Episode 160: 936 Miles for Mercy

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This podcast contains descriptions of violence againstchildren, an adult language, and is
not suitable for all audiences. Listenerdiscretion is advised. Hi everyone, and

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welcome to Suffer the Little Children,the True Crime Podcast, giving voices back
to the victims of child abuse andshining a harsh spotlight on the parents,
guardians, and caretaker who silenced them. I'm your host, Lane, and
this is episode one sixty nine hundredthirty six Miles for Mercy. Since I

(01:10):
started making this podcast, I've toldthe stories of a number of children that
have involved the failures of the familycourt system. So many names pop into
my head when I think about it. Thomas Valva, Nakota Kelly, Avery,
Lee Hobbs, James Beale, CoreyMitchello. Since two thousand and eight,
over nine hundred American children have diedat the hands of a parent or

(01:32):
guardian after involvement with the family courtsystem, which punishes parents, especially mothers,
for reporting domestic or child abuse.Ohio mom Sarah Moore, who lost
custody of both of her boys forthat exact reason, has had enough.
Earlier this year, Sarah pledged towalk a total of nine hundred thirty six
miles from Columbus to the White Houseand back, one mile for each of

(01:55):
the children who lost their lives dueto mistakes made by the family court system.
This is the story of an embattledmother who will never stop fighting for
her children and the quest she's undertakento draw attention to the epidemic of family
court related child deaths in this country. This is the inspiring story of nine
hundred thirty six miles for mercy.I'd like to give a quick shout out

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to my newest patrons, Yarnet J. From Jadvanpach in the USIMA Province of
Finland and Carol G. From Beaverton, Oregon. Thank you so much for
your support. Without you, Iwouldn't be able to keep this podcast going,
so I truly appreciate you. Tomake a pledge, you can visit
patreon dot com, slash stl SPoD, or to make a one time contribution

(02:40):
you can visit ko dashfi dot com, slash stlcpod. Every little bit helps.
Thank you so much. One morething I'd like to mention is an
initiative created by my friend Eric CarterLondean, the host of True Consequences podcast
and The Big Brother of baby Jacoblondein whose story I told back in episodes

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thirty five and thirty six. Iknow my listeners feel a lot like I
do about these things. If you'repassionate about justice and believe that every voice
deserves to be heard, you needto know about Angel's Voices Silence No More,
Eric's incredible organization, which is dedicatedto empowering victims, families, and
advocating for justice. Eric is apassionate advocate committed through Angel's Voices Silence No

(03:25):
More, to making a real differencein the lives of those affected by crime
like his was by the murder ofhis brother. The organization's unwavering commitment to
empowering victims and fighting for justice isincredibly inspiring. Their comprehensive support services provide
essential resources, referrals, and assistanceto those who need it most, but

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they can't do it alone. Angel'sVoices Silence No More needs your support to
continue their mission of amplifying the voicesof victims and their families, which is
a cause I know we can allget behind. Visit Angel's Voices dot org
today, which I'll link in theshow notes to learn more about their initiatives
and to make a donation that willmake an immediate impact by directly helping families

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in New Mexico who are fighting forjustice. Let's join Angel's Voices Silence no
More in ensuring justice prevails, empoweringvictims, and making sure that no voice
goes unheard. Now regarding this week'sepisode, when Sarah Moore reached out to
me last week, I didn't hesitatein setting up a remote conversation with her.

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Like I said, I've covered manystories in which a desperate parent pleaded
with the family court system to savetheir children from an abusive parent, only
for the child to end up deadat the hands of that abuse of parent.
There are a lot of deep,systemic issues that need to be addressed
nationwide, and that's what Sarah andI spent time talking about, as well
as her quest to raise awareness ofthis issue and her plans for her nine

(04:53):
hundred thirty six Miles of Mercy initiative. I was surprised to learn that Sarah's
younger son, Avitt, is famousfor his mind blowing musical talents. You
may actually have seen him on oneof many TV programs or as a viral
sensation online Avitt, who was blindin his left eye, has limited vision
in his right and is on theautism spectrum, began teaching himself to play

(05:15):
the piano when he first learned topull himself to his feet at less than
a year old. At eleven months, he was already playing Twinkle Twinkle Little
Star on the keyboard. Listen towhat he could play. By the time
he was three. By six,he was playing a ton of cover songs

(06:00):
love I'm So Happy to by Bye. At age seven, he performed Bohemian
Rhapsody on American idol Just listen bye, summer is gone. Such shippers done

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my spun, but he's inking allgood side, goodbye everybody. I was
God's gotta leave, bye bye.I don't want a soundless shot, never

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fun A good thank you? Didyou have fun during that? Yeah?

