MinuteMan Solar Film of Topeka: Owned and Operated by a Drug Snitch and wife Beater --Hal Richardson

http://minutemansolarfilm.com/

He makes his living collecting cash under the table— an informant to the Drug and Narcotics department AND it gets better--- he grows hydroponic marijuana seeds in conjunct with the cops-- (my informant has stated he makes $200K a year off just the marijuana business—This business below is just a FRONT and and a Drug Laundering business. Lets not forget  he also steals his ex wife Claudine Dombrowski -social security money—disability that she is now on 100& from his violence.

You will burn in hell.

Claudine Dombrowski Photos of Abuse | Stop Family Violence

The Manhattan Free Press On Line

Topeka, KS Window Tinting

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MISUSE of POWER - Confusion on the Role of LAW Guardian Ad Litem’s and Mental Health - so called ‘experts’ in the family courts. BAD FOR CHILDREN BAD FOR MOTHERS

We don't need GALs, ACs, or LGs in the family courts. Same with forensic evals.Nancy Erkison's article (dated 2007) 

 

LawGuardians2007[1]

Ten dead in three murder-suicides across South Florida

 http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/fl-south-florida-killings-20100927,0,7675892.story

Riviera Beach police at the scene of a murder-suicide in which six people were killed early Monday morning. (Lannis Waters, The Palm Beach Post)

Sun Sentinel and The Palm Beach Post

9:16 a.m. EDT, September 28, 2010

Three murder-suicides rocked South Florida on Monday and left 10 people dead.
Six were killed in a domestic murder-suicide in Riviera Beach before sunrise.

Hours later, it happened again in Lauderdale Lakes, with two dead.

By sundown came word of two more bodies discovered: a husband and wife dead in a murder-suicide at their Tamarac home.

The killings began shortly before 2 a.m. in Riviera Beach, as Natasha Whyte-Dell was surrounded by her seven children in their house near a cemetery.

Patrick Alexander Dell — whose growing anger and increasingly violent behavior has been chronicled in court records and police reports for the past three years — forced his way inside and started shooting. When Dell, 41, was finished, Whyte-Dell, 36, and four of her children were dead, according to city police, neighbors, relatives and friends. A fifth child lay bleeding from a gunshot wound to the neck but survived.

The two remaining children, a 1-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl whom Dell had fathered with his wife, were left unharmed.

Dell walked outside about 2 a.m., just as a police car pulled up to the house, put the gun to his head and shot himself dead, punctuating the worst mass murder-suicide in Palm Beach County's history.

"She was scared for her life," said Barbara Williams, a relative of Whyte-Dell's who used to help around the harried mother's busy house. "I told her to be careful because he had just gotten a gun. He finally did what he said he was going to do."

The couple, both born in Jamaica, married in Palm Beach Gardens in October 2006. Their problems began soon after.

In April 2008, Whyte-Dell asked a county judge for a restraining order against Dell, citing abusive behavior. She said Dell would yell and swear at her and that her then-13-year-old son, Ryan Barnett, would try to intervene.

"I had to get between him and my son," Whyte-Dell wrote in the petition, which ultimately was granted. "I am really afraid for myself and my children. I do not know what my husband will do next."

Whyte-Dell filed for divorce three times between 2007 and 2008 but voluntarily dismissed each case. Still, their relationship deteriorated until December 2009, when Whyte-Dell told police that Dell attacked her with a knife.

On Sunday night, people in the neighborhood said, Dell was drinking. One man said the jealous husband was overheard in a restaurant saying he was going to kill his family. Before 2 a.m., he made his way to his former Riviera Beach home at 1225 W. 30th St., pushed inside and started shooting, police said.

He killed Whyte-Dell and Daniel Barnett, 10, Jevon Nelson, 11, Diane Barnett, 13, and Bryan Barnett, 14. Daniel and Jevon were students at Bethune Elementary School. Diane went to Howell Watkins Middle. Bryan was a freshman at Palm Beach Gardens High.

