by Lee Barnett
A very attractive lady with a warm smile walked towards us and introduced herself as Rebecca, Mendel’s wife. He would be out in a minute and was just finishing his dinner.
She led me into a dark office filled with mahogany furniture and oriental rugs. The only light in the room came from the antique green banker’s desk lamp and the small window through which lightning intermittently lit up the room. After my eyes adjusted I could make out black-and-white photos on the wall, mostly of the late Mendel Rivers Senior, a long-serving congressman, and his numerous encounters with famous people. The entire wall behind Mendel’s desk was a bookshelf lined with legal and antique books, which added further to the room’s dark and gloomy atmosphere. I half-expected Mendel to magically appear from a secret door within the bookcase. Spooky place, I thought.
Just then I was startled by a man’s voice behind me and nearly dropped Savanna.
I turned around and shook the hand of Mendel Rivers Jr., my new family law attorney. Rebecca stood beside him and asked to take Savanna back into the kitchen to give us a chance to discuss my case. I made a point of saying that Savanna wasn’t shy and would be happy to go with her. Rebecca’s face lit up as she took Savanna from my arms.
Mendel offered me a seat across from his desk and we got down to business. He apologised for the lateness of the appointment but explained he was pressed for time because he was also running for Congress. I replied, as good Southern women usually did, that there was no problem and that I was happy to work around his schedule.
All my life I’ve been told that I’m a very fast talker, something I’ve tried to work on, but Mendel was perhaps the fastest speaker I had ever heard. We rushed through all the information he had received from Lee Robinson, and while I interrupted a couple of times to correct the odd point when I was able, before I knew it we were done.
‘Lee, may I call you Lee?’ Before I could answer he continued, ‘This will be a cut and dry case. You are a nursing mother and have had custody from birth, from what I can see you have done a great job on your own. Now, until two weeks ago I was a Family Court judge and I cannot see any reason why you should not have primary custody of your baby and I see no complications here.’
I went to voice my concerns, but Mendel pushed back his chair and stood with his hand reaching for mine. I stood and he thanked me and made his excuses – a meeting with his congressional team – winding things up with, ‘We’ll be in touch in the next few weeks. Any problems call the office. Please leave a check for my retainer with Rebecca and have a good evening.’ And with that he was gone. It could have all been done over the phone, I thought, but at least he had reassured me, and he had been a Family Court judge and Lee Robinson had recommended him.
I headed back down the long hallway in search of Rebecca and Savanna and found them playing on the floor of the small office kitchen. Savanna looked up and smiled widely at me. I thanked Rebecca for taking care of her. ‘She is an amazing baby,’ she said. ‘So happy and advanced for her age.’ Then she moved towards the counter while I bundled up Savanna’s things and put them in the baby bag. I hoisted the bag onto one shoulder and bent down to pick up Savanna when there was another loud crack of thunder followed by lightning. ‘Weeee,’ I smiled and giggled at Savanna’s startled face to distract her into thinking everything was okay.
I reached into my back pocket for Mendel’s cheque. I handed it to Rebecca, my gut in knots knowing I was close to the end of all my money. It seemed impossible that in less than a year I had lost nearly everything I had, largely because of legal fees. No, I corrected myself, I hadn’t lost everything because there was only one thing that really mattered and she was in my arms. I smiled at Savanna’s sweet face as she snuggled into my neck.
I turned to say goodbye to Rebecca and she looked at me with a sad smile then took my free hand and pressed a folded piece of paper into it.
‘What’s this?’
In a low conspiratorial voice, she said, ‘Please take this and promise me two things – please call this number in the morning and tell no one that I gave it to you.’
What on earth was going on here?
‘Who am I calling and what’s this about?’ I asked.
Rebecca shook her head and said she couldn’t say any more. ‘Just trust me when I say everything depends on you making that phone call – your daughter, your safety and your life together depends on it. And if you tell anyone I gave it to you it will be the end of my marriage, but that will be the least of my problems. Just hold on to that precious little girl with all your might.’