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Yeah? How is it that youcan play the piano so well being so
young? Yeah? Well, Iam a viral sensation. And when I
was eleven, and I when Iwas eleven months old, and when I
was about two years old, Iknew I taught myself how to play the

(07:48):
piano, and it was just Idon't know, It's just I don't you're
great at it. I know,thank you for being here. I love
your jacket. His jacket is greattoo, right, Yes, Flighty Mercury
Jet, of course it is.He also appeared on Little Big Shots with

(08:11):
Melissa McCarthy, where he played EltonJohn's rocket Man and I think it's gonna
be a long long side the touchdownbrings you Ronna, get you fine.
I'm not the man that think gota man now, No, no,
no, I'm a rocket bar,rocket bell burning all this is all the

(08:41):
alone, and I think it's gonnabe along side. David has been interviewed
by a bunch of local and nownews outlets and other programs, and he's
been involved with fundraisers and performed liveshows. He is an astoundingly talented child.

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In March of this year, Avitt, who is now ten, released
his self titled debut album, whichyou can hear on Spotify, Apple Music,
and YouTube. I'll include those linksof the show notes as well.
I couldn't stop listening to his musiconce I found it. However, if
it wasn't for a dark turn inAvot's story, I wouldn't be telling it

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right now. Don't worry. Heand his sixteen year old brother are alive
and seemingly well for the time being. Whether they're safe or not is another
story. Sarah lost custody of bothof her boys thanks to the family court
system, which has been statistically shownto punish parents, especially mothers who report
abuse on the part of the otherparent, whether domestic child or sexual abuse.

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There are studies that prove this,which I'll also link in the show
notes. The following is from avideo Sarah recorded when police were sent to
her home to collect Abit from hismother by force. What do you think
about going to stay with your dadfor a minute. I can't go my
dad. It's it's very very unseOkay, you're gonna question I just I

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can't go with you? Okay.What is he gonna question you about?
Question? Okay? Okay, yeah, that sounds pretty tough, bud.
Okay, I promise you I won'ttouch you. Okay, Well, I'm

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not gonna I won't even touch thedoor from out here. Okay, Okay,
I won't touch the door. Sowhen do you think you want to
see your dad again? If youdon't want to go with him? Anaty

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okay okay, So you never wantto see him or talk to him again.
Okay. The fear in Avit's voiceis heartbreaking, and it reminds me
of so many other clips we've heardright here on this podcast of children begging

(11:33):
not to be sent with their abusiveparents, and we know what happened to
those kids. Sarah is fighting withevery ounce of strength she possesses to prevent
that from happening to her own childrenand to other at risk children as well.
Let's get into it. My nameis Sarah and I'm the mother of

(11:58):
Evitt Ray. He's a child musician. He was on American Idol, A
Little Big Shots, The tod Show, and I also have a sixteen year
old he's a little bit more privateand not so public online. We have
been struggling through the family court systemfor I guess I've been in this system

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about fourteen years now and I've foughta total of ten custody battles between both
of my children, and I've learneda lot about the system and how it's
pretty much impossible to escape if youhave children with your abuser because of the
family court systems, processes and practices. I lost both of my children in

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the last two years. I lostcustody of them to their fathers, who
had been domestically violent towards me inthe past on multiple occasions, including hospitalizations,
head injuries, neck injuries, strangulation, and so we're talking pretty severe
abuse use. Strangulation is attempted murderin many instances, and so these parents

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were able to continue to take methrough the family court system, and eventually
over time because of the processes,they're able to craft stories and narratives to
take custody of your children away fromyou. As I got involved in this
and realized how bad it was,I started doing a lot of research and

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I came across an organization called theCenter for Judicial Excellence, and they have
this list of child murders from allfifty states, and I saw that there
were nine hundred and thirty six childrenthat were murdered since two thousand and eight
when divorce, separation, custody,visitation, or child support was mentioned in
news coverage. That's somehow not surprising. Unfortunately, when I started this walk

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in July, I started on Julyeleventh, and I had started the campaign
named nine hundred and thirty six Milesfor Mercy, and that number, I
believe is over nine hundred and fiftynow and recently the Center for Judicial Excellence
worked with USA Today. I thinka USA Today article came out in the

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report is that every six day asa child is murdered from the family court
crisis in America. So it's ahorrific national crisis, and people don't know
that it's happening. A lot ofparents that go through it are silenced their
gag order to not talk about theircase online. And you know, I
can't share any specifics about my custodycase either at the advice of my attorney

(14:35):
for fear of judicial retaliation and thingsthat happen behind closed doors. Again,
the processes of the family court systemkeep victims of abuse silenced and in abusive
environments. So it's my goal tobe an activist to reform the family court
system so that we can actually keepour children alive and protect our kids.

