May, 2008 I brought to your attention the tragic case of Dr. Amy Castillo, a pediatrician who lost her court fight to protect her children from their psychopathic father. Unfortunately, I have to inform you that another two children have been lost and another mother named Amy is left asking how we let her down. Yes I said we let her down. The judge who allowed the children’s father, Michael Connolly to have unsupervised visitation was representing all of us.
We have to put our heads together and figure out how to change the system. Children need and deserve protection from sociopaths. Mothers and fathers like Amy made a mistake in marriage and love, that shouldn’t mean the children conceived should pay the ultimate price!
According to the Chicago Tribune Connolly, like Dr. Castillo’s ex-husband told people he would kill the children. “In court documents dating back to 2005, she (Amy) detailed her estranged husband’s threats against her family and fought unsuccessfully to keep him from having unsupervised visits with their two sons. Michael Connolly violated the orders of protection against him six times, police records said, and he often vowed to kill himself rather than be separated from the boys.”
Now I often tell people not to believe sociopaths. Here is the official Lovefraud exception to that rule: If a sociopath says he/she is going to kill someone, believe him/her.
I ask that everyone reading this blog write their lawmakers and submit editorials to newspapers about the need to protect children. Not just physically but emotionally too. I also welcome your ideas about what we as a community should do.
One other thing, let’s get the word out that family members have to stop covering for sociopaths and enabling them. Don’t let pity cloud judgment, and stand in the way of safety. The Tribune quotes Connolly’s aunt as saying, “I feel sorry for Michael”¦I know that sounds terrible, but he must have been so tormented.”
(Thank you to Rune, who brought this story to my attention)
The awareness that these sociopaths can be brought to justice much easier if criminal history is permissible/admissable.
If two parents show up for custody battles involving accusations of mental illness – automatic supervised visits – no excuses. Protect the child during legal battle = the minute the case is filed supervised visits mandatory until case is decided.
First violation of orders of protection – custody taken away permanently.
If there is recorded telephone conversations messages, threats —- make them admissable – where children are concerned — any evidence of threat of death, abuse — custody taken away permanently…
more to follow
Grant: I don’t know where you are doing testing, but I know that in this area the system DID NOT WORK. One parent DID show up as disordered, but retained custody and regular visitation.
I fear that part of the issue is that personality disorders are not well understood, either in the mental health community or within the judicial system.
Do people think that this is like “slightly out of order”? Like “messy thinking”? “Dangerously crazy but passing for normal” is a better description. Perhaps with that designation, we could get further with protecting the children. We would also do a bit better at separating ourselves from them, and maintaining NC.
Rune
Generally, two healthy people, while they may not want to stay with each other, are able to come to a mutual agreement about their children’s best interests. When a protracted custody battle starts, you can bet that there is at least one disordered party involved.
I think you are right – they are just not well understood. They are underestimated. Also, it is a non-mental-health professional (the judge) who makes the final decision.
-mental health evaluations Mandatory – MANDATORY for all parties involved including kids.
-disbarring of judges who drop the ball mandatory
My sister and I were taken into the judges chambers ALONE probably 6 and 7years old… my grandparents were raising us – my mom had “returned” to take her daughters with her …my father was notified and went through the entire system to gain full custody of us… at end….he won.)
But the environment for me, the judges appearance (black robe, etc) the coldness surrounding the “meeting” and the fear I had about being asked to tell him who I wanted to live with was overwhelming. Limited recollection of it, but I believe it ultimately helped my father win the custody battle.
Thank you. LTL. Great stuff. Keep it coming.
LTL, Grant, KH: Ah, my dears — part of the problem is that mental health professionals may also be psychopathic, along with judges and lawyers. Note that a psychopathic individual wants to have control, unsupervised, unchallenged. The counseling office provides that. The judge’s chambers provide that. The lawyer’s office, with his degrees and license, all provide that.
I know for a fact that a psychopathic individual that I knew, who threatened my life, went on to get a degree and a license to practice as a psychotherapist in the very state where he had been charged with a felony for his treatment of me. I realized, after many things fell apart for no good reason, that I had hired a lawyer who wasn’t getting the job done; later experience showed me definitively that he was psychopathic. (Not merely my opinion. I can recount the story in detail — all the signs are there.)
Remember how we counsel people here on LF to have witnesses? We need a system that includes education and review — not just more laws, but an openness to peer review and consequences for misbehavior. We need witnesses to the sorts of decisions that would let a dangerous man like Michael Connolly back on the street — WITH HIS CHILDREN — so that he could carry out his explicitly stated threats. In this case, is the judge an accessory before the fact to the murder of those boys?
We need education among the masses, and we need to get people to rally around this concept of protecting others from the fallout of these “DANGEROUSLY CRAZY” people. (Not “merely disordered,” but DANGEROUS.)
Dear Rune,
Guess what…as I was writing my thoughts…I actually thought…bet some judges are disordered, and mental health professionals and probably even some stenographers in the courtroom!
But Im not looking to save the world.. For every one professional psychopath there are hundreds who arent. There are going to be stories (as with CPS — some bad ones, some remarkable rescue ones)… the point is nothing at all is in place for the hundreds of healthy professionals working for a greater cause and rescue — FOR THE CHILDREN.
Yes Connolly case — made me add above if judge drops ball – DISBARRED IMMEDIATELY.
Yes Connolly case made me add above about family friends community (Witnesses) receiving awareness education about how to prepare to prosecute a psychopath well before papers are served… documentation, pictures, recordings, texts, msgs, etc.
We have to start somewhere – Rome wasnt built in a day – but Rune I am with you – 100 percent that this ultimately is going to be a public forum along the lines of “Getting out to vote” across the country…. ie..”Stand up to Protect Our Children from Sociopaths”
Yes, LTL, we have to start! And in the process we will be educating everyone about this issue. If we describe what they are, it will make it easier for those of us who have been targeted to find acceptance of the truth of it within the mainstream.
And, if I may, I hold out hope that if public attention focuses on this, we can find ways to identify root causes, and even to overcome genetic predispositions in the children by appropriate intervention, education, and love.
Rune – Dern, you just made me cry… your hope is my hope too…
You know what, as I was sitting here reading through all the ideas, suggestions, and picturing Kathy up there with her dry erase board and her markers, writing all our suggestions down, and we’re all sitting around in sweats drinking tea, coffee, and eating cookies—and I just realized how DARNED MUCH I LOVE YOU GUYS and how much a wonderful part of my recovery and healing you have been. What an awesome bunch of folks you are!
When I read the Amy Castillo report, I was still in such pain at the time that I was just enraged, angry, wanted to “kill someone” myself (the man who did that to her kids) and just hurt for her….but now, now that I have more energy, and am further along where I do have the energy to focus outside my own skin, I want to DO SOMETHING about this—take up the flag and run up the hill…to let the sacrificed lives of those prescious children accomplish something….to let them become the POSTER CHILDREN for the other children who are not yet dead. Like the “Amber Alerts” have saved lives, so maybe the “Amys Laws” will save the lives of other children.
I sit here with tears falling down my face, and we can’t help those children who are gone now, but we can help the children not yet born, and the mothers and fathers who will face those judges with the “ultimate” power of life and death for these children. It probably won’t happen over night, but it will happen if we devote outselves, and the knowledge that we have gained ourselves at such a high price….let’s make a DIFFERENCE with what we have learned….let us help reach out a hand to those mothers, fathers and children….we are in a UNIQUE POISITION TO KNOW what they face in dealing with the psychopaths. I love you guys!!!! ((((BIG HUGS)))) and all my prayers.