The next morning, to set my mind straight from the intrigue of the night before, I did ring that number. My call was answered by a woman called Sarah, who together with Faye Yager had started what was known as the Children of the Underground network some years earlier. Based in the South, this network helped hide children and/or assisted families running from the courts and apparently had more than 1000 safe houses.
On the phone Sarah told me she was no longer directly involved with the Underground but was instead working as a children’s advocate. She asked if I was in a custody battle and having problems with a guardian ad litim.
‘Yes,’ I replied. I’d been assigned a guardian ad litim called Jania Sommers. Sarah invited me to her house and I accepted, as I wanted to be as informed as possible. Sarah explained that I had been given her number because of her affiliation with the Underground, but she did not recommend I go down that path because it could be so difficult on the child. And at that particular time I had no intention of doing anything like that because, in spite of any problems there seemed no way that I would lose custody. I thanked Sarah for her time, and this remained the sum total of my contact with anything to do with the Underground. But what did remain puzzling was Rebecca’s seeming insistence that I urgently make contact with Sarah. Did my new lawyer’s wife know that I was being set up?
Around September or October 1993, the court date for our divorce and custody hearing was set for November. Looking back now, that would have been terrific, but Harris’s lawyers wanted a later date. At the time I thought this timeframe was fine as it gave me more time to be with my beautiful Savanna and not have to prepare for trial. I mean, what judge would be willing to separate a nursing mother from her baby? To me it seemed obvious that I would be granted custody. But what I wasn’t aware of was that lawyers regularly lobbied to change dates of hearings in order to secure the judges they really wanted. In hindsight it seemed from the get-go that Judge Mallard was who Harris’s team desired, though he wouldn’t be available until January 1994.
We moved from Harris’s Johns Island house to a lovely place in Isle of Palms in October. Because of the rental restrictions I wasn’t able to keep Bell, but I was lucky enough to find her a good family with a little girl who loved her very much.
In the meantime, Jania Sommers was becoming increasingly difficult and had no faith in my psychiatrist James Folk’s opinion when he said that there was nothing wrong with me. She tried to force me to see another doctor and I refused. I was happy with Dr Folk and I knew he had a great reputation. In turn, I tried unsuccessfully to have Jania removed as guardian because she had been talking about me to people around town, saying that I needed to be on lithium. That was when Jania hired Diane Goodstein to represent her throughout the custody battle. As I recall, I refused to sign the papers saying I would pay Diane.
The next thing I knew was that Jania and Graham Sturgis had decided they needed another doctor assigned to the case. Their reason for this was that Dr Bjorksten had said that I had a condition called hyperthymic temperament, whereas Dr Folk and my psychiatrist friend Dr Shecut disagreed, and moreover asserted that nothing was wrong with me. Jania, Graham and Harris needed someone else to prove their case. During this time they delayed the hearing, probably for two reasons: firstly, to ensure they could get Judge Mallard; and, secondly, to organise a ‘tie breaker’ psychologist. That person was Bart Saylor.
9
I SAW THE ‘TIE BREAKER’ PSYCHOLOGIST BART SAYLOR THREE TIMES from 4 October to 12 November 1993. Harris had three visits with him, too. Saylor also met with the guardian ad litem, Jania Sommers. We were told Saylor’s evaluation was concluded. Mendel Rivers asked for the evaluation, but to no avail. I then requested a meeting with all parties, which was held on 17 November and taped with everyone’s agreement. Naturally I was very keen to have a taped meeting with Saylor saying that I did not have hyperthymic temperament and did not need to be on lithium. And Jania’s own notes from that meeting read: ‘there is no evidence of hyperthymic-like behavior on Lee’s part in the past six months’. And: ‘Doesn’t see Lee needing medication at this time. Nor a need to change therapists’.
For nearly two months both Mendel and I requested the written report, knowing our hearing was imminent, but then suddenly Saylor said he needed a home visit, which occurred on 11 January 1994. On that visit he declined to see the nursery, paid no attention to Savanna, and instead talked mostly about payment … considering this about-turn with wanting a home visit, I made sure I was not falsly accused of doing something untoward by seceretly taping it. Call me paranoid!