Dell wounded Ryan Barnett, 15, who was in critical but stable condition in St. Mary's Medical Center, hospital officials said.
Hours later came another shooting, this one outside a Lauderdale Lakes home in the 4500 block of Northwest 32nd Court.

A woman recently moved to South Florida from the Philadelphia area in an attempt to flee an abusive relationship. Her ex-lover, though, found her and killed her Monday outside the house where she was staying, according to the Broward Sheriff's Office.

The woman was found dead on a bench beneath the home's carport, and the man's body lay on the ground beneath her, said Sheriff's Office spokesman Mike Jachles.

Early Tuesday, the woman was identified as Lena Mitiledessalines, 39. The man's name has not been released but he was 47, according to BSO.

Mitiledessalines had a 12-year-old daughter who was not at home at the time of the shooting, and a college-age son or daughter who attends school out of state, the Sheriff's Office said.

Three others who were inside the home were unharmed.
Shortly before 5:30 p.m., Broward sheriff's deputies called to a Tamarac home for a welfare check discovered a married couple dead inside.

The husband had sent a letter to an out-of-state relative warning that he intended to kill himself and his wife. According to sheriff's officials, the husband wrote that by the time the relative received the letter, it would be too late.

The gruesome find in the 7000 block of Northwest 106th Avenue was the third murder-suicide in the region in less than 24 hours.

Compiled from reports by Sun Sentinel staff writers Sofia Santana, Ihosvani Rodriguez and Linda Trischitta, and Palm Beach Post staff writers Cynthia Roldan, Michael LaForgia, Sonja Isger and Niels Heimeriks.

Enraged man kills estranged wife, 4 stepchildren

 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100927/ap_on_re_us/us_florida_murder_suicide

RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. – A man who terrorized his estranged wife for months, threatening her with a knife and telling her she would end up in the morgue, killed the woman and four of his stepchildren during a middle-of-the-night rampage, police said Monday.

Patrick Dell, 41, and his wife, 36-year-old Natasha Whyte-Dell, had been going through a bitter divorce, and it appears he targeted her and his stepchildren, police said. However, Dell spared his biological 1- and 3-year-old children. A fifth stepchild, 15-year-old Ryan Barnett, also was shot in the house but was expected to survive.

Friends and neighbors said Whyte-Dell time after time took the man back — even though he had installed cameras to keep an eye on her and stalked her when she went to work and nursing school. She filed a restraining order against him in May after learning he was trying to get a gun.

The horror that unfolded around 2 a.m. Monday was the culmination of a lengthy dispute that came to a head Dec. 20, when Whyte-Dell said her husband came after her with a knife, slashed her tires and scratched an "X" into the concrete driveway.

He made a particularly chilling threat: "You will be going to the morgue," he told her, according to a police report. "Your family is going to cry today."

After that incident — five days before Christmas — Whyte Dell told police she feared for her life. Dell was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and criminal mischief. But he was released hours later without bond, said Riviera Beach Police spokeswoman Rose Ann Brown.

The Department of Children and Families investigated after the knife attack, but closed the case in February without removing the children, spokeswoman Elisa Cramer said.

Still, time after time, friends said Whyte-Dell took her husband back, hoping things would get better.

"She was supposed to stay away from him," Lydia Smith, a friend of the victims, said Monday as she stood in front of the crime scene crying. "He was extremely jealous, obsessive and possessive."

Dell seemed paranoid, a neighbor said, always thinking someone was against him. On Sunday, while he was at a club, he was asked to leave after making a drunken threat.

"He was talking about chopping up somebody," said neighbor Keisha Gordon, 30.

Gordon said she left the club with Dell and went to a nearby park, the last place Gordon saw him before the shootings.

A police officer was checking a suspicious vehicle around 2 a.m. when he heard what sounded like muffled gun shots, Riviera Beach Police spokeswoman Rose Anne Brown said. When officers approached the home, Dell went outside and shot himself, she said.

Inside the home, officers found the bodies of the woman and her four children: 10-year-old Daniel Barnett; 11-year-old Javon Nelson; 13-year-old Diane Barnett; and 14-year-old Bryan Barnett.

