grandparents get custody

We got a call from a grandfather who was curious about his granddaughter’s new behavior. The maternal grandparents had been raising the child since birth. Their daughter had been in and out of rehab for pills and the father never took any interest in the child. At age 5 the female child was happy living with her grandparents. The child’s mother and father were allowed to visit anytime. No one ever paid child support to the maternal grandparents. The father of the child got married to a woman who was pregnant with another man’s child. The pregnant wife wanted to have the 5 year old female child live with them now the the father had a “stable” family. Well the maternal grandparents said why not? Lets give them a chance and in court, the maternal grandparents said okay. The maternal grandparents received visitation every other weekend. On the very first weekend back at the grandparents house, the little. girl curled up in a fetal position and would not speak the entire weekend. The Grandfather called me with great pain in his heart. He said look, I don’t want to cause any problems if this is just transitional pain my granddaughter is experiencing. He went on to say But if there is abuse going on I want to know it now so I can put a stop to it. So we began with surveillance.

We follow the child's father from the time he picked up the child until they arrived at target on the first day of surveillance. We waited near the front of the store to make sure we did not miss their exit. The father in the new stepmother we're in the self-service checkout lane checking out their groceries. The little five-year-old child picked up some laundry powder off the bottom of the grocery cart and attempted to put it up on the self service shelf for her father. The laundry powder was heavy and she dropped it to the floor. Her 6'3" father got down about 1 inch from her face and began screaming. He said squarely into her face, did I ask for your help? He went on to belittle her by telling her to never touch the groceries again unless she is asked to do so. The stepmother stood by and did not say a word. The father continue to berate the little girl until other shoppers begin to look at him. The father then looked at his new wife and told her to go on out to the car. The new wife left the store and I followed her. The new wife just walk to the car and sat down in the passenger seat with the door open. I returned the front door of the store and watch the father walk out of the store with the child. The child had her hands on the grocery cart handle and her father had his hands on top of the child's hands. The little girl was saying daddy you're hurting me. He never said a word he just kept walking fast while she was trying to keep up. It was very disturbing to watch this incident. I immediately called the client and I told him we have a problem. That was the beginning of a case that lasted five years.

The client had our team start watching on a daily basis to see if the daddy went to work. The daddy went to work about two days a week and he was late when he did go to work. He would come home from work get cleaned up and leave the apartment again. I followed him to small bar where he consumed eight beers between 7 PM and 9 PM. The subject then drove home and I was able to get out of my car and walk right behind him as he approached his apartment. The subject was walking normally until he got to the bottom of his stairs. When he began walking up the stairs to his apartment he began to stomp his feet. This is common behavior for narcissistic abuser. The abuser wants the people he abuses to know he's home.

The Grandparents requested to have the child for the Fourth of July weekend. The daddy of the child said no they had big plans for the Fourth of July. This upset the grandparents so they hired us to watch all weekend.

The child was taken to the babysitter at 6 AM on Friday morning and was picked up at 4 PM. We could smell marijuana coming off the property so I drove down the alley. I was able to videotape a man smoking in the backyard. I drove down the alley a little bit later and got a video of him sitting in his car with the drivers door open while he was using a pipe. The marijuana could clearly be seen in the video. We found out later after taking the child to a forensic psychologist that there was nowhere to move around inside the house due to hoarding. The babysitter was over 80 years old and the child had to sit in one spot on the couch all day. We actually found an eyewitness to testify about the condition of the house before court. On Saturday and Sunday of that weekend the child was taken to the babysitter at 7 AM and wasn't picked up until 9 PM. We had investigators watching the father of the child and his new wife. The investigators let me know that they could hear the couple fighting inside the apartment. This means the child was taken to the babysitter so the father in the new wife could stay at home all day, no one went to work. The Fourth of July was on Monday that week and the child was dropped off with a single male add another location. When we realize that the child was inside the house with a male babysitter about 40 years old we tighten up the surveillance. I stayed in the alleyway and actually spoke to the child over the fence. There was and old swimming pool in the backyard someone had taken chicken wire and tried to create a fence around the pool. But the chicken wire have been flattened out end it actually laid over into the water. I watched a little girl play out there for 3 1/2 hours with no food no, no water and no supervision. But actually I felt better about that then if she would've been in the house by her self with him. As the day went on, he called her into the house. Well after she had been in there about 30 minutes I could not control my anxiety so I went and knocked on the door. When the door open I could see the little girl in the living room watching TV so I felt so much better. I made up a story about the house next-door, it was under construction so I told the babysitting man that we had received a complaint about the dumpster near the construction site. After speaking with him for a few minutes I could tell that he was not a pedophile he was just a good guy doing a favor for a friend. So there was no big plan for the Fourth of July weekend which upset the grandparents greatly.

This case had it all, I was sitting in their apartment complex one day and I saw two very skinny dogs that appeared to be homeless in the parking lot. I hate to pull away from a surveillance but I had to go get dog food. When I got back from the Dollar General one of the residents of the apartment complex saw me feeding those dogs. The lady walked up and accused me of dumping the dogs at the apartment complex. Her name was Dani. Dani said that she had seen me there earlier in the day in that she thought I was from Sumner county dropping off dogs and then I felt guilty and came back to feed the dogs. I told her that is not what's happening here. She was so upset and demanded to know why I was in the parking lot. I told her I'm just gonna tell you the truth and hope that you won't blow my cover. So I told her I was here over child abuse. She pointed to the subject’s apartment and said oh that guy over there? I said yes why have you observed some abuse?

