I have been following Ember's case from the first thread and want to share my thoughts with you all.
I hope beyond all hope that Ember is found but fear that hope greatly diminished with the death of MG. My feeling is that Ember died whilst in his care through his negligence. Maybe after he had made the stop at the gas station,he went to do a drug deal and left a sleeping Ember in the car. At those temperatures,I'm not sure how long a tiny baby would take to succumb to the heat but I don't imagine it would be long. Couple that with the fact that Ember has health problems and he may have skipped feeding her due to being too stoned to have an awareness of the time,her odds of survival would be diminished further. Obviously this hinges on the witness account of his cousins girlfriend and if Ember was alive when she claims to have seen them.
Now for my personal experience with addicts. As a young woman not much older than Ember's mum,I was in a relationship with a man who turned out to be a heroin addict. He was a functioning addict who disguised it well (at that time,he was smoking and not injecting). I know it can boggle peoples minds how I didn't know but look at people like the actor,Cory Monteith,he just didnt look like the stereotype of a junkie. I was head over heels in love when a family member of his told me he had a problem. I thought naively that I could fix him.
My parents didn't like him as he was only able to hold down jobs sporadically whilst I had been through college and was working in my chosen field of early childhood education. It was only when I got pregnant and moved in with him( to a house much lesser than I had came from) I realised the true extent of his addiction,the lows he would stoop to like selling our TV to buy drugs and the degenerates he associated with. At 5 months pregnant,I moved back with my mum and dad. They were so happy,they worried about my future and that he would drag my down with him.
I had a son and he very much wanted to be part of his life. This was trying,I never stopped it but safe guarded my baby by ensuring he was supervised by his own mum. We went through the court system but as he had never harmed my son,his drug problem was never a reason to cease contact. I have no doubt that he loved my son and my son loved his daddy but over the years there were issues from time to time,thankfully nothing major and my son was none the wiser,his daddy was his hero.
In 2005,he hit rock bottom,was injecting, ended up homeless and his family were no longer supporting him. He ended up in a unit for homeless people,I let him come to my house to see my son as this was safest all round. It was a wake up call and he got clean. By his 30th birthday in 2008,his mum felt she had her son back,he was doing great. In December of that year,he met a new girlfriend. I was so happy for him until I found out she was a recovering addict too.
6 months later he was dead from a heroin overdose. My son was with him that day,he was late dropping him off from his Saturday visit. His auntie (dads sister) collected him for me and said my son was never to go back to his house with him again but was too upset to talk further and said we could talk later in the week. My little boy who was 7 told me daddy had went to the bathroom and fell asleep and made a big bang then his girlfriend was slapping his face and dragged him to bed. An hour later,I had a knock at my door to tell me he was dead. When his sister collected my son,his dad was in bed unconscious,his girlfriend refused to tell her what he was on but said he always goes like that. His sister is a nurse and checked his pulse,grabbed my son and left. I am so thankful to her that she got my son out of there before he was witness to what followed,an ambulance,police and his daddy lying dead.
This testifys to the selfishness of an addict. His other sister had visited at around 5 briefly and him and my son were playing. He couldn't wait till my son went home at 6 to go into the bathroom and shoot up.
Sorry for a long winded post but guess what I wanted to say is as much as any addict loves their kid,they love their drugs more. They will put their need for drugs above the needs of their own kid. Their selfishness is astounding to any normal parent. I think this is what happened with MG and he freaked and ran when he realised he was close to being found out.
eta By 2009,my ex had been clean for a few years and while the situation was monitored by family,he had my son unsupervised for the most part. Also,when my sons aunt collected him and felt his dads pulse,he was still alive. A heroin overdose isn't always instaneous,it depresses the respiratory system and can be gradual as was the case here.
