Caught in the Middle: Bitter Custody Battle Tears at the Heart
Foster parents say custody battle is causing nervous breakdown in child.
May 4, 2007 — -- One of the most bitter, heartbreaking child custody battles in recent memory has reached a fever pitch in a courtroom in Tennessee. At stake is the future of 8-year-old Anna Mae He -- raised since she was 3 weeks old by Jerry and Louise Baker of Memphis, Tenn.
The Bakers say a court order returning Anna Mae to her biological parents is tearing the child apart -- and may even cause her to have a nervous breakdown. In a dramatic, last-ditch bid to retain custody, they've filed emergency motions with the court, along with a journal kept by Louise Baker that describes, in heart-wrenching detail, how the little girl with the almond eyes is spinning dangerously out of control.
"Our sweet loving little girl is full of anger and hatred," Baker writes in the journal. "She is always crying and yelling that nobody understands her."
The court filing contains a drawing by Anna Mae showing dead flowers and a wolf. "My favorite color... is black,'' she writes, according to court papers obtained by ABC News' Law & Justice Unit. "This color makes me feel like a wolf."
The attorney for Jack and Casey He, Anna Mae's biological parents, said the filing is a desperate attempt by the Bakers to avoid giving Anna Mae back. "I think the Bakers are going to do everything they can to sabotage this reunification," said attorney David Siegel. "If the Bakers truly love this child, they will put down their weapons and allow this transition to continue."
The Bakers and the Hes have been at odds on almost everything to do with Anna Mae for nearly as long as she's been alive.They first met in 1999, when Anna Mae's parents, who were having financial difficulties, say they asked the Bakers to care for their infant daughter until they could straighten out their affairs.
At first, the relationship was cordial and everything seemed fine. But when the weeks stretched into months, the Bakers said they could no longer care for Anna Mae unless they were her legal guardians. The Hes say they agreed to let the Bakers have custody of Anna Mae -- but only on a temporary basis until they could get back on their feet financially.
That custody agreement would become the basis of litigation that would last for seven years.The Bakers claimed that the Hes had abandoned Anna Mae and were emotionally unstable. The Hes said the Bakers tricked them into signing the agreement and never intended to give their daughter back.
"The Hes were asking for their daughter back at an early age," said Siegel. "They were trying to get her back within that first year of transfer of custody. If the Bakers had given her back then, we wouldn't be having this conversation."But time after time, the courts sided with the Bakers, terminating the Hes' parental rights.
Then, this past January, the state Supreme Court reversed the lower courts, ordering that Anna Mae be returned to her biological parents, despite the Bakers' claims that doing so would cause Anna Mae substantial harm. "Here, the only evidence of substantial harm arises from the delay caused by the protracted litigation and the failure of the court system to protect the parent-child relationship throughout the proceedings," the court wrote. "Evidence that [Anna Mae He] will be harmed from a change in custody because she has lived and bonded with the Bakers during the pendency of the litigation does not constitute the substantial harm required to prevent the parents from regaining custody."
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