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We're punished for protecting our children infamily court and that is very concerning for
a lot of reasons. I hadnot seen the Meyer report that came out
a few years ago, and Ijust saw it, and just the fact
that so many parents who report abuseget custody taken away from them is shocking.
It is awful that you cannot sayanything because the other parent, who's

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often a narcissist or has traits likethat, is able to spin the narrative
in their direction and make themselves outto be the victim and make it look
like you're crazy or you're lying.Yeah, exactly. I've had many conversations
with expert Barry Goldstein. He's adomestic violence expert. He's a previous past
lawyer for I believe twenty five someyears, and he's written a lot of

(15:41):
books about the family court crisis.But yeah, he has really opened my
eyes to understanding how this all kindof came to be. But apparently there
was a point in time where fathersfelt like they didn't have rights, and
so Father's Rights created an organization.It really swung the pendulum the other way.

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But what ended up happening was domesticviolence is primarily a crime against women.
Is statistically primarily a crime against women, not that it doesn't happen to
men, but essentially, when we'retrying to escape because of the work that
the father's Rights movement did to createthis equality or you know, shared fifty

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fifty bills, it's actually prohibiting victimsfrom being able to escape. So you'll
meet a lot of parents who havegone through this and they're really angry and
they're like, this is patriarchal,and very loud about this being a male
dominated issue, and rightfully so probably. I mean, I'm not expert enough

(16:47):
to know or be able to speakon that, but it's so much more
than that. People just want topoint fingers because they can't wrap their mind
around the injustice. Yeah, it'spatriarchal. Yeah, it's a judicial problem.
Judges have judicial immunity. So ifthey make orders for children to go
to their abuse of parent, andthat abusive parent murders them, you can't

(17:10):
see that judge. They have judicialimmunity. And there's just literally no accountability
for these judges ordering children into domesticviolence. Yeah and the gas and yeah,
And I understand that there needs tobe able to be something like that,
but when we're actively dismissing domestic violence, we're saying it's irrelevant, and

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then the child's dying from it,Like that's on another level, you know.
So that's one of the things we'reasking for in our quest for change,
is for the courts to end judicialimmunity in family court. Maybe you
can have judicial immunity and criminal courtright, but family court and judicial immunity,
there should be some accountability at somelevel. Yeah. No, And

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then they have terms like quasi judicialimmunity that they give to guardians so that
if the child reports abuse to themand they get murdered, they still don't
have consequences. One hundred and thirtysix of the nine hundred and thirty six
child murders on that list, onehundred and thirty six of them are directly
related to family court orders failing toprotect children. And I think to one

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of the huge crisis that's occurring isthere's an increase in children on the spectrum
autism spectrum disorder. My child hasautism, and his concerns were interpreted as
alienation in my case, where whenI would explain things to my older son,

(18:41):
who doesn't have autism, he wouldbe able to understand it and apply
it in different areas of his life, things like that. But my child
with autism isn't able to understand andinterpret in that particular way, and so
instead of having an advocate, hewas denied a guardian. Altam is interviewed
in chambers without an advocate, andso the crisis is so big because they're

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not following your constitutional rights, they'renot following your ada rights. And these
judges really they're just really proud ofwhat they think they know. And after
so much time of making these rulings, you know, I think something happens
to a judge where they believe thatthey're really powerful, and there's a missing

(19:27):
humility in the system, you know, a humility to just be like,
let me look, let me understand, let me see what's unique to this
child. Things like that, youknow, right to take everything into account
while they're trying to consider this,rather than just having a boiler disman their
head. I'll pause here for aword from my sponsors. How old is

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abt? Is he ten eleven?Now? He turned eleven in March?
Okay, okay, he is verytalented. It sounds like, yeah,
he has so many talents. Histalents are exploited through the court system.
So what happens is an abuser infamily court is rewarded for counter parenting.

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Say, for example, you escapeddomestic violence and you have primary custody of
your child because there was a restrainingorder and the courts recognize it, so
they give him standard order of parenting. That's very typical. You escape domestic
violence, your children have to govisit unsupervised with the person you just escape
from. That's typical. Number one. That's a huge problem because what we

(20:38):
know about domestic violence is that abuserswill hurt other people things and utilize every
resource to continue hurting you. Likeanimals. You've talked about animal abuse.
I believe on your past work ananimal abuse is considered a warning sign to
domestic violence. If you kick acat, you don't really have a line

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for what you will or won't dophysically to hurt someone, right, and
you'll hurt the animal so that youcan hurt your victim. That emotionally hurts
your victim. And so that's anotherthing that we're asking for the government to
declare that abuse to a parent isabused to a child. But what they'll
say is, oh, he neverabused the child, he just abused you,

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So he's safe to go to hisdad. And then what happens is
that dad will counter parent. Ohyou have a medical appointment on my parenting
time. No way. You didn'task me if you could sign up for
sports on my parenting time. Noway, file contempt, file contempt.
So then suddenly the court thinks thatyou are the cause of conflict because you're
doing something on that other parents parentingtime. True loving parents don't counterparent.

