Are You Afraid To Die

Authorities find Jersey City youngster wandering street -- twice

by The Star-Ledger Continuous News Desk
Tuesday May 26, 2009, 7:14 AM

JERSEY CITY -- The state Division of Youth and Family Services placed a four-year-old boy wandering the streets during early morning hours into a foster home, but then found the child wandering the street again the next night, report in the Jersey Journal said.

According to the report, Yvette Pena, 32, and her sister went to a McDonalds at around 11 p.m. May 16 and left her 4-year-old son Felix Rivera with her daughters, Nicole Pena, 13, Kiana Pena, 12, and Jaylene Pagan, 7, as well as her son Carlos Rivera, who is 19 months old. The 4-year old was found wandering the street in the early morning hours, and DYFS took all of Pena's children and placed them in several foster homes.

On May 18 at 11 p.m., police again found Felix by himself wandering the streets, the report said. Police would not say which foster parent the child was left with, the report said.

http://www.nj.com/news/jjournal/jerseycity/index.ssf?/base/news-8/1243319174222630.xml&coll=3

'I'm a boy-girl,' says 8-year-old

Published Saturday May 16, 2009
'I'm a boy-girl,' says 8-year-old
BY ERIN GRACE
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER



Now that Ben has had his final day at a west Omaha Catholic school, he gets to give away the last of his boy clothes — his school uniform — and live full time as the person inside: Katie.


This decision seems like a no-brainer for parents who at first presumed their prancing, pink-loving son who squirreled away cousins’ girl toys was gay. That was before he told them he had a girl heart, a girl soul and was, in fact, a girl.

A defining moment came when it was time for First Communion. Eight-year-old Ben declared he wouldn’t go if he had to wear a suit, and he pined for the white dress that girls wear. But neither his family nor church leaders thought it would be a good idea to introduce Ben as Katie in the Communion line. The church doesn’t want Ben to be Katie at the school at all.

So, after behavioral testing, therapy and a lot of research, the parents have decided to switch their child to a public school and to let their son live as a girl. They asked not to be named out of concern for their child’s safety outside the circle of those who know the family.

They know the path Katie faces is long, difficult and fraught with controversy. Some scientists say the approach they are taking amounts to child abuse. Other scientists say any other response would be abuse.

What might seem like a drastic, life-altering decision for their child is in fact the culmination of years of words and deeds that convinced Katie’s parents, extended family members and therapists of this: She is a girl born into a boy’s body.

* * *

As young as age 2, Ben would use anything he could find to create long hair.

At Grandma Mary’s, it was old scarves. At home, he wore armchair covers and sweatpants around his head to mimic ponytails. He did this so often that his father caught himself hollering for Ben to “throw your hair down the steps” so he could get a full load in the washer.

At 3, Ben was a princess for Halloween, wearing a tiara.

When he turned 4, he told his mother, “I can’t wait to be a mommy and have babies.”

At age 5, Ben was taking girl toys to show-and-tell in kindergarten despite the razzing he got from some classmates.

He felt as deep a passion against boy things, including his penis. He asked when God was going to make it go away so he could get his girl parts. He began to urinate sitting down.

Ben’s mother raised the issue with the pediatrician, who told her Ben was going through a common stage. Kids often experiment and mimic the opposite gender. Ben’s mother persisted: This was no stage.

The pediatrician referred Ben to specialists. After a series of verbal and behavioral tests, the Boys Town specialists said Ben met all the criteria for gender identity disorder.

But they held off on a diagnosis. He was 5. And the disorder is rare.

The American Psychological Association says it is difficult to accurately estimate the prevalence of transgender people in Western countries. Current estimates of the prevalence of transsexualism are about 1 in 10,000 for biological males and 1 in 30,000 for biological females, the association says. The number of people in other transgender categories is unknown.

Transgender is a broad term and generally applies to people who see themselves as the opposite gender. Transsexual is a more specific term and generally refers to people who live as a different gender, including some who have sought or had sex-change surgery.

Author and gender specialist Stephanie Brill said as many as one in 500 children could be gender-variant or transgender. A small portion of youths with gender-variant behavior end up transgender.

The advice to the parents?

Let Ben drive the bus.

His mother asked if letting Ben do girl things was reinforcing the behavior somehow.

She was told no.

And so she and Ben’s father went home and decided not to make gender identity a major issue for any of their three boys.

They didn’t push pink. His mom, in fact, talked Ben out of pink paint and into teal when it was time to redecorate his room.

They set some boundaries. The hand-me-down dressy clothes from his cousins were OK inside the house and in the backyard but not at school.

And Ben still got his regular buzz haircut. Maybe if he looked like a boy, his mother said, it would help with socialization.

She also routinely took what she called “temperature checks.” She’d ask: “What do you like about being a boy?”

Ben’s consistent response: “Nothing.”

* * *

Gender Identity Disorder is the formal classification found in medical and psychiatric manuals.

There is no medical test, and Ben has yet to have a formal diagnosis.

Ben would have to meet certain criteria. He would have to show persistent and intense distress about being a boy and a desire to be a girl. He’d have to show a preoccupation with stereotypical female activities or a rejection of stereotypical male toys and activities.

He’d also have to show a persistent repudiation of his male anatomy.

And he had to have shown these behaviors for at least six months.

Ben’s mother, a lawyer, dived into research. She documented Ben’s words — even scribbling notes in the Wal-Mart parking lot — and saved his artwork.

On one piece, he drew himself with pigtails and blue bows. On another, he drew himself twice: once with long hair and labeled “the rile me is Katie.” For an assignment about household tasks, he wrote about folding his princess blankie.

When Brill’s “The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals” was published in 2008, Ben’s mother bought copies by the dozen to pass out.

Ben’s father, a manager at a manufacturing plant, did not mourn losing someone to toss a baseball with. He saw how happy and peaceful Ben was with girl toys and clothes.

At three years older than Ben, the family’s oldest child has coped remarkably well, but expressed frustration at Ben having to switch identities between home and school.

The change for now involves clothes, pronouns and a name.

But in a few years, Katie could join the first generation of U.S. children receiving hormone therapy to first forestall puberty and then make the body outwardly conform to the female identity. Genital reconstruction surgery could be the final step after she turns 18.

To Katie’s parents, the course to take was obvious. Yes, they knew their son’s life would not be easy.

So they strive to make it less hard and to avoid at least this pitfall: instilling a sense of shame. He did nothing wrong; they believe he was born this way.

“This really isn’t our journey,” his mother said. “We’re kind of observers on this path.”

* * *

The correct path is not so clear to everyone.

The term Gender Identity Disorder itself is controversial, with advocates for transgender people arguing it’s natural diversity, not a disorder.

The advocates also say not all therapists making diagnoses are versed on nuances, including the distinction experts make between homosexuality and identifying with the opposite gender.

Science has not yet ruled about the degree to which biology influences gender identity.

Few medical specialists oversee hormone therapy in children with Gender Identity Disorder.

“We have not been able to find a pediatric endocrinologist who feels comfortable dealing with this issue,” Dr. Jennifer Larsen of the University of Nebraska Medical Center wrote in an e-mail. “Some of us do care for individuals who are transgender as adults. But the issues are quite controversial as kids.”

Furthermore, professionals who do treat children with the disorder are deeply divided.

Psychiatrist Paul McHugh, who closed the nation’s first sex-change clinic at Johns Hopkins University, called the medical treatment of transgender children child abuse.

And Canadian psychologist Kenneth Zucker says he has helped hundreds of youths return to the gender of their birth through behavior modification. