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Kidjacked | Jacked Up
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I Took Kids From Parents For No Good Reason," Amy Pagnozzi -- New York Post, February 4, 1991 Texas CPS News Archive
Texas News Coverage
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Attorneys: Seal report on text messages to FLDS teen
by Brooke Adams
Attorneys for an FLDS mother will ask a Texas judge to seal a report leaked this week that described text messages sent to the woman's 14-year-old daughter.
Lawyers Valerie Malara and Brett Pritchard, who represent Barbara Jessop, said the report prepared by a guardian ad litem takes the calls out of context and does not accurately reflect the actual text messages.
Salt Lake Tribune
February 4, 2009
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Mother charged in child's death
DALLAS, Feb 4, 2009 -- Dallas police have filed neglect charges against a mother of five whose 9-year-old daughter died of complications related to her Type 1 diabetes.
Georgia Lee Jones, 27, is accused of neglecting Chasity Butler and helping to cause her death, The Dallas Morning News reported Wednesday.
Market Watch
February 4, 2009
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Texas Woman Accused In Diabetic Daughter's Death
The mother of a 9-year-old diabetic who died as she lay beside a bag of candy and other sweets is accused of helping cause her daughter's death by failing to help the girl manage the disease, including giving her high-glucose foods.
The Dallas Morning News reported that Georgia Lee Jones, 27, was arrested Monday after a long investigation. The mother of five faces a felony charge of injury to a child and faces a sentence of as much as life in prison if convicted in the death of Chasity Butler.
KWTX
February 4, 2009
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Stranger Danger free to homeschoolers
by Danie M. Huffman
Parents often wonder how their children will react if they are encountered by a stranger. Homeschool parents will have the opportunity to learn responses by attending a free safety seminar at The Karate University Tuesday.
The event, hosted from 2 to 3 p.m. and focuses on the nationally popular Stranger Danger program, which teaches children various methods to look for when dealing with strangers at home, school, on the phone and in public.
Weatherford Democrat
January 30, 2009
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Family Accused of Sending Kids to Bed Too Early
In September, an HSLDA member family in Sinton was visited by a social worker who had a list of allegations an anonymous tipster had called in.
The list included that the family homeschools, that the children are sent to bed "really early" and do not play with neighbor kids, and that there are firearms in the home. The family knew better than to let the social worker into their home...
HSLDA
January 13, 2009
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Order List for January 9, 2009
by Don Cruse
In re Department of Family & Protective Services, No. 08‑0524 -- Again divided 5-4, the Court dismissed a parental-rights-termination action brought by the Department for failure to meet a filing deadline.
The majority concluded that dismissal was mandated by the statute regardless of how the Justices might feel about the merits. The dissenters argued that the Court should be more concerned with the practical consequences of its decision when construing the statute.
The Supreme Court of Texas Blog
January 9, 2009
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Parents' rights not terminated
by Logan G. Carver
A Lubbock couple accused of grossly neglecting their children while living in deplorable conditions will not permanently lose custody of all their children.
Instead Gloria Ramirez and Anthony Moya will relinquish custody of the oldest and youngest of the seven children removed from the home in July 2007, while continuing to work to prove they are responsible enough to someday have custody of the remaining five.
Avalanche-Journal
January 6, 2009
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Former CPS supervisor is accused of making false report
by Mary Ann Cavazos
CORPUS CHRISTI -- A former Child Protective Services supervisor faces a charge that she falsely accused a man who is instrumental in helping convict child abusers of molesting a child himself.
Grizelda Lopez-Hess was indicted Thursday on a charge of making a false report of abuse. The indictment accuses her of making a false indecency with a child report on Oct. 9 with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, under which CPS falls.
Corpus Christi Caller Times
December 5, 2008
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Sealed agreement reached on dispute over FLDS infant
by Paul A. Anthony
Attorneys reached an agreement Tuesday over a teen girl's refusal to divulge the whereabouts of her 5-month-old baby to the state's Child Protective Services agency.
