Throughout September, October and November 2005, the family lived at three different extended stay hotels. In addition to motels, the family was offered shelter care at the local shelters. The family also stayed for two weekends at the condominium of their lawyer‘s assistant. Financial resources for motels and shelters came from the Maine Department of Health. This assistance for housing was discontinued due to the family‘s inability to cooperate with motel staff around room access for housekeeping. Additionally, the family received food stamps and general assistance. The children received Medicaid.
Ma kept calling everyday, crying and begging me to get Adam out of jail. "He doesn‘t deserve to be in there, Amelia. It‘s terrible for him, wearing those same prison clothes day after day, locked up with men who are real criminals. I know you and Jack have done so much for him, but please help him again."
The pleas would keep coming, but there was nothing I could do to get him out. Besides, I was hoping the 30 days in jail might do him some good, change his thinking and realize that if he wanted a different life for himself and his family he needed to be responsible, get a job and work hard like the rest of us. Forgive me for my naivety. There is that saying pigs might fly, isn‘t there?
I sent him $50 to buy small item necessities the jail authorities told me he needed. And, I sent money to Susan, so she could take a bus to the jail with the children. There were days when the social services people would take them. It was approaching fall, so I also sent her boxes and boxes of warm clothes, along with toys and other items the children could use for writing and drawing.
Of course, Adam‘s gratitude for our help was underwhelming, why it would be any different? I think I mentioned earlier that doing the same things over and over again without different results was the definition of insanity – wake up Amelia! At some level, though, I think I eventually accepted that Adam was not going to change and that neither could I. I would always be the bleeding heart. Helping family was a sacred duty I could not ignore, fundamental to my being. Oh, the contradictions were there, all right. I hated Adam with a passion at times, but as I came to know who I was at my core, I knew it would always be impossible to cut away from family completely, however badly they behaved, and especially when they needed help.
The collect calls from him were relentless. Ma would get them, too. The conversations were always of the same tone, demanding, judgmental and abusive.
"Why did you send me $50? It‘s not going to do anything." "I was told you needed it to buy necessities in the jail," I replied. "If you don‘t need it, give it to the children. I‘ve sent them clothing and they could do with more."
"They don‘t need that stuff." "Junk you called it. Ma told me."
"Use your head, Amelia. If you‘d saved all the money you spent on hotels, clothes, phone cards, buses or whatever, you would have been able to send the money I need. None of this would be happening!"
I laughed. "So, now it‘s my fault. You are a piece of work, brother."
"The money saved would be enough for a proper lawyer instead of some useless court appointed one."
"If you behaved like a grown man instead of a childish, irresponsible idiot, you wouldn‘t be in jail. You‘d have a life like mine, living in a nice home with healthy, well educated children."
On the day of Lucas‘s christening on Sunday, September 14, 2005, we were just walking out the door when the phone rang, another collect call from the jail. I grabbed the phone.
"Amelia, it‘s Adam. I want..." "Oh, I figured it was you."
"I know, you‘ve got caller ID. That‘s how you deliberately avoid my calls, isn‘t it?" "Get used to it." I was cuddling Lucas close to my chest. He gave me a gorgeous smile. Yeah, that smile softened and melted my heart. "Adam, I don‘t want this day of all days to be spoiled. Give me some peace, so I can christen my little miracle baby without worrying about you."
There was a noticeable change in the tone of Adam‘s voice. Was it sadness? Christenings were a family event, one that always seemed to touch him in a special way. I‘ve mentioned that he treated all the family children with a special affection he could not give to his own. What a pity.
"Well, at least you have yours," he managed to say after a long pause. "That‘s right, I do, and it will stay that way."
"Congratulations, Amelia, have a great day," he said.
I did, we all did. We had a fantastic day, and I didn‘t think about him, not once.
Adam was released in early October. He joined Susan and their three youngest, living in different hotels, upsetting staff wherever they went, pulling their usual uncooperative and confrontationist stunts whenever challenged with requests that did not suit them.
As reported in the court document on page 160, housekeepers had a difficult time getting into their rooms to carry out their cleaning duties. The stories were always the same. They were doing 'things‘ and did not want to be bothered, or someone was sleeping. They slept a lot during the day.
Eventually, they would have to leave. At one place, they lost the financial assistance they were getting from a particular welfare group. Certain standards of behavior were required and one transgression was all it took to lose any assistance. Adam knew that, but the pathological sense of self he had of being special meant he was excluded from the rules and more to the point, he was entitled. He and his family paid a huge price. We all did!
October continued with him doing battle with the whole state of Maine. They weren‘t making any headway in the battle to get the children back. No wonder, Adam and Susan were belligerent, rude and extremely self righteous!
Of course, the children were suffering most. I thought about their future and worried about them being able to function successfully in society. Whenever the CPS would make some progress with the children‘s schooling, Adam and Susan would act as saboteurs. Why in God‘s name they would want to deny their children an education was confounding to me. The more I learned, the angrier I got.
