KEENAN IS HOME
On Wednesday, July 15, 2009, my attorney spent nearly an hour mediating in chambers. St. Louis County Family Court made it clear they were going to “help” Keenan their way. There was no seeing eye to eye with these bureaucrats. It was their way or the highway.
Their plan was to label Keenan injurious, take jurisdiction, drug him into compliance, and keep him away from family — all against the advice of qualified doctors and professionals. They wanted to isolate a young child from the people who loved him most and leave lasting psychological damage behind.
It did not take rocket science to see what was happening. This was a child, my child, torn away from his mother by force, cut off from love, support, and family. Keenan’s grief and longing for her had been documented for years by doctors, psychologists, and even experts they themselves selected. Then, after finally reuniting, she died on Christmas morning.
Even their own doctors would not lie for them. That says everything. This was not ignorance. It was sickness of the heart and power out of control.
Just before my attorney went in for mediation, I stopped him and said plainly: “I want my son home. I do not want help from Missouri.”
Nearly an hour later, my attorney walked back out, approached me, and handed me a signed court document. The judge had dismissed the case for lack of evidence. Case dismissed. End of story.
Or so it should have been.
Keenan’s case manager wanted him to go to Boys & Girls Town to collect his belongings, but he was nowhere to be found. Before anyone could react, Keenan and his aunt had disappeared.
They must have run from that courthouse at full speed, jumped in the car, and gotten as far away as they could. Keenan had been kid-jacked once again — but this time with my full blessing, my full consent, and in the company of family, his aunt, not CPS child-and-family abusers.
When I saw Keenan, his face had been beaten up. He was swollen, bruised, cut on the lip, cut on the neck, cut inside the mouth. He said a 19-year-old male resident at the facility had strangled him until he lost consciousness.
Why was a dangerous adult living with children?
I planned to take him to the hospital on Friday for a full checkup. I intended to go on Thursday, but my vehicle broke down.
Those three and a half months had already driven me into bankruptcy. The nonstop calls, the research, the driving, the fuel, the interviews, the desperate search for help — it all drained what little money I had. My cell phone bill tripled. For the first time in over 25 years, I could not pay it, and it was about to be shut off. Every dollar I had saved to support us while I looked for work was gone. Everything was being spent trying to rescue Keenan from these CPS barbarians.
While waiting at the case manager’s office to pick up Keenan’s belongings, less than two hours later I noticed a missed call and a voicemail.
It was a man from the Missouri probation department, already stalking us, saying St. Louis County Family Court in Clayton — Satan’s court — had informed him Keenan was back in my custody and that he needed to conduct a home investigation immediately.
Call it what it was: a home invasion disguised as procedure. Clayton and Florida, two dirty tricks at once.
Where had probation been for all those months before?
The case manager and I finally went to Boys & Girls Town to collect Keenan’s things. I made it inside and upstairs, and what I saw was nothing like the old movie image people might imagine. It was not warm, hopeful, or humane. It felt institutional, cold, and wrong.
The hallways were narrow, white, and claustrophobic. The doors were metal blue with narrow rectangular windows. It felt more like juvenile confinement than care.
When I entered Room 203, the room where Keenan had been held in CPS captivity, it sent chills through me. The place felt dark, eerie, lonely, and dead. Children crying. Adults not listening. Drugs used to silence pain.
I could feel Keenan’s frustration in that room. His suffering. His rage. A section of the wall had been torn up, and I had no doubt it came from his anger and despair.
His bed was a small cot attached to a wooden frame. There was an open closet, one window looking out over a yard surrounded by red brick buildings, a three-drawer dresser, and a one-drawer desk built into the wall. I do not even remember whether there was a mirror.
On the desk sat a bulletin board. I walked over to look at the artwork Keenan had pinned there.
What I saw hit me hard.
Tears came instantly.
There were several hand-drawn hearts, one on each sheet of paper. I had no idea he could draw that beautifully. His mother could draw like that.
What broke me were the words written inside those hearts:
AMY MARIE BROWN — RIP 1977–2008
I Love You Mom ❤️
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