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SAN
ANTONIO LIGHTNING EXCLUSIVE
Mom: 'My
Son's
Dad Raped
Him!'
Desperate New
Braunfels Mom Says She Fled
Us For Mexico
To 'Protect
Son' From Father
COPYRIGHT 2005 - SAN ANTONIO LIGHTNING
NEWSPAPER |
| Suzanne DeWalt In Her Own
Words - As Conveyed To The Lightning -
PART 1 |
(Editor's note:
What follows is a letter written by accused
kidnapper Suzanne DeWalt. DeWalt
fled with her son on October 25, 2002. A felony warrant
was issued for her
on October 26,2002.
She lived under an assumed name in Mexico, with
her son (pictured in the recent photo above)
until her arrest and return to New Braunfels on
September 9th of this year. She is currently
jailed in Comal County. This letter was written
shortly after her flight began. It was recently
forwarded to the Lightning. It is part 1 of an in
depth series.)
Due To Subject
Matter Severe Discretion Is Advised
* * *
I
am writing this letter to you as a fugitive from
the law, but the circumstances that brought me to
this point are both unbelievable and outrageous.
I
need help to overcome a grave injustice that has
affected many people. All of the facts that I
(provide) below are verifiable by checking the
court documents or talking to the FBI agent.
My
name is Suzanne DeWalt, and on October 25, 2002 I
took my five-year-old son and fled the court's
jurisdiction in order to go into hiding, where I
remain to this day. Due to a total denial of
justice and an out-of-control judge, an
uninformed jury voted that I was to give my child
to his father, the man who brutally raped him
months before.
In
May of 2001, my (then) three-year-old son left to
go on a visitation with his father to Virginia
for nine days. Mike and I had been divorced for
about two years. The history of visitation had
not been good.
When
his father did see him -- which was infrequently
and usually at my urging - Jeremy, my son, came
home many times upset and exhibiting signs such
as bedwetting, anger, and a general fear of men.
People around me told me that this was normal for
a young child when separated from his mother to
go with someone he didn't know very well. Because
he was in the navy, Mike had been deployed and
unable to spend much time with Jeremy since his
birth.
And
then after the divorce, he showed little interest
in being a father to him.
Usually,
when Jeremy was with his father, I tried to talk
to him on the phone once a day, but my phone
calls were generally blocked. But on this trip, I
was unable to reach anyone for the entire nine
days. I was panicked because I didn't even know
if they had made it to their destination safely.
On the 7th day, I called Mike's boss and asked if
he knew where they were. He informed me that Mike
had not told me the truth, that they hadn't gone
to Virginia, but instead to Disneyland Florida,
to attend his brother's wedding.
I
was to meet them at the airport upon their
arrival-- June 6th -- but the night before, I
received a phone call from Mike asking if he
could keep Jeremy for 2 or 3 more days. I was
upset at his deceit, and just wanted to see
Jeremy and make sure he was okay, so I kept my
plans of meeting them at the airport in order to
take Jeremy home. I received several messages
from Mike talking about delayed and canceled
flights, but still waited all day at the airport.
I later determined-- with flight records-- that
he was not telling the truth about the delayed
flights. I believe that he was purposely trying
to avoid my seeing Jeremy.
When
they arrived, I was shocked at the condition of
Jeremy. He ran to me, and when I picked him up,
he hugged me tightly, making strange animal-like
sounds. He could barely speak, even though he had
always been advanced in his speech. I asked Mike
what was wrong and why he had lied to me about
their whereabouts, and he denied ever being in
Florida. Finally, after I told him that I had
talked to his boss and knew the truth, he
admitted it and said that He didn't want me
bothering him while he was with his son. (All of
this is on videotape.)
Jeremy
was not the same child that he was when he left.
He's always been a bright kid with exceptional
vocal skills, but now I had a fearful child who
could barely talk. When a person would enter the
room, he would quickly crawl under a table or
behind a sofa. He constantly talked about a
secret that he could not tell or I would die. Or
he would go to jail. He had a painful-looking red
rash all over his bottom and an infected penis.
His bowels were backed up to the point that his
stomach was in constant pain. He suddenly had
daily headaches-- and in fact, they were so
persistent that a doctor at Brooks Army Medical
Center did a brain scan. He was mean to his
grandmother, who was with me when I dropped him
off for his trip-- and told her things like I'm
gonna rip you up.
