******
After Wood’s marriage to a U.S. Marine Corps drill instructor failed in 1978, she lighted down in Fort Worth to be near her parents while raising her daughter. For a while, Wood worked as a direct-care specialist at the Fort Worth State School. The “specialists” weren’t required to have a college degree or even a high school diploma, just to oversee mentally challenged people as they got dressed and ate meals.
Wood was adept at making adaptive equipment for the wards, and within six months of being hired she was focusing on customizing wheelchairs, braces, clothing, helmets, and other items for people with special needs.
Mittel, who was about 15 at the time, had been moved to the Fort Worth State School a few years earlier. (The school would later be forced to close amid allegations that some staff members were physically abusing the wards.)
Mittel could be difficult to handle and sometimes clashed with other tenants and school staff. But he acted differently around Wood.
“He saw me and said that’s it, and he started following me around,” Wood recalled. “He would get me tools or ride with me in the truck. I started taking him home for the holidays because nobody else did. It was gradual. He told me when he saw me, ‘You’re my mother.’ I said, ‘No, no.’ He said, ‘Yes.’ He won.”
Wood and Mittel bonded for a couple of years. Jefferis graduated from high school in 1988 and left home for college. Wood, living alone in a three-bedroom brick house in Southeast Fort Worth, applied to become Mittel’s guardian. MHMR and the probate court approved, and Wood moved Mittel into one of her spare bedrooms. Things went relatively smoothly despite the challenges.
“To me, he was always nice,” Wood said. “To other people, he was not. I trained him so that he knew how to behave in front of other people. He used to get Christmas presents, and, if they weren’t radios, he’d throw them on the floor. He’s learned gradually to be a regular person. It took a long time. Anybody who meets him now likes him. He’s well behaved and darling.”
Mittel would begin most days by eating cereal.
“He loves cereal,” Wood said. “I still have three boxes of cereal sitting here. He’d make it for himself in the morning. He loved to do that.”
Some days, Wood and Mittel would go grocery shopping and cook up a nice lunch. Mostly, though, they’d meet friends at restaurants. Mittel loves eating out. And swimming. They’d make regular trips to WinStar World Casino and Resort with friends. While the friends visited the casino, Wood and Mittel hung out at the hotel pool.
Many of those friends stepped forward to try to convince Tarrant County Probate Court Judge Pat Ferchill to reinstate Wood as guardian. They wrote heartfelt letters to court officials describing the loving relationship.
Wood’s patience and understanding with Mittel “goes beyond measure,” Linda Brown wrote.
“She takes him everywhere with her and has done the best anyone could do for him,” wrote Carol Campbell. “I am shocked and upset that someone has accused Ms. Wood of not taking good care of [Mittel] because, in my opinion, she has always and will always put [Mittel’s] needs above her own.”
Wood’s nephew, Archibald Miller IV, 40, recalled spending many special days with Wood and Mittel over the years.
“Billy is part of our family,” he wrote. “He does not speak much, but he loves to draw and listen to music. When he does speak, though, he often says something positive or humorous, like indicating he likes what he is drinking, a Coca-Cola or maybe coffee. I could not really understand all of what he said. What is amazing is that my Aunt Sandy always knew what [Mittel] meant and what he said.”
Wood’s sister-in-law Denise Miller said she cherishes the many drawings that Mittel gave her. He usually draws houses with people in the yards, she said.
“I do not understand how you can just take that away,” she wrote. Mittel is “an important part of our family, and we will do whatever it takes to bring him back home.”
Perhaps the most impassioned letter came from Wood’s brother, the Rev. Joseph E. Miller of Hawaii. He filled three single-spaced, typewritten pages with descriptions of how Mittel is a family member who laughed and cried alongside all of them while witnessing births, graduations, weddings, and funerals for three decades. Miller used the Hawaiian word “hanai” to describe Mittel. Hanai refers to a person, usually a child, who is taken in and loved and treated like a member of the biological family for the rest of his life.
