Former Aurora cop charged with raping daughter remains free as mom is sent to jail

Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 870 points – Former Aurora cop charged with raping daughter remains free as mom is sent to jail
denvergazette.com

A retired Aurora police sergeant faces criminal charges for raping his daughter and continually sexually assaulting her and his two adopted daughters, but he remains free from custody while his ex-wife is in jail for objecting to court-ordered reunification therapy meant to repair his relationship with two of his sons.

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Her trip to jail occurs as such therapy and its potential harms are increasingly coming under fire in Colorado.

The treatment is used by family courts to settle custody fights. Services like those provided by Bassett use confrontation and exercises to deprogram a child’s rejection of a parent. In extreme cases, children have been sent across state lines to reunification camps with parents they reject, and they are barred from having contact with their protective parent.

The fuck

Forced Stockholm syndrome as therapy.

I don't know why people are against it. You get used to it after a while.

/s

The reunification therapy costs $1,500 a month. Pickrel-Hawkins said she struggles to pay for the therapy. She said she and the children already are stretched thin, surviving on the $2,680 her ex-husband pays her in court-ordered support, though the judge said during one hearing that he believed the mother actually was earning money that she wasn’t disclosing.

That she has to pay for.

the mother has custody of the couple’s minor children, and they are living in a domestic violence shelter. She said that she has arranged for family members to care for her children when she goes to jail.

While living at a shelter.

The mother said she lost legal representation in the custody dispute after accruing $85,000 in legal bills, which she couldn’t afford. She was sentenced to jail without any representation from a lawyer.

Even when she doesn't have enough for a lawyer.

The 17-year-old daughter claims her father, Hawkins, raped her when she was almost six years old and continually molested her throughout her childhood despite her protestations that he stop, according to court documents. The two adopted daughters also claim they were sexually abused, those documents state.

The oldest son also told a forensic interviewer he felt like his father tried to drown him in a pool in 2018 in Costa Rica, using police control tactics and holding him under water until he began to black out. The boy said he believed his father was vengeful because the boy woke up one night and confronted his father whose hand he claims he saw down the under garments of his sister.

Trying to keep them away from a man who absurd their kids for two decades and attempted to kill.

Absolutely nothing about this situation is justifiable, sane or decent. Fuck this cop, fuck this court, fuck this state, fuck this whole fucking country. Absolutely shameful in every regard.

Institutionalized, systemic gaslighting, a product of fascism

Terrifying

Edit: not even our most horrifying fiction has imagined such a thing, yet here we are, my god…

Edit 2: no, maybe, briefly, on a smaller scale, there was Arkham Asylum and something similar in a Star Trek TOS episode, but nothing on quite this scale, nor with children…

Seriously. What the fuck. Institutionalized child abuse. And then they say trans people are somehow the real danger.

Well that's fucking horrifying... The only thing that got me through childhood alive was that the courts let me decide who I would live with. Why the fuck wouldn't you listen to the kids? It's there life on the line.

Seriously, the courts are heaping all of this blame on the mother when the kids repeatedly report physical and sexual abuse by their father.

Though the divorce judge found there was evidence that Hawkins had physically abused the oldest son, the judge said in his ruling that was “one instance that does not involve either of the two children at issue.”

Insane. The logic is nonexistent.

Kids sometimes want the “fun” but negligent parent rather than the responsible parent who enforces limitations. Some kids feel a strong emotional bond with a parent who is harmful to them.

From the perspective of the a former kid who was abused by a step parent, personality, preference, and love never came into it, I just wanted to be safe. Once that person was removed from there life, I had every desire to be around that parent again. Not trusting the kids who tell you THAT parent or their partner is an abuser, you're fucking up.

Ok dad, here is your court ordered hug.

How does stuff like this not end in suicide or patricide?

That's the problem with abusers they never think thier murder is on the table. I bet they would be hell of lot nicer if they felt thier actions would have consequences.

'deprogram'...'barred from having contact with their protective parent'.

This will be decades of lawsuits and millions of dollars.

This makes me genuinely feel unwell. Some people are just horrific.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/reunification-therapy

It's a little more complicated than this conservative rag makes it out to be.

No. No it isn't. Forced reunification to your abuser. You sick fuck. Go on and double down. Tell us all how that's complicated. Raise your coward hand again.

