NOTE: Last September, Nick and Carrie Nowatney were falsely accused of child abuse. Their two young children were taken away from them and placed in foster homes for 200 days by the State Dept. of Children & Families (DCF). Then Nick and Carrie were put on trial by State Attorney Kirk Zuelch. Finally, last month, Judge Mark Jones threw the case out of court. In this letter, Carrie reflects on that terrible ordeal.
To: Dennis Reeves Cooper, Editor, Key West The Newspaper.
I have to thank you for all that you have done for our family. Without your support and the support of your readers, we would not have had the strength to fight the system for as long as we did.
Now for a bit of good news. Tonight I cried. Yes, this is good news. You see, it's been a long time since I've done that— months probably. It wasn't always that way. I remember the first several weeks after the children were taken I cried quite a bit. There weren't a lot of moments that I didn't cry then. I remember sitting in the rocking chair in Nathan's room holding Natalie's large black kitty she appropriately named "Large" and sobbing for hours in the dark. I remember in one of the first weeks I must have dreamed that one of the kids was crying. I shuffled half-asleep back to where their rooms were to try to discern which one of them needed comforting, then broke down, horrified, when I "woke up" and realized the kids weren't there.
I had just done extensive grocery shopping the day before the DCF snatched our children, and I remember finally forcing myself to clean out fridge about two weeks later. $75.00 worth of groceries in the trash because for some reason neither Nick nor I seemed to be eating anything.
I remember the first work day after the kids were taken calling all around town trying to find someone to rent or loan me a hospital grade breast pump. Luckily I found someone who lent me one for free. I pumped milk 5 times a day until the arraignement at the end of September. My milk supply had dwindled to almost nothing by then, despite my trying remedies like "Mother's Milk" herbal tea. Hard to produce a lot of milk when you can't eat. The less milk I produced, the further and further my children seemed away from me. I grieved for the children every time I pumped.
I recently threw out all the milk that I had stored in the freezer. The plan was to pump it and transport it to Nathan, but by the time the DCF figured out a way to get it to him, he would no longer drink it. I kept on pumping and kept in contact with a volunteer from La Leche League who knew some methods to get babies reattached after an interruption in breast feeding had occured.
I remember the four long days that Nick and I really didn't know who had our children. They were taken the Friday of Labor Day week-end, so much to our dismay, we had to wait until the next Tuesday to be able to talk to the investigator about who had them, what they were like, and when we could visit the kids.
I remember our early conversations with the investigator, Karla Buzzell, and her inhumane response to one of our first requests of her. "We just want to be able to call someone and get a daily status on how our children are doing."
Her reply, "you have no right to get a daily status." No right. No right. The words echo in my mind to this day. From that day on I knew in my heart there was no reasoning with these people. They are heartless.
I remember Nick and I discussing the fact that we had completely wiped out all of our diligent savings from our past 6 years of marriage. I remember wondering whether I could "get myself together" enough to go out and find employment, since we could longer keep up with our legal fees on Nick's income alone.
It was after I started temping at our local legal aid office that I got an "outside the box" idea. I learned about Safeport, a drug rehab for women here in Key West. After a certain amount of time for detox and counseling, the women were not only allowed to have their children back, but were given a place to live with their children as well.
Although I've never done an illegal drug in my life and don't even drink things with caffine in them, I was prepared to write up a proposal that if those women had a right to have their children back, so did I. And if the DCF wouldn't return them to us in our home, then they should return them to me and let us live at Safeport.
Our lawyer thought it was creative, but advised me that this would never be allowed to happen. So much for the "perks" of living a drug-free life.
Our lawyer requested several times that we annotate this and log that to keep track of the attroscities that went on during our case. I did the bare minimum. Upon recounting different episodes where we had caught our investigator in outright lies, several of my siblings urged me to keep a meticulous journal of the whole thing. I couldn't. Even now that it is "over", writing about this is just like reliving it. I wish someone could tell me when the world will be right again, when I will trust people to do the right thing again, when I will have faith in our country again.
I used to be a true patriot. My mother enrolled me in the American Legion Junior Auxiliary at birth. Today I am the only person in my home town who belongs to both the American Legion and the American Legion Auxiliary. (Being a girl has it's privileges.) Growing up I entered many an "Americanism" poster contest. I enlisted in the US Army at age 19 and served for four years as a Turkish linguist. I remember several occasions when I was on duty overseas that foreign soldiers and citizens would engage me in what ended up being an America bashing conversation. I was always quick to defend our country's ideologies and was often successful and bringing the "bashers" around to another way of thinking. If I were put in the same situation today, I would probably agree with a lot of what the bashers had to say.
This ordeal with the State of Florida and the DCF has altered my life in so many aspects: emotionally, financially, spiritually, and idealogically. Of course I am not the only one feeling the aftershocks. Natalie, Nathan, and Nick still suffer as well.
Natalie wakes up 2-3 times most nights with nightmares. She rarely had them before they were taken. This week has been a very bad week for her sleep-wise. This is the third night in a row she has had to sleep in our bed, as going to her room to reassure her is no longer working.
I had to take Nathan in last week to get another prescription for the impetigo he contracted while in State subsidized day care and living in the home of a foster parent who is also a DCF worker.
Nick struggles with the huge financial burden this has put on our family. Being enlisted in the Army we could never become wealthy; however, Nick has always provided well for us and has insured that we will be provided for in the future. Now both of us try not to think about how long it will take us to pay off the tens of thousands of dollars we still owe in legal fees.
As much as we all try to put this behind us, there are too many reminders to let us forget the nightmare we've lived through.
I could go on and on describing the things that have occured over the past year that still haunt our family. But I feel the saddest thing in this whole case is that we will most probably never get an "I'm sorry", or "gee, 200 days is quite a long time to keep children away from their parents", etc. None of those heartless shells of people will ever feel moved to admit that they may have handled our case badly.
Nick and I were asked on numerous occasions for an "act of contrition". Now it's our turn to ask, "DCF, where is YOUR act of contrition?"
May your paper always be in print!
EDITOR'S NOTE: Are you outraged yet? If so, here are two ways you can help.
First of all, the fight to defend themselves against those bogus charges has financially exhausted the Nowatneys. They need your help! Key West The Newspaper has set up a legal defense fund. Make your check payable to "The Nowatneys" and drop it by our office at 422 Fleming. Or mail it % KWTN, PO Box 567, Key West FL 33041.
Here's the other thing you can do: Work to vote State Attorney Kirk Zuelch out of office. Zuelch is the one man who, at any time, could have ordered that the charges against the Nowatneys be dropped. He didn't do that.
He is up for reelection this year. One of his challengers is Attorney Michael Barnes, who successfully represented Nick and Carrie. If you're a Republican, you can vote for Barnes in the primary on Sept. 5. If you're not registered to vote, register as a Republican— and encourage your friends to register— to help ensure that Barnes can go against Zuelch head-to-head in the general election on Nov. 7.
If you're a Democrat and you feel strongly about what happened to the Nowatneys, you may want to consider at least temporarily changing your party affiliation to be able to support Barnes in the primary.
If you're not a registered Republican, you can't vote in the Republican primary. Temporarily changing your affiliation, will not affect how you can vote for other candidates in the general election.
According to the folks in the Supervisor of Elections office, you can register or change your party affiliation by mail, on line or by coming into the office on Whithead at Southard. Info: 292-3416.