shimmer and spice

Although I always like my blog to be happy.....

I think it's time to tell the story of what my family has been dealing with while trying to go on with our lives.

Years ago in high school, my brother dated this girl for a year or two. She was always really attached to our family right from the start and even after they broke up and moved on she would write us letters, call, and stop in from time to time. She moved back from college and told my mom she was really upset. Her parents had divorced and she was not getting along with her father at all. Her finances were a wreck and she was just generally unhappy. My mom then offered that if her father was OK with it and she thought it would help their relationship, she could come live with us for a while and my dad would help her try to get her finances back on track. She ended up living in my room (I was living in NYC) but was never there, she was always at her boyfriends and not doing what she came to them for. My parents explained to her that this wasn't helping her at all and told her she should move back with her father.

A couple months later I get a call that all of my parents good jewelry had been stolen, including my moms original wedding ring that she had saved to give me one day (which I found out about because it had been taken). The cops thought it was Krista, I fought against the fact thinking she could never do that to our family. After the cops kept going to her boyfriend Mike's house where she was staying to question her, sure enough a couple months later my mom called me and told me Krista had gone to the police and confessed everything...including the fact that she had been stealing because she was addicted to Oxycontin and is pregnant. She had stolen from her father, her neighbor, a random house, and over $30,000 in jewelry as well as $600 from my little brother's safe in my parent's house.

No one was posting bail to get her out of jail so sure enough my mom bailed her out and got her in a halfway house so that she could detox and have the baby healthy. No one in her or Mikes family seemed to care about her or the baby so my mom drove her to and from doctors appointments and would even take her for burger king as a treat every time. She seemed to be doing really well in there and then a couple months later we got the call that she had been kicked out. She took one shot of liquor apparently because of peer pressure and they kicked her out. She had no where to go, no one would take her in and she had the baby. On top of everything, she had her sentencing coming up and although being in a halfway house was good for her case, getting kicked out of one obviously made it worse.

My parents decided they couldn't live with the baby and her going to a hotel so they decided to let them come live with us. She had been living with us and doing really well and her sentencing was right around the corner. My father and I wrote letters to the judge pleading to give Krista probation so she could be with her baby, Michael, and live with us. We were willing to give her a place if they decided for house arrest as well which meant changing our entire lifestyle. I was in tears in the court room, my parents were talking to the judge and my grandparents were in the front with me holding my hand. At this point I cared for Krista as a sister. I sort of wanted to punch her in the face for being so dumb so I was more emotional than I thought I would be. The judge was obviously confused about where her family was and why the people she had stolen from and violated were there to support her. After my father and mother pleaded with the judge we sat there in silence while he read all of the letters, each of which were two pages long. No one from her family was there. Her dad was really sick and her youngest sister lived in Florida. Her older sister did not want anything to do with her at that point and her mother...well she should have been there. The fact that her older sister wanted nothing to do with her I looked down upon then but now I wonder if she was just the only one who could see straight. The judge basically looked at her and said he did not believe that she was going to be better, that we were crazy but amazing people and that if she ended up in his court room again after all she was being given by us, he would make sure she goes away for a very, very long time. He gave her probation.

We went through a lot with her in the months that went by but things seemed good. Her dad was extremely sick and passed away in October but we talked about it a lot and she seemed strong about it. Then came December 2009. My brother, whose room was conjoined by a bathroom with hers (she was in my others brothers old room) was feeling strange, like things were not right and didn't add up. He felt she was manipulating and asking for things too much. For his piece of mind he decided to put $25 dollar bills in his safe and leave the key out. A couple days later he went back and there was $23. Then he checked again and there was $20. He decided to take things further. He set up his computer in his room so that it was motion sensor and would turn on and start recording if someone walked in. While we were at work, sure enough she and mike were in his room. She walked right over, picked up his key opened the safe and took what she needed.

Steve showed us the evidence and I confronted Krista. She lied at first but of course after I said I had her on camera, she confessed she had taken a couple dollars here and then but had planned on paying it right back. It was ridiculous that she thought it would be OK to pick up a key and open a safe and "borrow" even a dollar from the people she had snuck into their house and had done this too before, but she had a good argument. Her argument was that Steve had made her feel so comfortable in the time she lived there, saying if she ever needed anything just let him know. Well I guess its a stupid argument but we wanted to believe her. Don't get me wrong, I screamed at her till she was hysterical and my dad came home and basically screamed at her worse then he had ever yelled at me (and that's saying a lot). He kicked her out and then I started crying because I would miss her and especially Michael. He said, "My wife gave you her heart" along with some much more extreme harsh words. Eventually after things had calmed down, he decided to let her stay, mostly because of Michael and because he thought everyone else gave up on her. Of course at this time we all distanced ourselves from her a bit. I wasn't sure I could trust anything she said although she would plead to me that I could. We just didn't know how to feel.

