The Healing Field
A tribute was erected in a Jacksonville, Florida park over the weekend. At first look one would think the somber scene memorialized fallen soldiers. The memorial was created to honor the memory of children who died from child abuse or neglect over the past year in the United States.
1,530 flags were placed. Each of those flags represented a child whose life was taken by the adults in their life who were supposed to protect them. How sad is that? How sad that in this day and age we have those kinds of statistics – children dying as a result of abuse? It is mind boggling, and heart wrenching.
One of the children honored was Kyla Hall. Kyla’s parents, 22-year-old Ashley M. Saffore and 24-year-old Josi M. Hall, took her to Wolfson Children’s Hospital about two months after she was born. Her legs were broken. Her right wrist and left foot were fractured and her brain was bleeding. She was found to have Shaken Baby Syndrome. Hall and Saffore were charged with child abuse and neglect about a month after their daughter was admitted to the hospital. However, the Prosecutor’s Office was forced to drop the charges because it could not be determined who beat Kyla and caused her injuries. Kyla was then remanded into the custody of the state for medical foster care. According to Jewish Family Services who was in charge of her case, their records regarding reunification with her biological parents stated Kyla’s:
“home situation presents a substantial and immediate danger to the child’s physical mental or emotional health and safety.” The termination of their parental rights was in the “best interests of the child,” and another round of abuse was imminent if she was kept in their care.
In June 2007, her mother gave up her parental rights, and the child’s paternal and maternal grandmother’s stated that they would take custody of her. Had that happened, Kyla’s flag wouldn’t be in that park.
In December 2007, her father was given a “second chance” after Kyla’s guardian ad litem observed him with Kyla three times. He was ordered to take parenting classes, of which he took ten. Jewish Family Services who was involved in the case thought it inappropriate that her father be reunified, but when court time came around and the guardian ad litem didn’t even show up for court, the Judge ruled that Kyla’s father be reunified with his daughter. The Florida Department of Children and Families closed its file on her after six months of supervision. Five months later Kyla was dead.
She was 22-months old when she died. Just two months shy of her second birthday. Her father telephone 911 and reported that his child was unresponsive. He stated that he had picked Kyla up from the babysitter’s the day before, and put her to bed that night. He told paramedics that when he tried to wake her up that morning, she was dead. The autopsy report revealed that Kyla was hit so hard in the chest, that her heart ripped open. Her liver was also perforated as a result of blunt force trauma. Kyla’s father was charged with homicide and remains in jail without bond.
That is just one story of the 1,530. That one is just as heartbreaking as the others. I was talking to a friend the other night and we discussed the issue of child abuse and neglect – and when it leads to murder. How do we stop this from happening? Is it even possible?
To all the little ones lost this year, rest in peace, and I will pray that justice is served in each and every case.
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~Princess~
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I am hopeful that there is a special room in Hell for Kyla’s father and I hope he checks into that room sooner rather than later.
Kyla’s story is yet another example of protective services gone wrong as well. Some protection – they send her right back with the abuser!
Thanks for posting this story. What a sad commentary it is that there are so many innocent little ones murdered at the hands of those who are supposed to love and nurture them. It just breaks my heart.
He’s innocent until proven guilty, remember that.
I do remember that. Interesting that other articles I’ve read since Princess posted this story mention that the Assistant State’s Attorney doesn’t even think he will need to enter into evidence the previous charges made against this “father” and that he feels the evidence against this person stands on its own and basically is going to be a slam-dunk for the prosecution. Yes, I do realize that many prosecutors have said that publically before a trial and have wound up losing the case in court. I am basing my OPINION of this man and wife on their previous history with DCFS of child abuse, attended anger management classes (boy, those sure worked, eh?), and in my opinion, the sheer brutality of the injuries this little one received distinctly indicate a male perpetrator. I am not just making willy-nilly assumptions; my opinion comes from years of experience working with the coroner’s office of one of the biggest cities in the US. Unfortunately, I have seen these types of injuries resulting in the deaths of innocent little children way too many times. It breaks my heart each and every time.
That may be true, but one of them broke that child’s legs and shook her until her brain bled when she was an infant. Just curious if you are somehow involved in this case or just making comment?
That poor child- 22 months of living on this earth and each one of them a day in hell. I can’t for the life of me figure out the dad – he goes through parenting classes – gets supervised by DCF for six months in which I assumed they examined the child and all was well then he snaps? Why wasn’t there some sort of mental health test run on the father?
Those flags remind me of a soldier’s cemetery during war time and come to think of it there is a war going on.. over children’s rights and s**t for brains parents.
Since yesterday when I first read this article I have been haunted by Baby Kyla’s story. I don’t have the words to express the feelings I have: disgust, dismay, confusion, fear? Nothing.