The small home where the killings happened was a popular hangout for neighborhood kids, who loved using the front-yard basketball hoop and closeness to a trim cemetery across the street that often was used as a park. Just a few doors down sits an immaculate red-brick church.

On Monday, a silver chain-link fence had been tangled with yellow crime-scene tape. A black mailbox was on a post outside with a single balloon in the shape of a red heart tied to it.

Neighbors said gunshots had become an all-too-common sound in the area. Jeanette Walker, a 56-year-old hairstylist who lives nearby, said she thought nothing of the gunfire because she heard no sirens.

"They over there shooting at each other again," she remembered thinking.

Mom denied direct contact with son in 12-year-old custody dispute (Fort Worth, Texas)

View photos

By Melody McDonald

mjmcdonald@star-telegram.com

FORT WORTH -- Standing outside a Tarrant County courtroom with tears in her eyes, Anna Weber expressed mixed emotions Monday after hearing that the 12-year-old custody fight with her ex-husband over their son was finally over.

The judge ruled that Weber can't have direct contact with her son, now 13, but she can watch him grow up from a distance.

"If he has a school play or a band concert, or whatever, I can go as long as I don't confront him," Weber said. "... It had to come to an end. We could fight for the rest of our lives. I'm sad, so sad, but I'm also relieved."

Weber's ex-husband, Todd, was not there when the case was finalized, but his attorney, John Groce Jr., said Todd and his son are also glad that the ordeal is over.

"You can imagine that this has put a lot of stress on the child -- just knowing that this is going on," Groce said. "... And Todd is just ready to get on and live his life. ... He has paid close to $300,000 in legal fees for all of this, which has about broke his back."

The Star-Telegram first published an article about the custody fight in August to illustrate the extremes to which parents will go in cases involving children.

Neither the child nor Todd is being fully identified to protect the child's identity. Weber, however, asked that her full name -- Anna Jansen Weber -- be published so that her son will be able to contact her someday if he wants.

"I hope that, eventually, he will see that he needs me in his life and that he has another side of a family who wants to love and support him," Weber said. "I've never stopped loving him and I will always be here. ... And the main thing I want him to know is that I'm not who his father has portrayed me to be."

Accusations

Since their separation in 1998, Weber and Todd, both of Grapevine, have been in and out of Judge Randy Catterton's 231st District Court, fighting over visitation, parental rights and attorney's fees. Todd has accused Weber of abusing drugs and having mental issues. Weber has accused Todd of being narcissistic and poisoning their son to think she is the enemy.

Each claims that the other has repeatedly violated the judge's orders.

According to court documents and interviews, Todd won custody of their son eight years ago and petitioned the court to allow Weber only supervised visits after she became addicted to prescription pain pills after minor surgery. Weber said the supervised visits were heart-wrenching, and she decided to stop them for a time and work on getting herself together.

In 2006 -- after undergoing therapy, remarrying and having another child -- Weber turned back to the courts in hopes of being reunited with her son.

The judge ordered everyone to undergo reintroduction therapy with a psychologist so the child could gradually be refamiliarized with his mother. But Todd was uncooperative and cancelled appointments, according to the psychologist's notes in the case file.

Meanwhile, Todd accused Weber of refusing to take court-ordered drug tests and failing to complete a court-ordered 12-step program.

Still, in the midst of all the tears and rage, Todd and Weber entered into an agreement in which they decided that, if their son, after therapy with a psychologist, didn't want to have a relationship with his mom, each side would dismiss their claims.

Todd wouldn't try to terminate her rights, and she would not pursue visitation.

But the court-ordered psychologist discontinued sessions after Todd and his son were uncooperative, and a new social worker was appointed.

In July, that social worker wrote to the judge, saying the child "feels very certain that he wishes to have no contact with his mother."

"He is calm and reasoned in this statement," the social worker wrote. "He recognizes that she is his mother, and always will be, and does not rule out the possibility of getting to know her as an adult. However, until that time he would prefer to have her 'out of my life.'"