He
was yelling at people not to look at him or touch
him. I could not even hug him because he said
that it hurt. He could not eat or brush his teeth
without gagging. He had been potty-trained for
one year, but was suddenly going to the bathroom
in strange places. Once in a trashcan at
McDonalds, another time in a cardboard box, and
yet another in the hand of his six-year-old
niece. Twice, he went to the bathroom in his
pants. He woke up several times a night with
night terrors. I have a videotape of this, as
well as his inability to speak. When He saw his
nine-year-old cousin, he tackled him and began
rubbing his genitals all over him. He did the
same with his cat. He begged me to touch his
penis and tickle it. He would not tell me what
was wrong because he was too afraid. Basically,
he had gone from a bright, well-adjusted kid to
an angry, anti-social boy who was terrified of
people. Later, a psychologist would prescribe
Prozac because he was having
"detachments," and was depressed to the
point of being suicidal.
He
was four-years-old.
The
day after I picked him up from the airport, I
arranged a meeting with a child therapist to see
if she could get to the bottom of things. He
immediately hid in a closet when he heard her
voice, but eventually, he came out and talked
with her. I was not in the room. He told her that
he had a secret about his trip, but he could not
tell her. She reported that he was playing with
legos, and that he was playing very violently,
and that there were three bad kings who were
going to kill her. She noted his severe stutter.
She found it noteworthy that when she asked him
how his trip was, he responded in fear, saying,
" No one hurt me."
She
hadn't asked him if he'd been hurt, only how his
trip was. In the end, he told her that he would
only tell me what happened on the trip. There is
a copy of her notes in court records.
Then
on Saturday, June 8th, and in the following days,
Jeremy told me what happened. His father, along
with two other men (two of his cousins in their
twenties) raped him.
Jeremy
told me that they "went pee-pee in his mouth
and made him swallow it."
He
also said that they "went pee-pee on his
tailbone, and that it hurt so bad he thought his
stomach would break in half."
He
was told that there was not a bathroom in the
house, so they had to "go poo-poo" on
him. He heard them arguing about who would get to
go first, and "his daddy won."
He
told me that while they were " doing the bad
stuff" his grandmother (Mike's mother), and
his aunt walked in and started screaming. He told
me that his grandmother cleaned him up, and then
they took him to McDonalds and impressed upon him
the importance of never telling anyone.
He
said that he slept with his grandparents for the
reminder of the trip. He was terrified to talk
because he had been told that I would die if he
did, and that he would go to jail.
To
this day, he is scared of going to jail, or is
afraid to leave me because he thinks that
something is going to happen to me.
I
tried to get help, but didn't understand the
system. For instance, because I now had
"possession" of him, Child Protective
Services didn't want to become involved because
he was "out of danger."
That
changed later.
The
local police couldn't do anything because Mike
had taken Jeremy out of their jurisdiction to
commit the crime. The Naval police didn't want to
get involved. Finally, I took him to the military
hospital, and they recommended to take him to the
emergency room in New Braunfels, Texas-- the city
where we lived. I did, and met a doctor named
Marcus Gitterlie. Dr. Gitterlie immediately
noticed the signs of an abused child. He was
fearful, and when the Dr. tried to examine him,
Jeremy fought him hard. He did not want to be in
the same room with a man. Dr. Gitterlie was the
first to notice Jeremy's infected penis. I told
him of my frustrations of trying to get someone
to help, and he called CPS and reported an
incidence of abuse. He asked me to come back the
next morning.
The
next morning, Dr. Gitterlie informed me that he
had called the FBI and the Naval Investigation
Office and gave me the contact numbers.
I
talked to the Agent Nancy Fisher from the FBI,
and told her what was happening. She advised me
not to release Jeremy to his father under any
circumstances, even giving me her cell phone
number in case local police showed up and
insisted that I do so. She informed me that (she)
and (San Antonio prosecutor) Karen Norris,
prosecuted child molesters vigorously. Meanwhile,
Mike (began) to call repeatedly, saying that he
wanted to see Jeremy the coming weekend. I was
panicked because I knew that could not happen.