Mittel had learned few adaptive skills in the institutional setting and might have spent his whole life in institutions without Wood, Miller wrote: “He went from [being] a number and a last name yelled at to wake up and fall in line for supper, to a member of a family who called him Billy and sat with him at dinner, watched TV with him, knew his favorite shows, foods, restaurants, musicians, and parks. People who knew he loved coffee, knew when his tummy hurt, knew when he was sad, knew when he needed to be given his own space, all things that he can never have in an institutional setting. For 30-plus years, my sister did all the dirty work that the great state of Texas could never have provided for [Mittel] regardless of their intentions.”
Their family opened up their arms to Mittel, but, more importantly, he “opened up his arms for the first time in his life to a family he knew as finally his,” Miller wrote.
“And, sadly, [Mittel] will never even know the voice or face of the person who got a case file on their desktop and within three days had decided his fate without even the slightest concept of, is this case possibly different than the last one?” Miller wrote. “A person who will get paid simply for filing a petition of guardianship and walking away, never to follow up or even think about the empty bedroom, the stolen birthdays, Christmas, and holidays … .”
Miller closed by acknowledging that people in the guardianship program must ensure the safety of their clients, but he claimed not enough due diligence was done before removing Mittel from the only home he has ever known. Keeping Mittel away from that home is not in his best interest, Miller said.
Jefferis said Mittel has always been a bit unsteady on his feet but had never been injured in a fall before.
“Just to step up a curb or into a building, he would put both hands on the wall and take one step at a time,” she said. “He’d put down whatever he had in his hands. His balance is not good, and he was aware of that.”
Blaming Wood for Mittel’s fall or questioning her devotion is ludicrous, Jefferis said. She wonders if something else is going on. She suspects MHMR is worried that her mother has gotten too old to care for Mittel. Being upfront about the age issue might have made the transition easier.
“If she is getting older, they could have gone in so many different directions,” Jefferis said. “I know [Mittel] is very confused, and my mom is very upset, and nobody will answer any questions.”
The probate judges and Guardianship Services Inc., the group appointed by the judge to assist in cases, are supposed to protect vulnerable residents from mistreatment or neglect. Guardianship caseworkers are supposed to be last resorts, after all other alternatives have been explored. The guardianship group’s website says the agency’s involvement “takes a client from a world of loneliness, despair, illness, and exploitation to a world of hope.”
The Fort Worth Weekly has written numerous stories that showed how probate judges and the guardianship program are doing the opposite of their stated goals. In many instances, the judges appear eager to strip people of their rights to make it easier for attorneys to take people’s money through a series of seemingly never-ending charges. Those attorneys, in turn, donate money to help judges get elected and stay in power.
Wood has heard that MHMR is placing Mittel with another family. Maybe allowing Wood to stay in touch with Mittel could impede his ability to adapt to his new family. Maybe he needs a clean break to get a fresh start. Who knows? Officials will not discuss Wood or Mittel specifically.
MHMR spokesperson Catherine K. Carlton said several agencies are typically involved in providing services to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Employees at the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services, or DADS, monitor many of the services and make unannounced visits in residential situations such as Wood’s.
A DADS pamphlet on guardianship clearly states that “once a guardian is appointed, there are ongoing legal requirements which may require the assistance of an attorney.”
MHMR staffers make home visits as well. The agency, which employs about 100 nurses, is “responsible for ensuring that people get the services and support they need and to assist them in revising plans for services as their needs change,” Carlton said. “If necessary, our [staffers] are required to make reports to agencies that protect people with disabilities. These agencies include but are not limited to Child and Adult Protective Services, probate courts, and other agencies that help to ensure safety for people with disabilities.”
Probate courts select guardians and then review and monitor them.
“For people with disabilities, courts sometimes name both a guardian and a successor guardian,” Carlton said. “For the court to make this decision would, of course, require evaluating a number of factors about the proposed guardian, the proposed successor, and the proposed ward. We understand each of these decisions to be complex and to require evaluation of a variety of factors.”
MHMR sent Wood a certified letter on January 11 saying that she had been removed as guardian after staff found Mittel “laying [sic] on a couch in what appeared to be an unconscious state” and suffering from “inadequate” wound dressings.
Judge Ferchill’s associate judge, Lin Morrisett, would not discuss Wood’s situation but said removals are often done quickly when questions of care arise.
“Generally speaking, these are hasty decisions when someone has put up a cry of alarm,” he said.
Former guardians have ways to contest the court’s decisions, he said.
“The quickest route is to file a motion for reinstatement,” Morrisett said. “We consider those things. I’d be lying if I said there’s never been a mistake made in guardianship in the state of Texas.”
How often does the court reverse itself?
“It doesn’t happen very often,” he said.
I relayed this information to Wood, who became excited at the prospect of seeking reinstatement as guardian. But she didn’t know how. She called the probate court and was put on hold and transferred nine times before being disconnected. She called back and said she was going to drive to the courthouse and talk to someone in person.
“He said, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that –– that could get you arrested,’ ” Wood recalled. “For what? I didn’t threaten anybody. I didn’t say I was going to do anything.”
Court investigator Jeff Arnier told her to hire a lawyer.
“I understand nobody wants to get an attorney,” Arnier told me later that day. “When you are involved in the legal process, sometimes legal representation is required and in somebody’s best interest.”
******
On January 4, the day after Mittel fell, a nurse from MHMR visited Wood’s home. She talked to Wood about the proper way to clean Mittel’s wounds. She gave Mittel the antibiotic Amoxicillin, and the pain medicine Tramadol. The nurse used a roll of black adhesive bandages that Wood already had at the house. After the roll ran out, the nurse drove to the store and bought some more adhesive bandage, this time in a tan color.
The nurse left an hour and 45 minutes later after observing no adverse side effects from Mittel’s medication.
The next day, Wood called MHMR and told a nurse that the sight of the wounds made her queasy and said she wanted to take Mittel back to the emergency clinic to have his bandages changed. The nurse advised Wood to ask for home-care services through her primary care physician. Wood took Mittel to the emergency clinic instead. The next day, she changed the bandages herself, she said.
A nurse named Amanda showed up at the house on January 6. Wood can’t recall Amanda’s last name or which agency she worked for. Amanda asked if Mittel’s bandages had been changed that day, and Wood said she had changed them herself. Amanda noted black adhesive bandages on the shoulder wounds and wrote in her report that she suspected Wood had not cleaned or dressed the wounds. The nurse noted in her report that “the bandage was saturated with fluids, the wounds were weeping, and the [bandage] had fallen down the arm and shoulder area.”
Amanda wrote that the black bandages (rather than the new, tan bandages) and the weeping indicated that Wood had not dressed the wounds in two days.
But Wood had not run out of black bandages. She still had another roll in her bedroom and had used it on Mittel’s wounds that day rather than open the new package of tan bandages. As for the weeping, Wood said she had put Neosporin on the wounds, which the nurse may have mistaken for weeping or pus.
Amanda described Mittel as lying unconscious on a couch. Wood said Amanda dumped a bottle of pills on a table, counted them, and then walked outside. Wood thought she left, but the nurse quickly returned followed by firefighters. An ambulance was on the way.
“After noting several pills missing in the Tramadol bottle, the on-call nurse called 911 for emergency help,” wrote court-appointed attorney Kory Nelson in the guardianship removal report dated January 19 that stripped Wood of her right to care for Mittel.
“Guardian is no longer an approved foster-care provider for the ward,” Nelson wrote.
Nelson, who appeared to base his report on Amanda’s statements, said the firefighters “began administering deep sternum rubs in an effort to elicit a response and measure [Mittel’s] alertness/consciousness,” but Mittel still did not stir. The medics administered adrenaline intravenously, and Mittel “became somewhat alert,” Nelson wrote.
Wood said the firefighters never rubbed on Mittel and did not give him any adrenaline while at the house. Mittel was awake when he left the house, wearing nothing but pajamas.
“I said let me get some clean clothes for him,” Wood said. “I went in his room and got some clean clothes, and by the time I came out, the ambulance and [Amanda] had driven away. I didn’t even know where they went.”
Wood called MedStar and demanded to know what happened to the ambulance, but the MedStar worker refused to say. Amanda had told them that Wood was no longer a guardian and had no legal right to Mittel anymore. A frantic Wood threatened to call police and report a kidnapping. An MHMR employee finally told Wood that Mittel was at Harris Hospital.
When Wood showed up at the hospital, she said Amanda was nowhere to be seen. A hospital nurse came up and asked if she was Sandra Wood. When Wood said yes, the nurse handed her a prescription bottle of Tramadol with Wood’s name on it. Wood, who also takes Tramadol for knee pain, was confused. Why would a Harris nurse have her medicine? Amanda had given it to her, the nurse said. Then Wood thought she figured out what had happened: Mittel’s Tramadol prescription from a few days before was for 20 pills, meaning most of the pills should have still remained in the bottle. Maybe Amanda had confused Wood’s pill bottle with Mittel’s, and the numbers didn’t add up, Wood said.
She wanted to ask Amanda about it but never saw her again.
Mittel was sitting alone in the emergency room.
“I sat with him for 10 hours until he got a room,” Wood said. “Then I went upstairs with him and got him ready for bed and got him dinner. When he fell asleep, I told the nurse, ‘I’ll be back tomorrow.’ For the next three days, I came back and visited him, and there was nobody there. Then, the fourth day, they called me up and said, ‘You’re not allowed to visit him anymore,’ and that was it.”
She has spent almost every moment since then thinking about Mittel and trying to figure out how to get him back. And she’s discovered what many others before her have learned about the probate court –– a probate judge and his team of attorneys, bankers, caseworkers, and caregivers are a powerful, immovable force. The Fort Worth Weekly has written numerous stories over the years about local probate judges Pat Ferchill and Steve King and their heavy-handed tactics for stripping people of their rights in questionable situations and sometimes using secret hearings that do not even allow the accused wrongdoers to defend themselves.
Nobody asked whether Wood had any extra black bandages. Nobody considered whether the alleged weeping was actually Neosporin. Allegations were made and actions taken without Wood being allowed to defend herself. Now that she has lost her legal rights to Mittel, nobody feels the need to discuss anything with her anymore.
Maybe Amanda “wanted to make a name for herself in her first week on the job,” Wood said.
A court document dated Jan. 13, 2016, explains why Wood was removed as guardian. In addition to her alleged lack of care for Mittel, the report described Wood as confused when questioned by court visitor Arlene Shorter and court-appointed attorney Kory Nelson. They described how Wood couldn’t recall the name of the pain medication Tramadol and called it the medicine “that starts with a T.” (Self disclosure: Several months ago I was prescribed two medicines for diabetes and high blood pressure. I’ve refilled the prescriptions several times but can’t recall the names of either, nor can I recall the first letters of their names.)
Wood knew the name of the medicine, she said, but it slipped her mind because she was upset about Mittel and felt ganged up on by the court visitor and attorney, who were grilling her with questions. Shorter “was talking real low,” Wood said. “I’m trying to pay attention to her and what she was saying, and what he was saying, and I was already a nervous mess. I said to her, ‘Billy took the medicine he’s supposed to, and he’s asleep, so leave him alone.’ I guess that pissed her off.”
Also included in the report are Amanda’s full name (Amanda McCutcheon), job title (home care nurse with MHMR), and phone number. I called the phone number. A man answered and said he’d never heard of McCutcheon. He said the number was for a chiropractor clinic. I called MHMR and asked for McCutcheon. The receptionist said McCutcheon was at lunch. I left my name and number and asked for McCutcheon to call me, but she never did.
