“Rescued Nashville baby still not reunited with mom - Nashville Tennessean” plus 4 more

Rescued Nashville baby still not reunited with mom - Nashville Tennessean
Rescued Tenn. baby still not reunited with mom - USA Today
care provider - Seattle Post Intelligencer
Kidnapped baby found safe in Alabama - WLFI.com
CPS reviewing case after baby died in care of woman it investigated - Dallas Morning News

Rescued Nashville baby still not reunited with mom - Nashville Tennessean

Posted: 03 Oct 2009 01:28 PM PDT

Baby Yair Antonio Carrillo is in the care of the Tennessee Department of Children Services but theres no definite answer on when the child will be reunited with his family.

The baby is with a foster care family, said DCS spokesman Rob Johnson.

Its a happy resolution to this case, he said. Were working actively to reunite them but we dont know when.

Jose Antonio Carrillo has not seen his son but hes relieved he is safe.

We were ecstatic when so many of the agents came by last night to tell us they had our son, Carrillo said. We cannot wait to see him.

Authorities were doing a DNA test on the baby because the infant wasnt still wearing a hospital identification bracelet when he was abducted on Tuesday, Carrillo said.

Police found the child Friday night in Ardmore, Ala. A woman has been charged with kidnapping him.

Carrillo had taken the only picture of his newborn son on his cell phone. That image was widely circulated during the search. In their haste on the day of the birth, family members had left their cameras behind.

I think that picture really helped, Carrillo said. That one photo was e-mailed everywhere.

The mother, Maria Gurrola, and the family all have the same thought: Thank God and the police, said Norma Rodriguez, Carrillos cousin.

Our supplications were answered, Rodriguez said as she waited for a carpet cleaning crew working in the home that was the scene of the bloody abduction.

The police said they worked around the clock and this was a great result, Rodriguez added.

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Rescued Tenn. baby still not reunited with mom - USA Today

Posted: 03 Oct 2009 01:56 PM PDT

The baby is with a foster care family, said DCS spokesman Rob Johnson.

"It's a happy resolution to this case," he said. "We're working actively to reunite them but we don't know when."

Jose Antonio Carrillo has not seen his son but he's relieved he is safe.

"We were ecstatic when so many of the agents came by last night to tell us they had our son," Carrillo said. "We cannot wait to see him."

Authorities were doing a DNA test on the baby because the infant wasn't still wearing a hospital identification bracelet when he was abducted on Tuesday, Carrillo said.

Police found the child Friday night in Ardmore, Ala. A woman has been charged with kidnapping him.

Carrillo had taken the only picture of his newborn son on his cellphone. That image was widely circulated during the search. In their haste on the day of the birth, family members had left their cameras behind.

"I think that picture really helped," Carrillo said. "That one photo was e-mailed everywhere."

The mother, Maria Gurrola, and the family all have the same thought: Thank God and the police, said Norma Rodriguez, Carrillo's cousin.

"Our supplications were answered," Rodriguez said as she waited for a carpet cleaning crew working in the home that was the scene of the bloody abduction.

"The police said they worked around the clock and this was a great result," Rodriguez added.

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care provider - Seattle Post Intelligencer

Posted: 03 Oct 2009 12:59 PM PDT

When a parent with Alzheimer's needs a care facility, the decision is never easy. We've heard about the financial and emotional struggle from the spouse's point of view. Now, we hear from Ellen Brandt, Ph.D. about a baby boomer's decision to give up her job and security to care for her parents and finding, "One day, you're comfortably middle-class. The next day, you're part of the New Poor."

A Daughter Among Daughters Reaps Scorn Sullen's Story

When her elderly parents became ill, she gave up her job, her security, and her comfortable middle-class existence. If something isn't done soon, she says, Baby Boomers will become the New Poor.

Many Boomers are devoted to their aged parents. But my friend Suellen stands out as a model of filial dedication. Five years ago, when her Dad became too sick from Alzheimer's disease for her mother to cope alone, Suellen quit her full-time accounting job and moved into her parents' apartment.

"Dad was lucid enough to be adamant about not leaving home," she tells me. "And Mom absolutely refused to shut him away from her. Unfortunately, she was getting progressively more frail, too."

While Suellen, who is in her mid-50s and single, was not only happy but proud to put her life on hold to make her parents' lives better, from Day One, she heard from a variety of busybodies who loudly disagreed with her decision. Distant relatives, people in the neighborhood, and "friends" of all shapes and forms chided her for a decision they felt was "unrealistic" and "destructive of her life."

