FL - Coralrose Fullwood, 6, found murdered, North Port, 17 Sept 2006

[concernedperson]

I agree and knew this was coming..... But what I have to offer is an opinion after working for years with families in need and the children that are horrfically affected by the inability of the parents to change their situations that are involved regualry with chilkdren services. The percentage of reports on a home over and over again is rare. It is a small population no matter where you live that continously have reports on them. I guess I should start putting "this is my opinion" ML

You are good. I understand and respect your opinion.

 

[mooselover]

Glad to have you here, mooselover. You have a lot of experience with these kinds of situations and can add quite a bit to the discussion.

Do you think Ellen has both depression and a personality disorder...or are you just letting us know the possibility of both is there?

First, I hope I did not come off as arrogant as I am far from it. But I am known at work in the CINA community as passionate about what I do. I am also one of the biggest advocates for parents as well as children. I do all I can to empower them to get their children back. With that said yes, you can have more than one diagnosis on each axis or more than one on just one axis. I can not remember ever seeing a psych eval in my line of work that did not have more than one. By that I mean on either axis. And yes, what I am saying it is a possiblity. This is of course after many reports, referrals etc. And then finally custody of the children: It is the norm. Can't remember who posted about how if you are so depressed can you go to work and get degrees. Good point. If she was totally depressed as she has stated she would be unable to function at that level. Bi-polar people can due to having manic and then depressive episodes. My sister is bi-polar ( severe) and I have been her main care taker for years.(although she is living on her now, barely. Very hard... so I also have dealt personally with the mental disorders. Thanks for helping me to clarify my thoughts. New at this and trying to get the hang of it.

I have a question and do not want to have to go back and read. It seems as though her parents were more out spoken in support of the dad rather than their daughter. As we know, like serial killers, pedophiles, present well and there is usually no " red flags". I wonder if he also was able to fool them as well as everyone else and due to the mothers problems she is the one who came off looking worse than him. Have they came out in support of her as much as him? Can't remember. ALL is My opinion

 

[mooselover]

You are good. I understand and respect your opinion.

Thanks you for your kind words. I am not always good at expressing my thoughts, especially being new here and trying to figure out how to say things.....ML

 

[SewingDeb]

First, I hope I did not come off as arrogant as I am far from it. But I am known at work in the CINA community as passionate about what I do. I am also one of the biggest advocates for parents as well as children. I do all I can to empower them to get their children back. With that said yes, you can have more than one diagnosis on each axis or more than one on just one axis. I can not remember ever seeing a psych eval in my line of work that did not have more than one. By that I mean on either axis. And yes, what I am saying it is a possiblity. This is of course after many reports, referrals etc. And then finally custody of the children: It is the norm. Can't remember who posted about how if you are so depressed can you go to work and get degrees. Good point. If she was totally depressed as she has stated she would be unable to function at that level. Bi-polar people can due to having manic and then depressive episodes. My sister is bi-polar ( severe) and I have been her main care taker for years.(although she is living on her now, barely. Very hard... so I also have dealt personally with the mental disorders. Thanks for helping me to clarify my thoughts. New at this and trying to get the hang of it.

I have a question and do not want to have to go back and read. It seems as though her parents were more out spoken in support of the dad rather than their daughter. As we know, like serial killers, pedophiles, present well and there is usually no " red flags". I wonder if he also was able to fool them as well as everyone else and due to the mothers problems she is the one who came off looking worse than him. Have they came out in support of her as much as him? Can't remember. ALL is My opinion

You don't sound arrogant to me. : )

The 36 hours that Ellen had been awake....is that a part of the manic stage of bipolar? I had wondered about that when I first read it in an article.

Hmmm...you're right that her parents did seem more supportive of him than her. I know she sees them when she visits her children but you could be right that he has made himself look good to them and perhaps made her look worse (by things he has said to them?) in their eyes.

O/T but I have often wondered why there is so much work put in to get the children back with the parents. It seems to me that by the time the children are actually taken away the home situation has to be horrible. Why not sever the parental rights and let the children be adopted? Not referring to the Fullwood case, just speaking in general.

 

[mooselover]

You don't sound arrogant to me. : )

The 36 hours that Ellen had been awake....is that a part of the manic stage of bipolar? I had wondered about that when I first read it in an article.

Hmmm...you're right that her parents did seem more supportive of him than her. I know she sees them when she visits her children but you could be right that he has made himself look good to them and perhaps made her look worse (by things he has said to them?) in their eyes.

O/T but I have often wondered why there is so much work put in to get the children back with the parents. It seems to me that by the time the children are actually taken away the home situation has to be horrible. Why not sever the parental rights and let the children be adopted? Not referring to the Fullwood case, just speaking in general.

