for custody of Jhessye. I can only guess that since the custody was unofficial and simply amongst family, when the police showed up with Jerice to reclaim Jhessye, they had no legal leg to stand on. You cannot simply go into court and sue your cousin for custody of her child.

You can report her to DHS if you feel she is being abusing or neglectful (which the family members did, several times). My own thoughts are since the LEOs were involved with this baby being returned to the monster that birthed her, and since the extended family members had nothing in writing saying they had any right to have or keep this child, they felt helpless.

Different states vary and it may not be possible in Arizona to sue for the custody of a child that has been abandoned to your care but it is possible in some states.

I know a case that is hauntingly similar: mom charged and convicted of child abuse, had baby while she was out on bond before her trial and left the baby with a cousin. This was all on the East Coast.

But in the case I know of, the cousin decided there was no way that she would just give up custody of the baby to the biological mother again, particularly after the child was diagnosed with autism. So she went to court to petition for legal custody of the child.

It split the family in half. Half the family was going "OMG, I'm so glad that someone is making sure that baby will be safe" and the other half of the family was furious that family business was being brought to the attention of the courts.

In that case, the court ruled that since the biological mother had been convicted of (horrific) child abuse with her other children, had abandoned the baby to the care of the cousin and was not making any attempt to continue a relationship with the baby or her caregiver from prison, the cousin was granted legal custody.

Apparently, if the biological mother had kept in regular contact with the caregiver cousin, had asked for photos, had done anything to demonstrate ongoing interest in the baby, it would have been more difficult (but not impossible) for the cousin to be granted legal custody. But the biological mother never showed any interest at all in three years.

After the biological mother got out of jail, she did try to get custody of the child again! But the court said (paraphrasing) "that ship sailed a long time ago, when you failed to appeal the custody decree within a reasonable period of time."

That child is now thriving and is attending regular classes in a regular school, maintaining good grades and is outstanding at her two chosen extra-curricular activities.

I'm so sad little Jhessye did not have the same chance.

I wondered if Arizona law prohibited that or maybe Jhessye's cousin(s) just never realised it was possible to do so.

 

[tlcya]

Or they never imagined in a million years Jerice wanting the child back, or Jerice's mother surrepticiously and unilaterally deciding to return Jerice's other children behind the backs of authorities.

The extended family who took Jhesse in may have though Jerice would be so thrilled with her new free childless, unecumbered life it never even occurred to them that she would even want Jhessye back and hence, they never took any steps to investigate their options of file a preliminary case of abandonment while Jerice was still incarcerated.

 

[GrainneDhu]

Or they never imagined in a million years Jerice wanting the child back, or Jerice's mother surrepticiously and unilaterally deciding to return Jerice's other children behind the backs of authorities.

The extended family who took Jhesse in may have though Jerice would be so thrilled with her new free childless, unecumbered life it never even occurred to them that she would even want Jhessye back and hence, they never took any steps to investigate their options of file a preliminary case of abandonment while Jerice was still incarcerated.

I am pretty sure that Jerice does want children and motherhood. She wants the "Kodak moment" version of motherhood where it is a series of beautiful moments with children who never have minds or needs of their own.

I think Jerice is intensely emotionally needy and it drives her because having neediness at that level feels life threatening.

And that is probably part of Jerice's initial attraction for the various men who have fathered her children. When a man is attracted to her, she's so emotionally needy that she initially treats him like a hero. Which can be very attractive for a relatively short period of time. For that initial period of time, he's the wittiest, funniest, smartest, toughest, whatever-est man in the world.

But of course, no man can be her full time hero, so Jerice is eventually disappointed yet again and looking for the next thing to fill that neediness inside.

She's living her life flailing back and forth trying to survive. And sadly, she's pulling anyone under with her that is not able to get away from her.

And with every disappointment and failure, her inner anger is also intensifying and getting closer to the surface.