Final order

On Monday, Groce wanted Catterton to sign a final order that would preclude Weber from receiving information about her son, access to his medical or school records, the right to attend school or extracurricular activities, or to consent to his medical treatment during an emergency.

Weber's attorney, Sam Boyd, meanwhile, asked the judge to give reintroduction therapy another shot and proposed a less-restrictive order.

In the end, Catterton signed a final order that prohibits Weber from having direct contact with her son -- unless he invites it -- but allows her access to his records and to attend his public activities, among other things.

Groce, who was hired this year after Todd's longtime attorney withdrew, said he has never seen a similar case in his 15 years of practice.

"I got in on the end of it, but just reviewing the records and the things that happened in this case, it is beyond me how this was allowed to go on," he said. "... I can't say that it's the court's fault or the attorneys' fault that it has been allowed to go for so long, but it's just been crazy how that has happened."

Boyd, who has been working pro bono since December because Weber and her family can't afford him anymore, said he hopes that the parties can move forward.

"There are some things that just have to be finished -- and this was one of them," he said.

Melody McDonald,

817-390-7386

Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/09/27/2499134_p2/mother-denied-direct-contact-with.html#ixzz10rG7Xl7Y
Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/09/27/2499134/mother-denied-direct-contact-with.html#ixzz10rFbMIJO

This is really hard to believe. I am sitting in a room filled with women who were beaten, and violated in terrible ways. The room is not in Bosnia, or some far flung third-world hell-hole. This is in the UNITED STATES! A GENOCIDE

This is Really Hard to Believe

http://thejournal.epluribusmedia.net/index.php/component/content/article/36-opinion/228-this-is-really-hard-to-believe