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Counter parenting is a very huge warningsign of domestic violence. They just want
to argue against everything you're doing onprinciple, which only ends up hurting the
child. And yet the court seesit as you being the antagonist exactly.
And that's how they're able to changethe narrative over time. They make victims
of domestic violence appear like the problem. And I don't know if you've heard

(22:11):
of a Moses Gandhi, sixteen yearold from Utah. Did you hear about
this case? I don't think so. Mom fought for fourteen years through the
family court system. The judge calledher the source of conflict, the problem,
and six months after awarding the dadcustody, AM was murdered by the
dad. And that just happened theday before Mother's Day this year. And

(22:33):
again, if an abuser has yourchildren, they will hurt your children to
hurt you. That is not rocketscience. And so that's the other part
that I'm asking the government to helpwith is to add coercive control to the
definition of domestic violence. So coercivecontrol, it's those things like counterparenting,
using the child as a weapon,as a spy, as a you know,

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reporting, It's no secret, it'sonline. The one thing about my
case is my son David. There'stwo videos out there. He's reporting that
his dad's questioning him for hours,four to five hours at a time and
into the middle of the night.And when asked, what do you get
questioned about? He gets questioned aboutwhy he doesn't want to live at his

(23:18):
dad's house, and he gets questionedabout what happens at my house. This
is course of control. So nowmy son, whenever he's at his dad's,
he doesn't want to speak to meon the phone because then he'll be
interrogated for hours. This is courseof control, and it is a form
of domestic violence of both your sonand you. Yeah, exactly. So
many states do not recognize it,and I just wish more people knew what

(23:42):
it was and understood how it changesthe structure of your brain and the way
you think and the way you reactto things. Yeah. One of the
patterns I found while telling these stories. So what I'm doing is I'm hiking
nine hundred and thirty six miles fromColumbus to the White House and back to
Columbus, Ohio, and I'm hikingthe nine hundred and thirty six miles and

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telling the story of every child that'sbeen murdered. One of the things that
I've noticed is a pattern that thesemurderers did not abuse the children prior to
murdering them, but they had ahistory of violence towards the adult parent.
So a lot of times, oncethey can no longer hurt, physically,
assault, control, like once theyrealize that you've psychologically detached from them,

(24:29):
don't care about them anymore, thenthey think, well, if you're not
going to continue to give me whatI want attention control, domination, then
I'm just going to kill everyone.And that's the other pattern I've noticed is
it's not just that they kill thekids, but they kill them the kids,
and then they take their own livesand often the lives of the people

(24:52):
they're living with, or even theperson that escaped their domestic violence. So
many of these cases, like Isaid, they didn't physically abuse the children
before they murdered them, and thenit's familiar side. That's another pattern I'm
finding. So the systems, thefamily court systems, are resulting in the

(25:12):
actual annihilation of the family. Yeah, entire families. It's such a huge
loss. Yes, I just tolda story last week about a man whose
wife could not financially afford an attorneyand afford travel for visitation, and the
court was trying to make her responsiblefor doing the transportation and she had escaped

(25:37):
domestic violence. They said because shecouldn't pay that the dad should have custody.
It literally came down to that dadgot custody. As she continued to
fight to protect her kids, thecourt took more and more of her rights
away, and then she finally juststopped contacting them. Four years later,
this father was living with his momand dad, the child's grandparents, and

(25:59):
he killed the grandparents, the child, and himself after four years of not
having contact with that x. SoI tell people, don't give up the
fight. Even if you only haveone percent in you continue trying because that
little bit of trying, I believegives our abusers enough attention and feeling of

(26:22):
control and domination that it actually iskeeping the children alive as long as they
feel like they can still pull strings, they're going to likely keep you alive.
But when they start to feel likethey're going to lose complete control.
And that's why Alma was sixteen yearsold. These children are at risk in
early ages, but also as theystart to grow up and get their independence.

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One of the main things about courseof control, right, is that
they want their victims to be dependenton them. But what happens when you
start to go into adulthood, yougain your independence, and these abusers don't
like it. They have less tocontrol, right, so they're again at
risk of being murdered as they growinto their older ages. I wanted to
say you mentioned earlier about the Meyerstudy, and I was thinking about it.

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But the Meyer twenty twenty study saysthat women who are abused are more
likely to lose custody of their children. And I don't know if you know
this. Seventy five percent of childsexual abused reports. In seventy five percent
of those cases, they give custodyto the alleged perpetrator seventy five percent.