The pain, sadness, and frustration have worn down Wood, but she won’t give up trying to get Mittel back no matter how long it takes, she said.
“I know he’s as miserable as I am,” she said.
Lots of issues with the judges…..they have much power….too much…
Peckerwoods tend to be Peckerwoods, hammer-heads behave like hammer-heads. We need not be smart to recognize that fact. Government drudges, Government judges, tax-paid drones and knuckle-heads are not at all uncommon both in Fort Worth and Texas….this is not news, What’s interesting to me is the fact that the hammer-heads and self-important government big shots, tend to be Repugs, and bone-headed Baggers. True. Our Texas local and state government were Democrat from it’s beginning up until President Johnson made the demand to give Negro Americans the same benefits and consideration as Anglos. From the next election until today, Texas has mostly been Hooray for me…Screw-You Repug and now Half-Wit Bagger-Repug, and so it goes. I hate to consider what will come next. When will we ever learn?
The guardianship programs in each US state and in Canada have no effective oversight – just the way the probate judges and their constituents that make money from the “system” like it. If there is one professional guardian that actually considers the best interest of the “ward”, I haven’t met them yet – in any of the FIVE Texas probate court systems I have been involved with. Who benefits? Judges get campaign contributions (even when they have no opponent) from the attorneys that regularly appear before them and the “professional” guardians that are paid to keep any family and friends away from the “ward” – all in the name of keeping the ward “safe”. It sure does pay well though and it liquidates estates in record time for the professionals’ benefit. Once the ward’s estates are liquidated, the taxpayers are on the hook – not to keep the wards “safe” in reality, just to fund the “system” and its players. It is a legal vortex for the detriment of many and the benefit of a few.
When Child Protective Services gets involved in suspected abuse cases of children, the goal is to unify the family. However, this is not the case when adults are involved. Adults (be they disabled I/DD adults or the elderly) are often removed from family and family then can be completely shut out of their loved ones life forever.
Sandra Wood is Billy Mittel’s family. Billy wants to go home. Surely he feels that because he can’t, he is being punished.
Sandra Wood should not be discriminated against because she is 71 or because she has health problems. She gives Billy one-on-one supervision and care – and she loves him as if he were her own. Denying Billy the comfort and presence of Sandra Wood is inhumane treatment of him. The system has let this young man and his caregiver down and should be embarrassed.
Join the national movement for reform of unlawful and abusive guardianships. Join NASGA!
Aloha (to whomever it may concern),
First this is in reference to the case of Sandra Woods & HER SON Billy Mittel(after 30 years YES I call him my nephew and my sisters son). Just in case your job has set your mind to the predisposition that every one you encounter is in the foster care program for profit I would advise all involved to OPEN your minds and question a “new nurse” if they are aware that a “HUMAN BEING & his family of 30 years ..” has been destroyed in an overzealous attempt at suddenly having “powers..” that are not to be taken lightly.
I am quite sure ya’ll have already erased them from your collective administrative memories and cleared your outbox of the fear that Billy must endure every night wondering WHY his family has deserted him. I am also sure that in the mind of your bureaucratic system Billy has become again a number and an another honorable “WIN….” on your future resumes.
This of course is the case of Sandra Lee Wood and our family (which for over 30 years Billy Mittel has been a beloved member of a REAL FAMILY !!! Sandras crime was taking TO GOOD OF CARE of Billy!! first taking him to a care center and when their care worried her she then took him to the E.R. out of love and worry. WHY would someone who was abusing her son walk into not one but TWO emergency care facilities?? Are these the actions of an abusive money grubbing foster caretaker??
