[SPEAKER_01]: Can we talk 7-ounce?
[UNKNOWN]: Can we talk about 7-ounce?
[SPEAKER_00]: Hellooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
[SPEAKER_00]: I never miss a chance at self-indulgence when the opportunity arises to mention that I was in my past life, a social worker with the elderly and disabled from the age of 15 until my early 30s.
[SPEAKER_00]: I bring up a lot because it's an important part of how I developed into what I am, weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: darkly humored, highly questionable, which is how dark topic has been described by critics.
[SPEAKER_00]: I started in nursing homes with the dying, lending an ear, and a hand to the mouth, wanting a drag of my cigarette.
[SPEAKER_00]: You could smoke and private nursing homes back then.
[SPEAKER_00]: at least we did.
[SPEAKER_00]: I graduated to the streets with the homeless, but dropped it after a couple years of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a father from whom I had already learned much of in the field, or should I say the ditch, who was difficult to manage, and those unhoused gentlemen, I'd help process at the shelter where worse than even him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had until that point romanticized the hobo through literary works like William Kennedy's Iron Weed and Jack Carawax Dharma Bums, but these were not hobos I was dealing with.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was out there trying to shine up street trash and getting spit on for my efforts.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I shifted focus from shelters to societies like that of the John Howard, eventually becoming a child in youth counselor in a variety of group home settings.
[SPEAKER_00]: These group homes that became like a home to me were the type of places not many go into.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were secret places meant to keep a low profile.
[SPEAKER_00]: As some of the residents were under protection after having been mistreated by a family member or guardian and now they were what's called a crown ward of the CIS, the children's AIDS Society.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have been removed from their home due to abuse and placed in the care of homes
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know you've heard this in some way or another from me in the past, but I'm going to lay it all out right here because the story forthcoming sparked it and me to tell it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was made for social work from my nature to my nurture.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to make things better.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to be a good person.
[SPEAKER_00]: In practice, I wanted to be a good person.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to soak up the worst of what the world had so that one day, maybe I could ring myself
[SPEAKER_00]: And I will, though, those two authors aren't who I model myself after any longer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to find my own way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I will write, I hope it's just that I'm not full of enough shit yet, though some might disagree.
[SPEAKER_00]: From the start, my awakening was a rude one.
[SPEAKER_00]: The nursing home clientele was an old man sitting around talking about the weather.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was an old women sitting talking about old men.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of them were inseparable, bitching assholes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And who could blame them?
[SPEAKER_00]: After a long life, they'd ended up there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Filed away for safekeeping, shitting their pants, losing their minds, looking at the window to a view of a parking lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: These old folks weren't in the mood for a kid like me.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were jealous.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a reminder of their lost vitality and youth.
[SPEAKER_00]: In some cases, I was a reminder of their children and grandchildren whom rarely visited them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, like I said, my awakening as a young teenager into the world of social work was a rude one.
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, I was made for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can take a lot of abuse and I know
[SPEAKER_00]: you just hear them out.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't feed it, you bleed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The old folks were easy for the most part.
[SPEAKER_00]: I learned there to listen, but in the group homes I graduate to with the Crown Awards of CIS with those kids and young adults.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was different.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd be physically attacked in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd have my patients worn thin by the shouts, screams, and violent actions of that group in those group homes.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no listening.
[SPEAKER_00]: with the non-verbal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most people couldn't handle half a shift in these places.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, most of the staff had attempt to train for the job would go up and a puff of smoke on their first smoke break.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a mad house in these places.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I'll give you a typical shift.
[SPEAKER_00]: 3pm to 11pm was mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Monday through Friday, then every other week, I got a Monday Friday off, but worked Saturday, Sunday, 9am to 9pm.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd be on call for a week of every month, and when end up doing an overnight shift, sometimes after my three to 11, which isn't legal.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when it comes to kids in need and there's nobody there, they overlook these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I distributed medication, so much of my shift would be collecting a resident to administer the medication.
[SPEAKER_00]: By mouth, syringe, annually, this was a home with eight residents and sometimes only two staff.
[SPEAKER_00]: We get them off the bus, many by wheelchair, change their diapers, then start doing the medication.
[SPEAKER_00]: 8 kids with severe mental and physical disabilities, not to mention the behavioral issues to come with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for the most part, your job is to keep them safe, to keep them contained, really, or occupied.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's all these wish lists, side quests that the children's aid wants you to complete.
