Baby Grace identified, mother to blame in her death
Categories: Just for moms, Just for dads, Health & safety, Development, In the news
I'm having a really hard time writing about this, but I thought it best to share this with you since I wrote about it so recently. Baby Grace has essentially been identified through DNA testing as Riley Ann Sawyers. As I guess we all suspected, some secretly, some not, her mother (and her stepfather) is to blame for her death.
For a very long time today after I read articles like this one, which I should not have read, frankly, because the details of Riley's brutal death at the hands of her mother are so terrifying and so horrifying they will surely haunt me for the rest of my life, I struggled to understand how it is someone could do something so evil to a child.
How someone, anyone, let alone a parent, could hurt one gossamer hair on a child's head is so far beyond me I can't even imagine it. I kept trying to rationalize why the mother and the stepfather beat their baby to death. And the truth is I don't want to know. I don't want to rationalize it because it's not rational.
These people make me physically sick. And the worst that will happen to them is they'll get to spend life in prison. What they did was despicable. The mother has admitted what she did. She is....
I can't. I just can't even go there. I don't want to. It wouldn't do any good today.
All I ask is that those of us who love and value our children think of what we can do to keep what happened to poor, innocent children like Riley Ann Sawyers from happening to other children. It seems to be all I read about anymore.
Frankly, I don't want to write about this stuff anymore. It's unbelievably painful. Yet I think people need to know however they may find out about the atrocities taking place. If we educate ourselves and get mad enough maybe something will be accomplished.
Interestingly enough, when I read the article the person I wanted to be with most was my son. I wanted to run to him to be comforted by holding him. He's almost eight months old.It's truly amazing what someone so small can do for you.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Joy 11-27-2007 @ 9:16PM
This is just so sad that I have no words.
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Jenn 11-28-2007 @ 6:44AM
I am with you on this one -- I bawled while reading the article on CNN.
I just don't get it. I can understand losing your temper, and yelling a harsh word at a child, or even one quick smack (NOT that I condone that, and I would have serious words about child abuse to anyone that did it) -- I can grasp the notion of getting to the point you might do something like that. Of course, if it was me, just the fact that I had said a harsh word to my daughter would fill me with guilt and remorse almost immediately. But what was done to that little girl goes so far beyond losing your temper with a child it's just not even fathomable to me. And it was her own child!
I just...well, I can't put it into words. These stories just make me feel sick about my fellow human beings, and like you, make me want to retreat with my daughter and cuddle her until she won't let me cuddle her anymore.
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J Jordan 11-28-2007 @ 6:47AM
I hear you guys. I kept thinking to myself, if the child was such a problem, there was a father in the picture, and a grandmother. Couldn't they have taken the little girl? Isn't that better than what happened instead (anything is). I can't imagine living life like that.
I also am not trying to identify with the mother, but she had options if she didn't want the child. That's all I'm saying.
So, so, so terrible.
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ninainindia 11-28-2007 @ 7:19AM
This is almmost identical to something that happened in the Netherlands a few years back. Pieces of a little girl were found in the water in several places of the country.
It turned out the mom and stepfather had done it. They are now in jail. The girls little sister was still alive thankfully. There was some discussion here if the mother should still be allowed to see this younger child.
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lisa 11-28-2007 @ 7:55AM
this is the saddest thing i have ever heard or read...if these parents dont want their chldren give them up for adoption or let the grandparents raise them...on that note...this story is a true abuse story whereas a parent who spanks a child on the bottom for misbehaving is NOT abuse...you MAY think it is and that is your right but it is not...dont afflict your beliefs on other peoples beliefs....we have our reasons for spanking just as you have your reasons for not....but abuse it isnt...im sure if you asked baby grace she would have rather had a mommy who spanked her when she misbehaved than beat the precious life out of her just for being who she was
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josh 11-30-2007 @ 11:43PM
I am not nor ever have been a parent but have followed this case from when they found this little girl. When I read the circumstances of her death it horrified me. I honestly can say I don't know of many things I have heard that have stuck in my crawl like this has where I think about it and feel sick. I always thought I wouldn't make a good parent but even me I can't see treating a kid like they did. Sure you might give a swat to the behind if there is a problem or set them in a corner or talk to them but to do that little girl as those two did is unspeakable and just rips my heart to pieces. My heart goes out to her birth father and his mother but all i feel for the birth mother and stepfather is disgust and disbelief.
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Michele W 12-02-2007 @ 2:39PM
I have kept up with the baby Grace story from day one. Right away I was trying to understand how someone could do such a horrible thing. The police holding up a little shoe asking for help finding out who this poor little girl in a storage tote was touched my heart and I couldnt imagine having to work on cases like this. Then the sketch came out and there was a face to baby Grace and it was even harder to think of why someone could do this to this beautiful little girl. I have a son and I can not understand and don't think I ever will or want to, of how someone could hurt an innocent child. I look at my son and see such innocents and I wonder why the world can not be like that and it sometimes makes me sad for what the future holds for my son. Then the worst hit when I read what the mother and stepdad had done to this girl and how they found out who she was. I couldnt imagine being on the computer and seeing a sketch of a dead child and realizing, That looks just like my grandaughter, How trumatizing that would be. Then the tears began to flow as I read what they did to her. Anger took over and I my self wanted to beat them with a belt and hold thier heads under the water. worst yet was seeing the pictures of her from her dad and how tiny and delicate she was. Like you said to what are they going to get out of it, life in prison getting better medical care thaen you and I . I just can not figure out how someone can possibly get that mad to hurt or kill thier own children. The one that bothers me the most is the woman who drowned all of her kids Andrea Yates. All they have to do is say that they were quote mental and they get away with it. How can you say you did not know what you were doing when you chase each one of your kids one by one and take them ,drowned them and them set them nice and neat on the bed. postpartum depression made me do it she said and she is now getting away with it. I dont care how depressed you are why your child, why not yourself. like I said I will never understand nor do I think I ever want to know how people can hurt and kill thier own children.
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danielle 12-08-2007 @ 11:12PM
i No Riley and the mother and the real father of her i thought i knew kim but i guess i didnt she makes me sick i was in a program in school with them for teen moms and dads i dont have any words for her any more Rileys father is a wounderful man all the things they are saying about him arent true i wish everyone got to meet Riley she was a wounderful little girl i love her and miss her so much god bless her little soul god please give her mother and her stepfather what they derserve amen
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