Evil. Pure evil. That’s all I can imagine.
There are so many stories like this. I found one that I am going to write soon. He was a little guy – starved to death and abused by his step-father. His mom was an addict and relinquished her parental rights. Her ex-husband and his new girlfriend gained custody of him, and abused Chandler and let him starve to death in a closet.
Like I said, evil. There can’t be any other reason.
I have been reading & researching a story from decades back, the little boy in the box. He was beaten & bruised and his lifeless body was left in a box on the side of the road. This case to this day has never been solved and it’s is currently being researched and investigated. http://americasunknownchild.net
It was shown on America’s Most Wanted a few Years back in hopes that someone would come forward with information. It’s a very tragic story. They all are tragic stories which should never have occurred. I just hope and pray that our society as a whole never becomes so numb to these types of crimes as we have become so complacent with the homeless.
I have heard of and read about this child. I will never understand why a parent would harm their child, let alone dump them like trash. There are so many people out there who would adopt. Life doesn’t make sense sometime.
I can’t agree MORE!
This is one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen. What a terrible reflection of our society today! We must do something to protect our most valuable natural resource, our children. Laws must be passed to give these parents the harshest punishment possible to discourage child abuse and neglect. I also feel education is the key. We must educate young parents and teach them how to deal with the stress of having young children.
You know what’s sad …. generally the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree…. what kind of parents did these abusive parents have. What values where they taught… what values did their parents demonstrate…. Makes you wonder. I just see society degenerating.
1530 flags, 1530 dead children…….it would be hard to see this memorial in person without getting sick, what a waste. How do humans do this to other humans? When presented like this, it really brings out the emotions. Like standing in front of the Viet Nam memorial in DC, it’s hard to speak, and all you think is, WHY?
There are no words to express how those flags make me feel. Why is there so much evil against children now days and what can we do to stop them before it happens? My heart aches for all the children represented in the field and for the ones who are being abused right at this moment.
In Iowa right now, sits a woman in jail/mental hospital awaiting trial for the murder of her 2yr old, and attempted murder of her 8yr old.
She drove them out to a country road, duct taped their mouths and bound them, and then slit their throats ~ She then made an attempt to make things look like they had been abducted.
Here is the link for the above story:
http://www.whotv.com/
Scroll down to “Keohoe Story” on the lower left hand side for the video.
Michelle Keohoe
The older son managed to get away and get to a farm house for help, and lived.
The real kicker in this, is that this woman attempted and tried the same thing with the older son a few years ago, before she had the second child.
Made the same claims, etc, and got away with it~!!!
Social services and the police found that she was not involved, and returned this child to her ~
So, here we are a few years later, she has had another child, and does it again.
They just showed a picture of her on our noon news, complete with a feeding tube into her nose, and saying that the state is having to pay an additional 4 grand for a mental eval for her.
I cannot even imagine the trauma that her older son will have to live with for the rest of his life.
His mother tried to kill him twice, and then, he witness’ her killing his baby brother.
I tried to edit my above post and wasn’t doing something right I guess ~
Here is the tv link with a short video of this story on the lower left hand side when you scroll down.
Kehoe Expense.
Michelle Kehoe.
This station didn’t have the mugshot of her with the nose gear/feeding tube.
http://www.whotv.com
Right now I am holding my 2-month old grandaughter, watching her smile and kissing her fingers and toes. I am chasing my two year old grandson around the house. I thank God for every moment I have, and will have, with them. I say a prayer for the children who do not have the love and care my children, and my grandchidren have. I cry every day for these children. We need tougher laws, and tougher judges. We need a tougher child abuse system, DCF. or any name they are known by. We need more people looking out for these babies-instead of flags, I would rather keep them alive! We need more education for parents, and a stronger help system for them. Poverty and drugs increase child abuse-we need to find a way to have less of both. Let’s all work together to save all the future victims!
We need Charles Bronson………………….
Amen, Tval
If you are a child Florida is your death sentence if you come from a problematic background. No one should be given 2nd chance or 3rd or any other chances until they are psychologically assessed, until they have parenting classes and most importanly supervised visits for a extended period of time, like 2 or more years. Taking a child away for a few weeks with the kind of abuse Kyla suffered was insane. Children services employees get a pass after making fatal decisions and this has to stop. There has to be a whole restructuring of Florida’s social services departments, is an unmitigated failure and certainly is one of the worst in the United States. This is so tragic, I suspect that they will indeed have more children who if not outright murdered like Kyla will be abusers still.