[SPEAKER_00]: working on life skills while you was a staff or fighting for your own life just to get a kid's medicated fed clean and eventually into bed without anyone escaping in a door to go flailing into the street or a resident eating all the cotton out of a cushion or one of them using their teeth for ripping a chunk of flesh from a sedated kid and a wheelchair being fed from a bag into a feeding tube.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was chaos.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I did it all day all night for years, making 15 bucks an hour, barely able to breathe between shifts where I'd take an hour long bus ride with a bunch of able assholes on a crowded bus, but I'm not complaining.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just trying to express that when I hear of abuse occurring with an institutions, perpetrated by the staff, I'm not a gast, I don't condone it, obviously.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm simply not surprised.
[SPEAKER_00]: Underpaid, overworked, and hidden away in the halls of hospitals are homes with the hideous.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the world I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: We worked with those that most don't even know are in existence.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it takes a special person.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's another one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody's got to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to take frequent walks with a resident of the home I worked at using a leash connected to them with a harness through a local park, and they were not well behaved.
[SPEAKER_00]: I spent a lot of time picking them up, pulling them away from people, like who's walking who am I right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, oh, they fuck what is that?
[SPEAKER_00]: It was really fucked up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was required to do this with a harness as they were a danger to run into the street, the creek, or even a ride on lawnmower if it passed us.
[SPEAKER_00]: They wore a helmet, with a plexiglass face shield to prevent them from pulling their own eyes out to eat.
[SPEAKER_00]: One was already missing.
[SPEAKER_00]: They would self-induced vomit frequently because the life they live previously had been one without adequate food.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd have to lift the helmet from the face to let the vomit stream out on those walks.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't want them to choke.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cleaned them up when we got home, home to a place where seven other residents had their own issues that I had to attend to that included things beyond what I just shared.
[SPEAKER_00]: Things most people have never imagined.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let alone seem.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when they do get a glimpse, without fail, it's the same four words.
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Dark Top of Comey Host Jack Luna.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a true crime happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: The home schoolers.
[SPEAKER_00]: [♪ music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music
[SPEAKER_00]: the institutions, the infirmaries, they are far from safe havens for their employees, let alone their clients.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I hate to admit that I understand why.
[SPEAKER_00]: Staff are dealing with patients inmates' clients who are a threat to themselves and others.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the patients' inmates' clients are dealing with overworked, underpaid, unhappy hires for the most part.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when a lot of the time, they aren't the best for the job either because of the underpayment of these employees,
[SPEAKER_00]: They are not easy places to be, for anyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like I bravely already said, I don't condone it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The abuse of the mentally disturbed, the disabled, the elderly, it shouldn't happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a bad thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that being said, I totally get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Strong, armed tactics are great for blowing off steam and getting some respect in order and I'm kidding.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do I need Sam Kidding?
[SPEAKER_00]: I probably do.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in this case, in our case, for dark topic here, in a foster home, where conditions should be manageable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Chaos and overcrowding, not as prevalent you'd think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hearts and minds meeting in a place a pursued piece of prosperity, I don't get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Especially to the extent that the guardians here became ghouls, this shit I don't get it at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: except for maybe the idea that some of those who are willing to take in foster children aren't in it for the right reasons.
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps, you know, I'm just guessing here, spit ball and I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not qualified to judge because in this case, I couldn't do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bring a potentially disturbed child into my home to coexist with my children.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I guess with my experience, technically I could do it, I wouldn't do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: How about that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Shamefully, I wouldn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: As bad as I feel for kids and tough situations, as much as I always told myself that one day I would, adopt, foster, I never did.
[SPEAKER_00]: At this point, I struggle with the idea of taking in a dog from the shelter, and I guess my charity burned out somewhere along the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tell myself that I already did my part.
[SPEAKER_00]: As sure I'll speak up if I see something shit going on, I give money to beggars.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm appropriate with women kind to the elderly, good with kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tip well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Always a firm handshake and a solid look in the eye when meeting men in the park, wash her after dark, I'm generous.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here we go again up to my old tricks with that last one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Always screwing around.
