The Judges

In Cobb County, initially the divorce judge was George Kreeger.  He had been on the bench for many years. I had never seen the man, and never appeared before him.  Three days after I was ordered out of the house October, 1998, I was called back to Cobb County to appear.  This is when my younger son came to me in the hallway saying, "Mom! I don't want to do this."  I had told him not to worry, and to tell the truth in court.  We never were called in before the judge.  My three grown children were all dressed and had been living in the home with their father.  I assumed they were called to testify in court against me and wasn't worried.  My younger son, I realized later, was trying to tell me more when he cornered me in the hallway.  He was very afraid someone would hear him and kept saying, "I don't want to do this!"  Two months later I was told he was dead.

It was October 1998 when the Cobb County, Georgia court order was issued that I was not to come near my children or home, and ordered out of my home.  The police implemented the order and knocked at the door, followed me around my home telling me to pack my bags.  They even asked if I had a gun.

It was two months later that my son disappeared, and Cobb County police directed the investigation.  I was interviewed only after another police jurisdiction  (Coweta County) was made aware that the missing person had a mother more than a week after the missing persons report was filed.  My husband, powerful as an A.V.P. in charge of Communications and Signals, with Norfolk Southern Railroad dealt directly with the Cobb County police and gave them the name of the two key witnesses, and of the woman at Bell South who could trace his son's call, and of the bank officer who could monitor our son's bank account for activity. I had never heard the names of the two "best friends" my husband gave to police.  My husband had known little of our children's acquaintances, activities or their friends until this incident.

The siblings who were also living in the home were never interviewed by Cobb County police.  Yet later my eldest son, who had been adopted as a toddler by my husband, was called to testify against me in a harassing phone call case in Cobb County, Georgia state court. When the solicitor explained how jury trials operate there, I thought I must be hearing something wrong. I raised my hand and asked if she would please repeat jury trial process. She did, and later put her words in writing.

The jury system is set up so that a person's trial will fall within a two week period of time on a day that is unknown until one hour before court time.  So if a person lives 3 hours away, it's impossible for that person to be in court for the trial. If that person's witnesses live out of town, then it is a near  impossible situation for everybody.  It appeared to me that the Georgia justice system was designed to force a person to plead guilty and pay the fine else, go before a judge and take chances that the judge would be "fair."  The jury trial was so unappealing because of it's design, most people might go ahead and take their chances with the other two options.

I decided quickly to request a jury trial, knowing it would be impossible for me to be there on time, because the house I was renting was two hours south of Cobb County.  My witnesses were out of state. There was no way any of us could be present at the jury trial.  How could they do this?   When I was called to the front, I explained to the solicitor I wanted a jury trial and since I lived 2 hours south, and my witnesses were out of state, we would have to camp on the courthouse grounds with cell phones intact for the two week period to insure we could be at court on time and avoid any contempt charges.  Later I discovered that Georgia jury trials only have six jurors. High school government class taught us this isn't Constitutional.  Neither is it Constitutional for them to schedule ("FAIR") trials or hearings that are impossible to attend.  They did it later with my divorce trial, abruptly notifying me that I had to be in Atlanta in less than 8 hours knowing I was more than 400 miles away.

Karen Sams, of the Cobb County Solicitor's office, explained the process in writing to my eldest son who was called to witness against his mother.  It was odd that the Cobb County police who had implemented the temporary order against me in October, handled the disappearance and reported death in December, and handled subpoenas, had not interviewed him when his brother had disappeared a few months earlier.  Odder still, the police who had ordered me to the streets in a nasty divorce were now investigating a disappearance and apparently were reluctant to contact me to see if I knew anything.

After enduring false arrests, involuntary court-ordered hospital incarceration, stalking, and accusations in so many Georgia counties, and having Peach County, Georgia Magistrate Judge Laurens Lee tell me to sign my divorce papers to make my troubles go away, I realized it wouldn't be any time soon that they would settle the divorce because I wasn't going to sign anything.  I never allowed my children to be bullies and I couldn't allow bullying in my own life.  While receiving handcuffs, mug shots, fingerprints, I asked Judge Laurens Lee what he thought.  If I didn't sign the papers did he think they would kill my other children?  He had no answer.

This was a system to challenge. It was so blatantly corrupt from top to bottom I often thought I must be dreaming. Was this "Candid Camera? Reality TV?" I had nothing to lose. I'd been discredited, distanced from my remaining children I'd felt I'd lost my children's love and respect.  My family was turned against me with lies as my husband and landlord had been calling them in Virginia telling them bizarre, dishonest stories.  The only thing I had left to live for was to someday, somehow expose this travesty they had called  "justice."