The simple answer is it is the LAW.
Parents have the right to remedy the problems to get their children back. The exceptions are, and that in which we go straight to termination is a shaken baby, beaten baby, severe rape of a child, sex offender with the mother not protecting and backing the father or significant other. Or saying she is not supporting him and then letting them back in when we are no longer involved. A law was passed here in 1998 that has greatly helped us. Many other staes are also getting or have it already. It is a time line to which you have to work the case plan. (used to be you could do nothing then a day opor a week before court you wnet and did something) and the court would grant you more time. Some cases went on for years this way.) If you have made no progress or have abandoned the child for a period of six months (by not visiting them) or if you continue to relapse or continue with whatever issues you have been ordered by the court to remedy we can file termination of parental rights and go to court at 15 months. Rarely, unfortunately have I seen a child (s) s in custody go back with the parents and not return to the system. I can count on one hand my cases over the years. SO yes, if custody is taken then it is bad and the parents are less likely to get the children back or do they do and end right back in the system. The time line has helped to get children permanency quicker which is so needed so they know what is going to happen. to them. The unknown to these children is devastating, plus the abandonment by their parents for not being able to put them first.

A little OT myself. Hard day at my house. My husband is a supervisor where I work and they just lost another baby to suspicious circumstance. This is the second baby in a year in that home. The first death the Le thought it was the mother (shaken baby death with healing fractures of the legs, but the mother was only getting supervised visits with the older child and new baby that died last night. And was not living in the home. My husband had just taken over this new unit and this case he kept saying there is something about this dad, evan though LE was confident itwas the mother. We will see. Father saying SIDS. Le not talking to the department as they are getting search ewarrents for the home as they said there is suspicios somethings going on. Remember an earlier post where I said Le guides in these case, well the only thing the Detective called my husband for was to say you need to tell the providers who have the 3 year old to cooperate as they are not. Involved heavily in the church and no one believes from there that they could do this and are protecitng the parents and not cooperating....... Soooooo sad. These things totally affect the whole bldg and all the workers and staff. Always feel as though you have failed.

 

[mooselover]

You don't sound arrogant to me. : )

The 36 hours that Ellen had been awake....is that a part of the manic stage of bipolar? I had wondered about that when I first read it in an article.

Hmmm...you're right that her parents did seem more supportive of him than her. I know she sees them when she visits her children but you could be right that he has made himself look good to them and perhaps made her look worse (by things he has said to them?) in their eyes.

O/T but I have often wondered why there is so much work put in to get the children back with the parents. It seems to me that by the time the children are actually taken away the home situation has to be horrible. Why not sever the parental rights and let the children be adopted? Not referring to the Fullwood case, just speaking in general.

And I forgot to answer the one question and yes, staying up and not sleeping is the manic stage.

 

[twinkiesmom]

The grandparents are not standing by their son-in-law. They withdrew their support after the child came out. Laci's mother and stepfather initially stood by Scott, too. It doesn't mean anything.

If you read the article Ellen wrote which was pasted onto the Herald-Tribune forum, she was working on a Master's Degree....so not disabled completely by depression.

I am leery of social workers....I liked the social workers involved in my adoption (and received glowing homestudy), but extremely disliked process of having my life inspected under a microscope just to become a parent.

I still don't think you can diagnose over the internet. It's fine to say my clients in similar circumstances routinely had a personality disorder. But you haven't interviewed the principals in this case...And wouldn't a psychologist or psychiatrist have to administer the tests needed to make the diagnosis?

 

[WFT]

You are correct... it is virtually impossible to make a true diagnosis without the benefit of an interview. Though borderline personality disorder has telltale signs that are easy to spot.

The grandparents did stand by him, until the news about the CP was released. Ellen, she won't even take a call or ride on the same elevator as him. There is another article in todays paper, that RR will will be posting.

 

[SewingDeb]

The simple answer is it is the LAW.
Parents have the right to remedy the problems to get their children back.

That's what I have a problem with, especially since as you say, most of the children end up back in the system. How many chances do they get? We see so many cases where the child ends up back in the home and is killed and we wonder why they were ever allowed to have the child back.

A law was passed here in 1998 that has greatly helped us.

snip

If you have made no progress or have abandoned the child for a period of six months (by not visiting them) or if you continue to relapse or continue with whatever issues you have been ordered by the court to remedy we can file termination of parental rights and go to court at 15 months.

I think that's great. I wonder why 15 months is allowed, but that's better than nothing.

The time line has helped to get children permanency quicker which is so needed so they know what is going to happen. to them. The unknown to these children is devastating, plus the abandonment by their parents for not being able to put them first.

Children do need to know where they will be living and have consistency in their lives so the rules don't keep changing with every change of residence.

The case LE called your husband about is so sad. I'll bet it is the father, if the mother was not around when this happened. I can imagine it really does weigh on the whole department.