The agreement, which is under seal, headed off what could have been a messy conflict between the girl, a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and 51st District Judge Barbara Walther, who had ordered her to answer questions about the location of her child.
Go San Angelo
November 26, 2008
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Regional child abuse coalition begins to form a vision
by Robin Pyle
Child abuse and neglect had a price tag of more than $9 million last year in Lubbock County alone. And it affected 1,439 boys and girls - that authorities know of - in the community.
Lubbock County has a higher child abuse and neglect rate than most cities in Texas - 22.7 children per 1,000 compared to a statewide average rate of 11.2, according to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
Avalanche-Journal (TX)
November 11, 2008
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SAPD, CPS Investigating Child's Sudden Death
SAN ANTONIO -- Cyleste Gonzales was not breathing when she was taken to Children's Methodist Hospital on Sunday afternoon, said SAPD Sgt. Gabe Trevino.
A caregiver's three biological children have been placed with family members as Child Protective Services and San Antonio police investigate the death of a 2-year-old girl.
KSAT San Antonio
October 27, 2008
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State asked to keep FLDS girl in custody
by Brooke Adams
Child welfare officials plan to ask a Texas judge to keep a 14-year-old FLDS girl in custody because her parents continue to be uncooperative.
Merril Jessop, the girl's father and bishop of the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado, remains in hiding, and Barbara Jessop, her mother, has circumvented visitation rules on several occasions. Barbara Jessop asked the state to let the girl's younger brother be allowed to join her in custody. She also asked that another daughter be allowed to trade places with the 14-year-old.
The Salt Lake Tribune
September 18, 2008
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New policies make it harder for CPS to remove kids
by Janet Elliott
Texas child abuse investigators are being advised to seek court orders before removing children from their home in all but the most dangerous situations, one of several major policy changes demanded by a federal appeals court.
The new standards, lauded by parental rights advocates and decried by prosecutors, arose out of a ruling late last month by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in a long-running lawsuit against the state filed by a Fort Bend County couple and their 13 children.
Houston Chronicle
August 27, 2008
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State requests foster care for 8 FLDS children
Texas child welfare officials on Tuesday asked a court to order foster care for eight children at a polygamous compound, saying their mothers have refused to limit the children's contact with men suspected of being involved in underage marriages.
Child Protective Services officials also asked the court to end cases for 32 children after finding no evidence that their families engaged in underage marriages. The agency has been investigating the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado since April, when it raided the compound and seized more than 400 children on allegations of physical and sexual abuse.
CNN
August 5, 2008
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Misguided shield for abusive parents - The Boston Globe
by Darin Strauss
Recently, a child in Seattle made repeated trips to the hospital for vomiting. His doctor found traces of a toxic chemical in the child's urine. The doctor alerted Child Protective Services, and police visited the child's home.
They found the chemical in the family's medicine cabinet. Child Protective Services then accused the mother of repeatedly poisoning her child. This was allegedly Munchausen by Proxy. CPS removed the child from his home. But then a local newspaper called the doctor overzealous.
The Boston Globe
July 26, 2008
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Accusations of Neglect and Abuse of Power: The Shaman Case
by Elisheva Hannah Levin
What happens when a government agency is allowed to operate outside the Rule of Law?
In all states that I am aware of, various versions of New Mexico's Children, Youth and Families Department operate outside the Rule of Law. That is they may make whatever accusations they please or accept anonymous accusations of child abuse, and act on them by invading the sanctity of the people's homes and remove children, all without being required to follow the normal constitutional procedures that protect the rights of the accused.
Ragamuffin Studies
July 10, 2008
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Flora Jessop: The Troubled Woman Who Cost Texas $14 Million, and Hundreds of Innocent People Their Peace and Safety
by Gary D. Naler
Flora Jessop, the outspoken media favorite and determined critic of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS), has had the advantage and luxury of accruing audiences who want to believe her.