Billy is a child who has never taken pain medications and any nurse will tell you that it is not uncommon for a persons first time on even mild pain killers will “normally..” react in the exact manner as described in the nurses opine of Billy being hard to wake up, however the story does NOT end there. Now LETS ADD ON TO THIS FACT that Billy was given a “MILD Painkiller & antibiotics & xrays” at the first Care Center, and then he was released after HOURS of sitting in a care clinic by then extremely tired and wanting to go home. Yet Loving him as she does hours later after getting home Sandra slept next to him on the sofa next to him when she noted he was still in pain so she then took him to another ER at the Hospital where guess what he was seen and for a second time told again nothing was broken but AGAIN in the same night was “DOSED” up a “second time with a much stronger Narcotic..” and more antibiotics (which also cause drowsiness as well as anaphylactic shock drowsiness) !!! So yes he probably was sleepy, hard to wake up, not to mention disoriented from being woken up by a roomful of strangers all freaking out over him in his home !!! Then being drug off from his “hanai” mother to never see her again. Imagine the FEAR my nephew is being put through because he is handicapped and he did NOT have an interpreter to calmly talk to him? He was sleepless, dosed on multiple pain killers and antibiotics, surrounded and being touched by strangers who were consistently questioning him in manners he could not or was afraid to respond too. Basically he was drugged up by two facilities and then expected to react and respond in a manner that even a normal un-drugged child would be frightened of. But you see that’s the problem, Billy is NOT a regular child. He was born over sensitive to touch, to sound, to smells, to all things new to him. He was confused and abused is true but not by my sister Sandra!!! It was by a young nurse trying their best to catch a criminal & judging my sister because she is as they say can be (blunt spoken and can be irascible, neither of which is a crime), instead of helping a family.
Now to the injury itself. Billy was seen by not 1 but 2 hospitals, both “repeating” similar treatments. When they arrived gestapo style at my sisters home, she was already pre-judged of negligence because that was the easiest way to explain away the multiple pain meds being given to him.
And the fact that they even gave her prescriptions for MORE pain killers which were all accounted for and Sandy had not given him any more because he was already treated TWICE !! All of this paints a much clearer picture of Billys disorientation on top of his lack of sleep.
They admit the scrape was bandaged and had if anything to much antibacterial cream on it. It is said that it was dripping with a clear liquid (yes triple antibiotic cream), I saw no test that a swab was done and the wound was openly infected or neglected (any normal child would have had a test done to find out what the infection was to prescribe the correct antibiotic. Especially if the infection was that horrific looking had not even existed long enough for openly draining pustules to even have developed unless not one but two medical facilities missed such a fast growing infection !!! Facts are that infections as described take days to become puss filled, red, and swollen. If a simple road rash scrape that has been treated in 2 hospitals within hours of each other there would be no signs of a severe infection except under very very rare cases of possibly an immune system issue or hiv/aids. What is described does not develop in a couple hours.
What we have here are one of two scenarios 1) Sandra in an abundance of care when changing the dressing put on a bit extra cream which is harmless (good in fact), who laid with the child to watch him closely and rushed to get him better care the very moment he communicated to her that he was still hurting. 2) Or secondly a newly trained nurse the day before “DID NOT..” put adequate antibiotic cream on the wound and/or did not clean it well at all causing it to do the nearly impossible and become severely infected with 48 hours of her “professional cleaning and bandaging of the wound….” to begin with!!! Because if as she claims Sandra DID NOT change the dressing at all his scrapes would not fester and begin to generate and discharge large amounts of infected draining puss !!!
Just a wild guess on my part, but right now you are probably thinking WHO is this guy writing this letter and who is Billy Mittel & his family. After all you all have probably “Torn Apart…” many more families in the last few months. But just give it a second and you will remember the Fort Worth Weekly article “Torn Apart…” I am sure though.
