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SMITHFIELD - Johnston mom denies intent to kill adopted boy
Paddock tells of own pain Johnston mom denies intent to kill adopted boy http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1102523.html Mandy Locke, Staff Writer SMITHFIELD - Lynn Paddock testified Monday that she knew the pain of a beating with a PVC pipe. That she felt the shame of skin that turned blue after being whipped. That she understood the hunger from meals denied. She felt it all at the hand of her own mother, she said. Paddock, the Johnston County mother accused of killing her adopted son Sean and abusing her other children, took the stand to defend herself against a first-degree murder charge. Paddock admitted she wrapped Sean in blankets and didn't dispute a pathologist's determination that the binding suffocated him. She swore she never meant to do it. Paddock took jurors into another troubled home, decades past, hundreds of miles away. "She had found a heavy PVC pipe," Paddock testified, referring to her mother, who she said abused her as a child. "That's what she used to discipline us." Through sobs, Paddock described how her mother used a metal pipe to try to keep her children in line. Paddock's stepsister backed her up later in the day, taking the stand to paint a picture of a cruel, controlling mother who locked them in bedrooms, beat them black and blue and took away their food to teach lessons. It was eerily familiar testimony. Over the past two weeks, Paddock's children climbed into the same jury box and told stories about being locked in their rooms and enduring painful lashings with plastic plumbing supply line. Jurors examined pictures of the Paddock children's bodies: black and blue and brown in orderly lines to match Paddock's "whipping stick." Just as Paddock's children testified that their father, Johnny, didn't stop the abuse, Lynn Paddock and her stepsister, Tanya Luck, told of a mysterious, uninvolved father figure. "Dad never hit us," Luck testified. "But the thing he did do was nothing. He watched that go on all day, every day, and never stopped it." Paddock and Luck finally ran away from home. The women, now 47, spent the remainder of their teenage years with a foster family in Virginia, they testified. Paddock sobbed for much of her three hours of testimony. She spoke softly and timidly about the mother she became. She acknowledged much of what her children blamed her for in the past few weeks. One by one, a prosecutor showed Paddock pictures of her children. With simple "yes sirs," she took blame for the bruises coloring their bare backs, legs and arms. Paddock bowed her head when her attorney asked her whether she forced her adopted son David to eat his vomit on his ninth birthday. "I'm sorry. I'm very ashamed," she said, acknowledging that she did. She said she thought he had made himself throw up. Coaching kids to lie During cross-examination, Paddock admitted that she lied to social workers about using corporal punishment. She coached the children to fib as well, she said. Paddock denied much, too. She said she never forced her children to sit cross-legged for hours on end, facing a wall. She said she didn't beat the children with a wooden spoon, a metal stake or hammer. She denied kicking any of them. "I would never do that," she said firmly. Paddock told jurors she had tried to have children of her own. Pregnancy never took, she said. So, several years into her marriage with Johnny, the two decided to adopt to give Jessy, Johnny's daughter from a previous marriage, a playmate. A placemat at a Wendy's fast-food restaurant inspired the Paddocks, Lynn testified, to adopt older children. Wendy's founder, Dave Thomas, was an adopted father and a champion of patchwork families. "At that point, I thought that was my calling," Paddock said of adopting older children. Over a decade, the Paddocks welcomed more and more foster children into their home. Tami came in 1996; Ray followed in 1998. Paddock described the children as troubled and her commitment to keeping them unwavering. Paddock told jurors that she and Johnny vowed to never return the children to foster care no matter how damaged they proved to be. "We would take whatever God brought us. Whatever they needed, we'd give it to them," she testified. Taking a final group of foster children -- Sean, Hannah and David -- in 2005 brought a new, sometimes overwhelming challenge, Paddock testified. On Monday, she discussed David and Hannah's troubles, including bathroom accidents and tearing the pages of library books. But Sean, she said, was just a typical toddler, busy and playful. The week he died, Paddock said, she took to wrapping him in blankets. He had been waking at night and playing in his bed. She feared he might begin wandering through their farmhouse during the night, like some of her other adopted children had. Child in frenzy Paddock told jurors how Sean bucked and screamed and even spit at her during the five nights she wrapped him. But she never imagined that she hurt him, she testified, because he never complained out loud. She told jurors she loved the boy and wished she could take his place. "It's a feeling like I've never felt in my life -- to lose a child," Paddock said. "All the bad things that ever happened to me in my life, I've never experienced anything like that in my life." or (919) 829-8927 An Inconvenient Truth about Child Protective Services, Foster care, and the Child Protection "INDUSTRY" Child Protective Services Does not protect