His
next visitation wasn't scheduled for a month, and
he had never requested an extra visitation, but
now he was calling over and over leaving
messages. I left a message for him, at the FBI
agent's prompting, saying that Jeremy was under a
doctor's care, and he wouldn't be able to visit
him. He continued to call, leaving threats and
never once asking about his condition or why he
was seeing a doctor.
Copies
of the message are in the court's records.
Once
again, the FBI agent asked me to call Mike and
tell him to get in contact with her-- that she
had some questions for him. I called him and gave
him the information, and he had little reaction.
The conversation ended with him accusing me of
lying to him -- that I was trying to get him to
call someone who was only pretending to be with
the FBI.
(A)
copy of (the) conversation (is) in court records.
The
therapist suggested that she (personally) was not
qualified to treat Jeremy, that she believed he
needed to see someone with sexual abuse
experience. I made an appointment with Dr. Joann
Murphey, who after weeks of appointments with him
concluded that Jeremy had suffered a significant
trauma on his trip with his father that
manifested upon his return home. When I asked by
phone what she called a "significant
trauma," (she indicated) sexual abuse or
kidnapping.
The
FBI scheduled a lie-detector test for Mike, and
he informed them that he had retained a lawyer
who advised against it. The agent discovered that
(Mike) had lied to her-- he had not yet retained
an attorney. She scheduled three more tests for
him, but he failed to show up for any of them.
She
told me that they were going to pick up all three
men and question them separately, but just as she
was about to do so, the Navy took jurisdiction
from them.
She
told me that she had prosecuted many military
cases, and the military always let her have them.
She was afraid that they took the case in order
to sit on it.
Mike's
family has a long standing in the Military, and
is even personal friends with former Secretary of
the Navy, Jim Jones. All four brothers in the
family, along with their father, are Navy Pilots,
and they are known in circles as "The Flying
DeWalts."
We
all had grave concerns about the Navy's
intentions. They opened and investigation, and
issued an order that Mike could not be alone with
Jeremy. Instead, he chose not to see him for the
following year.
Meanwhile,
I hired an attorney named Richard Ducote to file
papers in the family court to terminate Mike's
parental rights. That is when the legal nightmare
began. We had a week of pretrial hearings, where
my attorney presented numerous witnesses -- all
verifying the validity of Jeremy's claims.
In
addition to the people I've already named, there
was the head of pediatrics at Brook Army Medical
Center, who testified that when she told Jeremy
she needed to do a test for germs where a penis
may have touched him, and asked him where she
might find them, he pointed to his mouth, his
penis and his bottom. Darla Lane, Jeremy's
therapist since the abuse, also testified and
said in a sworn affidavit, that it was her
opinion that it would be "emotionally
devastating for Jeremy to even see his
father."
In
addition, Dr. Nancy Kellogg, the preeminent child
abuse investigator in the state of Texas, watched
a videotape of Jeremy talking to another
therapist, and stated that she had "grave
concerns for the child."
The
Navy had sent a woman from the National Center
for Child Protection to interview Jeremy, and
that video was shown in the pretrial hearings. It
showed Jeremy telling some of the things that
happened, and even drawing a picture showing
where his father had touched him. (He drew a line
from his father's penis to his penis.)
None
of these things were allowed in the jury trial,
along with the FBI's testimony that they had a
"prosecutable case."
In
fact, the jury wasn't even allowed to know that
there was a criminal investigation, and I was
allowed to be called "crazy" because I
" was the only person who believed Jeremy's
allegations."
The
judge (Jack Robison) immediately made it known
that he did not appreciate a high-powered
attorney coming into his courtroom trying to tell
him how things should be done.
And
then when my attorney made a mistake filing the
discovery papers, the judge used an antiquated
Texas law to prohibit all of my evidence and most
of my witnesses from testifying. He himself
called it a "death penalty,"
insinuating that we could not win the trial under
these circumstances.
I
had no choice to continue because the alternative
was to allow the rapist unsupervised visitation
with Jeremy.
The
judge ordered that a "neutral"
therapist analyze Jeremy. This therapist, a Dr.
Maureen Adair, testified that she had seen 2 or 3
abused people -- none of which were as young as
Jeremy. She insisted that it would be proper to
set up a "surprise visit" between
Jeremy and his father to judge Jeremy's reaction.
We
argued vigorously, but the judge, who did not
seem to understand that it was Mike's choice not
to see his son for the past year, said that I had
kept Jeremy from his father long enough.