[SPEAKER_00]: the gallows humor.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there was talking about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The gallows humor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, you got a laugh to keep from crying.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll wrap it up, put a bow on the strong out intro one that was meant to put you in the holiday spirit, believe it or not.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't save the world, but we should at the very least, you
[SPEAKER_00]: Take care of our own, our own families, our own issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: Around the holidays, many of us are moved to extend our concerns to our community.
[SPEAKER_00]: We might put a jar of peanut butter, a few bags of chips, a couple of cans of corn into the food collection box at the local church.
[SPEAKER_00]: It makes us feel good to do good, to be good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today's story is a bit of family that went much further than good, all the way around to bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were of the ilk that distributes your canned goods to the needy, sing's carols on your doorstep on Christmas Eve, wild-eyed with stretch smiles dressed like scarecrowes with bonnets on their heads, the Williams family were heavily involved in the church, ultra-religious, and therefore thought it necessary to be ultra-charitable.
[SPEAKER_00]: what they overlooked and their pursuit of doing well, which led them to adoption, was how difficult it might be to transition traumatized adolescents straight from the scorching heat of Ethiopia to the relatively cold Pacific Northwest, just 40 miles south of Canada as where they live, freezing there when you're forced to eat your frozen vegetables outside in your school clothes,
[SPEAKER_00]: like many in the field of charity, of helping others out, of being a good person.
[SPEAKER_00]: They say this that many of us say and that is that we meant well.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Williams family meant well on their path to hell.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even Jellicle Christian's carry and Larry Williams of Skagit County in Sadrow, Willy Washington, population 10,000.
[SPEAKER_00]: One in more than just their seven children accrued by 2008.
[SPEAKER_00]: But carry, a housewife, had run at a blessings from the big guy above, and Larry, a mill-right for Boeing, was A.O.K.
[SPEAKER_00]: with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nine malls to feed is probably good enough, Kerry.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you say we just focus on what we got here?
[SPEAKER_00]: Be thankful for the seven, raise them up, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe we can go on a date or something soon?
[SPEAKER_00]: Wait, are we allowed to make love still if the babies aren't coming after?
[SPEAKER_00]: a better check my Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Williams, whom wed when Carrie was 19, looked both to be in their mid to late 30s by 2008, but Larry was apparently much older than Carrie, and hard as I try to couldn't get a clear gauge of age and the stern looking couple.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something about practicing hardcore Christian values that seems to suck the life out of a body.
[SPEAKER_00]: Speaking of life from body, Carrie decided that even though Jesus had turned off her tap, they weren't done raising way too many kids at once yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carrie had been trained as a sign language interpreter and felt that this skill could be put to good use in adopting a deaf child.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carrie had become quite adamant that they should adopt.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her boys, all with first names beginning with Jay, five of them,
[SPEAKER_00]: Her two girls was names that rhyme with Carrie, we're going the same way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all seven were so well-trained and behaved that adding more kids seemed like it would be more a blessing than a burden.
[SPEAKER_00]: Larry worked long shifts at Boeing, making good money.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was gone from noon to midnight each day.
[SPEAKER_00]: carry wanted a challenge.
[SPEAKER_00]: And after attending a woman's retreat with the church, she came home with the answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many women and her church had started to become involved in the trend of the 2000s.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is, within these heavily religious circles, the trend of adopting kids from Ethiopia, or Liberia, Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: adoption could be damn competitive, a form of flexing on your fellowship even.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at me, I've got eight kids, and five of them are black.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what that means?
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you know that Meredith has five African children all from different fathers and mothers?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is Saint?
[SPEAKER_00]: Kerry badly wanted that distinction to be seen as a stern, saintly servant of the latter days.
[SPEAKER_00]: She already had the aura of a movie monster which Kerry was anti-feminist, believing a woman's place was at home, making dinner, babies, and clean bathrooms.
[SPEAKER_00]: She didn't believe women should be allowed to vote, wear swimsuits, and the rules of their rule farmhouse style abode were quite strict, as I'm sure you can imagine from learning that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carey's hope, as mentioned, was to get a deaf child.
[SPEAKER_00]: She wanted to teach her own kid's sign language, and this addition would give them reason to practice.
[SPEAKER_00]: The William's family ended up applying to become a doptie through AA1.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were required to take a home study course and test.
[SPEAKER_00]: Larry and Carrie avoided filling out the section on their beliefs and disciplining children, which should have raised a red flag, but didn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Soon, by mid 2008, they were in the adoption office, watching heart-wrenching video of African children, malnourished and clearly in need.