(27:32):
Now, if you allege physical abuse, you lose custody fifty percent of the
time, but sexual abuse, childsexual abuse if you report that, they
will give custody to that accused perpetrator. It's unbelievable. There's no way to
protect your child in a case likethat. There's no way. I'm sure
there's some awful person out there who'sfalsely making accusations. Okay, but that

(27:55):
cannot be the majority of the cases. Yeah, we have to believe these
people far more often than we do. I mean, nine hundred and thirty
six children nine, like we're pushinga thousand, and this is just what
we know about. Any other situationthat was resulting in numbers like that,
we'd be doing something about it bynow for sure, right. I mean,
domestic violence is the number two killerof police. In twenty eighteen,

(28:19):
the United Nations report stated that eightyseven thousand women were murdered, and over
half of them were killed by intimatepartners or family members. I believe in
this country you're more likely to bekilled by an intimate partner than anyone else.
Yeah, definitely. So you know, domestic violence and child abuse being
reported in family court, that aloneshould be If domestic violence or child abuse

(28:44):
is brought up in family court,that judge immediately upon hearing those words should
be required to say we're ending,this is a case for the criminal court.
Goodbye, get out of my courtroom. Because domestic violence and child abuse
are criminal complaints, that those arecriminal charges. They need to go defend
themselves in criminal court against child abuseand domestic violence, not just be oh,

(29:07):
well, how much parenting time arewe going to give the abuser or
the person that reported the abuse.Yeah, you got to be fair.
Yeah, there's other problems in thecourt system too. A lot of them
don't allow cameras or media. Soagain, problem with that accountability if you
don't agree with the judge's ruling ofthem giving parenting time, like say,
in those seventy five percent of childsexual abuse cases. Research shows that only

(29:33):
two percent of reports of child sexualabuse are made up, but seventy five
percent of the time they're giving custodyto that abuser. So there's an organization,
and this is really important. It'scalled the AFCC, the American Family
Conciliation Courts or something like that.They train our family court judges to believe

(29:55):
that parental alienation is like the highestlevel of crime and family court that parents
cannot be alienated, and this isimportant. We agree, we don't want
to be alienated from our children.No parent does. Right. We all
agree. Every feels like this reallybelievable concept because alienation is truly happening right,
Like I'm alienated from my child rightnow. But the fact that we

(30:18):
use this word alienation creates a problembecause if you go to family If I
went to family court and said I'mbeing alienated from my child because I'm a
woman, the defense is shown againin the Meyers study, it is shown
that I would not be successful becauseI'm a mother reporting parental alienation, but
a father reporting parental alienation receives custodyand seven out of ten trials. Interesting,

(30:45):
but the reverse does not happen fora mother. So the Saunders if
I don't know if you've heard ofthe Saunders study as a U N D
e r S. But the Saundersstudy talks about the sex bias that's occurring
and putting domestic violence FI and theirchildren at risk. And really this year,
sorry, I have like a lotof information, but in twenty twenty

(31:06):
three, I think it was inMay, the United Nations had a special
repertoire submit a report about parental alienation. If you look it up on the
United Nations website, you would lookup custody, violence against women and violence
against children. And basically this Rappertoirefound that the States should prohibit the use

(31:27):
of parental alienation in family law casesand that the States should comply with their
responsibilities under international human rights by establishingregular monitoring mechanisms to oversee the effectiveness of
family justice systems for victims of domesticabuse. So they're acknowledging that parental alienation

(31:48):
is a defense that abusers are usingto take custody of children. Because think
about it, where a child resistsgoing to an abusive parent or visitation,
that abusive parent goes to the familycourt and says that mom's in contempt,
she's withholding my son, she's notgiving me my parenting time. Then the

(32:08):
court says, did he get hisparenting time? No, whill you're in
contempt. Ultimately, the goal fornine hundred and thirty six miles from Mercy
my campaign is for us to protectkids from family court. And what I
realized after going fifteen years through thesystem is if I wanted to save my
children, then I had to saveall the children. So save all save

(32:32):
yours. If you want to saveyour child. If you're listening to this
podcast and you know that this isspeaking to you or someone that you know,
if you want to save a childthat's yours or someone that's important to
you, if you want to keepthem alive, keep them protected from domestic
violence. It is not by knockingon the brick wall of the family court
system, but it is being anactivist and advocating for this reform. There

(32:55):
is nothing more important. Save allthe children and to save yours, save
all, save yours. That's reallythe message. That's what I realized.
Even if I was able to overturnand receive custody of my children back,
even if I got them home,they're still going to be core ordered to
have contact with those abusers that arecoercively controlling, psychologically abusing, and emotionally.

(33:19):
They're still subjected to abuse. They'renot free. This isn't a matter
of getting custody. This is amatter of getting free from domestic violence.
Something has to be done. AndI also wish that there was a way
to implement more education as early asmiddle school, definitely by high school about
domestic abuse, what it looks like, how to avoid it. Such an

(33:40):
important topic that you know. Imean, if I had been more educated,
maybe I could have avoided my ownsituation. That sort of thing has
just always been in my mind.I wish I knew then what I know
now, And I wish we couldlet younger kids know about this stuff so
they can avoid it. There werequite a few organizations too that do go
to high schools and things like thatto train on red flags and warning signs.

