<p>If she’s 25 now and the daughter was 5, she would’ve been 20 when she had her. That’s not a teenager and not that young (historically speaking.)</p>
<p>My heart breaks for this little girl and also for the father. That poor man.</p>
<p>I think that there’s more to the father’s story than has been revealed. The mother is an addict and prostitute. Hard for me to imagine that the child resulted from a one night stand. People with the mother’s kind of lifestyle don’t know who are the fathers of their children. I can’t think of any reason why a parent who had raised a child for 2 years would give the child to another parent who had had a horrible lifestyle. The father’s saying he did this because it looked like the mother was getting her life together doesn’t add up. Most loving parents would have wanted to keep custody of the child that they had been raising since infancy.</p>
<p>I am not looking forward to reading the more heartbreaking details that undoubtedly will be revealed about that child’s short, tragic life.</p>
<p>This is what makes no sense. There’s far more to the father’s story than has been revealed.</p>
<p>"
Bradley Lockhart and his sister, who live out of state, cared for the girl until last month, when she went to live with her mother. Antoinette Davis had worked to get her life together and had been working for at least six months and gotten a place of her own, Bradley Lockhart said. </p>
<p>“I should’ve never let her go over there,” he told The Associated Press on Saturday. </p>
<p>“She had asked if she could be a mother, and I felt she was sincere in asking, and I figured to give her a chance,” he said."
[Bradley</a> Lockhart, Shaniya Davis’ Father, Pled For Girl’s Return in Vain - Crimesider - CBS News](<a href=“http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/11/16/crimesider/entry5671892.shtml]Bradley”>http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/11/16/crimesider/entry5671892.shtml)</p>
<p>SuNa, that doesn’t sound horrible to me…heartbreaking beyond belief, yes. This mother will be in the 9th circle of hell for the rest of her life, prison or not, and the murderer/s … well, its unspeakable. </p>
<p>But what to do, in a world where this occurs, where drugs get into the cracks left by poverty and ignorance and despair, and turn people into monsters? This woman was a helpless child herself, not long ago. What to do?</p>
<p>If she’s 25 now and the daughter was 5, she would’ve been 20 when she had her. That’s not a teenager and not that young (historically speaking.)</p>
<p>But likely 19 when she became pregnant- and obviously not physically/mentally or financially able to support a child if she didn’t have custody for several years.</p>
<p>NSM:</p>
<p>I think you’re being unnecessarily harsh to the dad. The authorities have said that there is no record of a legal custody battle and the father was never legally given custody of the child. </p>
<p>Is there more to the story? Maybe. My hunch? Dad engaged in some self-help. He just took the child because she wasn’t being cared for. </p>
<p>Reality is that in many states, if the father had fought the mom for custody, there’s no guarantee that he would have won. Moreover, it’s a tough process for the child and parents. A mother who has never surrendered custody and seems to have gotten her life back on tract might have won a contested custody battle for a 5 year old female child. The father would first have to prove that he is the father. </p>
<p>We don’t know what the mom was like at 19 or 20 (it is quite possible to get pregnant and give birth 9 months later without having had a birthday during your pregnancy). There’s not a state in the union in which you can’t consent to sex at the age of 19 or 20. </p>
<p>If you believe his story, he had a one night stand and a child was born. For 5 years, he took responsibility for that child. How many men in the same position would do the same? Not many. Instead of giving him credit for what he did, you’re bashing him. </p>
<p>I can’t imagine the pain he’s going through now.</p>
<p>This case demonstrates something I’ve seen in other cases in which children were harmed–we all need to identify ways in which the person who did this is not like us. For some, the way to do that is to believe that the person is an evil monster. For others, the way to do that is to try to identify some causes, such as abuse, to explain the behavior.</p>
<p>*We don’t know what the mom was like at 19 or 20 (it is quite possible to get pregnant and give birth 9 months later without having had a birthday during your pregnancy). There’s not a state in the union in which you can’t consent to sex at the age of 19 or 20. *</p>
<p>I realize this, my sister married when she was barely 19 and had a child almost exactly nine months later to her horror. However- I don’t follow the logic that says this mother had a horrible childhood and that is why she did this, but at the same time she was " fine" when she became pregnant and gave birth.</p>
<p>I know that schools are going to resist adding sex education to curriculum when they are already having trouble teaching math and reading, but many kids are in after school programs sponsored by community centers and I think we owe it to future generations to teach them about their responsibiities to themselves and that having a kid isn’t something you do on a whim.</p>
<p>Similar to what I was thinking Hunt.I’d add, we NEED to believe it couldn’t happen to us, that we can prevent it, or protect our loved ones from it.</p>
<p>Oh I didn’t say she wasn’t like us- we are all selfish & self absorbed- but some of us are more conscious of it and look for ways to ameliorate that focus, while some of us play up the victim role.</p>
<p>I don’t think giving more money to CPS is going to help though- I have had my own interactions with CPS and I think the whole structure needs an overhaul.</p>
<p>I noticed this phenomenon most powerfully in the case of Andrea Yates–the woman who drowned her children. Some people HAD to believe that she was an evil fiend, and others HAD to believe that she was insane…and the two extremes didn’t want to consider the other possibility. I think nobody wants to believe that there, but for the grace of God, goes I.</p>
<p>I do see that a lot.