[SPEAKER_00]: One boy, seven-year-old Emmanuel, caught their eyes as he had limited use of his own.
[SPEAKER_00]: That one.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the one for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Holy shit, I'm mixing up a manual being death with being blind because I want to make shitty jokes throughout my episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then they saw Hannah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah Alimo, 11 years old, a beautiful little girl though, only weighing 77 pounds, had been abandoned by her family just like a manual.
[SPEAKER_00]: After learning that she in a manual were like siblings, Carrie and Larry couldn't pass
[SPEAKER_00]: will take them both.
[SPEAKER_00]: Back in 2008, the process went like this for adoption.
[SPEAKER_00]: At least with AA1, that's adoption associates one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once a family was deemed appropriate and they'd chosen a child or children, the kids were put on a plane and sent over.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first time a manual and Hannah would meet their new family would be when they were dropped off at their rural countryside home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah had read Little House in the Prairie to her new little brother on the trip from Ethiopia to Sadrwoli, Washington.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were taken in with open arms to a spotless home and seemingly perfect parents, sisters, and brothers.
[SPEAKER_00]: The adoption agency was so impressed with the setting that this would be their only visit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Updates would, for the following year, be done through mail.
[SPEAKER_00]: The agency learning that Hannah had gained 50 pounds and that Emmanuel was grasping American
[SPEAKER_00]: by June of 2009, all communication had stopped between the agency and the family of 11.
[SPEAKER_00]: The kids were homeschooled, and lived in the middle of nowhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only time they were seen was at a single doctor's appointment in late 2008, where progress seemed great on the kid's health, considering.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other than that, the family was observed rarely walks together and in church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, they weren't completely together on those walks or in church.
[SPEAKER_00]: People would later comment on the oddity of Hannah seeming to always trail behind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Terry would share with her church friends that Hannah was quite rebellious, but that was the help of a popular book in ultra-abroad religious circles to train up a child by the incredibly creepy and rich Michael Pearl.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were figuring it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pearl and his controversial book had come under much scrutiny around this time for the
[SPEAKER_00]: millions of copies sold, 700,000 in its first publication, over-zealous parents have been killing their children, using his methods.
[SPEAKER_00]: Miss using, he would tell you, though it does say in the book to use a switch made of tubing so that the parent could curl it up and be armed with it at all times.
[SPEAKER_00]: He recommended using it on the feet, so it's not to leave obvious marks that may alarm heathens to intervene in your practices.
[SPEAKER_00]: Michael Pearl, he's big on withholding food.
[SPEAKER_00]: or making food less appealing as punishment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lock them in closets, make them sleep on the floor, force your kids to do jumping jacks in the cold when they miss behave.
[SPEAKER_00]: Beat the devil out of them basically.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's a quote from Michael Pearl, a man who looks like he follows the Old Testament, and though he resembles a lumberjack version of Santa, I doubt he dresses as such more fear than sheer with these assholes,
[SPEAKER_00]: I laugh at my caustic critics for our properly spanked and trained children grow to maturity in great peace and love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carry Williams clearly missed the properly part, and the whole lot of these folks missed the signs of the devil, a false prophet, incredible that evil seems to live so close to those dedicated to repenting it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Personally, I think that the constant talk of evil draws it nearer to what, speaks it into existence.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I'm right, you might want to turn this next piece of the episode down.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to hear the 911 call that ends this episode here.
[SPEAKER_00]: This occurred May 12, 2011, just past midnight.
[SPEAKER_01]: On this call, you will hear the voice of Carrie Williams.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's really her dollyus and she's been outside receiving the command and she's been thrown herself all around and then she collapsed
[SPEAKER_00]: In the months, leading to this call from Carrie Williams, a better adopted daughter Hannah being really rebellious, throwing herself to the ground and trying to kill herself.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot had been going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: From the start, Hannah had been caught trying to steal food.
