by Tonya Craft
Arnt said that wouldn’t be necessary and dropped the whole issue like he was trying to swipe a hornet off his nose. We’d clearly taken him by surprise. We knew something he didn’t, and we had evidence to back it up. I wondered how deeply it stung.
Sadly, I knew nothing we presented in that courtroom would be enough to make the DA drop my case. There was no way to stop the avalanche now. My case made major headlines in every newspaper and news broadcast in the area, and since Chickamauga was sandwiched in a one-hundred-mile stretch between Chattanooga and Atlanta, there was not one but two major media markets chomping at the bit to hear more about this mythical “monster” of a kindergarten teacher who had secretly ruined the lives of three little girls and their families. There’s no way they could drop my case now and save face, I thought.
That terrified me.
The ADA then questioned me about the allegations Ashley made against Sarah and asked why I did not immediately call the police when she first told me.
“That’s why I got a forensic evaluation scheduled, because I wanted an independent third party to make sure that it was a true allegation, that it very much happened before I went to the authorities and completely made an outcry of something that possibly was exaggerated,” I said.
I hoped that the judge and the ADA understood my meaning, loud and clear.
He then tried to make it look as if I refused to take Ashley to the evaluation. I had to remind him that my daughter had been taken by Joal days before that evaluation and never returned. I also reminded him that his office had issued the warrant to arrest me one day before that evaluation was scheduled to take place.
He then questioned whether I invented the allegations against Sarah as some sort of desperate response in retaliation for the allegations that had been made against me. The rage I felt over his discussion of a blatantly erroneous chain of events made me dig in my heels and stand firm in response to every single question. I thanked God that my penchant for remaining steady in the face of a crisis apparently carried through into a courtroom setting.
“We do have people that can verify my concern with the allegations well before I was arrested or even before the detectives showed up at my house,” I told the court. In fact, I told the judge and the ADA that some of those witnesses were present in the courtroom that day. I knew that when I got off the stand, we would be calling our own witnesses to testify. Kim Walker, Shanica Lewis, and Tammy were all there, ready to act as character witnesses, but they easily could have recalled the timing of everything if we asked them. We’d also called a woman named Beth Guthrie, who was the school counselor for both Tyler and Ashley and knew firsthand that I had come in seeking advice about how to handle Ashley’s allegations toward Sarah long before those detectives ever rang my doorbell.
Arnt seemed to drop that whole line of questioning, too.
He then tried to accuse me of trying to hide my children from the detectives on that very first day they showed up at my house, asserting, “You didn’t tell the detectives you had moved them out of state?”
I absolutely did nothing of the sort, and I told the ADA as much. He said the detectives were accusing me of not cooperating and of concealing the children, and I responded with the truth.
At that point, Arnt stepped back and let me off the stand. I was positive that I had refuted, factually, each and every question and allegation he threw my way.
Our four witnesses got up, and each one of them testified to the loving, healthy, nurturing, and normal interactions they’d long witnessed between me and my children. They also spoke to my loving and appropriate interactions with other children. Each one of our witnesses said that they would feel completely comfortable with me around their own children and that they would allow their children to be in my presence without any supervisor if the bond were not in place.
I’m not sure that Judge Van Pelt was really listening to any of it.
We then presented a whole roomful of individuals who were all willing to supervise me so I could see Tyler and Ashley. Every one of my supporters who’d sat there quietly and respectfully throughout this long day full of testimony stood up as a willing participant to support me. The court declined to hear from any of them.
We offered three different plans of action and even suggested that any time I spent with Ashley could be videotaped and submitted to the courts. We were more than reasonable, in every way imaginable.
Even then, in his final argument, ADA Chris Arnt stood up and said he strongly opposed “forcing a victim to be in the company of their victimizer.”
At that point, the judge informed the ADA that taking such a harsh stance would ensure “increased pressure on the state to get this case tried.” I am not sure of anyone else’s definition and understanding of “increased pressure,” but I’d already gone 194 days without seeing my kids. An indictment hadn’t come down, let alone a trial date. Was there any pressure on the state before? It felt to me as if there had been no pressure until that moment. No part of Judge Van Pelt’s statement made sense to me. Not one word.
Then, after all of that, the judge decided that he wouldn’t make a decision that day. Instead, he said he would “sleep on it.”
As frustrated as I was, I left that hearing somehow skeptically optimistic. The state had tendered two witnesses, neither of whom offered up any proof or documents to declare why I should not see my children. We had both personal and professional witnesses verifying my testimony and presenting insight into my relationship with Tyler and Ashley. We submitted a multitude of exhibits as evidence. The ADA proffered none. My team had done well.
Hadn’t we?
Chapter 28
I waited with the phone either at my side or in my hand every hour after that, for days. Every vibration caused my heart to race and my stomach to heave. I wanted to see Scott’s or Cary’s numbers pop up. They promised not to call me until we had news.
