Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Why is This Woman Still Free?
Warning: this blog entry is not for the squeamish.
Recently there's been a lot in the news about a couple who apparently kept several children in cages. The story slipped under my radar... I guess when it comes to parents mistreating their children, I'm too focused on a woman named Greisy Valencia.
Greisy (shown in the photo at right, with thanks to the San Francisco Chronicle) is accused of having tortured her daughter over a period of seven to eight years, from the (girl's) age of four to eleven. This is hardly a simple, isolated case for Greisy; investigators call it the worst case of child abuse they've ever seen, and it's probably (in my own opinion) the ugliest case in United States history that didn't end with a corpse. At that, it nearly did go that far.
Over that period of time, some of the things she's accused of doing to her daughter include burning her face and hands with a hot curling iron, cigarettes, or an open flame over the stove; biting or scratching her severely; pulling her hair out; and other acts not publicly released. The scars (including some very clear bite marks) are clearly visible in the evidence photos shown below (courtesy of the America's Most Wanted website). They are so severe, in fact, that the doctors at Children's Hospital in Oakland were surprised that the girl was still alive.
This was discovered on December 11, 2002. When Greisy found out that the police had their children in protective custody, she borrowed $600 from a friend (who, I would presume, had no idea about the real situation) and fled. In the nearly three-year period since then, the story has been all over the media in Northern California, and has been featured at least three times on the America's Most Wanted and twice on their radio show.
Fortunately, the girl was taken into protective right away and moved into a foster home, where she's started to heal at least emotionally. Her physical scars will always be with her, but she has, at last report, started something resembling a normal life. The same story holds for her older brother, then 17, though his abuse was not nearly as severe and had already stopped two years earlier; her younger brother, then 9, was taken into protective custody but had not (from what I can tell in reading the stories) been harmed by their mother.
The closest that anyone's come to finding her is a report of her living in the city of Sonora, though authorities got there too late to capture her.
So why is this woman still free? Why is she not already behind bars, serving a life sentence for criminal torture? Could she be already giving the same treatment to another innocent child?
Let's all get the word out, shall we? If you're a blogger visiting this site, please post her picture and story to your page. If it's not appropriate to your site, at least post a brief link to this page or the AMW story. The AMW and San Francisco Chronicle websites have good stories on her for more information (as linked above), as do the Oakland Tribune and JC-TV.
If you live in California or Nevada (or, by now, just about anyplace else), please distribute the information to all of the fast food restaurants in your area. But don't just post it publicly; send the information directly to the manager. Greisy likes to hang out and work at fast food restaurants, so if she's working at one now and her manager finds out who she really is hopefully he'll do the right thing and notify the authorities.
Greisy also likes to use public bus systems for transportation, so it could also help to familiarize bus drivers with her story and appearance.
She stands 5'1" tall, weighs 130-155 pounds, has brown eyes and greying black hair, and would be about 51 years old now. She is a native of Columbia, but became a United States citizen in 1991.
If we all work on this, we can have her behind bars by the end of the year. I think that would make a wonderful Christmas present for many, many people. You can include me on that list -- though obviously I'd hardly be at the top.
(My apologies to the AMW and San Francisco Chronicle for use of their images. These are not taken from their site, but linked to their own locations. The images will be either copied to my own location or removed upon request from the owners in either case.)
Recently there's been a lot in the news about a couple who apparently kept several children in cages. The story slipped under my radar... I guess when it comes to parents mistreating their children, I'm too focused on a woman named Greisy Valencia.
Greisy (shown in the photo at right, with thanks to the San Francisco Chronicle) is accused of having tortured her daughter over a period of seven to eight years, from the (girl's) age of four to eleven. This is hardly a simple, isolated case for Greisy; investigators call it the worst case of child abuse they've ever seen, and it's probably (in my own opinion) the ugliest case in United States history that didn't end with a corpse. At that, it nearly did go that far.Over that period of time, some of the things she's accused of doing to her daughter include burning her face and hands with a hot curling iron, cigarettes, or an open flame over the stove; biting or scratching her severely; pulling her hair out; and other acts not publicly released. The scars (including some very clear bite marks) are clearly visible in the evidence photos shown below (courtesy of the America's Most Wanted website). They are so severe, in fact, that the doctors at Children's Hospital in Oakland were surprised that the girl was still alive.
This was discovered on December 11, 2002. When Greisy found out that the police had their children in protective custody, she borrowed $600 from a friend (who, I would presume, had no idea about the real situation) and fled. In the nearly three-year period since then, the story has been all over the media in Northern California, and has been featured at least three times on the America's Most Wanted and twice on their radio show.
Fortunately, the girl was taken into protective right away and moved into a foster home, where she's started to heal at least emotionally. Her physical scars will always be with her, but she has, at last report, started something resembling a normal life. The same story holds for her older brother, then 17, though his abuse was not nearly as severe and had already stopped two years earlier; her younger brother, then 9, was taken into protective custody but had not (from what I can tell in reading the stories) been harmed by their mother.The closest that anyone's come to finding her is a report of her living in the city of Sonora, though authorities got there too late to capture her.
So why is this woman still free? Why is she not already behind bars, serving a life sentence for criminal torture? Could she be already giving the same treatment to another innocent child?Let's all get the word out, shall we? If you're a blogger visiting this site, please post her picture and story to your page. If it's not appropriate to your site, at least post a brief link to this page or the AMW story. The AMW and San Francisco Chronicle websites have good stories on her for more information (as linked above), as do the Oakland Tribune and JC-TV.
If you live in California or Nevada (or, by now, just about anyplace else), please distribute the information to all of the fast food restaurants in your area. But don't just post it publicly; send the information directly to the manager. Greisy likes to hang out and work at fast food restaurants, so if she's working at one now and her manager finds out who she really is hopefully he'll do the right thing and notify the authorities.Greisy also likes to use public bus systems for transportation, so it could also help to familiarize bus drivers with her story and appearance.
She stands 5'1" tall, weighs 130-155 pounds, has brown eyes and greying black hair, and would be about 51 years old now. She is a native of Columbia, but became a United States citizen in 1991.
If we all work on this, we can have her behind bars by the end of the year. I think that would make a wonderful Christmas present for many, many people. You can include me on that list -- though obviously I'd hardly be at the top.
(My apologies to the AMW and San Francisco Chronicle for use of their images. These are not taken from their site, but linked to their own locations. The images will be either copied to my own location or removed upon request from the owners in either case.)
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