Ms. Reed9 often observed the children in their classes. There were periods of cooperation and at times the children seemed to be enjoying school and their peers. On one occasion, when Mrs. Allerton asked the children how their school day was, they responded, "stupid, we did what they wanted." Ms. Reed noted that this response was in direct contrast to the cooperative behaviors she had observed during the day. In Ms. Reed‘s opinion, and the court so finds, the Allerton children were torn between what they actually experienced and what their parents told them to believe and say. The court finds that this sad dynamic was detrimental to the Allerton children.
Moreover, the children were socially isolated: they had no interpersonal skills beyond the immediate family circle and would not interact with children and adults other than themselves. Important childhood experiences for these children were lacking, such as structured learning, friendships, and interactions with people other than each other. The risks to these children of such social and emotional isolation are obvious: an inability to function in society. The court concludes that the parents isolated the children to their emotional detriment.
Instead of complying with the people who could help them, Adam and Susan just kept pissing them off. It was unbelievable! Excuse my language, but what I know now to be true, the details of what was really going on as documented in the Maine court document makes me darn angry. Social Services helped them, or tried to, despite knowing they were the number one problem in the way of the children‘s well being.
During October, they were able to have visitations with the four older children. The visits were supervised, which really angered Adam. He constantly complained of the supervised visits, saying the foster parents were stupid morons, using words I don‘t want to repeat here.
"Don‘t ever refer to the foster people as foster parents," he told me.
I nearly lost it. "They are better parents for those children than you ever have been, Adam. I keep hearing more and more stories of the neglect and deprivation they were subjected to by you. How could you ignore court orders regarding their medical and dental care appointments? You deliberately missed taking them for their immunization program shots time and time again. God, you think that you and that pathetic creature who calls herself a mother are worthy parents. Spare me, please."
I spoke with the children often. Social services wanted me involved, and I wanted to be involved. I didn‘t want the children to feel completely abandoned. They trusted me. I guess I had been a regular visitor in their lives who always stuck up for them. They had so many questions. None of this should have been happening - it was so sad. They thought I was working on getting them back to their parents. Secretly, I thought they would be better off with foster parents, but I told them the social workers were trying to work out a solution for everyone. It broke my heart when two of them asked me why their Daddy was so mean and always yelled.
I begged Adam to help the children get through this easier by being nice to them. But not him, he had to tell them not to listen to anyone, that they didn‘t have to talk to anybody, and that they could do anything they wanted while they lived in other people‘s houses! He literally made things worse for his own children.
As the CPS people and I had more contact, we developed a greater level of mutual trust. From them, I was to learn of even more horrific consequences the children suffered from Adam and Susan‘s neglect.
What happened next in this long and painful saga is best described in the following extract10 from the Maine court documents.
At the end of January 2006, the Allerton family went to Newark to commence proceedings in Eastern Seaboard courts to divest Maine of legal jurisdiction of this case. The children were removed from school to do this in violation of the Maine protective order.
On January 31, 2006, local law enforcement located the Allertons at a nearby hotel where they lived (we paid for that hotel as well). All seven children were with the parents. The police knocked on the door and stated that they were checking up on the children. Mr. Allerton let the police in and was arrested on a warrant from Maine for contempt of court. Mrs. Allerton was near the bed and in the process of changing one of the children. Sergeant Arnold Goldman of the Newark Police Department asked Mrs. Allerton to come with him. However, he permitted her to first finish changing the child. Rather than go with the police officer, Mrs. Allerton picked up one of her other children. The police officer, fearing that this child was going to be used as a shield, grabbed Mrs. Allerton, who resisted and kicked him. She was eventually subdued on the floor. All of the children witnessed this and were understandably upset about what was happening in the hotel room. The parents did nothing to make this difficult situation easier for the children. The children grabbed onto each other and started to chant, in unison, about letting their parents go, including two-year old Katherine. The chanting was unusual and appeared to be pre-programmed. Seven social workers were needed to remove the children from the hotel room and bring them to the CPS office in Newark. While at the office, the children continued to resist and defy social workers. Social workers noted that the children had layers of clothes on. The feet of the youngest two girls was green, and their toe nails were so overgrown that they had begun to curl under their feet.
The parents were incarcerated until March 2006, awaiting extradition to Maine. Moreover, Mrs. Allerton was charged with and subsequently pled to resisting arrest, child endangerment and assaulting a police officer in the court.
All seven children were placed in foster care. Becky and Cindy were placed together, and Katherine and Lilly were placed together. Grace was placed by herself in a foster home.
Can you believe this? It‘s insane! My brother‘s wife wrestled to the floor by police and arrested. Both parents in jail, the children chanting like they‘d been programmed by some cult, the youngest two with green feet and toe nails curling under them... What the hell had happened? This was right out of a Hollywood horror movie.