When the phone finally rang and I saw that it was Scott, I jerked up off the couch.
“Hello?”
“Well,” Scott said, “you got two of the three things you were asking for.” His voice was so jovial that the sound of it brought a smile to my face. “First, the restriction about being around anyone under the age of eighteen has been changed. Now you can be around any child under the age of eighteen as long as another adult is present.”
Thank you, God, I thought.
“Second, you get to see Tyler,” he said.
For one brief second, my heart soared.
“But you can’t see Ashley,” he added.
“What? What do you mean?”
Scott tried to tell me it was a good thing. “Tonya, you should be happy,” he said. “At least you got half of what you wanted.”
He was talking about my children. Half of my children.
“Are you kidding me?” I said. “Well, why don’t I drive right down there and cut off one of your balls, Scott, and then tell you to be happy that you’ve still got one left!”
Our conversation ended shortly after that. I could hear the regret in Scott’s voice as we said good-bye. He would apologize to me profusely later on. He said he would remember that moment every time he broke news to a client for the rest of his career. He did not mean it the way it sounded. He just wanted me to try to see the bright side. In my head I knew that, but my heart was too shattered to see it.
My reunion with Tyler happened on my birthday, December 16, 2008. Exactly 199 days since I’d last laid eyes on my precious baby boy.
The goal was normalcy. Familiarity. The visit would be short. Only a couple of hours. So I gathered with my immediate family and a few close friends at O’Charley’s restaurant. It’s one of those family-style places where birthdays and gatherings tend to happen. It’s a place Tyler liked. I thought it would be much easier for him to see me there surrounded by others than it would be to see me in David’s house—a house that should’ve belonged to those kids as much as anyone but at that moment did not. As uncomfortabl
e as this was going to be for me, I knew it would be a hundred times more uncomfortable for Tyler, and I wanted to do everything I could to make it easier.
I also thought the birthday-party atmosphere might help me to forget just how brokenhearted I was at the absence of my daughter. But nothing could do that.
Seeing Tyler walk into that restaurant ripped my heart to shreds. The face that used to look at me with adoration and kindness showed nothing except hesitancy and fear. The boy who used to bound through the door and jump into my arms yelling “Mommy!” did his absolute best to avoid walking toward me at all.
He wasn’t particularly shy or disengaged with anyone else. Just with me.
I cautiously reached out to hug him, and I felt his entire body stiffen at my touch. I felt queasy. I sat through dinner in a fog.
Before I knew it, the visit was over. I held in my emotions and put a smile on my face as big as I could possibly muster as the car pulled up. I squatted down and gently hugged my son.
“I love you,” I said. He said nothing.
I watched him walk away. I watched him get into the car. I watched his face through the window. He never looked back at me. Not once.
My next scheduled visit with Tyler was on Christmas Eve. Ashley would be visiting my parents that same night. We were all so excited. But at 5:00 P.M., the approved supervisors for that visit—namely my brother and his wife—backed out. There was so much hatred and fear flying around that my own brother and sister-in-law grew fearful that somebody from the other side might accuse them of being child molesters, too, as a way to get back at them for helping me out. My brother insisted that he didn’t doubt me. Not one bit. But they had their own children to think of and, to put it simply, they got spooked. On Christmas Eve, their nerves got the better of them and they decided not to participate in the visit.
The visit with Tyler could not move forward without supervision. The courts were closed. We couldn’t reach anyone. My father got on the phone with Joal and did everything short of begging him for some mercy. My father recorded that phone call at my insistence. In the end, Joal decided to allow Tyler and Ashley to go spend time with my parents—with the caveat that I absolutely could not see Tyler at all. So I sent David over to my parents’ house. At least he would get to spend some quality time with my children, while I sat alone at home on Christmas Eve.
I didn’t see Tyler for the rest of December. Joal refused to bring him without the appointed supervisors in place, and we would have to go back to court in January to sort it out once again. I would not celebrate a happy new year in any way, shape, or form. To be honest, it felt almost like I’d gone back to square one. I was devastated thinking that a whole new year was about to start. I had no idea when I’d see my babies again. Seeing Tyler that one time almost made it worse.
On December 30, the judge in Tennessee ruled on the GAL’s motion to have Laurie Evans removed as my children’s therapist. She not only ordered a new therapist for my children, but also she found Evans “non-credible.”30 She ordered her “immediately removed as the counselor” for my kids and barred her from having any further contact with Ashley and Tyler. More importantly, and shockingly, the judge’s ruling said, “After reviewing the videotaped/transcribed deposition of Ms. Evans, the Court concludes that Ms. Evans’s entire testimony was/is not credible.”
“Ms. Evans’s testimony concerning her diagnosis regarding Tyler Henke is not supported,” the ruling continued. “Ms. Evans’s testimony concerning Ashley Henke was unsupported.”
What diagnosis? What did she “diagnose” my son with?
