Ran Out of Podunk County, OH

photo pulled from Google Images

Butler County, OH – For the last several days I’ve been hating on Ohio. Except for my visits to Woodland Cemetery in Dayton and hanging with wrestlers in West Carrollton, Ohio has been a bust. I came here to write about an interesting little family saga that ties into some serious problems with Butler County’s child services agency. (Due to legal issues that haven’t yet been fleshed out, the names of people have been changed.)

In Butler County I meet with Jack and Diane, a nice, polite couple who have quite the story. Turns out that in 2003, a woman we’ll call Ursula moved in across the street from Diane and her then husband and two daughters. Before long, Ursula was sleeping with Diane’s husband, a man we’ll call Meth Face, because he looks like he’s been on a bender since rising from the womb. In time, Meth Face simply stopped coming home. A divorce was filed and a custody battle ensued. Ursula began inserting herself into the affairs of the children, interviewing their babysitters, using her professional title to pull Diane’s credit report – all meant to dig up dirt on Jack and Diane.

Diane, unhappy with Ursula for obvious reasons, filed a motion to prevent Ursula from having unsupervised contact with the girls, then 18-months and 7. Ursula didn’t take kindly to that and began telling everyone in Butler County that Jack, the girls’ stepfather, was molesting the youngest girl, whom we’ll call ‘Angel.’ Her allegations sparked a Child Services investigation which concluded, in essence, that Jack wasn’t molesting anyone. Ursula did not like that outcome. Unwilling to let the matter rest, she took her allegations to a county board meeting, where she urged the commissioners to investigate Child Services for not removing a child from the house of a molester.

At a private meeting between Diane and Meth Face, Meth Face allegedly threatened to kill Jack. Jack, being short and stout, was afraid of Meth Face, who is big and burly, and filed a complaint. Meth Face was arrested, then subsequently sued Jack for the distress caused by his arrest, even though, according to court records, he’d been arrested before. Meth Face won more than $100,000 in damages. Jack’s suit against Meth Face for the unsubstantiated molestion allegations was dismissed.

But Ursula, insisting that Jack had molested Angel, still wouldn’t let the issue drop, until Angel, then 3, revealed to a child psychiatrist in 2006 that Ursula was sticking her fingers inside her, on her bed, in the bathroom and in the bathtub. Presumably, Ursula was doing this to make it appear that Angel had been molested. Ursula told investigators she was simply applying a cream, something the child denied. Further, Angel said Ursula told her to not tell her father about what she was doing. But kids being kids, Angel did tell her father and, according to the diagnostic report obtained exclusively by The Feral Scribe, told the psychiatrist that “Daddy whooped [Ursula] good.”

Once that came out, Ursula stopped pursuing the allegations against Jack. Child Services noted it had never encountered a situation where a possible molester was accusing another of molesting. Diane, as you might expect, did everything she could to remove the child from that house. According to the Butler County Sheriff’s Department, a brief investigation was conducted but charges were never filed due to a lack of evidence. Prosecutors couldn’t establish that Ursula’s intent in inserting her fingers in the child on at least 10 occasions was sexual or that she was trying to frame Jack. However, had Jack been charged and convicted of doing the same thing, he’d have gone to prison, been branded a sex offender for life and Diane would have to had divorced him in order to retain custody of her children.

Since then, the families have been enmeshed in litigation, with an endless marathon of suits, counter suits, contempt of court filings, abuse allegations and so forth. The case has gone through domestic, juvenile, civil and criminals courts and is still ongoing.

But as it turns out, Diane, in the end, lost custody of her children. Ursula and Meth Face hired Butler County’s best lawyer, Mr. FuddyDuddy. Mr. FuddyDuddy has deep connections in the county and Ursula has – or had – relations in local law enforcement. Ursula also used to work for the county. Each time Diane attempted to introduce into evidence the report establishing that Ursula had violated Angel on numerous occasions, Mr. FuddyDuddy successfully had the report suppressed. This was also the case with Meth Face’s lawsuit against Jack. None of Jack’s witnesses, except for Diane, were allowed to testify. In that case, the report vindicating him and implicating Ursula was also suppressed.

After several phone calls to Butler County officials, I phone Ursula and Meth Face, who agree to meet with me. I pull into the main entrance of a series of connected lots at the edge of town. In the Burger King I notice a sheriff’s cruiser, which normally wouldn’t have meant anything, but when I spoke with Ursula moments earlier, she knew I had called the sheriff asking about the decision to not charge her for violating Angel. Somebody in the department had called to tell her this. Neither Jack nor Diane received such a call.

It goes without saying that our meeting was less than pleasant. Ursula and Meth Face didn’t come to talk. They wanted to know what I knew, primarily whether I had seen the diagnostic report indicating Urusla had molested Angel in an attempt to frame Jack. “I’m telling you, you’re getting in way over your head,” she told me. “This is Butler County.”

Meth Face wanted to know my motives, whether I had agreed to compensate Jack and Diane in anyway. I told him there was no deal between us, that I wasn’t their advocate, but that there were some valid questions that deserved a deeper look. Ursula told me that I needed her written permission before I could run any article. “That’s not the way it works,” I replied. “Your name is in court documents.”

“You apparently don’t know the law here in Butler County,” she snorted.

It went on like this for sometime. They wanted to know who I’d spoken with, what documents I had, who I’ve written for, my address, just about everything but my blood type. Finally, I told them I appreciated them meeting with me, but that I would just call their lawyer in the morning. They gave me Mr. FuddyDuddy’s number. “You think I’m an asshole,” said Meth Face, taking back his second beer. “He’s an even bigger asshole.”

So they left. Or so I thought. As I walked toward the exit, they came charging out of the bar. Meth Face became Mr. Mad Face and warned me – shouted actually, there in the middle of the dining room – to stay the hell away from his daughters. I turned around and said, “Mr. [Meth Face], I have no intention of going anywhere near your daughters.”

He called me a “fucking faggot,” as we walked out together. He and Ursula got into their vehicle. He then pulled up behind Purple Thunder and, with his cell phone, snapped pictures of my license plate. After sitting there for a few minutes, they peel out of the parking lot.

I’d be lying if I said my nerves weren’t rattled. I fired up Purple Thunder and headed out. I needed to go left, but could only turn right. So I turn back into the Burger King parking lot and see the sheriff’s cruiser still there 90 minutes later, this time with a deputy in it. He pulls out behind me and follows me almost to the county line. Can’t say it’s related, but it unsettled me nonetheless. It reminded me of a Youtube clip that was widely circulated a few months back, which is posted below. At last I pulled onto the Interstate and head south toward Kentucky, happy to have Podunk behind me.