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably because she came from a place with only flies and puddle water on the menu.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had started her period, which freaked out, Carrie.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah was positive for Hepatitis B, something they found out at the doctors.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carrie complained to her church friends that they really got screwed by the adoption agency by being pushed to take the little girl in a package deal with a manual.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carrie was remembered as stating in a knitting circle that, quote, I wanted to adopt a little girl.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not a half-grown woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blood from Hannah's men's seas was allegedly found by Carrie on the walls and door of the bathroom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carrie took this as a behavioral issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: She told her husband and children to stay away from Hannah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carrie became convinced that the little girl was trying to infect them all with her bloodborne illness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carrie had quickly found the presence of her newly adopted children to be a nuisance.
[SPEAKER_00]: As a manual in Hannah, we're having great difficulty living up to the impossible standards
[SPEAKER_00]: There are many stories of families adopting from foreign countries, children who have been traumatized in unthinkable ways, and sent the kids back, so to speak.
[SPEAKER_00]: As they weren't the malleable, humble, appreciative little things that expected to adopt,
[SPEAKER_00]: and, you know, have hanging around their necks, like possessions, like show pieces.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carrie was having a really bad experience here, or so she claimed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when asked by her fellow parishioners, why she didn't return the children, if they were too much to handle, Carrie responded with, quote, oh no, I couldn't do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't wish these kids on anyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll handle it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I couldn't do it, that's the sentiment from the church gals, and Kerry no doubt felt special, holier than now, for seeming to be able to handle it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here is how, in fact, Kerry handled it, and how we came to hear that 911 call.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kerry Williams followed the rules from her parenting guide on corporal punishment of children, Hannah from the start was disobedient, which in a strict
[SPEAKER_00]: She was 11 when she arrived, 13 when she died.
[SPEAKER_00]: Emmanuel was seven on arrival and was easier to control.
[SPEAKER_00]: Emmanuel would suffer some of the forthcoming descriptions of abuse, but not all.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would later communicate through sign language and court proceedings that he didn't understand what was going on, that he was scared, and that he was beaten, and that Hannah had probably gone to hell, but he wasn't sure where she was.
[SPEAKER_00]: They both were starved, but being from Ethiopia, that maybe didn't register with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: What did was the way they were fed as punishment for not meeting the family standards?
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of Hannah's meals were served outside on the porch.
[SPEAKER_00]: She never really gained favor with Carrie, whereas a manual made it to a proper bed most nights, sand to the dinner table, the result of finishing chores and doing school work to Carrie's standards.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah just never complied once the behavior modifications began.
[SPEAKER_00]: She would be beaten, starved, and humiliated for two, three years here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the time, Hannah was kept in a four by two closet, in the dark.
[SPEAKER_00]: On many occasions, this was her punishment with Christian music playing from a ghetto blaster pushed to the door, carry and Larry turning down the music and messaging to read scripture to the girl in occasion, crammed in there, defiant, refusing to be good for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: She hated it here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah wouldn't give them the satisfaction of yielding to their demands.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they were satisfied.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe in their sadistic treatment of Hannah.
[SPEAKER_00]: The kids got in on it too, watching and finding amusement in the girls' insolence, helping to hold her down for wippings after a while, Hannah didn't even cry.
[SPEAKER_00]: She just quietly took her punishments, then was sent to sit in the closet or the property outhouse.
[SPEAKER_00]: When she did eat, it was as prescribed by the book to train up a child.
[SPEAKER_00]: She would get leftovers, and even those were made to be less appetizing by being wrapped in bread and dipped in water first.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah eventually got back down to her Ethiopia weight, even though she was forced to eat her vegetables, froze in vegetables.
[SPEAKER_00]: And let me be clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: They would give her frozen vegetables, straight from the bag.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pour a handful of frostbitten carrots, broccoli, and corn on top of her soggy leftover sandwich, then slam the screen door and head back to the warmth of the family dinner table.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah had food, you see.
[SPEAKER_00]: But she just refused to eat it, and I don't blame her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Punishment's included walking the line.
[SPEAKER_00]: That would be laps of the pickleball court and the desolate property that was nothing like the girl had imagined from her little house on the prairie readings.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah would be showered, outside with the garden hose, no matter the weather.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah was quite proud of her hair when she arrived.
[SPEAKER_00]: This, she lost after having cut the grass too short.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her head was bald when she died.
[SPEAKER_00]: A manual had bed-wedding issues and was forced to sleep in the dark shower room if he had an accident.
[SPEAKER_00]: This after being hosed down with cold water.