"The general message was that in the United States, the proper way to handle this kind of situation would be to put your Dad in a nursing home, tell your Mom to learn to live with it, and go back to earning as much money as you can to pay for it," Suellen says. "Some people said I should bite the bullet and take two or three jobs, if necessary, which would have meant I never saw my parents at all."

She stuck to her guns and kept her family together, losing emotional support from the naysayers in the process. When her Dad died two years ago, even some of his closest relatives refused to visit Suellen and her Mom when they were "sitting Shiva," the Jewish custom of mourning at home. "Yes, it was pretty shocking," she says, in what sounds like a big understatement.

Suellen's stubbornness and courage are characteristic of this feisty Brooklyn girl, whose compassion and intelligence are apparent in every word she utters. As an only child, she was the apple of her parents' eye. "Of course, I wanted to return their love and caring when they were the ones in need.

"In nearly every other country in the world," she goes on, "sons and daughters are expected to take in and lovingly care for aged parents who become sick or helpless. That's what you do. And it benefits all involved the parents, the children, any grandchildren in the household. Only in America are we actively encouraged to give Mom and Dad the heave-ho."

Attracted to the Tropics

Over the past decade or so even before her parents' health crises Suellen became attracted to the idea of joining the growing community of Boomer ex-patriates in the Caribbean and Latin America. This reverse emigration is occurring, she believes, because in many cases, it is much cheaper to live abroad, while the intangible "quality of life" may actually be more appealing abroad than on the Mainland.

When her Dad became seriously frail, she made a trip to Panama a popular ex-pat haven and tried to persuade her parents to relocate with her there. "My mother was reluctant," she explains. "She thought the environment would simply be too foreign. But lately, she's changed her mind, telling me, 'You know, Sue, maybe we should have done it.' "

Back home in Brooklyn, Suellen and her mother, a former secretary her Dad owned a limousine service are struggling to survive. For one thing, they could get evicted. "My parents were renters, because they loved their classic Brooklyn building. With recent inflation and a limited income, though, it's tough keeping up."

There are also problems with utilities. The electric company, for example, touts its "senior discount" to all and sundry. But they won't allow Suellen's mid-80's mother to have one, because her monthly Social Security check is too high. "It's under $1400. But to them, it's a king's ransom," she quips. "These so-called authorities are living in La-La-Land. They don't understand that there are all sorts of health and other very basic expenses that the standard programs just don't cover. My Mom has to visit some kind of health practitioner nearly every week, for instance. Just the transportation to and fro is a burden."

Suellen herself can no longer afford private health insurance, and she is too young to be eligible for government programs. A long-term breast cancer survivor, she should be going in for regular check-ups but hasn't been able to do so for over a year.

A while ago, she applied to a religious-based charity which was widely touted as helping out those who were "falling through the cracks" in terms of healthcare protection. "It was a humiliating experience," she reports. "The representative they sent to visit us commented on my Mom's 'high' Social Security income, as well as the general attractiveness of our apartment and our dress. Then she demanded to know what we were eating, as if we must clearly be squandering our meager income on lobster, caviar, and champagne."

Needless to say, the charity turned them down.

We're Here, We're Angry, We're Compassionate

Suellen is outraged at what she calls a "Culture of Meanness" permeating the US right now. "Income disparity is becoming too striking to be ignored much longer," she feels. "There are the few who are obscenely wealthy and the many who are struggling to make ends meet a large proportion of whom are Boomers."

Our generation, she believes, has to acknowledge that if we do not unite and act together, we could be in big trouble just up the road. "My family's story is anything but atypical," she says. "What happened to me could happen to nearly any Boomer with elderly parents. One day, you're comfortably middle-class. The next day, you're part of the New Poor."

Although a lifelong Democrat, Suellen is so far unimpressed with either major party's approach to what could be a coming healthcare crisis for elderly Americans and those who take care of them. "Instead of rabid partisanship, we need honest discussion and compromise on this issue," she believes. "And we have to consider not just the situation today, but also the situation twenty years from now, when Boomers themselves will be elderly."

Suellen finds herself moving more and more towards the center of the political spectrum today, where she believes the majority of Baby Boomers now are. "Very few Boomers are on the fringes," she says. "We are Centrist Republicans, Centrist Democrats, or Centrist Independents but they key word is Centrist."

She's also disturbed and concerned by the ongoing propaganda campaign which seeks to brand the Boomer generation as a whole as inward-looking and selfish. "I think the exact opposite is true," she says. "There are exceptions, of course, but most Boomers are concerned, compassionate, and caring. Look at our record on civil rights, women's rights, volunteerism or pure political activism.

