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Hello! We're the Murrays. We have been married 5 1/2 years and have 3 gorgeous little girls. Rhiannon, the oldest, is my husband's daughter from a previous relationship. She's 8. Our second oldest, Tempest, is 6 and the baby of the bunch is Penelope, who is 4. My husband has served in the military for 11 years, next month and I recently went back to being a stay-at-home parent to take care of my stepdaughter's special needs.
Rhiannon was born in Louisiana, while my husband was stationed overseas. We met about a year later. He chose her name and kept an open communication with her mother. He also started paying her support through an allotment, even though he hadn't signed the birth certificate. On April 15, 2009. Rhiannon's mother signed a custody agreement with her mother that gave Rhiannon's grandmother primary custody, while awarding the mother liberal visitation. In the documents they claimed they did not know who the father was, nor was there anyway to find that out. So essentially they stripped him of his rights while he was stationed overseas and neither ever mentioned. He didn't know these papers existed until February 8, 2017.
In December of 2009, we finally met Rhia face to face in between going from an overseas base to another base in Kentucky. He deployed a few months later in 2010. During his deployment Rhiannon's mother would talk about taking her own life and how hard it was to raise her. How she had issues with alcohol and so forth. Turns out it was grandma doing most of the raising at the time. And since Grandma had a home and loved Rhiannon we didn't think there was a safety issue to the baby. After deployment we went down to see her again. Rhiannon now had her first baby sister.
Rhiannon's mom said she was doing better and that her mom was helping out. Yet she was making it difficult for my husband to sign a birth certificate so he could get her insurance. She was scared to give him rights because she believed he would just take off with her. A few months after my husband got back from Afghanistan we went to Germany for 3 years. While we were there in December of 2012, Rhiannon's mom calls us freaking out that a family member had molested or possibly raped this poor little girl. She was 3. Grandma waited a week to tell the mother and the mother waited a week to tell my husband. My husband told her to take her to the emergency room now. Mother says she did, but they didn't do that kind of test there she would have to travel to a hospital a few hours away. I tell my husband that doesn't sound right. If that were the case and that hospital didn't have the capabilites they would transport her to a hospital, not release her and hope mom finds a ride up to there. She tells my husband that it had all been taken care of. She didn't want Rhiannon going to therapy because it was better that she forget, than have it brought up over and over.
We finally moved back to the US in 2015 and luckily were stationed in Louisiana within a few hours of her. We got to see her pretty frequently. And then in the summer of 2016, Rhiannon's mother asks my husband and if we'd be willing to take her. She just couldn't afford childcare if she worked and couldn't stay home because she couldn't afford a roof over their heads. Themother was also having too many issues with the school due to Rhiannon's severe ADHD. She wouldn't be able to send money to support her, but if we wanted to we could stop the allotment. Her Mother later admitted to have been doing methamphetamines during this time 'by mistake'. We jumped at the idea of her coming to stay. She moved in with us the 1st of July and quickly settled in.
And then the unthinkable happened. Tempest told us that Rhiannon had molested her. We reported it as soon as we found out. Because of her age, she obviously wouldn't get prosecuted, nor did we want that. We wanted the girls to get therapy. The FBI had a forensic counselor talk to Rhiannon and then what was already a sad situation became horrific. Rhiannon said that she was continously molested by a relative of the mother's best friend, while in her mother's care. When she told mom about what was going on, mom said don't worry about it. The FBI looked into the previous situation as well in 2012, turns out neither Grandma, nor mother ever reported the situation. Since we were considered only reporters at the time we couldn't find out any information since it was confidetial. Rhiannon and Tempest both continued to see counselors and everyone in the kids' lives (teachers, couselors, day care workers, babysitters, basically anyone who interacts with them) are aware of what's happened to them. That way everyone would be vigilant if something else occured. Thankfully nothing had.
We finally get her mother to agree to have my husband on the birth certificate to make it easier to enroll her in school and so on. We get her enrolled in 3rd grade at school and pretty quickly realize that Rhiannon just isn't comprehending things like she should. We get her put into speech therapy and remedial math and reading classes. Her grades still don't improve and after several meetings with counselors, teachers, and aides, we request she get tested for special education. They get her tested and she's comprehending things at a Kindergarten level. Around this time, I quit working to stay home and be able to help her get through what should be 20 minutes of homework, but really took 3-4 hours. It was mostly her throwing fits because she didn't understand it and didn't want to do it. Rhiannon said that if she cried and whined her mom wouldn't make her do homework and I'm just like that doesn't fly here.
Then fast forward to February 3, 2017. Grandma wants to see her for
the weekend. My husband says sure, it had been a while since they had
seen her.They agree to bring her back Sunday for school Monday. Sunday
rolls around and at about 10am Rhiannon's mother, calls and says that
she's not coming back, they're enrolling her in school down there.
Husband flips out and tell them to come back up here for an
appointment on February 8th. My husband puts Rhiannon in the car and
tries to take her back home and then the cops are called. The cops
deemed that based on the court order the only one who can make a
decision in the situation is grandmother. So essentially even though
his name is on the birth certificate now, even though she's been
living here for the past 8 months and is enrolled in school here
because of a court order based on the lie that the father was unknown
he can do nothing, but try to get the order thrown out.
We've talked to an amazing lawyer who's going to try to get us an emergency custody hearing. This man and his aide have done most of the leg work and are just waiting on us to pay the deposit. We can get her back as soon as the end of this month. Rhiannon is in an unsafe environment where the people in her lives down there have known about abuse and refused to report it. We need help to keep her safe and bring her back to be with her sisters and home. The funds will be used to help secure the lawyer and also cover the costs of traveling since we will be dealing with these issues in the county it all started in, in 2009. It's about a 4 1/2 hour drive. The funds will also help cover the cost for daycare for our other kids so we can go to the trial and make sure they're taken of. Thank you all so much for you help and we will keep you updated every single step of the way through this process.
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