So may I ask you to do the rest of the work of destroying our family of 30 years?? Who do I now talk to several times a week? Who do I send the coffee I home grow and hand roast for him?? Who do I send the new cds I produce with my photos on their covers that you will see always in his room on his bed as he draws?? Have YOU bothered to look at his new room?? At his new clothing at his privacy and friends?? Have you taken this man who for 25 plus years has eaten out with folks who have adopted him in their hearts and spend their time communicating with him equally instead of making decisions for him on such things as happiness and WHERE he wants to be. WHO he misses most in life, have you sat him down because of your CAREING fir his best interests and shown him photos of HIS FAMILY?? Have you shown you grand pop and grand mom and his nieces and nephews just to do the RIGHT THING IN GODS EYES when you see and hear his reactions and sadness at what YOU stole from his life because he does not understand the concept of simply ERASING his entire life??
Who explains to him when xmas comes and he does NOT receive the gifts he has for 30 YEARS !!!! Has he been out to eat with his friends since you stole him?? Has he been to a hotel pool since he was taken??
In my beliefs and faith we wonder HOW people such as you who offer NOTHING but confusion and deep seated loss and pain to the handicap. If he was Pilipino you would get a translator, same for a Mexican or a Japanese but for Billy was a specialist brought in to show him photos and COMMUNICATE in manners he understands?? No of course not !!!! You simply pat yourself on the back and tell yourselves how special you are !!!
What has been done to Billy is a disgrace !!! He was going to move in with my wife and I one day we dreamed of when Sandra was unable to continue but were we even considered or called?? HEll no !!!!
30 years of love and faith however means nothing to a bureaucratic system.
SHAME on your kind of lazy, crazy and bizarre form of self love or loathing. A narcissism devouring anyone who dares cross its path…..
Do the RIGHT thing and hire a psychiatrist to have a couple seasons with Billy and set up meetings with Sandra and this time LISTEN & OPEN your eyes and ears to who Billy is happy with…
God WILL judge you far harder than Billy or my family ever can because it is your (action/lack of) that have removed him from the happy man he was in the attached photo !!! SHAME ON YOU!!! Do you see the cd on his bed there??
Well that is ME on the cover !!! He loves me and my family. He does NOT have 30 years more in life to form the bonds he has with our family. Who takes measure and blame for giving this handicapped child and stealing his entire life from him? Who does Billy blame? When Sandra delivered his meds to the parking lot and Billy saw her what was his reaction??? Did he ignore her?? Or did he cry, yell, and did it take two men to hold him back from running to Sandy???
At the VERY least Billy should be with Sandra Friday sat and sundays… BUT in mine and I believe GODS eyes he deserve to be with the ONLY family who has ever loved him his entire life !!
Think about it and think of the pain you have caused a handicapped man through these past months….
I will pray that your family never has to endure the agony and distress that this helpless child has had inflicted upon his life. I pray to God that SOMEONE in Texas decides to let life take its course for Billy and Sandra. You see we have lost our mother our father and our sister in the past decade by Gods will, now we are losing my nephew as well.
I also pray that whomever could allow this to happen sleeps as well as Billy, Sandra and our family now does. Could you IMAGINE this loss?? Hell even Charles Mansons family knows where he is and can tell him they love him (God forbid that they do) but the point is that BILLY is a Man/child who has done no one wrong and Sandra has been a BLESSING to the Great State of Texas for giving her entire life to help a child know love. She GAVE her entire life to him at great cost to her own happiness and life only to be tossed to the curb and to lose a “motherless” child who because of her love never knew a lack of love, compassion or the comfort of having a mom.
Rev. Joed Miller (ordained)
ps– these are my opinions and I want it known that someone somewhere has really made a mistake in the handling of this case. Plus YES Sandy is getting old, so is Billy. He understands death well, and could understand if Sandra was to pass away. He would understand that change comes with death he has lost his Grandfather, his Grandmother and his Aunt Lisa. But he will never understand this travesty, this child will never understand having his life stolen. Sadly by now he may even believe that Sandy has died or worse yet simply abandoned him. That is simply sinful and sad.
Has there been an update to this story? It was so very heartbreaking. I have a special needs brother, and I can’t imagine something like this. I really hope Billy was reunited with his family soon after this article was written. Does anyone have any new information?