Sure.

The deal is it's not really about reunification with your abuser, in cases of severe abuse you wouldn't be reunified with someone who wasn't fit, you'd remain in the foster system. In cases of milder abuse, a judge has to weigh whether the parent might be rehabilitated or you'll be better off staying in the foster system, which is always itself a risk, remember. Foster families are not always the best.

Reunification therapy is also for divorce cases though, where one parent has essentially poisoned the well against another with no real abuse being present.

So, uh, sorry for whatever happened to you, it can be a very difficult situation when a child has nowhere else to go. Depending on availability of foster families, a judge may be forced to sometimes make a difficult decision, it just depends on the circumstances.

edit: Oh, and do keep in mind, this publication is owned by the same people that run the Washington Examiner. It's NY Post or Daily Mail-tier when it comes to accuracy.

Unless they're all outright lying or the newspaper has made this up whole cloth, the facts of this case are fucking horrifying.

The father sexually abused his pre-adolescent daughter. This was witnessed by his son who says he was then held under water until he nearly blacked out.

Reunification therapy would be appropriate years down the line, if this all turned out to be some kind of misunderstanding. Forcing them into a room with their abuser, forcing them to show affection towards someone they have highly complex feelings of fear, loathing, and love for, is abuse.

And that's all without the mother's allegations of the therapist's behavior. The judge is a piece of work too, weasel wording his rulings. He noted CPS can make rulings based solely on the one child's account as a way of discounting their findings. Completely ignoring the fact that there is corroboration. And then says the abuse was only proven for the older kids. So the younger ones are fine.

In what fucking country do we put children back into an abuser's orbit/care/house because they haven't been proven to have abused that kid yet, just other kids, exactly their age.

The fact that you're trying to defend this by going after the news organization and sharing the WebMD of psychology is telling. The facts of the case are horrifying and you know it.

I am not arguing about this case. I definitely see problems here, and I find it odd that the therapy is being performed by some christian group as well.

My issue is the article's portrayal of the therapy. The question I responded to was about the therapy, not this specific case, so I'm talking about the therapy more broadly, and not this specific case. This specific case is either grossly exaggerated or some extreme fluke. Like I said, in cases of severe abuse, reunification therapy is inappropriate.

I also don't trust the publication, important details can be left out or exaggerated to make something more rage-baity, and I could not find any corroborating news. Regarding being horrified by it, it's very hard to horrify me with anything on the internet that isn't old and established, I stay very suspicious of the entire thing.

Much like abusers going after kids, judges who give orders like these aren't doing it in a vacuum. They've done it before and they'll do it again. Look up Kayden's Law. (You know why it has a kid's name on it) Using the courts and this therapy to re-abuse children is prevalent enough Congress had to pass a law restricting its use. Some of the stuff in the law is exactly what the article alleges on the broader scale. So it's obviously happened.

You not wanting to believe it is just another in a long line of people deciding not to believe victims when they come forward.

I fully support reasonable restrictions on the therapy, no question. What I do not support is lumping every instance of it all together into one perceived abusive framework, when that is not the full story. There's both bathwater and a baby here, in that there are legitimate uses for the therapy that are not abusive or enabling further abuse. These are fine.

Be that as it may, it doesn't seem like the therapy is being applied appropriately or skillfully in this case. You did read the article, didn't you? Also surely you don't expect a news article to get into the details of the therapy, what it is and isn't, when the focus of the piece is on the rapist father and the jailed mother.

Why read when I can bloviate in the comments section about something I have no expertise in?? - op, probably

The question I was replying to was asking about the therapy, not the case. I agree that, if the facts are as represented, the therapy is inappropriate here. That's a big if though, I don't just trust random new publications on the internet right away.

You shouldn't either.

This was a good clarification and I understand the point of your original post. I was a dick and I apologize.

No worries. I do fully empathize with why this upset everyone so much.

A parent does not have a right to affection from their children. Isolating from abusive people is a healthy reaction. Forcing this kind of therapy is itself abuse.

Usually. There's two exceptions that I'd acknowledge. One is where abuse simply was not present, which does happen sometimes due to divorce, which young children can't always understand.

The second was when abuse was minor and something the offender might be able to overcome after themselves undergoing treatment, and there are no other family that could take the child. If there is a shortage of foster parents as there often is, it can be preferable to try to reunify over just sending the child to grow up in a shelter.

