Evil exists. If you need proof, just look at the horrific case of little Charleeni Ferreira.
Charleeni, age 10, of Philadelphia, Pa., died on October 21, 2009. Her father, Domingo Ferreira, 53, and stepmother Margarita Garabito, 43, were charged with murder and endangering the welfare of a child.
So how bad was the abuse? The police called it “torture.”
Charleeni actually died from an infection that resulted from broken ribs that were not treated. She had a host of new and old injuries, including a fractured pelvis and a 7-inch gash on her head that had been stuffed with gauze and covered with a hair weave.
For more details, read Signs of Charleeni’s “torture” were hidden, in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
What makes this case so appalling is that a school nurse reported suspected child abuse. In the three years before her death, Charleeni was seen by numerous doctors, a psychiatrist and a therapist. The Philadelphia Department of Human Services (DHS) provided services to the family for five months.
Now, the DHS commissioner is trying to figure out what went wrong.
Bamboozled
Here’s what I think happened: One or both of the parents were sociopaths, and they bamboozled the child welfare workers.
The parents denied any abuse—workers described them as “hurt” by the allegations—but agreed to intervention anyway. After a period of supervision, child welfare workers closed the case. They also recommended that Charleeni’s parents contact a legal aid agency if the school nurse continued to complain about child abuse.
Charleeni herself was also terrorized and manipulated. She told a doctor at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children that her family treated her “like a princess.” Welts on her hand occurred when she accidentally stabbed herself with a pencil in the dark. She and her parents always had explanations for her injuries, although they didn’t always match.
Perpetrators
Police apparently believe that the stepmother, Margarita Garabito, was the main perpetrator. But the father, Domingo Ferreira, didn’t stop her. In fact, he showed no remorse and fell asleep in the police interview room. Then, Ferreira hung himself in his jail cell.
This, of course, is convenient for the stepmother. Her court-appointed attorney terms the suicide “an admission of guilt.”
See Charleeni’s death blamed on her dead father, in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
I don’t know who initiated the child abuse. Women can be abusive sociopaths. They can also be accomplices, under the control of male sociopaths.
Evil exists
So what’s the lesson here?
Evil exists, but it can be concealed by seemingly plausible explanations.
Evil exists, but it can be disguised by expressions of concern.
Evil exists, but victims can be too terrorized to speak of it.
People who are in a position to see signs of child abuse—doctors, teachers, social workers—need to understand that evil does not want to be discovered, so they must pay close attention to any small clues.
OxDrover – Every point you made is correct, which only serves to illustrate the complexity of dealing with this huge problem. You’re correct. It has many facets and what happened to one may not apply to another and vice -versa.
With this kind of blatant physical violence you can rest assured
there was even more involved. One doesn’t necessarily have to have been physically abused to become a perpetrator of this. It’s high time people started realizing the extreme toll
verbal, emotional and psychological violence exact on the developing child. Look what it does to adults who are targeted by it. It’s devastating. As you said, some of them grow up to be passive victims of sociopaths because that is all they knew.
Abuse by any other name is still abuse. The tip of the iceberg
that we can see of physical harm with our eyes is only the head of a pin compared to the invisibility verbal, emotional and psychological torture that people inflict on children and one another as well, creates in the way of major harm.
It’s high time people realize this. No physical marks have to be left to create major trauma. Some socios are adept at sadistically torturing using mental tactics used to reduce their
victims to putty. Imagine how an adult abuse survivor who falls prey to one of these fares and then think about how a poor child with very few psycholgical defenses to stave off the
verbal and mental assualts do.
And one still has to marvel at the boy who was kept in the closet by his parents and tortured. After he escaped, the first
concern he expressed was about what would happen to his brothers and sisters! Just heartbreaking and a testament to the indomitablilty of the human spirit and how selflessly concerned he was bout their welfare over his!!
Skylar, you’re right on that. Addressing it means educating
every person in this society about evil. Not some abstract notion, but the everyday variety happening all around us that
we choose to ignore in a culture of complicity.
As Barbara Bush said about the Katrina survivors, I forget the exact context…Why would I want to worry my beautiful mind about any of THAT??? She posed a good question.
How many of us are up to the challenge of doing more?
OxDrover wrote:
“That nurse is COMPLELLED BY LAW TO REPORT ANY SIGNS OF ABUSE—so now she is to be compelled by FEAR to ignore signs?”
I was threatened of being charged with child endangerment, and inflicting psychological abuse on my children if I stayed with their father. When I leave their father, and he pyshcically and psychologically abuses them, and I report it, I’m accused of being “TOO INVOLVED, and PARENTAL ALIENATION.”