I left the state of Georgia with its police harassment and false arrests knowing nothing good was going to happen there. It was frightening. If I stayed surely I would be incarcerated in a state hospital forever, or imprisoned–– and falsely accused of a heinous crime.  The organ donor incident was the "last straw." They had made me an organ donor on my driver's license. It's one of those things I personally never believed in so had never participated in.  I kindly returned to the DMV and asked them to remove the organ donor status.  They charged me $25.00.  It wasn't right so I wrote to the governor.  The governor directed the correspondence elsewhere and they investigated and confirmed an "error."  They returned the $25 in the form of a check saying I was "overcharged."

What happens with the bodies of organ donors?  Do they disappear?  I didn't want to be yet another statistic of someone who reportedly died in a single car accident and disappear to be smuggled out of the country, etc.  Amy Frink's death was suspicious in eastern N.C.   That death was a part of our lives because Amy and my eldest son were childhood sweethearts.  Anna Kennedy's death was the next year.  I've often wondered if my son told Anna about Amy which got Anna killed. Anna was enroute to Ocean Isle when she was said to have died in a head-on collision.  My son cherished Anna's friendship soon after Amy died.   They had both attended Charlotte Latin School in Charlotte, NC.  Did one death trigger the next? And now my son is gone, too?  Amy had, like my son, reportedly died in an adjacent state. Anna and Judge Grubb's daughter both died in counties in their home states.  Death surely surrounded my family and the deaths are of children on the eve of  adulthood.

Five months before my younger son's disappearance, my (stand-in) divorce Judge, Adele Grubb's daughter had died in a single car accident in a county where recently the same coroner active then has been investigated for taking money at a death scene. It's odd that most recently in "The Daily Report," Judge Grubbs reported her daughter was hit and killed by a drunken driver.  1998 accounts in the Marietta Daily Journal report  the death as an innocent but tragic accident–– an SUV incident with a tire blowout,  with one passenger where the vehicle flipped and slid into a telephone pole.

Two years after the initial 1998 court order, in the year 2000, after the divorce was final I was harassed and run out of the state of Georgia a second time when my show dogs were confiscated from my camper by Paulding County authorities.  I had purchased the camper to temporarily reside.  I hadn't been in Georgia but a couple days.  Later I received a nasty letter from the law office of Glenn Richardson (former House Speaker/ Paulding County attorney) accusing me of abuse of animals.  (**see documents below)

September, 1999 there was finally a divorce trial that I had requested.  I had asked for a jury trial but didn't receive it.  I was living at the time in a remote place in Kentucky and received word from my divorce attorney, Kenneth Schatten, around 10:00 a.m. to be in downtown Atlanta, Georgia by 5:00 p.m. that afternoon. My trial would be the next morning.   It was a near impossible situation.  A normal drive from Lexington, Ky to Atlanta is more than 6 hours, and I hadn't had ample time to prepare.  I had to drive beyond the speed limits to meet their requirements.

Schatten had picked up my case after George Childs of Marietta, Ga., dropped it.  George was my attorney throughout my son's disappearance/death situation and had even lied to Coweta County police saying that I had said my son was suicidal.  George wasn't on my side.  I found out so much after-the-fact, in getting documents and in looking back and putting it all together.   In fact I had phoned George Childs early 2000's and asked for copies of all my records. Unfortunately his hard drive had died and he couldn't provide them.

(How often does an attorney's office have a computer system without a backup program?)

Childs even accused me of harassing phone calls. George was (seemingly conveniently) on vacation while I was sent involuntarily to  Central State Hospital so I couldn't have harassed him then.   How often do attorneys turn against their clients in Georgia? I remember saying to him, "Be ready to answer questions about this case in court."  It will never go to court.  According to two other lawyers, without lots of money you can't win because in my case the other side had "so much money."  So they can take your child, put you through agony, false arrests, false accusations, and wreck your life and without money there is no way to fight back.

I have known people completely broken by the system in Georgia–– people who were forced to pay and pay child support but who had been jailed and falsely accused and given "criminal" records no potential employer would look twice at. With the numerous stories I'd always think, "How do you get blood from a turnip?"  How can you make a person a criminal, then remove his ability to obtain gainful employment and make payment demands that are impossible?  It doesn't even make sense. 

I wasn't at all surprised George said his hard drive died. He had obviously wanted "out" when he dropped my case, and to be honest knowing all I know now, should I blame him?

George Child's replacement, Kenneth Schatten, took a vacation the following Christmas and even said he, Mike Broadbear (the opposing attorney) and Judge Adele Grubbs were all together at the annual Cobb County Christmas party laughing and joking about me and my case.  I was living hand to mouth in the streets trying to survive, and they thought it was funny?

Later, around 2004 a Kentucky attorney provided by Legal Aid Society (Marvin O'Koon) said, "There's not a lawyer in Georgia that will take your case."  I already knew any case I would have anywhere would be lost and to hire any attorney in any case would be like tossing money into a fire.  I had joined Legal Aid because I thought I might be able to trust a corporation answerable to Boards of Directors better than I could trust any attorney one-on-one.

When Schatten made the comment about laughing about me at the Cobb County Christmas Party, I decided I would have to do something to make things happen.  I went to the federal court house in Kentucky where I then lived, and filed a complaint for false arrest, incarceration and Civil Rights violations that had occurred in Georgia.  I wanted to create the record well aware that I would never win any case in the USA again.

Besides pressuring the Georgia players to stop their gaming,  I wanted to leave a paper trail for my children and anybody interested in case I didn't survive in the streets.  The woman at the federal court house helped me fill out the papers but when the information went public the potential witness I had listed showed up as defendants.  The Federal Judge Karl Forrester ruled frivolous and delusional, tossing it out, and it's exactly what I expected.  The record was there, permanent, and it seemed as though it at least had pressured Judge Adele Grubbs to FINALLY sign my divorce papers four months after she'd held my trial.  I sensed these people were networking from Georgia to Kentucky because of many adverse experiences and figured the federal law suit would be the grapevine-legal-network & thug news that would make them stop their games.

I was being watched and stalked. They knew where I was because the cops in Kentucky would not leave me alone. It was absolutely incredible because it crossed state lines.

I had been given less than 24 hours notice of my divorce trial.  A superior court judge did not seat this trial but a Juvenile Court Judge sat on the bench, and her name was Adele Grubbs.  Before the trial my attorney, Kenneth Schatten, said "Judge Grubbs is going to be good for you. I know her and her daughter committed suicide just like your son."  That thought never left my mind and I actually called Judge Grubbs to confirm the story, which she explained was untrue.

She was running for Superior Court Judge during and after this period. I don't know why she sat on my trial other than it was arranged, and obviously had been arranged so that I quite possibly couldn't even be there because of the time element.

When Schatten had called me that morning I was camping in a tent with my show dogs. I didn't have the money for motels and dog boarding. I told him there was no way I could be there on time that afternoon.  I had the animals and there was nobody but me to take care of them.

He said, "If you're not in court you forfeit everything."

I remember saying, "Then let him have it!"

Then I thought to myself the past 23 years I had lived with that difficult man and decided to get in the car and drive.  This would be a game he wouldn't win so easily.

I was there in Schatten's office around 5:30 p.m.  "I thought you weren't coming," he said.

"I changed my mind."

In one statement in the court room Judge Grubbs looked at my husband saying something to the effect, "I'm sure it was difficult for you to live with her."  It's then I knew there was some underlying gossip regarding my case.  I almost couldn't believe it, but after all I'd been through realized  it was "real."

News accounts indicate Judge Grubb's daughter died in a single-person, one car accident when her SUV flipped and slid into a telephone pole in Polk County, Georgia.  This happened around 5 months  before my son disappeared, and the Cobb County Bar Association sponsors a scholarship for her, like they also sponsor a memory of former Magistrate Judge Ross Adams.  It is strange how they've chosen these two people to memorialize. Why them?  Are there any others?

There was something so curious about all of the teen and young deaths that had touched my family. The first was Amy Frink of North Carolina, whose death they misreported in the newspapers as having occurred 1994 instead of 1992. She had been my eldest son's girlfriend.  In 1998 just before my son disappeared I had given N.C. authorities information that might help solve her yet unsolved murder. Shortly after Amy's death, he became friends with Anna Kennedy of Charlotte Latin School, whose death occurred within a year of Amy's.   It seemed every girl he cared for was having tragic deaths and he was crushed by it.  Then in 1998, Judge Grubb's daughter died in a one-car accident in Polk County, Georgia.  Polk County I believe is the home of the late Miss Grubb's father, John Milton Grubbs.  Recently Polk's coroner has been cited for taking money at a death scene.  It seems incredible, but it should be noted that these things happen.  Five months after Miss Grubb's death, then my son disappeared from Cobb County, Georgia and was ruled dead in Alabama after having been missing nearly 2 weeks.