I was at home in California when I got a call from the social service person in the afternoon saying that both Adam and Susan had been arrested at the Ramada Inn in front of the children! Of course, I didn‘t know all the details then, just that Adam was back in jail and Susan was in with him for assaulting a police officer. I was devastated for all of them. All the crazy stuff of the last few months caught up with me right there on the phone. I started crying and amid the tears and sobbing, I told the woman from Social Services that I would arrange for a flight back east as soon as I could.
It was mid February when I arrived in Boston. Right then, I hated Adam more than at any other time in my life.
I had Abbey and Lucas with me when I went to the Ramada Inn to get all of the Allerton family‘s worldly possessions. Adam was concerned mostly for his legal documents and important paperwork that related to his forever battles over the children‘s education and health issues with the Family Services department of Maine. What upset me most were the little jars of baby food for Lilly and Katherine, half empty, still with spoons in them. It was hard for me to keep it together. There were the clothes, food and other possessions left where they must have been when the police busted them. They didn‘t have enough time to get anything. The legal documents and paperwork had gone. It was later discovered that Brian actually had the documents in his possession.
The people at the Ramada Inn were wonderful. They helped with the packing. After I had the car loaded, I left and went to meet with the Social Services officer. She gave me a thorough briefing on the events leading to Adam and Susan‘s arrest. Here is a summary of the conversation I had with the officer. The precise details are all available in court and case plan documents from the family court jurisdictions.
Adam and his family first came to the attention of the Maine Family Court in December 2004. An officer from the DCF filed an affidavit alleging the children were not being properly educated, lacked proper medical care, and were living in social isolation in their condominium.
After seeing the children, the DCF and police were concerned about their physical health. They were pale and gaunt, most had severe speech impediments, some had awkward gaits and inward facing legs, and there were clear dental issues. There were concerns with Adam and Susan‘s housing instability, resistance to cooperating with the CPS and compliance matters associated with the children‘s education. On December 26 the judge issued a protective order that the four school-aged children should be either enrolled in school, or that Adam and Susan provide CPS with documentation with Maine home schooling criteria by January 5, 2005. They were to provide DCF with home school plans they had utilized from 1999. Adam signed the order, but wrote that he did not agree with it.
It was from this point on that Adam started down the road to serious trouble with the law. Ignoring court orders and fleeing from their jurisdictions was not smart. Why he thought he could get away with it is beyond my understanding, given that I always thought he was inherently a smart guy.
On January 7, 2005, the court issued another protective order that included Susan and Adam inform the DCF and their attorney of any change of address; the family should remain in the Eastern Seaboard area if they relocate there; they should cooperate with the Eastern Seaboard social service agency; Maine should communicate concerns to Eastern Seaboard Department for Children, Youth and Families; they should satisfy the court that the children‘s medical and educational needs were addressed in Maine; the children should be enrolled in an approved home school program in Maine; and Adam should sign medical and educational releases for the children prior to leaving court. Adam signed, but again wrote that he did not agree to the conditions.
It was not my intention to lay out a long chronological list of Adam‘s court matters, but these events do, I think, offer some insight into the dilemma behind why the hell I would get involved again with my brother and his family problems, particularly, when the cost to me and my family would once again be enormous in both emotional and financial terms.
On February 5, the court found that Adam did not comply with the January 7th order, he had moved but he did participate in the hearing by telephone. The judge ordered Adam‘s attorney to provide DCF with the family‘s address, and that Adam was to ensure the medical follow up for the children.
On February 26, the Maine Court found that Adam did not comply with the January 7 order that the children be examined by a medical doctor. The judge ordered that Cindy, Brian, Becky, and Keith be placed in CPS custody, and that the children be returned to Maine. On February 28, the judge issued a pick up order for Grace, Lilly and Katherine, and an arrest warrant was issued for Adam.
So, what do Adam and Susan do? They take off, flee. They and the children were missing from February to August. A nationwide Protective Services alert was issued! Adam, Susan and their van identification number were entered into the National Crime Information Registry. Unbelievable! My brother and his wife had managed to get listed on the National CRIME Registry! My brother and his wife were on the run from the law, and law officers across the country were on the lookout for them! They weren‘t Bonnie and Clyde, but, my God, I remembered that Adam had access to a gun. I am horrified at the thought, but how often are there stories on television or in the newspapers about desperate people who have a gun committing some terrible act of violence, and often against those who are closest to them?
I found out about the gun after Adam had served his 30 days in jail in September, 2005. Actually, his behavior in jail was somewhat eccentric, or bizarre might be a better description, let alone the story about the gun. What else could be expected? He chose to create a real stink around his incarceration, literarily. He decided he was not going to change his clothes, or his underwear. I‘m pleased that I didn‘t have to pick him up