Written by Barry Nolan

This is really hard to believe. I am sitting in a room filled with women who were beaten, and violated in terrible ways. The room is not in Bosnia, or some far flung third-world hell-hole. I am in a function room in a hotel in Albany at the Battered Mothers Custody Conference. [1] Many of the women around me are sobbing now, as a child tells her story. “My father beat me” she begins. Well, she is not a child now actually, but she is a child to me. She is a poised, attractive young woman named Jennifer Collins [2] who is a survivor of child abuse and of a Child and Family Court System that betrayed her and her brother, just as it betrays children across this country every day when it orders children to live full time with an abusive parent. I know you do not believe me. And that makes me realize that this is the experience that these women who surround me have all had. No one believes them. No one believes this can happen. [3] But it does. Sometimes this happens despite voluminous evidence, eyewitnesses and medical records that the child has been beaten, even raped and sodomized by a parent seeking custody. Sometimes the courts do this even if the parent seeking custody has been convicted of, or admitted to domestic violence or sexual assault.  I know you don’t believe me. But you would believe Jennifer if you were here. It is a strange world in Child and Family court. For instance, even as much energy in the wider world goes into efforts to make certain that sex offenders have no access to children, that they can’t live near a school and walk near a playground, in this odd little corner of our judicial system, courts routinely order children to “reunite” with a sexual predator parent who hurt them. All in the name of “family re-unification”. I know this sounds impossible. It is against all common sense. This is America after all. But come sit here with me, and listen to this woman/child tell her story. She has “aged out” of the system and is no longer under the thumb of a court that tells her she must be silent.  There is a whole group of courageous kids [4] like Jennifer who are old enough now to tell their story to you, face to face. Jennifer’s story is a pip. And it is pretty typical. Jennifer tells us about her mother Holly and her dad. He was a batterer who beat Holly. And he beat the children. Jennifer moves her story along quickly to the day when her older brother, then about 4, tried to intervene as dad was beating mom. Dad threw the son against the wall and fractured his skull. There is much more. But I will move the story along quickly to what happens when Holly finally decided to leave this man who beat her and the children.  She fled that terrible house, only to find herself in house of mirrors. The Child and Family Court system. It is almost as if none of the people who run the Child and Family Court system ever read about or learned a single thing from sad saga of the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal. It’s like they never heard about how victims of physical or sexual abuse are often silenced by their own sense of shame. How their terrible stories can sometimes finally come pouring out in torrents. It may be years later, but it is no less true.  This is not theory. This is fact. We have all watched these sad dramas on the 6 O’clock news. But, uniquely in Child and Family Court, if allegations of physical or sexual abuse are raised during a divorce where custody is an issue, the allegations are used, not against the perpetrator, but against the victim. There is this invented thing, a bit of junk science called “Parental Alienation Syndrome”. It basically says that any time a woman raises the issue of physical or sexual abuse, of herself or the children in the midst of a custody dispute, she is just trying to make the man look bad and make the children hate him. She must be lying. Look, I am not a fool. I know people lie. I know some women lie. I know people say awful things about each other in divorces. I have watched Jerry Springer just like you. But I have also watched “To Catch a Predator” and I know “respectable” people can do horrible things.   So, do a thought experiment here. Pretend you are a woman who had finally left an abusive relationship, taking your children with you. If your controlling soon-to-be ex-husband sought to get full custody of the children as one last slap at you, what would you say? OK? Sure, that sounds fair? Fat chance. The thing a real court would do when this happened is to consider all the evidence, and talk to all the witnesses. Witnesses like the children. They were after all, there when “it” happened. This is what a court would do if a stranger were accused of beating them. Or raping them. But this is not what the Child and Family Court system does. Jennifer, the survivor, tells us of the day the representative of the court came to take her away from her mother and take her to live at her dad’s. How she clung desperately to her mother’s leg, until they pried her fingers loose, lifted her up, carried her away, and compelled her to live with the man who would beat her. Jennifer tells us how her mother, desperate beyond all measure, kidnapped the children, spirited them away to the Netherlands, where they became the first Americans to be granted asylum. How she lived in a refugee camp, with refugess from Somalia and Sierra Leone, people who had to learn how to use toilets and forks. How this was better than “home”. This was a step up. She was with her mom. Jennifer lived in exile for 14 years. She finally “aged out”. The court has no jurisdiction now. And so Jennifer had the freedom to come home, to America, to this room where I sit, surrounded by women who are now weeping with joy and cheering for Jennifer’s mom for being so brave and for Jennifer for telling her story to this room full of people who know her story is true. Because the same thing happened to them. So they believe her. I believe her, too. References [1] The Battered Mothers Custody Conference is a national public forum to address the many complex issues facing battered women and their advocates as they strive to protect themselves and their children in and out of family court during divorce, custody, and visitation disputes. [2] Small Justice is a video that follows paralegal Diane Hofheimer and her attorney husband as they represent three women, all loving mothers, who have lost custody of their children to men with demonstrated histories of sexual abuse and domestic violence. [3] The Courageous Kids Network is an organization dedicated to stopping the continuing assault on children's human right to live free from abuse. [4] American Children Underground blog chronicles the story of Jennifer Collins, who spent 14 years in hiding with her mother and brother after receiving asylum in the Netherlands. Discuss this article or to post questions or information for the author, leave a comment on the community site! About the author: Barry Nolan is a veteran television journalist and Emmy winning Commentator. He is now a freelance writer and does occasional consulting and writing for Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney. Nolan has had the chance to cover some of the important stories, the most outstanding personalities and the biggest liars in our time. As a former co-anchor of Hard Copy and later Senior Correspondent for EXTRA!, he has had the chance to cover 9-11, Waco, Oklahoma City and the Republican Convention. He has had the chance to go one on one with some of America's most gifted story tellers such as O.J. Simpson, James Earl Ray, and that John O'Neil guy from the Swiftboat crowd. He has actually covered stories in Alaska where he thought he got a glimpse of Russia, which officially qualifies him to become Vice President, which he plans to do when he finishes writing his book "Truth Takes a Holiday: Michael Jackson, O.J. Simpson, Bill O'Reilly and Me," a book he has time to write after being fired by Comcast for calling Bill O'Reilly a "mental case."