The
visit was to take place, under the threat of
removing him from my home and placing him in
foster care. He then restricted me from
documenting any further evidence of the abuse.
Suddenly, I found myself on trial, with no
evidence to back up my claims. All of the
evidence had been meticulously covered up, or
completely ignored.
Then
Mike filed a counter-suit seeking custody. By
this time Jeremy was four-and-a-half years old,
and not only had Jeremy accused him of rape, but
the longest time Mike had ever spent alone with
him was two-and-a-half days.
I
had his therapist present when Jeremy returned
from the surprise visit, and she heard him say
" Mommy! Daddy didn't hurt me this
time."
But
because I had been restricted from collecting any
further evidence, the judge threw out that
statement, and had CPS sit in the courtroom to
determine whether or not Jeremy needed to be
placed in foster care. He believed that his
distress was due to me, instead of the abuse that
he'd experienced.
During
the trial, the jury was never allowed to see the
majority of the evidence. In the pretrial
hearing, Mike's defense was, in order, 1) I was a
writer who made all of this up in order to have
material for a book, 2) I was anorexic, and
therefore suffered some (unclear) mental effects
from it, 3) I had Munchausen's by proxy syndrome,
4) I was likened to a person who sets fires for
the attention, and finally, 5) Since I was the
only person who (believed) this (remember, the
jury wasn't even allowed to know that there was a
criminal investigation) I was crazy.
After
all the other accusations of me were proven false
in the pretrial, they decided on the last one for
the jury trial. I was not allowed to defend
myself by even mentioning the other witnesses who
would testify to the validity of Jeremy's claims.
The
jury believed Mike, and on October 25, 2002 gave
him custody.
That
was almost (as this letter was written) sixteen
months ago, and I have been in hiding ever since.
Originally,
my mother came with me, but returned last
September to try and clear up the situation and
make way for our return.
The
same judge, Jack Robison sits on her case, and is
holding her on ISE immunity. He has denied her
desperately needed medical attention (she has
end-stage liver disease) unless she tells where
we are. Two weeks later they arrested my father
for "hindering an investigation," and
now both have been indicted for helping me
protect my son.
They
sit, without any legal council, in the New
Braunfels, Texas County Jail. Their names are
Edward R. and Margaret L. Kearns. They are both
elderly, and desperately need help. Before my
father's arrest, he had contacted some people in
Austin, Texas who deal with child and elderly
abuse, and from what I understand, they were to
initiate an investigation into the judge's
behavior, because they said that it was one of
the worst "abuse of power" cases they
seen.
But
I believe that my father was arrested before he
could initiate the investigation.
We
need help. This is a grave injustice that needs
to be rectified. Once I left, the Navy cleared
Mike of the charges and gave the case back to the
FBI, even though the naval investigator believed
the charges, and in fact, had pinpointed the
exact time and location of the abuse.
The
FBI case remains open, but they have not charged
Mike. I do not understand why, except to wonder
if it's because we are not there to testify.
It
seems to me that the only way this situation is
going to be rectified is if the three men
responsible for it are arrested.
We
do not have the money for attorneys. We spent
well over $100.000 on the civil trial, and are
spent-- both financially and emotionally. I want
my child to have a normal life, and for him to
know that his bravery in telling what happened
was the right thing to do.
As
it stands now, he feels as if everything that's
happened is his fault. How do you explain to a
six-year-old a justice system gone wrong?
There
are three child molesters free, who have not been
held accountable for the unspeakable things that
they did to an innocent little boy. My son and I
are living a life in hiding, while my elderly
parents-- Jeremy's beloved grandparents-- sit
unjustly in a jail for doing the right thing.
We
desperately need someone who will take on our
case, and help us win justice. The case is in the
Comal County Courthouse, and the case numbers are
as follows:
My
criminal case: CR2003-408,409 and 410.
The original civil
trial: CR2004-0813C
My
mother's case numbers: CR2003-355and CR2003-411,
412, and 413.
My
father's case number: CR2003-414.
Because
it is unsafe for my son, I am unable to reveal my
location, so all contact should be made through
my parents. They are free to speak for me, as
well as make any necessary decision.
Please,
please help us if you can.
* * *
Much more to follow
in coming days.
- Developing -