Note, I'm talking about the therapy more broadly, not this specific case.

No. There is no right to force another human to feel something for you. Period.

Sure, but you're not trying to force positive feelings, you're trying to break down negative feelings that may not be based in reality.

That's the same thing. Especially when much of reality where personal relationships are involved is subjective.

No, it isn't at all. If you have an arachnophobia, treating your fear is not making you like spiders. Simply addressing the aversion. Nobody properly engaging in the therapy is trying to brainwash kids into loving someone, just reducing the aversion.

Check something more rigorous about the topic, don't just use news articles of cases of failure and unethical choices to form your full opinion. You know damn well how the news is, what they profit from, how times where the therapy actually went well because it was used appropriately will not be reported. And social media isn't much better when it comes to factuality.

The Psychology Today article I posted properly cited its sources.

Reunification therapy is a child-focused therapy, meaning it must proceed at the child’s pace, and move forward when they have made progress. It can also be difficult as parents are asked to put aside their differences and focus on the goal of restoring healthy attachment for the benefit of the child or children.

Meanwhile:

She said she checked on her children during the session and found one of her sons curled in a fetal position on the ground in Bassett’s office

She went into the room, and the very first thing that my boy said that she told them was, ‘We need to make progress, and today you need to tell your father that you forgive him.’

Whatever this therapy is supposed to be, it doesn't really sound like that's what's happening.

Yeah I agree. There's something fishy about this whole article though.

How is the mother even in jail when a year ago Colorado put restrictions on the therapy in just these sorts of cases? I feel like either some facts are being misrepresented, or we're not being told everything, or this is some strange outlier and judicial malfeasance.

I mean the article explains it pretty clearly.

The new law barred courts from restricting the custody of a parent who is competent, protective and not abusive solely to improve a relationship with the other parent. It prohibits reunification treatment that is predicated on cutting off the relationship between a child and a protective parent the child has a bond with.

Putting aside the insanity of this ever being allowed, it doesn't apply in this case because custody has not been (officially) cut off. She's in jail because she objects to the therapist and her methods, believing them to cause severe anxiety in her children, and has thus tried to interfere with the court ordered sessions.

Sure, but if the therapy is going as described, it seems to me like the situation fits

predicated on cutting off the relationship between a child and a protective parent the child has a bond with.

And besides, according to the article, the mother can and did point to the investigation into the abuse. All together, this just doesn't make sense. Given that this publication is owned by a company well-known for bullshit under their Washington Examiner label, I'm withholding judgement until I learn more. This just reeks of ragebait.

I don't understand how it fits. They're not cutting off their relationship to the protective parent (the mother), which is what the new restrictions prohibit. She still has access and custody, but they are also required to attend reunification therapy. Where is the contradiction?

It's also explained why the abuse investigation does not impact the ordered therapy.

Though the divorce judge found there was evidence that Hawkins had physically abused the oldest son, the judge said in his ruling that was “one instance that does not involve either of the two children at issue.”

The father is only seeking custody of the two youngest sons, who were, as far as the court is aware, not abused by their father. So the judge does not see this or the seven charges of abuse of a minor as relevant in this case.

I'm all for being aware of the quality and reputation of a paper, but it seems you are putting more weight on that then the quality of the article itself. You are pointing at supposed inconsistencies that seem to be explained by the article.

It's pretty insane to think a proven child abuser will simply not choose to abuse some of his kids when it's proven he abused his other kids.

Perhaps I did misread something in the later half of the article regarding the mother and the therapy. I'm not going to dig through it again to confirm, but I can acknowledge I may have misunderstood.

A judge has a responsibility to take a broader context into account, with the overall health of the children being the main consideration. This would be opposed to a strictly mechanical interpretation of the law, where just because you're not accused of abusing this specific child, you're deemed a safe parent to them. If the judge does not see things this way, they're being derelict in their duty. My suspicion remains that there is quite possibly more to this story though.

Correct, I think one should absolutely not adopt a trusting stance towards a new publication. Trust in reporting needs to be earned, and an appropriate caution should be exhibited until then in 100% of cases. This is because we cannot judge the quality of the article itself from just the article, you can't tell if something is being omitted or misrepresented without other sources to compare it to. All we can judge is how it sounds, and that is not very good evidence of anything.