Slain kids' mom tells of abusive marriage Court papers detail alleged violence by children's father before their deaths

‘Hat tip’ to Annie for commentray:

Do all the abuse defending lawyers call the protective moms "self-serving"?

GAL says that joint custody didn't work out - guess not because the kids are dead.

Also, for all the lawyers who claim that the kids are ok because they managed to get back to their mom "unbruised", it goes to show that it means nothing.

In her petition for divorce, Martinez requested sole custody of the children and sought damages for expenses, mental suffering and anguish.

In his response to his wife's suit, Goher denied her "gratuitous and self-serving allegations" and rejected her request for sole custody. He said that Martinez had committed acts of violence against him and the children, and asked the court to order Martinez to pay his attorney's fees and costs.

After a March 9 court hearing, Martinez and Goher were given temporary orders for joint custody of the children. Goher and Martinez were prohibited from contacting each other, or removing the children from Harris County. The children's passports were confiscated. Goher was granted unsupervised visitation with the children every weekend. The rest of the time, the children lived with their mother at the An-Nisa Hope Center shelter.

"The presumption in family law is joint custody; you have to overcome that to deprive the father of his visitation rights," said Syed Izfar, the amicus attorney appointed to assist the court with issues related to the children. "The legal presumption is that children benefit from nurturing and care of both parents. In this case it didn't work out, that's true, but that's the presumption of the law."

By LINDSAY WISE
HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Sept. 27, 2010, 8:02AM

Norma Martinez said her husband was drunk when he chased her into their daughter's bedroom in May 2006, threatening to shoot her if she didn't tell him the name of the man who asked her out.

"I told him no one had asked me out," Martinez said in an affidavit she later filed in support of a protection order against her husband, Mohammad Goher.

Goher handed her the gun and told her to shoot him, but Martinez took the bullets out instead, she said. He responded by pulling her hair and punching her on the arms and stomach, she added.

Goher was convicted of assault of a family member and placed on deferred adjudication.

The 47-year-old Harris County man now faces capital murder charges in the deaths of the couple's three children. He is accused of shooting son Saeed, 12, and daughters Saeedah, 14, and Aisha, 7, on Sept. 19 as they slept in his apartment.

Court documents obtained by the Houston Chronicle detail Martinez's allegations that her husband physically, emotionally and verbally abused her throughout their 15-year marriage. She said Goher "has thrown objects, broken things, spit at me, pulled my hair, pushed and shoved me, grabbed me, slapped me, and threatened me with a weapon." Several times, Martinez said, he'd threatened to kill himself and kill her, including incidents in July and August 2008, when Goher allegedly tried to strangle her and pointed a Chinese sword at her.

In September 2008, Goher accused her of having an affair with his friend, Martinez stated in the affidavit.

Goher "told me I had to clean his name, that I had to take his gun and go kill this man," Martinez said. She said Goher made her sit right next to him so he would know where she was at all times.

"When I walked away to use the restroom, I had to tell him where I was going," she said. "I left the house the next day."

About two months later, Goher took the children and refused to let her talk to them, Martinez said.

Threats to take children

Martinez described expletive-laced phone calls and voice mails between December 2008 and February 2009 in which Goher allegedly called her names, accused her of running off with drug dealers, threatened to shoot her, and told her she'd never see the children again.

"The children were supposed to be in Pakistan temporarily to study the Koran and then come back here, or we were going to go to Pakistan to live with them," Martinez said in the affidavit.

Martinez's divorce petition, dated Feb. 5, includes copies of correspondence between Martinez and her legal advocate and the State Department, begging authorities to help locate her children in Pakistan.

Martinez said she hadn't spoken to her children since November 2008. That month, officials from the U.S. Consulate in Karachi had conducted a welfare visit at her request to check on the children, who were living at an apartment with Goher's parents in the Garden West neighborhood of Karachi.

Consular officials sent Martinez a letter recounting the visit on Nov. 25, 2008. Officials had only been allowed to talk to the children for 15 to 20 minutes. They were living in a three-room apartment with 10 or 12 people in a lower-middle-class neighborhood. All three children were clean and well-dressed, but their grandmother maintained control of the conversation and did not allow photographs.