This never had to happen. Floridians need to go to their state representives and MAKE them fix a problem that is only getting worse, if they don’t respond then the people need to become politically active and get a candidate elected who will respond, can you imagine how much can be done with a grass roots effort in that one state. This is unacceptable. The prosecutor in this case let that child down, and every other endangered child suffering today in Florida. Get competent people in office, childrens lives depend on it.
Some links on the Kehoe story:
http://www.topix.com/bigpic/mini-875d27c28149cbf90bfd048d3cc3c1cb
http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/33618704.html
What a horrible story.
Poor children.. All those children that could be running and playing, but got stuck with s**tty bad breeder parents that need to be sterilized. Never shake a baby ever.. Babys cry, children cry, children don’t listen, they stress you frustrate you but thats children they are learning their way. That’s like punishing a baby for being hungry and not feeding themselves. When you become a parent you take on all of these things, you know what is coming. Children do not come with an instruction booklet, the must be taught the things you want them to know not punished because it wasn’t born into them.
Nice to see you again princess where the heck have ya been?
I have been running like crazy. We need to chat and play catch up. I’ve been busy with school, and real life. Lots of things going on. I’ll fill you in later.
We can play catch up soonish. Just get at me thru twitter with a DM. I got lots going on at the moment as well but we can fill each other in privately. Not everything is subject for public forum lol.
Have been away I need to play catch up too ! LMAO
Well let’s all just get together and chit chat shall we? Man do our schedules ever slam into each other .
U name the time and place.. I’ll be there!
The real problem is that too many “trash” elements are having kids. In many cases, both parents are total losers. Grandparents dead, maybe, or they too total losers. It isn’t an economic thing, it is a class thing. Lots of poor people manage to raise their children. But this “trash” element just doesn’t give a damn. And society tries to help but there is just no cure for meanness, idleness, and brainlessness.
Oh, and then throw drugs into the mix of meanness, idleness, and brainlessness.
I really really think someone should do a blog about the poor child that was just murdered by his mother..
.. the things she did to that poor child were atrocious, no excuse i don’t care how mentally unwell you are you do not decapitate and eat your own child.. the thoughts of what that child must have felt are going to haunt me.. that poor poor child.. spa
I was reading the story on that in the Orlando Sentinel. I got sick to my stomach when I read what this woman did to this poor baby. It’s another Andrea Yates. They need to sterlize this woman so she may never reproduce again. I hope she is put in prison for the rest of her life and not in some mental hospital where she will be able to walk free in society again when she convinces enough doctors that she is cured.
So disgusted — Need to pass a test to drive a car but any ass can be a parent. Beyond words …………
I read it and felt ill after knowing what she did to that baby. She doesn’t deserve to live. F her. Death. There is no reason for that sick F to breathe the same air that I do.
There is no explanation I can imagine for how these people treat children, how someone can do these unspeakable things. But I do believe that the reason many of these kids are in the care of these parents or guardians that hurt them is more often than not FINANCIAL as sad as that is. I think parental custody is frequently about the almighty buck. Dad doesn’t want to pay mom child support, so he gets custody of the kid he never wanted, or mom does the same thing. Or they fight for custody to GET that money. Or they get additional money from governmental support programs if they have said kid. Even foster and adoptive parents who do it for the money, and therefore take in special needs kids that they can’t necessarily even manage and don’t care about. It’s pathetic how it’s all about the MONEY and seldom about the love of a child. I think Haleigh Cummings situation (living with druggie dad and stupid teen who between them probably killed her) was due to money and that defining the custody agreement like I described above – due to who has to pay support, not to who loved and cared for her. And now we are seeing as in the Caylee Anthony case families that see a missing or dead child as a cottage industry to support themselves financially. Sick, sick, sick.
I will NEVER understand the horror and hatred that some parents inflict on their children. As some here know, I am to testify in a trial where a father murdered his children. When this first happened, I struggled very much with the horror of it all and looked towards a very wise and religious man for help. Here are some of his words of wisdom that helped me heal my broken heart and deal with my own anger.
Disclaimer: I know some of the readers are not religious/believe in God, and if these words offend, just pass them by, but hopefully some will be helped my them as I was.
“The punishment he delievered to his children will not be taken lightly behind bars, where the children’s deaths may have come quickly, he will not be as lucky. He will never go a day without fearing for his life. Plus the Hell he is going to go through, after he leaves this world is going to be a thousand times worse than any punishment he will experience as a prisoner. This Hell is not one that death will eventually deliver him from. I believe that part of that Hell will be the cries of his children magnified and to ring loudly through his mind for an eternity. He will never escape this Hell, he will suffer for all time.”
Those words helped me more than I can say, and hopefully they will help some of you when wanting a justified punishment for these baby killers. As these innocent and beautiful children sit in our Lord’s beautiful love, their killers will suffer forever.