[SPEAKER_00]: Larry would get particularly frustrated with the deaf child's inability to react to Larry's demands, once hammer-fisting the boy to the top of the head, causing a gash and blood to run down the 10-year-old's face.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carrie would take her plastic tubing switch from where she kept it handy, her bra, and run the switch across a manual's face as warning to pay attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: The deaf boy had his head in a swivel as he desperately tried to avoid missing anyone's attempt to grab his attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah, as I mentioned most often, slept in the closet, but was kept in the outhouse while menstruating.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other kids got punished as well, but not as severely as a manual, and not as horribly as Hannah, who is slowly dehumanized until she was so weathered and withdrawn that her routines eventually involve pure punishment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah was helpless to improve you see, and meet Carrie and Larry standards as she never had time to recover from the start.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her legs and feet would have indents in them from the whipping's by her end.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I could wallow here for a while, but I think I've painted you the picture, so now that's put it all into motion.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a cold drizzly afternoon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wednesday, May 11, 2011, where Hannah finally broke.
[SPEAKER_00]: 13 years old, five feet tall, 77 pounds soaking wet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Literally, she had been sent out into the rain this day as punishment for being unable to do her
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah was wearing only a t-shirt in shorts.
[SPEAKER_00]: The temperature was just below 40 degrees Fahrenheit, five degrees Celsius.
[SPEAKER_00]: The little girl after an hour or so begins complaining that she's cold.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carrie, annoyed, takes a page from to train up a child and demands the girl to jumping jacks to stay warm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another hour passes, and the kids are giggling at the window from inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carrie looks out to see what the source of amusement is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah is flailing around and falling to the ground out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mother Carrie tells her kids to get back to their schoolwork, then exits the home, and grabs Hannah, who's dripping wet by the arm, and starts dragging her to the shelter of the outhouse.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah continues to act strangely and falls over.
[SPEAKER_00]: So eventually, Carrie drops her to the ground and tells the girl to have it her way.
[SPEAKER_00]: She leaves Hannah lying in a puddle of the lawn.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lying after all is what Carrie believes Hannah is doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another hour passes, and Carrie puts some dry clothes on the back porch, then yells out for Hannah to come get them.
[SPEAKER_00]: When she doesn't appear, Carrie sends her eldest boys to beat her with plastic tubing switches on her bottom until she gets up.
[SPEAKER_00]: They do as asked, but Hannah doesn't respond.
[SPEAKER_00]: She eventually begins to mule and sputter before stripping her clothes off and screaming at the young men.
[SPEAKER_00]: They run away with hands over their eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of Mother's highest sins would be the revealing of a female body.
[SPEAKER_00]: When they tell their mother of the behavior she runs out to cover Hannah with a sheet, not for the girl's comfort, but to protect the eyes of her children staring from the window.
[SPEAKER_00]: After dinner, the children are at the window giggling again.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a great source of amusement.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah is now naked and roaming around the yard.
[SPEAKER_00]: She begins throwing herself to the ground, and the kids are told not to look, as it will only egg her on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Harry doesn't bother to check outside until closer to midnight.
[SPEAKER_00]: When she does, she turns on the light from the porch, and she sees the ultimate horror of this all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah is out there slamming herself into the grass, and then into the driveway, she stands smashing her face into muddy gravel-filled puddles.
[SPEAKER_00]: The girl is covered in wounds in blood, she is destroying herself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Carrie shouts out that the devil is inside that one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come look.
[SPEAKER_00]: The whole family watch is fascinated from the window as Hannah tries to dig herself into the muck out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her bloody face looking up at them hideously from time to time in the light off the porch, as if to say, farewell, I'm going to hell, where you say I'm from, I'm going home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody thinks to stop her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah is scaring them.
[SPEAKER_00]: This, of course, is not a demon child attempting to find her master of the underground.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a tortured little girl who's been out in the cold all day, soaking wet and naked, toothed into trapping a heat, and now is suffering from hypothermia with paradoxical undressing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah has the sense she's burning up, and is attempting to burrow as a way to escape her misery.
[SPEAKER_00]: The William's family are waiting for dad to come home and handle this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah has never gone this far with her poor behavior, and there are no losses to what they should do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carrie actually calls Larry to get his advice, and he suggests they wait for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then Hannah stops moving.
[SPEAKER_00]: What should I do now?