Compelled by fear…”If I don’t protect them from witnessing me being abused then I’m guilty of psychologically abusing them. If I do report abuse they are directly experiencing, abuse, I am threatened with PAS, with a sub-threat that our youngest will be handed over to the ex, and separated from me and her siblings. My children are forced to tolerate a certain level of abuse, in order to protect their youngest sibling. And, as their champion, protector and providor, I’m rendered helpless to advocate for them, as my efforts will bring them more suffering.
If I take a step back and look at this from a wide angle, considering the horrific story above, which sickens, and outrages me, and, it certainly makes my issues seem very small in comparison) doesn’t it appear that the legal system, has sociopathic tendencies? Or, is this just my twisted thinking?
Rosa,
You are in between a rock and a hard place. Your dammed if you do and your dammed if you don’t.
If you try to pursue a case against her and don’t have enough for the mother to loose custody, it will make the situation escalate. And of course you wouldn’t even be able to see your niece anymore.
And I agree with you it is going to take ALOT for a bio mother to loose custody. At best, she might have to do some anger management and parenting classes. And all that will do is make her MAD.
I think the saddest thing of all is that for the young child, even though they “cover up” for the parent…You have to wonder if they wonder why no one is rescuing them from this situation. Or if it just the “normal” for them and they don’t even know that things should be different. And this is just the “way it is” because it is what they know.
What kind of relationship does she have with her dad? Does his wife interfere with the father daughter relationship?
Dear Rosa and Isabell,
The roads you walk are the hardest ones, because you know but our “system” is screwed up.
One of my dearest friends has several P sons, and one of them has custody of his daughter. My friend raised that child until age 8 when the son remarried and took her away, refusing to let my friend even see her (so she wouold “bond” with her new step mother who hates her—also a P I think)
My friend has had to go to GREAT LENGTHS to keep in touch with this child, who is now 13, first by volunteering in the school where the child attended so she could have lunch with her 1 day a week, and so on. then my friend made peace of a sort with the dysfunctional bio mother of the girl, who finally agreed to let my friend have the girl some of the biomother’s weekends, and there has been at least ONE stable person in this child’s life and the little girl is growing up to be a wonderful young lady and very close to her grandmother.
My friend told me the other day that the girl said “My dad tells me to be honest with him, and when I am, he screams at me.” This ONE positive influence in the child’s life is making a BIG difference in her though, so Rosa, keep on being there (whatever you have to do) with your niece and keep on documenting.
Isabell, just do the best you can with the cards you have been dealt. I do know that the love we give to kids can make a difference even if someone else is abusing them. hang tough! ((((hugs)))) and my prayers for everyone!
“
Witsend:
One of the very first red flags we noticed was that my niece went to Daddy before she went to Mommy.
She even stated at 2 years old that she loved her Daddy more than Mommy.
She has drawn “family” pictures with herself & her Daddy. But, NO MOMMY.
What 2-year old draws a family photo without Mommy???
And yes, my brother’s wife has tried to marginalize his relationship with his daughter, unbeknownst to him, of course. It has not really worked very well, though. Psychopaths cannot stay home and take care of their kids (too boring & they don’t care about the welfare of their kids), so she always ends up letting someone else take care of her child. That would be my brother, my mom, or me.
However, when my niece says, “I want my mommy”, my brother actually believes it. I do NOT.
It’s a total con.
And I would love to know what my sister-in-law does to that child to get her to say it at the most opportune times.
My main goal is to keep close contact with my niece.
At least I know that this child is capable of love, and forming a deep emotional bond with someone.
That’s another thing we noticed very early. This child reached for her biological mother as a baby.
It was MOMMY who did not reach back.
I do see things that worry me in this child, though.
She never has cried or felt anxious when her mother left her.
Most kids cry when their mother leaves.
I read in Dr. Leedom’s book, “Just Like His Father”, that children develop GUILT as a result of “distress of threatened separation from the parent”.
Page 172, “Guilt develops as an extension of fear of separation from the parent.”
I don’t see GUILT in my niece, and I think it is because she is not fearful of being separated from her mother.
I know this child is capable of LOVE, and forming strong emotional bonds with others. But, there is this lack of guilt that troubles me.
Somehow, I need to model, teach, influence my niece to feel GUILT.
Rosa,
What has she done that should make her feel guilty?
I think there is a better way to express what causes guilt.
Look at it from the perspective of a Christian Adult. When we are bad, we feel guilty because we fear judgement from God. We fear that we have done something which angers God and we will be separated from Him.
A child looks on its’ parents as God-like figures. When the child is bad and gets reprimanded, the child feels unloved and fears being rejected (separated) from its’ God-like parents. So being guilty means fear of punishment in the form of rejection. If you niece behaves badly but never gets reprimanded she won’t fear rejection.