The late Magistrate Judge Ross Adams widow was very involved in another shady Cobb County divorce case, having become romantically involved with a Cobb attorney and joining him in what appear to be his attempts in destroying his former wife and mother of his children.

Judge Adele Grubbs campaign manager was Hylton Dupree, a powerful attorney in Cobb County. He had been active in the Tokars case as Tokar's lawyer, Dupree had attempted to help Tokars get the $1.75 million for the life insurance policy Tokars had taken on his wife before she was killed.  Tokar's friend, Private Detective Billy Carter, was introduced to me in my attorney, Kenneth Schatten's office.  I had no idea at the time I was speaking with a man who stood trial in the Tokars case.  I was lead to believe Billy Carter was a "famous private detective" and directed to read the book by Melissa Faye Green, "Praying for Sheetrock."

My attorney, Kenneth Schatten, with Billy Carter present, said they believed my husband murdered our son.
I have always wondered why, if they truly believed that, police were not contacted.

My assigned divorce judge, Judge George Kreeger was also involved in the Tokars case, a tragedy in Atlanta where a woman's death ruled contract murder, involved a Tokars, a part-time district attorney, judge and campaign manager for Judge Leah Sears.  Movie contracts were offered to investigating police, and to the family of the victim; Fred Tokars spoke of a book deal to a witness.

The infamous crime cases I have since read about coupled with corruption I personally experienced in Georgia lead me to wonder whether there are script writers for crimes and court cases and how many officials have been involved in coverups.

The nagging question has remained for many years. How did I end up in the Atlanta Tokars network and being stalked on into Kentucky? Even though my attorney Kenneth Schatten introduced me to P.I. Billy Carter, Schatten soon proved he was working for the other side. Schatten had said there was too much money against me.  Whose money? Who was it? I never got the answer.  Was my husband's mistress's family with their Buckhead, advertising connections involved with those affluent people, or was his railroad boss, business associates, friends, or his lawyer?  The Tokars story was the biggest story on TV in our new 1993 Atlanta area home.  Although the story was about a prominent Atlanta lawyer who had his wife contract murdered, it also involved his business of hiding money for very wealthy men who were planning to divorce their wives.  My life has been an ongoing nightmare since 1998, but I've been humbly grateful to have survived all that they did and maintained the documents to prove and publish the story. Since Schatten and Carter went into the business together, were they a part of the Tokars network all along?

P.I. Billy Carter's Coast to Coast Investigations Company

 In 2010, my attorney, Kenneth Schatten began to withhold my alimony checks. I learned then it was a fluke he ever had any interest in them at all. It wasn't normal to give an attorney the responsibility of delivering alimony or support checks.  It was at that same time Schatten advised me to take my blog down saying, "Think of it this way, maybe they have your son somewhere and they've told him if he tries to contact you, your other son or your daughter they're going to kill all of you."

My response was, "Then tell them to bring it on. I'm not taking down my blog and we're not going to live the rest of our lives in fear."

At that time I had to ask the court to change the order so that the checks could be issued directly to me and Schatten would be by-passed.  Because Judge Adele Grubbs signature was on my decree and she had seated the trial I first asked that she would address my problem. She declined saying she did not have authority, that she had merely assisted in my case.

Judge Kreeger's office in 2010 initially balked at the issue saying the case was too old for them to address. His assistant was Babe Berne, wife of Bill Byrne, chairman of the Cobb County Commissioners when I'd written Senator Coverdell about all I was enduring in Cobb in 1999.  (See below)   She was quite rude, and I was surprised with her unprofessional attitude being an admin assistant.  Kreeger was still listed as the judge in charge, and I balked at the fact they were refusing to address a case that still had orders in effect. I also read in the rule books that Kenneth Schatten was supposed to have been disciplined for not following the orders.

Contacting the JQC (Georgia's Judicial and Legal Disciplinary organization) was worthless, and quite a waste of time.

As it turned out Kreeger's assistant, Mr. Conley, had me write the order and then Judge Kreeger signed it and a copy was sent to my husband.  I initially told Mr. Conley that I had no idea about writing an order and would not know how to do it. He said I should find out and so after some research I wrote my own order, sent it to Kreeger's office and it was signed and returned to me, then delivered to my ex-husband.

It was incredible that I was asked to write my own order.  I had to pinch myself again to be sure I wasn't dreaming.

There were other judges, in a case in Houston County,  (Warner Robins) Georgia I had attempted to stop a man from stalking me. The word "around town" was they had set the entire court room up to make a laughing stock out of me.  I was told the Judge's name in that case was Pearce (Pierce?) and did not stay in that town long enough to research anything.  I had lived there less than a year and was arrested three times, cited illegal for no seat belt while driving, ordered to a state mental hospital by Judge Spires, detained there illegally against my will, and was being stalked and harassed by police and locals.