In my book group, we are mostly mothers, who have children roughly the same ages, and when something pretty bad befalls one of them ( like heroin addiction for example), a few of the moms , have interrogated the parent as to " what happened".
( apparently to reassure themselves it " wouldn’t happen to them".</p>
<p>Hunt, I get what you’re saying and I think it does apply to some people. I think a lot of women have difficulties after childbirth and many could see the circumstances under which sleep deprivation and hormonal chaos could make anyone capable of a lot of things. In this case, though, I’m not so sure. I think there are many people who could never sell their child. For me, I think it’s more likely that they’re saying “the woman is a monster and this is why her child is gone” to soothe the terror that we all feel with a missing child, knowing that it could happen to anyone’s child, just like Adam Walsh. So I think it’s more “this can’t happen to me because I wouldn’t sell my child” than “this could happen to me because I might.” While it may be true that anyone could be in a bad place, but I think more people are more terrified of the baby-snatching monster that lives in all of our psyches.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree, partly. Tons of research shows we innately seek attributions for bad events, perhaps to give us more of an illusion of control over it. </p>
<p>But there are as many explanations that do not divorce us from the evil doer. Explanations such as the abusive parent “just snapped” or “she had post-partum depression” or “she suffered from mental illness”. Any of those causes can happen to us too. </p>
<p>I think a better explanation is that intellectually curious people seek to make sense out of that which appears incomprehensible. There really is a complex set of causes for everything.</p>
<p>I agree with Jonri. In many states, the father would likely have a had a hard time winning custody. And it appears that the girl was a bi-racial child. Unfortunately, knee jerks of all types, including a judge, may have looked unfavorably on his petition for that reason alone. It’s thus far apparent that he loved and cared for his daughter, when it might have been easy to abandon her, emotionally and otherwise.</p>
<p>Dad sounds sketchy to me. Poor decision making. I wonder about the reaction had mother given daughter to father who then prostituted her, leading to her death. Would we be as kind to mother?</p>
<p>I had hope that she was alive because, sadly, I thought she was worth more live to someone than dead. Then when they had the surveillance video of the guy who had her in the hotel, I thought that might be her death warrant. </p>
<p>I thought it was strange that the father said the mom wanted to be a mother and he thought he’d give her a chance. I wouldn’t give someone with her background “a chance” with my puppy. Give her a house plant.</p>
<p>"I thought it was strange that the father said the mom wanted to be a mother and he thought he’d give her a chance. I wouldn’t give someone with her background “a chance” with my puppy. "</p>
<p>I agree. More about the father is now coming out just as I predicted.</p>
<p>"Several people who were close to 5-year-old Shaniya Davis and her father Brad Lockhart say they tried to intervene in the child’s life because they felt the little girl was at risk.</p>
<p>A close friend of Brad’s, and his ex-father-in-law both say they offered to take in Shaniya rather than let her live with her mother, because they say when the child was in the custody of her mother, bad things happened to her.</p>
<p>“My wife says she saw cigarette burns on Shaniya’s arms,” said Brad’s friend Tim Allen, who says he is very angry over what happened.</p>
<p>Byron Coleman, Brad’s ex-father-in-law, said Shaniya “had burns on her legs, arms and things” after visits with her mother.</p>
<p>“She had a cigarette burn on the corner of her eye, which she claimed her grandma did when she went over there,” added Shaniya’s half sister Cheyenne Lockhart.</p>
<p>The three all claimed that the 5-year-old suffered physical abuse while in the custody of her mother…"
[Some</a> Claim Shaniya Davis Was At Risk And Needed A Better Home - Wake County - MyNC.com](<a href=“http://wake.mync.com/site/wake/news/story/44620/some-claim-shaniya-davis-was-at-risk-and-needed-a-better-home/]Some”>http://wake.mync.com/site/wake/news/story/44620/some-claim-shaniya-davis-was-at-risk-and-needed-a-better-home/)</p>
<p>I just saw a short clip on the Today Show and I also wondered what was going on to make this father give up his daughter to such a troubled mother. I am thinking that more facts will unfold about the father as well…I don’t think I buy the " one night stand " part of the conception of this child…and also, it sounds like the little girls aunt had a significant role in her care…it seems like this poor little girl was shuffled around between a lot of people. Where is the stabilty ?</p>
<p>Huh? Where’s the “more about the father is coming out?” The narrative you shared relates observations about the mother, or at the very least, observations of the child’s physical condition following visits with the mother.</p>