I guess I could be wrong, but I can't be assed to spend two minutes rereading the article. I'll just continue to pontificate from my position of misinformation

Admitting I may have misunderstood on how the law applies to the mother's jailing has nothing to do with my other two arguments.

There's frankly little point in digging through an article I do not trust to begin with, it's a waste of time. You can give it your trust if you want, but I have no strong reason to.

I really recommend everyone to read the article. Shit somehow only gets worse

Not only is the asshole a rapist, he also tried to drown one of his sons because said son confronted him after catching mr "model citizen" with his hands on one of the daughters' private parts.

Those reunification therapy sessions? The mother has to pay the $370 per week alone when it's just her 2 sons attending. There was also one session:

She said she checked on her children during the session and found one of her sons curled in a fetal position on the ground in Bassett’s office, but Bassett ordered her to stop addressing what the mother termed the serious needs of her children.

She said she fears the reunification therapy is harming her boys, whom she described as crying uncontrollably, having explosive outbursts and expressing thoughts of self-harm after attending Bassett’s reunification sessions with their father.

Ms. Basset, the "reunification therapist", deserves some jail time as well

The "faith based therapy" thing make everything make a whole lot more sense...

The story reads like a super villain origin story, it just … it boggles the mind that reality could be this fucked

I don't understand how it's legal for a court to order religion-based therapy that costs $1500 per month. That's absolutely insane from every possible angle.

We're now far beyond most people's perception of "sure, but that couldn't happen here" in many parts of the country. They are clinging to what they think is true instead of seeing what is because confronting the reality is difficult - it challenges the fundamental truths we believed would be there no matter what, but that's not true now and it's only getting worse.

As society evolved for the better on the whole, around 2010 the gop had a choice to die in irrelevancy and shame or to break society to a point where their shame wasn't a disqualifying factor anymore. They choose to break shit (watch a doc called "slaying the dragon" for a good summary of this). That set the stage for trump and gave the heritage foundation access needed to start cutting important wires and pouring gasoline on critical infrastructure of democracy. They'll risk sinking the ship with all of us on board rather than no longer have a chance at being Captain.

his ex-wife is in jail for objecting to court-ordered reunification therapy meant to repair his relationship with two of his sons.

Yeah, because top priority when encountering a piece of shit incestual paedophilic rapist, is to reunite him with the children he set aside while he preyed on the others. 🤯🤬

Be it a system or an individual - abusers defend abusers. It's always projection in self defence, it's why they've constructed an elaborate conspiracy theory about secret paedophile rings run by the rich and powerful, yet when someone rich and powerful (and white and straight), and those who serve them, acts in direct defence of a paedophile, they look the other way.

The judge who made this ruling, along with everyone who enabled it, need to have their hard drives searched and the children in their lives questioned and potentially removed for their safety. I don't have a single doubt in my mind that if they did this, they would find at least one more paedophile.

As for the mother and kids, I hope they sue the state or the court or whoever it is they can, and win millions to pay for the new life they're going to need to build for themselves and therapy they're going to need for the rest of their lives (never mind compensation for the obscene miscarriage of justice of locking her up).

piece of shit incestual paedophilic rapist

Pro tip for concise writing: this can be simplified to the word "cop".

I mean, ACAB, but there are plenty of piece of shit incestual paedophilic rapists who aren't cops, and I don't see why they should be excluded.

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The judge who made this ruling, along with everyone who enabled it, need to have their hard drives searched and the children in their lives questioned and potentially removed for their safety. I don’t have a single doubt in my mind that if they did this, they would find at least one more paedophile.

I think it's just the legal system protecting cops, like it always does.

Sure, there's that, but it's only part of a much bigger problem (that is why society at large allows cops, and other figures of authority, to get away with shit to the point where it's a cliche. The problem is the patriarchy and the rape culture it cultivates).

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Off topic: what radicalised you?

Being called a radical for wanting equality for everyone and justice for the marginalized and disadvantaged. The sociopathic, greedy robber barons and their sycophants are the real radicals.

Nowadays people use radical in political terms as another word for extremist, but it used to mean going to the root causes. Equality and justice, or the lack of, are the root of many political issues. So you are radical in a way, but that is good.