"In fact, Boomers have possibly cared too much about righting every wrong in the country except those wrongs directed at us. It's high time we demanded some reciprocal compassion towards our own generation."

By: Ellen Brandt, Ph.D.
- - - - -

Ellen's blog, Baby Boomers-- The Angriest Generation, focuses on many topics. As she points out, "We're Here. We're Angry. And It's About Time Someone Listened to Us."

Lyn Harris, DMS

"Don't Hire Cantankerous Women" is posted on my other blog, Wednesday's Woman.

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Kidnapped baby found safe in Alabama - WLFI.com

Posted: 03 Oct 2009 01:35 PM PDT

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A newborn boy abducted by a knife-wielding woman posing as an immigration agent was safe in the care of a foster family Saturday and awaiting a family reunion as authorities charged a woman with his kidnapping.

Nashville police said week-old Yair Anthony Carillo was found in good health at a home in Ardmore, about 80 miles south of Nashville near the Tennessee line. Rob Johnson, a spokesman for the Department of Children's Services, said it was unknown when Yair would be reunited with his mother.

The baby would remain with the foster family as authorities made arrangements for Maria Gurrolla, 30, to be reunited with her son.

"This baby is a week old, and this child has spent half his life away from his family. I think it's time we reunite them," said My Harrison, a special agent with the FBI in Tennessee.

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director Mark Gwyn identified the arrested woman as Tammy Renee Silas, 39, of Ardmore. Federal authorities formally charged her Saturday with kidnapping. The Morgan County Sheriff's office said Silas was picked up by U.S. Marshals on Saturday morning, though it was not known where she was being taken.

The baby and Silas were found about 10 p.m. CDT in Ardmore, and Silas did not resist arrest, Gwyn said. Authorities said they had no word on a possible motive. Police in Nashville did not know if Silas has a lawyer.

The infant was taken from his home Tuesday, just four days after he was born. His mother told police a heavyset white woman with blonde hair arrived at her home posing as an immigration agent and attacked her with a knife.

At a Wednesday news conference, Gurrolla told reporters she had never seen the woman, who threatened to arrest her, then got a knife from the home and stabbed her several times.

"I need my baby back," the 30-year-old mother said Wednesday through an interpreter outside Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Gurrolla said she did not see the woman take the baby because she ran to a neighbor's home. The neighbor, Eric Peterson, told The Associated Press that Gurrolla was "covered from her head to her toe with blood" with gashes on her neck and upper chest.

Gurrolla asked him to save her children from the "lady in the kitchen" who had a butcher knife. When Peterson got there, he saw a woman speeding away from the home. He brought Gurrolla's 3-year-old daughter back safely to his house, but found no baby, he said.

A task force of local, state and federal investigators got a break when they developed strong information on a car seen following the mother and baby from the parking lot of a Walmart store, police said.

Gurrolla's home was quiet Saturday morning, where a cleaning crew had been working inside. Some neighbors had placed flowers outside the house, and many neighbors said they were relieved Yair had been found.

Brandon Anderson, 34, said he and his wife were careful when their 19-month-old son was born. The couple decided not to announce the birth with any signs or other markers outside their house, just a few doors down from Gurrolla.

"As a dad i wanted everyone to know, as a concerned parent we talked about it and through reason we thought it was a better idea not to have a sign outside," Anderson said.

Cathy Nahirny, a senior analyst for infant abduction cases at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, said there have been at least two other recent cases where an abductor used a ploy similar to the one used in this case.

"We need to get the word out to our immigrant communities," Nahirny said. "Anybody that claims they are from federal law enforcement agencies, you have the right and you should ask for photo identification."

Abductions of infants by strangers are rare, with only nine reported cases so far this year and five last year, according to the missing child center.

Nahirny said immigrant families have been targets of child abductions because of the assumption they will not tell police.

Gurrolla is Latina but her immigration status isn't clear. She was released from the hospital Thursday.

Anna Morad, director of the newborn nursery at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital in Nashville, said bonding between mom and child can resume after a separation at an early age. Such separations typically occur for medical reasons.

"There is no reason to believe that a mother separated from her infant could not resume normal bonding," said Morad, who noted she couldn't specifically talk about the Gurrolla case.