I adhered strictly to the judge’s orders, as did my legal team, forcing me to remain ignorant of the facts and details of Evans’s deposition. But I was furious. How could this Laurie Evans have been allowed to see my children if she was “non-credible”? The more we learned, the more it seemed that almost no one was handling this case with any professionalism.
In fact, our ongoing investigations had shown that Detective Stephen Keith, one of the men who had stood there on my front porch accusing me of molesting three girls, was a close personal friend of Sandra Lamb’s.31 His daughter was close friends with Brianna. How could he proceed and bring this case forward when there was clearly a conflict of interest from the start? Is anyone tied to my case competent? Are any of them capable of handling themselves in a professional manner, at all?
My supporters would email scripture and words of wisdom to me all the time. Now and then, I would take out a bright Magic Marker and write one of them down. I’d tape those colorful passages up around the desk and cabinets in our home office, which was right by the front door, with a great big window looking out toward the street. (That room would become my new work sanctuary, and I resigned myself to knowing that working to prove my innocence and clear my name was my work now. This was my full-time job.)
As 2008 came to a close, I remember looking at one of those pieces of paper in my office. I wasn’t sure when or why I’d done it, but in orange marker I’d written down Ephesians 1:18–21:
I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance. I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him.
The underlining was my own, and I’d outlined this whole next part in wavy black lines, drawing a bold, cloud-like ring around the word “any,” making highlight marks around the word “leader,” underlining what I thought were the most powerful words in blue marker:
Now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else—not only in this world but also in the world to come!
Sometimes I felt as if all I had to hold on to were those Magic Marker words.
Chapter 29
I opened my eyes. It was dark. Something had pulled me out of my sleep. A movement. A presence. There’s someone in my bedroom.
I froze. I caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure by the window, barely visible in the glow of the clock radio on the nightstand. I tried not to breathe. I couldn’t make out who it was. Then I finally recognized her blond hair in the moonlight streaming through the window.
“Ashley?” I said.
“Mommy!” she whispered. She ran right over and wrapped her little arms around my neck.
“Baby, what are you doing here?” I asked. I held her to me. I felt the warmth of her skin and breathed in the familiar scent of her shampoo. “Oh, Ashley, thank God. Thank God you’re here. I love you so much. I’ve missed you so much.”
She pulled her little face back and her baby blue eyes looked right into mine.
“I love you, Mommy—”
That was when I woke up.
It shook me to my core. You don’t go back to sleep after a dream like that.
That dream kept coming back, too, over and over. Not quite as often as my confrontation dreams, but often enough. Sometimes I’d lie there awake until David got up and went to work in the morning. On some days, I’d continue to lie there and cry and pray for the entire day. At ten minutes ‘til five, I’d roll out of bed, fix myself up, and pretend like I’d been doing something productive.
Nobody knew how bad I was doing. Nobody.
I’d set myself up in the home office in the evening, after dinner—those times when I even bothered eating—and I’d work until bedtime, which was always late, usually well after midnight. Then the dreams would start up all over again, and that pattern would continue, day in, day out, broken only by meetings with my attorneys and court appearances to try to get the new supervisors approved and to try to change the court’s mind on the ruling about not seeing Ashley. There might be an occasional dinner or visit with a friend, who would try to keep my mind from overloading. But I would always go right back to the work or the worry.
I took home a copy of the entire Georgia Criminal Code from Scott and Cary’s office one day—a book as thick as one of those old-f
ashioned collegiate dictionaries people used before the Internet came along, filled with the tiniest print you’ve ever seen. I read it cover to cover, highlighting it like a schoolbook and putting sticky notes on every other page. I consumed the law, and I asked my attorneys about different strategies and statutes constantly. Sometimes the work and the worry would combine together for good.
After the first day of the new year, we arranged for new supervisors and the judge ruled in favor of me seeing my son on a series of occasional overnight visits at my home. I introduced Tyler to his new room the first night he stayed over. I’d set it up with all of his old familiar things—including Froggie, his lifelong bedtime stuffed animal. I showed him Ashley’s room, too. I wanted him to know that it was all set up and that I fully expected both of them to be living with me as soon as we could make it happen. I couldn’t talk about the case or discuss any of my expectations out loud. But I wanted him to know it.
Ashley would go stay at my parents’ house when Tyler was with me. We’d have to have supervisors with us in both places, at all times, which was a major pain to pull off, but every one of us was willing to do anything it took to make sure those visits went smoothly and that nothing would keep those visits from happening again. We had friends and supporters all around us who were more than willing to step up to serve as supervisors. Finally, for a day at a time, every now and then, I’d get to see my son—but not my daughter. Every once in a while I’d get half of my heart back.
I used to always say to Ashley, “Guess what?” And she would grin and say, “I know, Mommy, you love me.”
On my 295th day without seeing my daughter, I wrote a note with dryerase markers on the mirror in her still-empty bedroom—not knowing when, if ever, she might see it:
Ashley