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They called me un American for not wanting my friends to die in their pointless war.

Other people, and their Insistence that I'm a commie bastard for the most mediocre opinions like "a 40 hour work week should be enough to provide basic housing."

Ive always been vaguely left of center and while I've admittedly not done the reading my general take is "fine if I'm a commie then let's seize the means of production comrade 🤷‍♂️"

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If you asked me fifteen years ago if I wanted to live in the United States, I would have jumped on the first ship to Staten Island in a heartbeat.

Nowadays I don't even want to visit the country, and unjust bullshit like this is a big reason why. Y'all have a serious problem with allowing your police forces to do whatever the hell they want and argue "qualified immunity" for things that would land you significant prison time in another developed country.

I really question why there's still a lifelong waiting list to apply for a visa to work in the US, when the state of the country is actually quite bleak...

I know a lot of Africans. I question why any of them would want to move to America as opposed to Canada (where I am) and like me they don't understand when someone they know does make the decision to move south.

Yes the money is better but no one is going to care if you're from Zimbabwe. A black person is a black person is a black person down there and by and large America is hostile AF to black people.

I know a lot of Africans. I question why any of them would want to move to America as opposed to Canada (where I am) and like me they don’t understand when someone they know does make the decision to move south.

theres a couple of good reasons i can think of. Canada has a terrible housing market right now, and historically it hasnt had the best government track record either, things like nortel. People are STILL fucked over from that one.

by and large America is hostile AF to black people

what?

The reason is because this fucked up shit doesn’t happen to the majority of people and the USA does actually offer a substantially better quality of life compared to many other places.

THAT SAID, yeah we have a lot of fucked up institutions in place that are authoritarian in nature (police) to uphold the status quo and ensure the money keeps making money.

USA does offer a substantially better quality of life compared to many other places>

Lol no. It “offers” the mirage of a better quality of life. That’s like saying that gambling is a job that will invariably improve your economic position. The chances of immigrants actually improving their life by moving to the U.S. aren’t that good. I mean, most of the countries that people move from at least have socialized healthcare.

The chances of immigrants actually improving their life by moving to the U.S. aren’t that good.

this is just factually wrong.

The vast majority of working immigrants that come to america have family outside of america that they send money to. It not only improves their quality of life but their family's as well.

We also have a fairly large temporary "guest" worker population in the agriculture field as well.

That currency conversion makes what they can spare a good amount of money for their family abroad does not mean that their quality of life has improved.

the QOL of their family certainly also has. A lot of these people also come from places that are war torn or experiencing significant political corruption, the US is not nearly as bad as those places either.

Even then, chances are they're probably living in better conditions, for one reason or another. Healthcare, services, education.

to be clear, a lot of these problems exist on a county level and on a more broad state level, so this isn't quite a country level problem.

Bad people everywhere do bad things.

Every person in a position of authority here is an absolute monster. I can only assume that all this is religiously motivated, with a keen focus on obeying your husband and respecting your father.

This article has sooo much being said between the lines.

The mother, Rachel Pickrel-Hawkins, said the reunification therapy by Christine Bassett, a licensed marriage and family therapist, has been harmful, abusive and counterproductive

When the other party is there perpetrator of abuse and the one with power, it very often is detrimental to have some sort of mediation or therapy/counseling. Because the abusers very often are able to manipulate the story so they are the victims in need of most support/compromise/thoughtfulness/time/money/basically ANY conceivable resource in life and relationships they will exploit.

Now I admit I am more familiar with the medical side of things but this entire dynamic gives me pause because it is so psych 101.

To be clear, I mean the courts are absolutely failing this child and caretaker by allowing the abuser to have have access to the victim(s)

Though the divorce judge found there was evidence that Hawkins had physically abused the oldest son, the judge said in his ruling that was “one instance that does not involve either of the two children at issue.”

As far as information in the article, it sounds like the two kids in court-ordered Christian therapy are the only two the guy didn't (allegedly) abuse.

But still, the whole thing is disgusting. These children should be protected from such an abusive garbage human. Their mother is doing the right thing.

You're looking at this objectively as a medical practitioner....which is understandable, but way off.

What's happening here is not even in the world of psychiatric or psychology based therapy.