Flora's days of unaccountability have come to an end. She has now been instrumental in causing the state of Texas to carry out an illegal invasion on an entire community at a cost to the state of $14 million, and has hurt so many innocent people that these silent ones who know her well, are finally speaking out.
News Release Wire
July 1, 2008
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Girl, 14, kills baby at school
A 14-year-old girl has been arrested and charged with murder after she allegedly killed her newborn baby in a school bathroom.
Baytown, Texas, police said the eighth-grade student submerged the 7 pound infant in a Cedar Bayou Junior School toilet and jammed toilet paper down his throat so he wouldn't cry. The baby also suffered blunt trauma to his head and neck, according to a Harris County autopsy.
World Net Daily
June 27, 2008
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30 years for child abuse
by Anita Miller
San Marcos -- Sara Amaya was sentenced to 30 years in jail on Friday after pleading guilty to 14 counts of child abuse.
The action marks the prosecutorial end of what investigators called the "worst case of child abuse" they had encountered and came just more than a month after Hays County jurors sentenced her former husband, Cesar Mojica, to 14 life terms.
San Marcos Record (TX)
June 13, 2008
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Texas Raids Prompt Renewed Calls for CPS Reform
by Brad Dacus
The Texas Supreme Court declared last week that the state's Department of Family Protective Services (CPS) acted illegally in rounding up hundreds of mothers and children from a suspected polygamist sect.
But while national attention has focused on the bizarre events in Texas, attorneys across the nation insist that abuses of power by many states' child protective services - referred to collectively as CPS - are all too common, and little has been done by legislators to address them.
Pacific Justice Institute
June 3, 2008
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Sect children allowed to go home
by Kendra Mendez
More than 400 children seized from the West Texas polygamist camp will be reunited with their parents Monday, several from an Austin shelter.
San Angelo judge Barbara Walther signed the order allowing parents to pick up their children from shelters across the state, beginning at 10 a.m. and ending at 8 p.m. Monday. Parents must agree to certain conditions when they retrieve their children from the shelters.
News 8 Austin
June 2, 2008
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Colorado woman waives hearing in another prank-call case
by Russ Rizzo
A Colorado woman being investigated for placing possible prank phone calls that helped trigger a massive raid on an FLDS ranch in Texas waived her right on Monday to a first appearance later this week in an unrelated case.
Rozita Estraletta Swinton, through a defense attorney, waived her right to a first appearance set for Thursday in another prank-calling case in which she is accused of pretending to be a teenager held in a basement. The 33-year-old Colorado Springs woman was arrested April 16 after Texas Rangers contacted Colorado Springs about possible prank calls.
The Salt Lake Tribune
May 28, 2008
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State faces new sore point over immunizing sect children
by Terri Langford and Lisa Sandberg
A state requirement that children in foster care be inoculated against disease has prompted another round of headaches for lawyers who represent 464 children taken from a polygamist ranch last month.
Most children are immunized against diseases including chicken pox, polio, measles and smallpox before they start school. But many, if not most of the children of the Yearning For Zion ranch, have not been immunized. All are homeschooled on the 1,700-acre ranch north of Eldorado.
Houston Chronicle
May 28, 2008
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CPS: 3 more reasons to keep sect children in foster care
by Chuck Lindell
State child-welfare officials, filing a new legal brief today, gave the Texas Supreme Court three more reasons to stop the planned reunions of about 130 children with their polygamist parents from the YFZ Ranch.
The state brief asks the nine justices to block the reunions - ordered last week by the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin - because: The children's fathers, have not yet been identified.
Statesman
May 27, 2008
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Make-A-Wish child in CPS custody (video)
by Kristi Hsu
When Elizabeth Garcia met Barney the purple dinosaur during her Make-A-Wish Foundation trip in January, the little girl, then 7, was all smiles and hugs.
Her disposition was markedly different Tuesday, when she saw her parents for the second time since she was taken into Child Protective Services custody in late April. "She didn't look happy at all," her mother, Debbie Garcia, said. "She looked so sad and pale."
Abilene Reporter-News
May 14, 2008
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