(34:06):
But if you think about it,the way our systems dismiss our children,
like my children do not want toreport abuse because they won't be believed.
Do you know what happens to thempsychologically when that happens. They must
lose trust in absolutely everyone. Yeah, so it doesn't matter what kind of
training they go through, it's goingto be in the back of their mind

(34:27):
like, well, this is probablyain't even real, This probably won't even
really work. Look until we startbelieving victims and actually supporting them and giving
them what they need, it's almostlike it doesn't matter what kind of training
or information we give them. Ihave all the training and information in the
world, and I still feel likeI get trapped in abusive relationships and toxic

(34:50):
relationships. I know all the redflags, and I still get trapped in
those kind of relationships. I stillattract those kind of people to me.
I still but I would consider myselfreally almost you know, not an expert,
but just a step below that.On course of control and domestic violence.
I know, I'm really really educatedin it. I know most of

(35:13):
the things that I need to know, but I still get trapped in those
kinds of relationships. I know.They say that once you've been traumatized,
you're more likely to be re traumatized. Exactly. That is the exact reason
that I don't date. Yeah,I was just going to say. It's
research. It's backed by research,and it's called the Adverse Childhood Experiences ACE.

(35:36):
The CDC the Center for Disease Controland Prevention, right the government.
So the CDC has a study calledthe ACE Study ACE, and it stands
for Adverse Childhood Experiences. It's literallya ten question questionnaire about abuse that you've
experienced as a child. And thequestions are very simple. There's a male

(35:59):
verse version and a female version,but it's like, did you ever witness
domestic violence? Did you ever witnesssomebody cursing at you? Like things like
this, and The score out often tells you if you're likely to suffer
physical ailments, have your life shortened, be subjected to heart disease, and

(36:21):
other things because of these ten questions. That is very interesting. So we
know that dismissing a child's report ofabuse is harming them right now into their
adulthood, where they will have theirlives cut short because they'll be subjected to
different diseases, and they'll struggle withdifferent anxieties and depressions, be subjected to

(36:43):
having to take medications, all stemmingback to what these systems are continuously and
knowingly doing to our children. Nowfor another quick sponsor break, I think

(37:04):
the most important thing is we needto adopt the understanding in this country that
abuse to a parent is abused toa child, and coercive control needs to
be added to the definition of domesticviolence. Yes, across the country.
Those are the two primary things.One of the experts that I really look
up to, I think I mentionedhim already. His name is Barry Goldstein.

(37:27):
He talks about a multidisciplinary approach thatis needed to handle family violence in
family court, and I agree withthat it doesn't need to be some judge
sitting on a bench, suppressing evidence, dismissing evidence, you know, like
it needs to actually be These arethe real issues. Judges shouldn't just be
allowed to issue orders that don't workfor your family, that continue to subject

(37:49):
your children to trauma that shouldn't beacceptable. They should be held accountable for
that. Yes, they're just liningtheir pockets with my money to continue fighting
in that courtroom because they continuously makemoney off of me when they make orders
that don't work for my child.Yeah, they know you'll be back.
Yeah, oh well, let's makethis difficult, so she'll have to be
back. We're clients for life,right. If we enter the system as

(38:13):
domestic violence victims at a young age, they know that they can keep us
at least until eighteen years old.We're income to their system for eighteen years,
and they'll chalk it up to oh, this is high conflict, the
parents don't get along. No,this is domestic violence, this is coercive
control. Stop enabling abuse. Andif you want to make orders like that,

(38:35):
then sign away your judicial immunity.Yeah you're so confident, Yeah exactly,
so can you can you explain exactlywhat you're doing with the walk so
you said you started it on Julyeleventh. Is that you started the walk
itself and you're doing it in incrementsor how's this going to occur? Yeah,
Originally it's kind of evolved over time. But originally I was just going

(38:58):
to walk to the White House andback, and as I started walking,
people wanted to be involved. Organizationsreached out and think they're like, well,
let's actually schedule the protest date forthe time when people can join you
in Washington, DC. So we'regoing to be in Washington, DC protesting
October twenty feet through the twenty fifth. The final few days I'll be meeting

(39:20):
with Congress and legislators to bring aboutsome lat reform. Anybody that comes on
the twenty first is going to walkthe final miles into DC with me.
So it did originally start as awalk, like straight there and straight back.
But since we pushed out the protestdate to October, which now was

(39:40):
only about thirty days away. Sincewe pushed that protest date out, I
have taken breaks from the trail,come home, spend time with my cats,
and worked with my attorney in myown case, things like that.
It was nice to be able totake some breaks. I've been on a
pretty long break the last couple ofweeks, just trying to be able to

(40:01):
see my son. I haven't beenable to see him despite a court order.
Dad has kept him from me,and so it was really triggering.
My PTSD was really bad. Sothankfully, I think it's been really nice
to have some of the breaks.But yeah, yeah, but now this
week I'll be hitting the trail again, starting the walk back into DC,