This is 100% Christian religious based bullshit "therapy". This can be done in Colorado with an "equivalent" graduate degree.

Even worse is if you're engaged in the practice of "religious ministry" you don't have to comply with any of the states licensure requirements as long as you don't advertise or yourself as "licensed". So in reality this "faith based therapist" probably is just some random person that works or volunteers at the church.

You're so right. Your point deserves a lot more recognition than it got. Don't shut up, don't stop what you're doing.

There is absolutely no place in a modern culture for oppressive ideologies like conservatism. Conservative judges protect oppressive (abusive) fathers while oppressing (abusing) the women and children.

This has always been the way of conservatism. Always.

The state and congressional districts seem somewhat blue, FWIW.

The reunification therapist, Bassett, is conducting the therapy at Lighthouse Christian Counseling in Fort Collins, which advertises itself on the internet as “integrating faith into the counseling process.”

This is like a JD Vance sort of org. Women should submit to their husbands vibe.

Quick question because you have a .world account as well, is the heart next to the up/down voting coming from .world or the app I am using (Jerboa)

It is off putting to me to put a heart next to articles like this, I don't "love" anything about the events that took place, but I want it up voted for the content.

I'm a different person, but also from lemmy.world and I don't use an app. I don't see any heart heart symbol around the voting buttons. It's probably just your app.

I'm using android jerboa, and I don't see a heart.
Dunno if there has been an update recently, tho

What the actual fuck America?! How can you JUSTICE SYSTEM do this to people. To children?!

Kudos to the mother. I hope her sacrifice is successful in keeping these kids out of these so called "therapy sessions".

we don't have a justice system, we have a legal system. Similar in structure, but different in purpose.

We have a legal INDUSTRY. Everything happens because the entity doing it has a profit motive.

Aurora makes a lot of national news, and usually it's because of some absolute monster. What's in the water over there.

It's been that way for years too. Twenty five years ago my friends and I referred to the area as Sadia Aurora cause it always felt like a war zone.

There is also some oil drilling near the southeast side of the city, generally along Quincy and maybe Jewell Avenues?

This just hurts. A whole loving family being thrown under the bus to protect one cop. Therapist sounds like a piece of work too, there should never be unwanted physical contact during therapy. Evil.

Anybody who says they can't understand how somebody would become violent can understand instantly by reading this story.

I tried to think of something to say earlier but couldn't - this sums it up very neatly.

Christopher Estoll, the lawyer representing him in the divorce and the criminal case, claimed in an Aug. 1 court filing that the mother was “not a credible witness and is highly manipulative.”

I mean, whatever, but facts are he is a rapist and "reunification therapy" in this case is an absurd torture.

Fuck all of this.

I'm not religious, but this situation really makes me yearn for Hell's fiery maw to open up and claim the cop, the judge, and the "therapist".

May they end up spending eternity as a human centipede. Or better yet, make it a closed loop.

To be effective as a cop, you have to operate close to the edge.

🤮

Aurora police are a scourge on our state. Worst of the worst.

That site’s got some next level paywall nonsense… got about halfway through the article in my Lemmy app, decided I wanted to share the link with someone, opened in Safari and it purposely replaces the content with some kind of automatic greek text.

It’s a shame, archive.org links tend to scare off old people…

A year ago, the Colorado legislature put new restrictions on the use of reunification therapy. The new law barred courts from restricting the custody of a parent who is competent, protective and not abusive solely to improve a relationship with the other parent. It prohibits reunification treatment that is predicated on cutting off the relationship between a child and a protective parent the child has a bond with.

State lawmakers acted after The Denver Gazette published investigations into Colorado’s troubled family court system, which has been plagued by accusations of bias, usually from mothers who say they are punished and can have their parenting time restricted during divorces when they seek to protect their children from abusive fathers.

During one troubled two-month stretch, four children were murdered in December 2022 and January 2023 by a parent embroiled in a high-conflict court custody battle. Police classified all four deaths as murder-suicides, in which fathers killed their children and then themselves.

Sounds like, even besides her own eye-witness accounts, she has good reason to be concerned. He already tried to kill his son once, and the son is probably going to testify in the child molestation case against him. This case, and reunification therapy, seem really fucked up.

Ok it's a serious thing and all, but an I the only one who read the title as if the cop was raping daughter's remains?