children... It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even killed at the hands of CPS. every parent should read the free handbook from connecticut dcf watch... http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US These numbers come from The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN) Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS Perpetrators of Maltreatment Physical Abuse CPS/Foster care 160, biological Parents 59 Sexual Abuse CPS/Foster care 112, biological Parents 13 Neglect CPS/Foster care 410, biological Parents 241 Medical Neglect CPS/Foster care 14 biological Parents 12 Fatalities CPS/Foster care 6.4, biological Parents 1.5 Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the very agencies that are supposed to protect them and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per 100,000 children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse and kills more children then parents in the United States. If the citizens of this country hold CPS to the same standards that they hold parents too. No judge should ever put another child in the hands of ANY government agency because CPS nationwide is guilty of more harm and death than any human being combined. CPS nationwide is guilty of more human rights violations and deaths of children then the homes from which they were removed. When are the judges going to wake up and see that they are sending children to their death and a life of abuse when children are removed from safe homes based on the mere opinion of a bunch of social workers. THIS IS AMERICA'S HIDDEN HOLOCAUST Currently Child Protective Services violates more constitutionally guaranteed liberties & civil rights on a daily basis then all other agencies combined, Including the National Security agency/Central intelligence agency wiretaping programs… THE CORRUPT BUSINESS OF CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES BY: Nancy Schaefer Senator, 50th District of Georgia http://www.senatornancyschaefer.com/...s.php?filter=6 This is Child Protection? By Gregory A. Hession, J.D. http://www.jbs.org/node/4632 Mercenary Motherhood: "Memoirs of a Babystealer." http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...nion-rightrail FOSTER CARE IS A 80 PERCENT FAILU. A Brief Analysis of the Casey Family Programs. Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study. By Richard Wexler http://www.nccpr.org/reports/cfpanalysis.doc HOW THE WAR AGAINST CHILD ABUSE BECAME A WAR AGAINST CHILDREN http://www.nccpr.org/issues/1.html Adoption Bonuses: The Money Behind the Madness DSS and affiliates rewarded for breaking up families By Nev Moore Massachusetts News http://www.massnews.com/past_issues/...May/mayds4.htm A recent study has found that 12-18 months after leaving foster ca 30% of the nation’s homeless are former foster children. 27% of the males and 10% of the females had been incarcerated 33% were receiving public assistance 37% had not finished high school 2% receive a college degree 50% were unemployed Children in foster care are three to six times more likely than children not in care to have emotional, behavioral and developmental problems, including conduct disorders, depression, difficulties in school and impaired social relationships. Some experts estimate that about 30% of the children in care have marked or severe emotional problems. Various studies have indicated that children and young people in foster care tend to have limited education and job skills, perform poorly in school compared to children who are not in foster care, lag behind in their education by at least one year, and have lower educational attainment than the general population. *Casey Family Programs National Center for Resource Family Support 80 percent of prison inmates have been through the foster care system. The highest ranking federal official in charge of foster care, Wade Horn of the Department of Health and Human Services, is a former child psychologist who says the foster care system is a giant mess and should just be blown up. http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=2017991 Four rigorous studies have found that at least 30 percent of America’s foster children could be home right now if their parents had decent housing. This study found thousands of children already in foster care who would have done better had child protection agencies not taken them away in the first place. Front-page story in USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...m?csp=34#Close Read the studies online. Casey "alumni" study: "Improving Family Foster Ca Findings from the Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study," http://www.casey.org/Resources/Publi...lumniStudy.htm MIT study: "Child Protection and Child Outcomes: Measuring the Effects of Foster Care," http://www.mit.edu/~jjdoyle/doyle_fo...arch07_aer.pdf Texas comptroller's "Forgotten Children" reports: www.window.state.tx.us/forgottenchildren The bottom line? - Child Protective Services and the Foster Care system for the most part turns out young adults that are nothing more than walking wreckage... CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CONSTITUTIONALLY GUARANTEED LIBERTIES & CIVIL RIGHTS ON A DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY/CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WIRETAPPING PROGRAMS.... CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT FAMILIES YEARLY NATIONWIDE AND COMING TO YOU'RE HOME SOON... BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION... |
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