[SPEAKER_00]: Husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, maybe you should go check if she's all right.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the boys get to Hannah, she is nearly dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: carry orders them to wrap the girl in a sheet and bring her inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is when Larry suggests on the phone that his wife called 911, which is a big annoyance for carry.
[SPEAKER_00]: She refuses to perform CPR as Hannah has hepatitis, which to her is gross.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also gross, Hannah has mud in her mouth, so no way, I'm not guessing that, besides the girl is clearly underweighted death.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah, as Carrie put it to the 911 call operator, she had a look about her as if she was in a dark room.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the 911 call as we heard some of, Carrie tries her best to pin this all on Hannah.
[SPEAKER_00]: She has a tone of the girl being a nuisance, and claims Hannah was just being really rebellious, throwing herself around, and until she's near killed herself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Needless to say, the authorities didn't buy it.
[SPEAKER_00]: How could they?
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at what was being sold.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah, at the hospital, by 130 AM, is pronounced.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dad.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carrie and Larry claim their daughter was possessed by the devil.
[SPEAKER_00]: What else could explain the way she'd torn herself to shreds until death released her?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Mr. and Mrs. Williams, it's called paradoxical undressing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's also called, first-degree assault of a child and homicide by abuse.
[SPEAKER_00]: That charge, homicide by abuse, can only stick if the child is younger than 16.
[SPEAKER_00]: In court, Carrie and Larry swore that Hannah was at least 16.
[SPEAKER_00]: They believed they'd been lied to about the girl's age.
[SPEAKER_00]: This led to Hannah's body having to be exhumed.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was eventually determined that the girl had in fact been 13 years old at the time of her grizzly death.
[SPEAKER_00]: One more act to disrespect, to be checked for something that was already known.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carrie Williams, who's age at the time of sentencing, I finally pinned down as 42 years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carrie, she received a sentence of 36 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Larry in his 50s was handed 27 years for his part.
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd been at work that fateful day, but for his abuse of poor Emmanuel and support of Carrie's home school teachings.
[SPEAKER_00]: He got the book thrown at him as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Speaking of books, it was found that Larry Williams, who, along with his wife, was forbidden to speak of the trial to their kids, was sending the kids cryptic messages through the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Highlighted sections about being delivered from the mouth of the lion, basically telling the kids that they needed to back up their parents' lies to help them get out of this mess.
[SPEAKER_00]: The two parents who seem so defiant and united in the beginnings of trial beg for leniency in the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turning on one another, pinning blame, showing their true colors, a cold, grayness, like scum.
[SPEAKER_00]: their children were handed to family while a manual found a nice home with a hearing impaired woman with African roots I read just like the boy I read that a manual suffered from nightmares and some survivors guilt but he ended up safe he was overzealous with cleaning he was wondering why he wasn't beaten when he first got there
[SPEAKER_00]: And there was quite sad the story surrounding Emmanuel, hopefully he's okay today.
[SPEAKER_00]: The William's home did a real number on him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's saying a lot for a deaf kid from Ethiopia who had been abandoned by his parents that he could be so traumatized over here in the States.
[SPEAKER_00]: In a home like that of the William's
[SPEAKER_00]: Speaking of that home, when investigators first began looking into Hanna's strange and awful demise, they were struck by how clean that home was.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not impressed, but rather disturbed they were a buy-it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The home, after all, was cleaned constantly by nine motivated kids and young adults.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, eight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kerry would tell you eight.
[SPEAKER_00]: because Hannah doesn't count.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hannah, Alimo, was remembered with a headstone and an obituary.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both were handled by the Williams extended family.
[SPEAKER_00]: The obituary spoke of how Hannah loved to knit and read and write and especially due crafts.
[SPEAKER_00]: The headstone is even more infuriating.
[SPEAKER_00]: The family lists Hannah as Hannah, Grace Rose Williams, born 1995, which would have made her 16 years old at death.
[SPEAKER_00]: They perpetuated the lie told by Larry and Carrie.
[SPEAKER_00]: But should we be surprised?
[SPEAKER_00]: Extreme beliefs make for strange groupings that put ideology above all else.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in times like these, those in those strange groupings will take care of their own.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who in this case, were known as the home schoolers.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have been listening to dark topic plus, an exclusive piece of content.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got doors lock, stay paranoid.
[SPEAKER_00]: Talking to you soon.