 

[RiverRat]

NORTH PORT -- The day Coralrose Fullwood was found dead, police had evidence she had been sexually abused.

Detectives swore to a judge they had probable cause to believe that, and a judge agreed and signed a search warrant.

But that information was not made public until after the 6-year-old's father, Dale Fullwood, was arrested on what police say are unrelated charges of possession of child .

In the meantime, North Port police Chief Terry Lewis repeatedly said that preliminary autopsy results showed no signs of sexual abuse.

Now, Coralrose's family and others are asking why it took Lewis nearly four months to confirm that the girl was raped after he said last week there was forensic evidence of the attack.

"I think we should have been notified from the beginning," said Saul VanderWoude, Coralrose's maternal grandfather, a retired police officer from Massachusetts.

When Lewis announced the preliminary autopsy results, it relieved family members and members of the community who thought that meant she had been spared that cruel assault.

"That was the one thing that my family was able to hang their hat on," said Seaton VanderWoude, Coralrose's 21-year-old stepbrother, who was in school in Washington, D.C., when he heard his sister had been killed. "And now three or four months later they come up with this?"

Police will not say when they received the forensic evidence that proved the first-grader had been raped, or why they decided to make the news public last Friday.

Lewis is out of town this week and has not returned calls for comment.

"We're trying to maintain the integrity of the investigation," said Capt. Robert Estrada, a spokesman for the department.

It's not the only information that has been withheld. Family members say they still have not been told how she was killed or where it happened. And no family member was allowed to view the body, the VanderWoudes said.

"There is just some information we cannot share with the family," Estrada said.

No one has been cleared as a suspect. But police are looking for a suspect that DNA evidence shows is a nonfamily member.

Police hoped the release of the new information, including a psychological profile of the killer and news that he didn't act alone, would help generate more leads in the case.

"I have hope an arrest will be made," Saul VanderWoude said. "I don't think there ever will be. But I am hopeful."

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070111/NEWS/701110403

 

[RiverRat]

You are correct... it is virtually impossible to make a true diagnosis without the benefit of an interview. Though borderline personality disorder has telltale signs that are easy to spot.

The grandparents did stand by him, until the news about the CP was released. Ellen, she won't even take a call or ride on the same elevator as him. There is another article in todays paper, that RR will will be posting.

You or anyone else can provide the articles - it's not like I have an exclusive and some mornings are more hectic than others for me!

 

[mooselover]

The grandparents are not standing by their son-in-law. They withdrew their support after the child came out. Laci's mother and stepfather initially stood by Scott, too. It doesn't mean anything.

If you read the article Ellen wrote which was pasted onto the Herald-Tribune forum, she was working on a Master's Degree....so not disabled completely by depression.

I am leery of social workers....I liked the social workers involved in my adoption (and received glowing homestudy), but extremely disliked process of having my life inspected under a microscope just to become a parent.

I still don't think you can diagnose over the internet. It's fine to say my clients in similar circumstances routinely had a personality disorder. But you haven't interviewed the principals in this case...And wouldn't a psychologist or psychiatrist have to administer the tests needed to make the diagnosis?

TM Thanks for your input and yes there does need to be an eval. As I said before new at posting and trying to learn how to say things again all is my opinion. And yes the home study process is the most intrusive thing there is. I always warn my "parents" before the writer comes out because it is so invasive.
As far as being leary of SW'S trust me I know I hear it all the time. And some are not good. The ones you read about. Of course we do not make the news on all the cases we work overtime on, work we put into the families to try and help, the coutless hours on each case. Only the bad SW's make the news.

 

[RiverRat]

Maybe it is time to decide for a Part Two Thread since this one is about to bust at the seams. I just hate to lose the flow of conversation!

 

[j2mirish]

NORTH PORT -- The day Coralrose Fullwood was found dead, police had evidence she had been sexually abused.

Detectives swore to a judge they had probable cause to believe that, and a judge agreed and signed a search warrant.

But that information was not made public until after the 6-year-old's father, Dale Fullwood, was arrested on what police say are unrelated charges of possession of child .

In the meantime, North Port police Chief Terry Lewis repeatedly said that preliminary autopsy results showed no signs of sexual abuse.

Now, Coralrose's family and others are asking why it took Lewis nearly four months to confirm that the girl was raped after he said last week there was forensic evidence of the attack.

"I think we should have been notified from the beginning," said Saul VanderWoude, Coralrose's maternal grandfather, a retired police officer from Massachusetts.

When Lewis announced the preliminary autopsy results, it relieved family members and members of the community who thought that meant she had been spared that cruel assault.

"That was the one thing that my family was able to hang their hat on," said Seaton VanderWoude, Coralrose's 21-year-old stepbrother, who was in school in Washington, D.C., when he heard his sister had been killed. "And now three or four months later they come up with this?"

