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In re D. B.6/13/2005
ing alcohol and drug treatment. The objectives identified for Father were to stay out of jail, submit to random drug screens, attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and remain drug free. Mother and Father were advised to have no more physical altercations that resulted in injury or police involvement.
Finally, in September 2003, DCS filed a petition to terminate Mother and Father's parental rights. As grounds for termination, DCS alleged persistent unremedied conditions that prevented D.B.'s safe return to their custody, substantial noncompliance with the permanency plan, willful abandonment by Father for failure to visit or engage in more than token visitation for four months immediately preceding the filing of the petition, and willful abandonment by Mother for failure to pay child support .
The Juvenile Court hearing on the termination petition was held on April 27, 2004 and April 29, 2004. Both Mother and Father testified, as well as the DCS caseworker, Terri Prater ("Prater"). In her testimony, Prater acknowledged that Mother had made progress on some requirements in the permanency plan; Mother had received, but had not completed, treatment for alcohol and drug abuse, had received training on Apnea monitoring, and had completed parenting classes. Prater also acknowledged that Father had completed a 90-day drug rehabilitation program. Prater maintained, however, that Mother and Father's home had remained an unsafe environment for D.B. for three years, despite the services DCS provided, and that the conditions that led to D.B.'s removal still existed. Prater noted that both parents still had alcohol and drug problems and that when Mother and Father engage in physical altercations, Mother was forced to leave Father's house and had no place for her and D.B. to live. Prater testified that, in light of the fact that Mother had been arrested several times for domestic disputes with Father, DCS caseworkers had advised Mother that her chances of regaining custody of D.B. were much better if she separated from Father. Despite the physical abuse from Father, Prater said, Mother defended him, noting that he was D.B.'s father and saying that she wanted them to be a family.
Father testified that he and Mother had been together off and on for about eleven years. Father maintained that he and Mother were getting along better than ever, though he conceded that the police had been called to their house approximately three weeks before the hearing. Father acknowledged that, in the past five years, he had been arrested four to six times as a result of domestic violence. Father asserted that the reason he had not visited D.B. over the last ten months was that he had no transportation to the scheduled visitations. Father could not drive due to poor vision and relied on Grandmother for transportation. In December 2003, however, Grandmother died. She died intestate, survived by Father and his six siblings. Father continued to live in Grandmother's house. Father testified that Grandmother's estate had never been probated, and that he continued to pay the mortgage. He claimed that his brother and sisters were not interested in Grandmother's house.
During her testimony, Mother acknowledged that her two older daughters, now grown, had both left her home in their early teens to live with their maternal grandmother. She admitted that the younger of the two had accused Father of sexual abuse. Mother, however, claimed that her daughter had later told her that the accusation was a lie, and that the daughter had gone to live with the maternal grandmother because Mother and Father "wouldn't let her get away with everything."
Mother admitted that, in May 1998, she was convicted of driving
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