The divorce and custody hearing began on Wednesday, 19 January 1994. In attendance were Mendel and me, Graham Sturgis and Harris, and Jania Sommers and her attorney Diane Goodstein. It concluded on Friday, 18 February. There had been twists and turns over those few weeks and many people were called as witnesses. It wasn’t surprising that my mental health was the focus and so the various doctors were quite busy on the stand, as well as when drawing on their previous depositions.
On 10 February 1994, I was cross-examined by Graham Sturgis, three weeks after my testimony on 19 January, which gave Sturgis and Diane Goodstein enough time to access my transcripts and study them. Graham interrogated me on the witness stand, trying to trick me at every turn: if I said the day was cloudy then he said I had previously stated it was rainy – implicating that I couldn’t get my story straight, that it was part of my ‘cognitive slippage’. While sitting on the witness stand I was handed the long-awaited psych evaluation from Bart Saylor but hadn’t had a chance to read it. Sturgis started asking me questions about Saylor’s evaluation. I thought of the November meeting with Saylor when he had said I didn’t have hyperthymic temperament and did not need lithium, and told Sturgis that I honestly didn’t know what he was speaking about. I remember Mendel jumped in and said it was an unfair question because I had not had time to read the evaluation. I remember sitting there feeling as if they were speaking about someone else, wondering what the hell was going on. And then Sturgis told me, still on the witness stand, that in his report Bart Saylor had determined that I was hyperthymic and that lithium would have been a good recommendation. How in the hell could I be given such an important piece of evidence yet not be allowed to view it? Why not call Saylor as a witness or use the taped meeting as evidence?
On the final day of the hearing, Friday, 18 February 1994, after settling Savanna with my neighbour Babs, I arrived at court around 8.45 a.m. and went to find Mendel. He looked a little sheepish and said he needed to speak to me. Then Judge Mallard arrived and said we needed to split up and talk to our respective lawyers, that there was news after discussions that had occurred the night before and that very morning. From memory, Harris, Graham, Jania and Diane left the room, while Mendel and I stayed in the courtroom. He told me that from the talks over the past twelve hours, Judge Mallard decided to award full custody to Harris.
I could scarcely catch my breath and felt a rush of fear flood my body.
I asked Mendel how it was possible that a judge would give my nursing baby girl to Harris. Mendel shook his head and said he didn’t know. He said he was dumbfounded because just a couple of days earlier Jania had tried to arrange a custody share that was a 60/40 split, with me having Savanna the majority of the time. But there was a sticking point with that solution in that Jania had insisted I started taking lithium.
When the judge later entered the room to start the last day of the hearing, I was completely downtrodden. I asked if Ann could come and sit with me and surprisingly Judge Mallard agreed. When Jania took the witness stand I asked if I could be excused. I just couldn’t look at this woman who had made the past seven months a living hell. Back then it was common practice for a guardian ad litem to submit an assessment or evaluation of their findings but not to testify, especially on the last day of a hearing. But after the judge had made his decision, I knew there was nothing normal about this case.
Judge Mallard refused my request to be excused. This man had given my baby to Harris and ordered me to be confronted with Jania’s testimony. She said, ‘Savanna’s relationship with her mother particularly is really limited and really impaired.’ She also said that my unwillingness to take medication to treat my condition would ‘make it impossible for that little girl to live with her mother, and I want her to be able to do very well with her mother’.
As these ludicrous words were uttered I gripped Ann’s hand so tight I couldn’t tell if she was crying from what Jania said or from the pain I was causing her. But I was careful not to lose my composure. She finished up her speech saying that I was in crisis and that made Savanna extremely vulnerable. She said that the purpose of this hearing was to make me understand some things about myself, and if that happened it ‘would be a wonderful outcome, indeed a terrific outcome’. After all, everyone just wanted me to get well.
And then to add further injury to this appalling farce, Harris went on the stand and demanded everything back from me. He insinuated I had stolen his wallet which had $2000 in it. He wanted my silver, even though most of it was my family’s silver, much of it repoussé, and with my great grandmother’s initials plainly engraved on pieces. He wanted what he called ‘my $9000 ring’, the one my brother had made me. He wanted CDs, knives, a lock from the back door and even a frying pan my brother had given me for a wedding present.