Police will not say when they received the forensic evidence that proved the first-grader had been raped, or why they decided to make the news public last Friday.

Lewis is out of town this week and has not returned calls for comment.

"We're trying to maintain the integrity of the investigation," said Capt. Robert Estrada, a spokesman for the department.

It's not the only information that has been withheld. Family members say they still have not been told how she was killed or where it happened. And no family member was allowed to view the body, the VanderWoudes said.

"There is just some information we cannot share with the family," Estrada said.

No one has been cleared as a suspect. But police are looking for a suspect that DNA evidence shows is a nonfamily member.

Police hoped the release of the new information, including a psychological profile of the killer and news that he didn't act alone, would help generate more leads in the case.

"I have hope an arrest will be made," Saul VanderWoude said. "I don't think there ever will be. But I am hopeful."

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070111/NEWS/701110403

bold by j2m-

I wonder what would make a retired police officer, make this comment? I know 4 months seems like an eternity- I could understand if a year or more had passed, in resepct to his knowledge of crime and statistics

 

[concernedperson]

From the Herald Tribune article it states that the perp didn't act alone and that non family DNA was found on Coralrose. I certainly hope this isn't some sicko invited in by Dale Fullwood and he participated in her murder.

Honestly I just don't know what to think right now but the police seem to be moving along with this case.

 

[twinkiesmom]

As for the grandfather's assertion that he didn't think the crime would be solved...I hope it's otherwise, and the cops are just not releasing any information, especially not to the family.

I think they were letting Dale have a long leash while out on bail so they could monitor his contacts. Someone likely introduced Dale to the child (regardless of whether or not Dale was involved in the murder).

 

[Beyond Belief]

SARASOTA - A judge has denied a request by the parents of a 6-year-old girl found dead to regain custody of their other children.

Dale and Ellen-Beth Fullwood’s attorneys told a judge that the Department of Children and Families had not promptly disclosed evidence and asked the judge to dismiss the case.
http://www.tboblogs.com/index.php/newswire/story/judge-denies-custody-request-from-parents-of-slain-girl/

 

[RiverRat]

Judge denies Fullwood's motion


SARASOTA -- A circuit court judge recently denied the Fullwood's request to regain custody of their four children.

In motions heard before Circuit Court Judge Charles Williams, Dale and Ellen-Beth Fullwood sought to have the Department of Children and Families' case against them dropped.

Williams, who took over the case from Circuit Court Judge Rick DeFuria Jan. 1, denied all requests and kept supervised visitation in place.

The Fullwoods have separate attorneys. Both argued to the judge that DCF is late in turning over evidence against Ellen-Beth, and that Dale's child charges doesn't mean he's an unfit parent.

Ellen-Beth and Dale are the parents of 6-year-old Coralrose Fullwood, who was found dead Sept. 17 two blocks from her home on Calabash Lane. Police have made no arrests in the case, nor have they ruled out anyone, including family members.

The Fullwood attorneys also argued that there was no evidence to link the parents to the death of their Coralrose.

Dale is scheduled to go to trial July 16 on child charges. He was arrested Oct. 12 and charged with two counts of possession of child .

The court ordered temporary custody of the Fullwood's four other children (ages 4-13) to their grandparents, Saul and Doreen VanderWoude of Fort Myers.

Another Fullwood's custody hearing is scheduled for Feb. 14.

 

[Taximom]

"Both argued to the judge that DCF is late in turning over evidence against Ellen-Beth, and that Dale's child charges doesn't mean he's an unfit parent."

BOTH attorney's argued this, even Ellen-Beth's?

Either the reporting is wrong, or Ellen-Beth's attorney (and Ellen-Beth) made a big mistake stating that if she alone wanted custody of her children back. :twocents:

It would be interesting to me to see how many people with child- charges (especially child RAPE videos) get their children back. Maybe it happens more than we know. :doh:

 

[txsvicki]

"Both argued to the judge that DCF is late in turning over evidence against Ellen-Beth, and that Dale's child charges doesn't mean he's an unfit parent."

BOTH attorney's argued this, even Ellen-Beth's?

Either the reporting is wrong, or Ellen-Beth's attorney (and Ellen-Beth) made a big mistake stating that if she alone wanted custody of her children back. :twocents:

It would be interesting to me to see how many people with child- charges (especially child RAPE videos) get their children back. Maybe it happens more than we know. :doh:

I think everything that Beth says in public or on that message board is a big mistake in her child custody case. Beth and her whole family seem to be consumed with anger at everyone involved except for Dale, the murderer, or whoever was involved. I can't believe that she would have her lawyer associating her case with Dale. I don't think that she will get the kids back for quite awhile and should probably be grateful that they aren't still in foster care. I wonder what the late evidence turned in by DCF against Beth could be?