On Friday morning, January 22 2010, my mom comes into my room while I'm laying in bed and says she has a bad feeling again. She had been noticing money here at there that seemed to be missing but she could never remember if she had misplaced it or what. She did the same tactic my brother did and put a 5 dollar bill into her desk drawer in the kitchen. The next day it was 3 dollar bills. My mom thought she wouldn't be silly enough to break a five and think no one would notice so she thought maybe one of us had needed a couple extra bucks and took it and threw in a couple singles. My dad had just bought a new ring and Friday morning she looked in the box and it was missing. She said she was "going to call dad first and see if he was wearing it but if not she would confront Krista." Sure enough he was not wearing it. He called and I had picked up the phone at the same time so I listened to his convo with her. It went something like this...

Dad: "Krista, did you take my ring?"

Krista: "No" (no emotion)

Dad: "Well I don't believe you so pack your bags, I want you out"

Krista: "OK" (again with no emotion)

She told my mom she had snuck Mike in one day while we were at work and that she thought he took it. He wasn't allowed in our house anymore after we caught them on camera together in my brothers room. I said to her "you have no emotion, if I thought my boyfriend had done something like that to the people who were housing me and caring for my child I would be screaming at him to get it back". She replied, "The reason I'm not calling him is because he's at work". Her parole officer had stopped by right at this time but because a lot was going on and she had to pack...she said she was going to go tell her she didn't feel well. She did and while she was doing that my mom snuck in her room to see if she could find anything that was stolen. She found a joint and brought it into my room saying "is this weed, it doesn't smell like weed" I said "ya, its just bad weed." When she went back into the room Mike was standing there. My mom asked him how he got into her house and he answered "I'm here to talk to Krista." My mom repeated the question and got the same response. After that she screamed the question and his answer was "she let me in the front door." In the mean time the parole officer had left and Krista came upstairs. I went into the room and she said she had been sneaking Mike in at night while we were asleep and they had been waiting for us to leave for work. He had been kicked out of his own home. "We know one of you has been stealing, wouldn't you like to get it off your conscience and admit it after all we've done for you" I said. Mike just sat there with his head down and Krista motioned at him as if to be telling me "he did it." I then stated "its people like you that make people in this world afraid to put their hearts out there and help anyone."

My mom asked Mike "do you really think you should still be in my house?" and he left. My dad was on his way home from work and told Krista to have Mike call him or he would call the cops. Mike called my dad and told him with no sound of regret that he had taken the ring, along with some other things including sentimental jewelry from me. My dad got home and decided he would call the cops. At this point Krista said it was all him and we were concerned about Mikey (the baby) and left Krista out of it. The cops came, they were already familiar with the case from the previous crime when she had stolen before. After the cops took Krista upstairs to question her the one cop came downstairs and told us everything was entirely different than we had thought. Krista came down crying to my mom "I'm still addicted, I've been taking oxy's again since my dad died and Mike had been giving them to me". My mom immediately started crying and I hugged onto Michael so tight, scared they would take him right then and put him in a foster home. They arrested Krista.

We told child services we wanted to foster him, we would even adopt him if they would let us. I love him as much as I can imagine loving my own kids and its just not fair. I had him from Friday till Monday. Krista would always be complaining how cranky he was and how she was so exhausted, and I always told her she had the perfect baby. He literally did not cry the entire time I had him! In those couple days I taught him how to wave bye, how to crawl (he would crawl once and then fall) got him on a perfect schedule, had him sleeping in his crib (which she had not) and start eating big people food (veggie burgers). The child services looked at our house and talked to us and said we could foster him if Mikes family doesn't pass. Monday they were going to look at the house and do background checks. I thought they would never OK it because Mike (Krista's boyfriend) doesn't even have a bed for himself. Six people live in this tiny apartment in the Muse. At least three that I know of had been drug addicts. The reason Krista got started was Mike's mom!! Michael doesn't even have a crib there, he sleeps in a portable crib. Moday they call us and say the house looks OK!!! That was shock enough but then they say his moms background check was negative but his sister and grandma were OK and that they would be coming to take him. An hour later, MIKE, his grandma, and his mother came and took Michael from me.

I don't understand the system.....

Is it if more people pass then don't pass background check??

Is it that the house just cant have rats infesting it??

Let me just point out that in all this time we had been paying for diapers, baby food, let her use his car if she needed it for the shopping or to take the baby to the doctors, let mike come over and hang out and play pool in our basement, watch movies, we even had a big family dinner where my dad invited all his kids and their significant others including Krista and Mike. My dad even gave my mom and I $100 to take her shopping and make her feel better about herself. My dad does not easily trust people. I always told him he needs to give people more of a chance and he would always tell me people will screw you but with Krista his heart was a little softer. I had put my heart into her and her child. I would ask her to write in a journal, buy her self help books, make her do activity's to better herself, take her out to lunch, sit and talk with her, cried with her when he dad was sick. Mike's family wouldn't even take the baby every other weekend saying to Krista "your living in the lap of luxury over there and I have 6 people living in a tiny space, I have no room for him." Krista would give them wipes and diapers and food and bottles and formula (that we bought) every time they would take him for a day or two and now they can all the sudden support him?????

The reason I have decided to put my personal life (and others) out there is because I am hoping that maybe this will get passed along and the right person might see it.

Michael needs a chance.

prayers would help

xoxo

Kristyn April