Regardless of how mean her mother is to her, she is still going to have some kind of bond, because that’s been one of her caregivers since birth. Not fearing rejection from her mother would be very strange.
All of these huge RED FLAGS have been going on for the last 5 years, and I just contacted LoveFraud about 7 months ago? thinking there may be a problem here.
That’s pathetic.
But, that is what psychopaths do with their pathological lies, gaslighting and crazy-making behavior.
It’s pretty powerful the way they can make you doubt yourself, and go against your gut instincts.
And, when you come from a background where abusing one’s own child is unconscionable, it is even harder to get a grasp on what is going on.
Rosa,
Whatever you see trust your instinct. It is ALL you have to go by.
If you think guilt is something she doesn’t know how to feel then it might be important to try and teach her this. I would say as she grows just look for that “wide” range of emotions we all feel.
The problem with abuse is that there is also the emotional abuse that holds captive the victim. I don’t know how that “mind game” would be done with a very small child. But it is done. Children “don’t tell”, and even offer excuses for their abuser, so you KNOW that the abuser has a major control over them.
Unlike you when I was raising him I didn’t know anything about the “at risk” child. (as far as personality disorders) However I did have enough common sense to realize that he had suffered a trama at a young age. So I did have some awareness.
I also KNEW his father had many issues, I just didn’t know that they could be defined with a name. I “named” it addiction.
I think because you KNOW what you KNOW, you have an advantage. And because you don’t live in the “fog” like your brother does…You might be her best source for helping her get through this.
Rosa, I think the child probably feels “guilty” about her own injuries because you know her mother “blames” her. So the child probably feels that she is to blame for the injury because Mommie dearest said she deserved it.
I have a feeling that child has waaaaay too omuch guilt, but just doesn’t know how to express it.
I would focus on telling the little girl that she is loved, and that she is good and praise her for anything she does that is positive, and let any negative things slide unless they are definant behavior.
Let her know it is okay to display her emotions to you. Like if you think she might be upset or angry or sad or whatever emotion and she seems to be holding back, say something like, “It is okay to tell auntie Rosa that you are angry (sad or whatever)”
It is NOT likely to be okay to tell mommie dearest she is mad though. so you might tell the child, “sometimes we feel angry (or whatever emotion) and the situation is such that it isn’t appropriate or wise to let our emotions show, but it is OK to show/tell your feelings to auntie Rosa.”
Of course you can’t ever talk “bad” about mommie dearest, but you can make general statements about things and let the child draw her own conclusions. That is what is happening now with my friends GD, she is SEEING that not everyone acts like her father and her step mother do. She is seeing that she is loved and treated with respect by some people, but not others that claim to “love” her. Kids are not stupid, they can put 2 and 2 together. Your niece is so fortunate to have YOU to be there for her.
You can also say things like “sometimes people do mean things when they are angry, but it isn’t your fault.” Of course you aren’t talking about mommie dearest, but the child will get the message if you are careful about the examples you use.
Maybe sometime you and she see someone acting out in an ugly way at a store or wherever you are, you can still make the lesson about THAT person and the child will eventually make the connection about mommie dearest. Just little general comments about how some people do this or that and it isn’t a nice thing to do.
You might also reassure her that she can always come to you with her emotions of sad, mad, fear etc. Eventually this will get through to her that you are ALWAYS SAFE to talk to.
Of course she wants to believe her mommie dearest loves her, even though mommie dearest kicks her. Believe me, I think your “kick” theory is right on about the bruises on the butt. Keep on documenting them. The same bruise showing up over and over and over in the same place is a great piece of documentation really.
I am so grateful, Rosa, that you “get it” and are there for the child. I’m also sorry that your brother is duped, afraid, or whatever, and I pray that he will get out of the FOG. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. ((((hugs))))
Witsend:
Yes. I am definitely going on my instincts (right or wrong), and I know that is ALL I have right now.
I am also worried that my niece is seeing her mom lying and manipulating, and she seems to be getting away with it.
Is my niece going to think this is the way to go in life?
It worries me. So, I am starting to address it now, even though she is only 5 years old.
I have explained to her what abuse is (in simple terms), and that there is EVIL in this world.
And sometimes, the EVIL is close by.
I don’t name any names, of course. But, she knows about evil and abuse already. And when we say prayers at night, I always pray that God will protect her, and keep her safe (God is also close by).
She hears all of this.
And, everytime I see her, I stress to her that she can come to me and tell me ANYTHING, even the REALLY BAD things, anytime she wants. I know she will talk someday. I just know it.
And when I see those unexplained bruises on her, I make sure she knows that is was NOT her fault.
That’s about all I can do right now, I think.