Then it was my turn on the the witness stand.
Essentially I said that didn’t care about any of those material things, that he could have everything, and that it was Savanna’s custody that I cared about. ‘He could have whatever I had,’ I said. ‘I don’t care, none of those material things matter to me.’
I did, however, beg the judge to understand how scared I was that Harris would soon be drugging my baby girl just as he had testified he would do, claiming that Savanna may be the fourth generation afflicted with the mental illness hyperthymic temperament. I repeated that I was a good mother and doing a good job and that Savanna was thriving, and that over the past weeks there had been considerable proof to my assertion. And I stressed that aside from Harris’s and Bjorksten’s concocted stories there was no proof, no proof at all.
Judge Mallard’s decision to grant custody of Savanna to Harris meant that she had to be force-weaned. After claims in court by Jania and Graham that I might do something drastic, it was decided that Jania, Graham and Harris would come to take Savanna away right after court. With Babs and Ann by my side, I kissed my baby girl on her head, told her I loved her and whispered, ‘I will make things right, I promise,’ then handed her to Harris. I retreated to the bathroom, ran a hot bath, climbed in and sobbed as my over-swollen breasts leaked excess milk into the tub. I cannot begin to describe how heartbreaking it was.
On the following Monday, 21 February, Mendel called me with the judge’s decision on visitation rights. I had him on speakerphone and Patty listened in while he told me that I was granted Savanna four nights a month! Naturally I was outraged, not least when he suggested I was young enough to simply have another child. I shouted, ‘Fuck you! Fuck you!’ and hung up the phone in anger. To my surprise, my first visit after the hearing came exactly a week later on the following Friday. I was to have Savanna for the weekend and return her on the Sunday. Harris and Jania thought I was coming alone to pick her up, but on my way to my car, my neighbour Babs offered to come with me. We saw Jania hiding behind Harris’s front door.
But the real shock was when we saw Savanna. She had a large bump and bruise on her head, a bloodied nose and a scraped lip. She was dazed and confused.
When I asked Harris just what had happened, he shrugged his shoulders. ‘Just a little spill,’ he replied. But why hadn’t he at least put ice on Savanna’s head to reduce the swelling, or called a doctor?
Babs and I took her straight to the hospital and I followed the doctor’s instructions to wake her every two hours just in case she had a concussion. Then I went to the Isle of Palms police station to ask if I had to return Savanna to Harris on the Sunday. They sent an Officer Suciu by the house and he asked to see the written court order. I said there wasn’t one yet, just the earlier one making me the custodial parent. He said that by law I didn’t have to give her back. As it turned out, he spent quite a bit of time at the house that weekend checking to see if we were okay. Later in an affidavit, Officer Suciu explained that on the Sunday, Jania, Graham and Harris had fronted up at the police station with an emergency court order and had told him that they feared for their safety. He accompanied them to my house and they took Savanna from me once again. The officer wrote in his affidavit that he had spent some hours with me, and that I had conducted myself appropriately at all times and that I was simply a mom concerned about her baby. I knew that I had done the right thing in seeking medical attention for Savanna, and trying to keep my baby safe. And I had stayed right there in the house. I didn’t run, and yet even with no written order from Judge Mallard, I was almost thrown in jail for contempt of court.
I was taken to court for three days on the contempt of court charge, which was held in front of Judge Mallard. While I had been at the hospital with Savanna, I learned that Mendel had fired me after our heated phone conversation, so I hired yet another lawyer, Hans Paul. At that hearing Mallard ordered me to have an additional psych assessment to be conducted at the medical university. Judge Mallard assigned my friend who was a lawyer, Melinda Lucka, to be contacted by either party about any irregularities with Savanna’s drop-offs and pick-ups and to report to the judge if there were any. It’s important to emphasise here that Melinda never came over herself to supervise, but would wait for my call (or Harris’s) should anything unusual arise, whereas twenty years later the Federal Prosecutor and the media alleged that I had ‘supervised visitations’, which was never the case.