(40:22):
and then i'll be walking back toColumbus where we're going to do a big
protest in Ohio. So okay,yeah, the protest in Washington, DC
on Saturday, We're going to walkthe final mile in and we're going to
do a sort of like a rallywith our signs where all if you can
come where a set of wings.It's Halloween season, so the Halloween stores

(40:44):
are open. Go buy a setof white wings. And the goal is
to have nine hundred and thirty sixpeople representing the nine hundred and thirty six
murdered children to give it a visualof how many children that is. So
we want nine hundred and thirty sixpeople to attend with there's an event on
Facebook. I'll send you that link. But if you look up protect Kids

(41:06):
from Family Court event, you'll findit. I will definitely include that link
in the show notes so people canget to it, and anybody in the
area should aim to join. Ifthis matters at all to anybody, Yeah,
definitely be there. It's so importantfor people to be there because the
congressman and legislators like visually, theythink the problem is bigger the more people
that are there. And so yes, I'm really trying to bring awareness to

(41:30):
the country, which is why I'mwalking. People don't know that this is
actually happening, Like, did youknow about this problem before I told you
about it today? I knew someof it only because I've been in contact
with Kara about James's story and otherBut okay, most people who haven't heard,
you know, my certain episodes orthe show have no idea, no

(41:51):
idea whatsoever, right, And that'sbasically the whole point of my platform,
bringing awareness to these important issues good. Yes, awareness, awareness, awareness,
and so you know, my requestis if you can share this podcast,
share this episode with the world.There is so much good information shared
here today, and there's nothing moreimportant than protecting our children from violence and

(42:14):
keeping them alive, like, theyshould not have to be subjected to this
level of terror. And one ofthe things I think about. I was
recently walking with a mother who childrenwere murdered last year and they were shot
in the face by their father aftergoing through family court, and I walked

(42:36):
a mile with her for both ofher kids. So we walked two miles
and she was telling me about herkids, and all I could think about
was what we're what were they doingto try to save each other in those
final moments. You know, Itold an Australian story that was very similar,
and you know, they huddled togetherunder the desk, the big brother

(42:58):
curled himselves around his sister to aprotector. It's heartbreaking to think that those
kids had to know that kind ofterror in their last moments. It.
Yeah, it shouldn't be. No, it should not be. Yeah,
I mean no, Like, ifyou have to escape domestic violence, why
would we send children back to thatperson you had to escape from. That's
why domestic violence deaths are on therise, not just to children but to

(43:21):
women because they can't leave. Theyknow they're going to be court ordered to
send that child back into that environmentunprotected and their only mistake was having a
child with that person that they hadno idea this should be the outcome.
Yes. No. And as amatter of fact, Emma Cats she wrote
the book Course on Course of Controlrecently, okay, but she was she

(43:42):
just published an article about why coursivecontrol increases after you become pregnant or breastfeed.
And it's so revealing that you don'teven coursive controllers don't show their controlling
nature until you become a mother often, so it's not even that you would
know as a single person. It'sit's it's a being that that like comes
out of these people once you becomepregnant because they know they have you trapped.

(44:08):
Yeah, And in her article shewas sharing that they're holding on to
attention now, your attentions diverted,you're thinking about having a baby, you're
spending time breastfeeding, and you're notgiving him attention. Right, your body
belongs to the baby now and notto him, yep, not to him
exactly. And so that's where thejealousy and control and domination begin to erupt

(44:34):
is during those moments. And soyou don't really know that until you become
pregnant. So again those red flagsthat we talked about. You know that
we wish middle schoolers and high schoolerscould know. Maybe what we need to
to each is how to not becomean abuser. Absolutely, you know what's
normal when like teach your children youngthat a woman's body becomes a tool for

(44:55):
a child, It is not atool for a man. You know,
like it? Oh, yes,definitely, you know what I'm saying.
Yes, we have to educate kidson both sides of this. Absolutely.
I wanted to say one other thingabout the protest, and I hope maybe
you can be there. I thinkit would be really cool to meet you
in person, but I will definitelytry. Yeah, I was thinking about
that just when I wrote the datesdown. I would like to specifically invite

(45:19):
you to come on Sunday if youcan't come for the whole time, because
on Sunday, we're doing a prayervigil on the Link and Memorial Stairs around
four pm. We're gonna read thenine hundred and thirty six names of every
child murdered, We're going to lighta candle in their honor, and we're
going to have Yeah, some momsspeak about their experience as well, So

(45:40):
it's going to be a very sombernight, but I think the impact is
going to be very emotional. Yeah, for sure. Are you planning to
go live with any of those anyof the events that you're doing in any
way Instagram, on Facebook or whateverit is. I'm sure plenty of people
will be going live. I don'tknow specifically if I am. I haven't
planned to. I know people areasking me to, the reality is that

(46:04):
I want to be very present,So maybe if somebody can manage that for
me, you know that that willwork. But I'm hiking, and I'm
spreading awareness and all the other thingslike what's happening in DC, how organized
it's going to be. I'm reallyjust relying on the community of people who
care to come together and see thatthat happens. So that event, I
did set it up, but mostlyif people are going to attend, it's