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CPS reviewing case after baby died in care of woman it investigated - Dallas Morning News

Posted: 02 Oct 2009 09:57 PM PDT

This is what Child Protective Services records said about Keashia Matthews before the agency decided, in May, that she had been leaving her three little children home alone but should keep custody of them:

The Arlington woman was a "pathological liar." She was suspected of having untreated mental illness. She had lost custody of her first baby when the girl was 16 months old and found "unsupervised, severely malnourished, unkempt, drugged by Ms. Matthews to make her sleep, and with severe physical and medical needs."

After her second child was born, she "stated that she hated the child and did not want to have anything to do with her. Ms. Matthews has on many occasions stated that she does not like children."

There's more, according to a CPS affidavit obtained Friday by The Dallas Morning News: "She has attempted to burn down [her mother's] home. She has attacked [her] with a knife" and "attacked her stepmother with a rake."

The first two children, born in the 1990s, long ago went to live with their grandmother in Michigan. CPS didn't seize children No. 3 and 4 until last month, after No. 5 was dead. Matthews, 37, is free on bail, charged with contributing to the death of 17-month-old Darrell "Tre" Singleton III by knowingly leaving him in a hot truck all day while she worked.

Why didn't CPS seek to remove the three little children in May, given what it knew about the Arlington woman's history?

"I don't have a new answer," spokesman Chris Van Deusen said in an e-mail. "CPS believed that having day care would prevent the children from being left at home alone."

He said the agency is conducting an inquiry into how it handled the situation.

"As generally happens when we see a case like this," Van Deusen said, "CPS regional leaders are reviewing the case from earlier this year to determine if there is anything that should have been done differently."

Top-priority definition

He also offered new accounts of the agency's position on what constitutes a top-priority case.

On Thursday, Van Deusen said that leaving a 1-year-old unsupervised all day doesn't put the child at immediate risk of serious harm and thus is not a top-priority case for investigation. But on Friday, he wrote: "It is the agency position that allegations of pre-school children who are at home alone right now, or who are being left home alone regularly, constitutes an immediate threat to their health and safety, and those allegations require immediate investigation."

Van Deusen also gave a new account of what led to the May neglect investigation.

On Thursday, he said that someone who knew the family reported that Darrell and his two sisters, ages 5 and 6, were being left home alone all day while their mother worked in Bedford. But on Friday, he wrote:

"The May intake we received did not allege that the children were currently in danger. The report was that one of the children said she had in the past been left with her siblings at home. There was no allegation that this was an ongoing practice or that children were currently home alone."

That's why CPS didn't consider this a top-priority case and didn't ask Arlington police to investigate, Van Deusen said. It did notify police that the neglect allegation had been made.

The agency has said it verified the allegation and closed the case after Matthews arranged for day care. It has not explained why such a solution was necessary if there had been no "ongoing practice" of leaving the children alone.

Nor has it explained why, if Matthews had day care, Darrell was in her truck while she worked on Sept. 3, the day he died.

The News has not been able to locate Matthews for comment. Arlington police would not say what their investigation has found regarding her child-care arrangements.

The CPS affidavit obtained by The News was filed with a Tarrant County court last month to support the agency's seizure of Darrell's two sisters in Arlington. It makes specific mention of only one day-care provider: a woman Matthews said was watching Darrell on Sept. 2.

Matthews, according to the affidavit, said she met the woman while staying at SafeHaven, a shelter for battered women and their children in Arlington.

"She stated that when she arrived home from work, the lady was gone," the affidavit says. "The only information she could provide for the lady was a first name."

The affidavit provides new details about allegations that Matthews physically abused her children. It says that while they were at the shelter in March, someone reported seeing her hit her daughters.

"Mother yells at children," the affidavit adds. "There was some concern about possible drug use due to some missing pain pills."

CPS later decided that no physical abuse occurred.

107.5 degrees

The affidavit also describes a CPS worker's meeting with Matthews shortly after Darrell was pronounced dead at Arlington Memorial Hospital:

"Ms. Matthews informed me that she picked her two daughters up from school today and as they were getting in the truck, they asked what was wrong with their baby brother. Ms. Matthews stated that her 17-month-old son had bubbles coming out of his mouth and he was not moving.

"Ms. Matthews said that she could not get the child to respond to her calling his name, so she drove him to the hospital."

The mother told the CPS worker that she had been with the boy all day, spending most of the time at home, and that he had seemed sluggish but not sick.

Arlington police say she initially told them that she had stayed home with the boy because she had no child care. But she later admitted, they say, that she had gone to work and left her son alone in the hot truck outside.

Autopsy results are pending. Darrell's temperature, taken after he arrived at the hospital with no pulse and not breathing, was 107.5 degrees.

begerton@dallasnews.com; sgoldstein@dallasnews.com