Dani told me a story about being woke up at 9:30 PM to the sounds of a man yelling. When she looked outside she's a very tall man with his hands on a very small little girl. The man was screaming at the little girl so loudly telling her to get in the vehicle that she thought the little girl was being kidnapped. Dani went down and confronted the man. Dani said she asked a little girl is this your daddy? Dani said the man picked up the little girl and threw her into the back of the vehicle. Dani said the little girl actually left the ground and was flying through the air. Then the Man drove off. Dani call Metro Police and they took a report but they never returned. Metro Police never investigated the issue. Dani told me that another neighbor heard it as well. I went and spoke to the second witness, Veronica, and she was in the process of moving out of her apartment. Veronica told me that she what the man was going to hit Dani so she ran outside. Veronica had also been jarred awake by this man screaming. Veronica allowed my to set up 24 hours surveillance with camera in her apartment facing the subject’s apartment. Dani and Veronica volunteered to testify in court against their neighbor.

After four months of surveillance, we went to court with a 180 page report, two are witnesses, five investigators and plenty of evidence. The judge ignored the evidence and put the child back into her father’s custody. Most people would have given up right then but not my client. My client had no intention of letting that girl live in abusive household. So we went right back to work.

The subject and his wife moved out of their apartment and moved into a house way out in the boondocks. The house was actually sitting behind a main house so we could not get a good visual on them. In the meantime Child protection services was made aware of the abuse by the court. The father of a child promise the child a dog for giving the coached answers to the child protection services worker.

In the meantime, I start calling the neighbors to let them know to keep an eye out for abuse. One of the neighbors who lives very close to this house the subject lived in, told me she could hear somebody hitting a dog almost every day. I knew in my heart it was our subject. We kept patrolling in the neighborhood. One day Buffy went to knock on the door of the other neighbors house. This particular neighbor had a very good view of our subject’s house from their back porch. We had knocked on this man's door three times in the past but he never answered. On this day, Buffy saw a Pit bull dog laying on the man's front porch in the front door was slightly ajar. Buffy took that opportunity to knock on the door again. The man came to the front door his name is Dan. Dan told Buffy he would not have open the door but he thought maybe something was wrong with the dog. Dan went on to tell us that the dog had recently had surgery. Dan told us that the dog belonged to our subject. Dan said he had witnessed a man hit the dog. Dan said a few weeks ago the dog arrived on my porch with a broken hip. Dan and his wife took the dog back over to the subject’s house to let him know his dog was hurt and needed medical attention. Dan said the subject told him he was no longer interested in the dog that he was " finished with the dog.” Dan said he raised $2000 with a go fund me and had the dog’s hip surgery completed.

Dan was more than happy so let us set up cameras and we also got to hang out on his patio.

A guardian ad litem was ordered to talk to the child. The subject told his child that if she would just tell the guardian ad litem that everything was OK at the house she would get a horse. The child did get a horse.

Dan started calling telling me that this horse was wasting away and he never saw them feed the horse. The horse did not have any type of shelter so I called the city. But in this particular township, if the horse has a tree it's considered a shelter. Winter came in the horse did not have a blanket. That's when I found out you have to measure a horse for a blanket. One day when Dan was at the fence line feeding a horse an apple, the new wife came out and told Dan don't feed the horse. Dan said somebody needs to feed the horse I can see his rib cage. A few days later the horse was gone.

So once the case was done in Davidson county our client opened up a new case in another county. We had to get this case into another county which became beneficial to the child. Once we got into court in this new county the grandparents received more visitation and got a phone call every night since they had raise the little girl said she was born. Also the judge found at the guardian ad litem had had some inappropriate meetings with the subject so that guardian ad litem was released. That was the beginning of our victory. That guardian ad litem had told the child about the private investigators in even told the child my full name. Then the subject tried to tell the court that the little girl had been to Renee's house. I had to testify that the little girl had never been to my home. This is when it came to light that the guardian ad litem had told a little girl about StillWatch investigations. Custody cases are always complicated for Nashville private investigators. This particular case went on and on. We are fortunate to have a large team of female private investigators because we were able to switch out every time the subject caught on to our presence.

We did continue surveillance from the neighbors back porch. The subject even screamed out in court one day I can see Reneé sitting on my neighbors back porch. This prompted the judge to ask me about the neighbor which ended up bringing the abused Pit Bull story into court.

All of this took place over the course of five years, it was at the one year mark when the child was return to the grandparents custody and the father was given every other weekend in two weeks in the summer. The father file motion after motion over the course of the five years but the court never gave him more custody. During the five years we proved buy eyewitness testimony that are subject was using drugs, drinking heavily and abusive to his wife. The subject finally conceded to the custody agreement that was put in place at the one year mark. The grandparents put the little girl into therapy and now she is 11 years old. Now when she comes back from her father's house she tells her grandparents that she told her stepmother that she's not her personal slave. The little 11 year old girl has learned how to stand up for herself and has a cell phone with her at all times. The little girl is allowed to call her grandparents anytime she wants to go home. Now her father treats her better in an effort to keep her at his house. This case is a victory story after a long fight.

Having experienced quite a bit of abuse in my own life, I cannot rest when I am aware there's a child in danger. I highly recommend forensic psychology in custody cases because those reports are admissible in court. And if you really wanna know what's going on with a little child take him to a forensic psychologist or psychiatrist and make sure you get it to our appointment to start. Private investigators can bring evidence but a medical doctor can bring examination results.

I hope you never have to fight for the custody of your child but if you do we are here to help. Renee Brewer StillWatch Investigations Nashville TN 615-207-4115