(46:25):
because people like you share it,invite your friends to it. I have
your friends, invite friends. Ihave like a limited amount of energy.
Yeah sure, you know you canonly do so much. Yeah yeah,
if that's yeah, we'll definitely shareit. And you know, I again
will encourage as many people as canpossibly be there to be there. You
know, it's a lengthy drive forme, but I am willing to do

(46:49):
that. You know, if it'spossible for me to get away at that
time of year, I will mostdefinitely try to be there. It's a
very important topic and it's a veryimportant cause to bring to the public's attention,
because, like we were talking aboutearlier, they just don't know.
They don't And I really feel there'snothing more important than how these systems are
feeling our children, the increase inviolence that's happening with our families, where

(47:15):
we can't escape domestic violence, oryour children will be ordered into unprotected environments.
There's nothing more important. You don'twant your children's children to have to
go through this. If your daughter'strying to escape domestic violence, then they
need to be able to escape withtheir children. There needs to be processes
in place, and if that abuserwants to retain contact, then it has

(47:37):
to be in a way that's backedby research that's not going to harm that
victim or that child, you know, And so there are ways, but
right now, the pendulum has swungso far. This fifty fifty rides bills,
you know, the fifty fifty presumptionis huge right now, and it's
not acceptable. It just puts moreand more victims in danger. You mentioned

(47:59):
a protested Ohio as well. Whenand where is that going to take place.
I haven't fully prepared it yet,but it will happen in November.
November is Family Court Awareness Month,so we will. I'll end up there
and I'm thinking it'll be about probablythe week before Thanksgiving. And ideally it

(48:20):
would be to have a table setup with empty chairs showing the number of
children in Ohio that have been murdered. And I know highly recommend everyone across
America, in every state to showup at their capital with empty chairs.
You know, if you go tomy Instagram page and click the link in
my bio, it has the statelist of child murders. So my instagram

(48:44):
is Sarah D. Moore SA rA and there's a link tree, and
in that link tree, it hasthe list of the child murders, you
know, so it'll tell you howmany per state have been murdered. You
know, print out those chairs andput the story in each one of those
chairs and then stand out there inprotests. These are families that are going
to be eating at tables without theirchildren every year from now on. Yeah,

(49:07):
these are fully preventable murders. Thesewere not things that like there was
an accident and they flipped over thefour wheeler. This is I reported abuse
and my child got murdered. It'spreventable. Yes, very very preventable.
That's a great idea. When youget a date set for that, let
me know and you know, shareout whatever event that is. Sounds great,

(49:28):
that is important. But you knowI do. I encourage everyone across
America to do it, but thisis not mine. You know, I
started nine hundred and thirty six milesfrom Mercy the campaign, but I don't
need people to run things past me. Like we all have to become activists
because if we want to save ours, we have to save all. So
become the advocate. Use this asleverage, use it as a springboard.

(49:52):
It's just really time for us tolike get so loud and stand up,
stand up for these children. Andthe more people are talking about it,
the more people are going to payattention to it. Exactly, exactly.
Thank you so much for having meon and I appreciate you so much in
the work that you're doing. It'sreally important. And know how heavy it
is. And thank you for helpingme to shine a spotlight on helping protect

(50:15):
our kids through the family court crisis. Time for one last word for my
sponsors, Thank you so much toSarah for speaking with me for today's episode
about her cause. I'll include thelink to her go fund me campaign and

(50:38):
her Facebook event in the show notesfor this episode. Please support her in
any way you can, and ifyou live anywhere near Washington, DC,
I beg of you to please tryto attend in person at any time throughout
October twenty one through twenty five.I am going to try to be there
for at least one of those daysif possible. That's for this week.

(51:00):
Join me next time for another episode. If you like the show, please
follow or subscribe to Suffer the LittleChildren on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts,
YouTube, Spotify, Spreaker, Pandora, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, or your favorite
podcast listening app, and please leaveme a five star rating and a positive

(51:20):
review on your favorite podcast platform.Visit the website at Suffer the Little Children
pod dot com. You can supportthe show by visiting Patreon dot com slash
stlcpod, where you can become apatron for rewards ranging from a shout out
by name on the show to bonuscontent and exclusive gifts. You can also
support the show at koshfi dot com, slash stlcpod, follow the podcast on

(51:45):
Facebook and Instagram at Suffer the LittleChildren pod, and on TikTok at stlcpod.
View photos related to today's episode onFacebook. This podcast is researched,
written, hosted, editing, andproduced by Lane Intro theme music is by
dream Note Music, and all musicfor the show is licensed from audio jungle

(52:07):
dot net. For more information aboutpreventing or reporting child abuse, visit childhelp
dot org or call your area's childabuse hotline. And remember, if you
see something, say something.

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