"The children were not communicating, especially the eldest," a consular official wrote in the letter to Martinez. "They sought the grandmother's approval before answering any questions."

Not long after the welfare check, Martinez said she received a phone call from her daughter from an unknown number. She said her daughter told her that she and her two siblings had been moved to another location.

"My daughter also asked me to come get her — I was very fearful to hear this," Martinez wrote in a letter to the State Department's Office of Children's Issues on Jan. 12.

"You previously informed me that my children were not considered missing because I had their location in Karachi, Pakistan - but they are now missing!" she wrote. "They have been missing for almost a year now."

Traveled to Pakistan

She asked officials to help her find her the children and requested that they be added to databases for missing children.

"I implore that your office move forward with my case," she wrote. "Every day of not knowing where my children are or how they are doing is devastating."

A desperate Martinez traveled to Pakistan with Bibi Khan, the president of An-Nisa Hope Center, a Harris County shelter and advocacy group for Muslim women.

"If you had seen the way she cried, and if you had seen the way she was begging to see her kids again, I think you, too, would have said, 'OK, I'm going to go to Pakistan to help her find her kids,'" Khan said.

Khan said she helped Martinez scour the area in Karachi where her husband's parents had been living, interviewing neighbors for clues.

"We had to go to each school to see if they were there," Khan said. "You can imagine how many schools there are in Karachi. The only lead we had was her husband's family made her older daughter wear the veil."

Martinez finally reunited with her children at her lawyer's office in Houston, after she filed for divorce from Goher in Harris County's 312th District Court. He brought them back to the U.S. in time for a hearing in March.

"She hadn't seen them in a long time so there were hugs and tears and joy that they were back together again," said Martinez's attorney, Sandra Peake. "They were very, emotional and they were very happy and they just started talking and hugging almost as if they weren't sure that that was mom."

Sought sole custody

In her petition for divorce, Martinez requested sole custody of the children and sought damages for expenses, mental suffering and anguish.

In his response to his wife's suit, Goher denied her "gratuitous and self-serving allegations" and rejected her request for sole custody. He said that Martinez had committed acts of violence against him and the children, and asked the court to order Martinez to pay his attorney's fees and costs.

After a March 9 court hearing, Martinez and Goher were given temporary orders for joint custody of the children. Goher and Martinez were prohibited from contacting each other, or removing the children from Harris County. The children's passports were confiscated. Goher was granted unsupervised visitation with the children every weekend. The rest of the time, the children lived with their mother at the An-Nisa Hope Center shelter.

"The presumption in family law is joint custody; you have to overcome that to deprive the father of his visitation rights," said Syed Izfar, the amicus attorney appointed to assist the court with issues related to the children. "The legal presumption is that children benefit from nurturing and care of both parents. In this case it didn't work out, that's true, but that's the presumption of the law."

Given visitation rights

After the court issued the temporary custody orders in March, Martinez's attorney did not oppose Goher's visitation rights, Izfar said.

Peake expected to request continued joint custody at a divorce mediation scheduled for Sept. 24.

In the absence of specific threats against the children, there was no reason to think Goher was anything but a loving father, Peake said. "I thought that (Martinez) would be more at risk than they were," she said.

"How would you know that he would shoot three kids in the head or however he shot them?" Peake said. "They've been going over there and they've been coming back and they're not bruised and the amicus doesn't seem to have any concerns."

The children never expressed any fear of their dad, Izfar said. "They did say that he was trying to pressure them into staying with him. ... I said, 'Do you want to go visit your dad, or do you want to stop visitation?' One and all said, 'No, we do want to go visit him.' "

"I don't know what happened," he said. "I wish I knew."

Goher's divorce attorney, Fel E. Tabangay, declined to comment without instructions from his client, who was listed in fair condition at Ben Taub General Hospital, where he is recovering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

lindsay.wise@chron.com