This is the bond for the landlord, Nell Stumpff's arrest.  A neighbor, Good Samaritan, and stranger I met, put her home up knowing I had no money for bail.

This (below) is a police harrassment situation when I first arrived there.  It was illegal in Georgia at that time to give a "no seat belt" citation when there were no other violations. I told the officer this but he gave me the violation ticket anyway. I thought at the time I would fight the charge which was illegal. But then with the false arrests and hospital incarceration ordered by a judge, fleeing the state made more sense.  

Georgia's a very large state, but like most states it has a handful of very powerful players.  And when they are able to use state agencies and resources against a person, the ultimate outcome is going to be personal destruction.  I had tried to get help from many agencies, including the local Warner Robins police department.  Looking back I realize now how courageous the officer was who wrote this report:

Magistrate Judge Laurens Lee was the judge in Peach County, Georgia who told me if I would sign my divorce papers all of my problems would disappear.  My landlord,  Nell Stumpff, had gotten false felony accusations against me and had me jailed. She also was calling my family in Virginia and telling them lies–– lies that helped my family join in to have me committed.  She had apparently been "in" on the conspiracy the entire time she pretended to be my friend.  I had told my attorney, Stan Martin, that I wanted a jury trial against her.  He said if I kept quiet all of the charges would disappear and I explained to him that I didn't want that. I wanted to go to court and prove my case.   Although I didn't stay quiet, the charges went away.

(I have since read that Stan Martin was caught looking in the ceiling tiles of the late Mayor Donald Walker, Warner Robins, Ga for guns and drugs.)

I remember asking Judge Laurens Lee, "After you take my fingerprints are you going to plant them somewhere and say I killed or robbed someone?"  I knew if I stayed there, they may put me UNDER the prison or incarcerate me in a state facility forever.  The falsification of "organ donor" on  my driver's license was enough to cause alarm, but when they charged me $25.00 cash to have it removed, I knew if I died my body would absolutely disappear and the state may well be a part of it.  I found the quickest way out of the state.

It really was that bad and that corrupt in Georgia –– and later I'd find out it wasn't just Georgia.  Kentucky police and criminals were stalking me as well. It was a coal state so I had to wonder if my adversaries were politically motivated, railroad, mafia–– one, two, or all three.  I began to wonder why the horrifying things I'd learned about Communist countries were now happening in my own.

**Year: 2000 my return to Georgia after the divorce, an attempt to have a home near my daughter failed when I realized people in Georgia would to continue the stalking and harassment.

I was not welcome there.

I would have to live in fear in Kentucky and for as long as these people who had conspired continued to live unscathed.  Two attorneys, Gatewood Galbraith of Kentucky and Kenneth Schatten of Georgia, had advised I could not win in any event. Knowing I was up against power, money, and high level state and local corruption there were limited choices in trying to fight.

My resolve for the situation became simple. I would have to live quietly, gather as much information as I could to create a paper trail and wait for the day I felt safe enough to publish it.  There were no other choices because courts, lawyers, cops and criminals were all on the same side in my case and they weren't working on my side of the fence.  Numerous correspondences to officials in several states and jurisdictions were useless.  There was a huge wall of resistence and I didn't have the money or connections to tear it down.  The main goal was to stay alive, because as long as I could do that, I was winning.

In Kentucky I lived in the country alone and got myself two rifles for protection.   My tires had been slashed, my brake line cut, dogs had been killed and equipment was stolen or vandalized.  Before his 1962 death, my Dad had taught me to shoot a rifle to gather mistletoe.  I was only 6 years old.   I had never owned a gun in my life until my home was sabotaged and my animals killed in Kentucky.

I had to let the local people in the farming area know that although I was alone, I could defend and protect myself. Nobody in the USA should feel the need to fight terrorists or criminals alone in their homes whether they are foreign or domestic.

Law enforcement should be there to protect and support victims–– not to stalk and harrass them as I had experienced.

I have no idea where Georgia police got any information to suggest I had owned a gun in 1998 or before.  Telling police I was crazy, had a gun and was dangerous apparently was supposed to help in divorce court and financial settlements.

( Is lying to police a felony? )

Hopefully some day the truth will win and end the terror.  Until then I will have to live cautiously always worrying about the little family I have left.  The horrors and loss of my child, the shackles, handcuffs and that happened nearly 20 years ago is still, to me, just like it all happened yesterday.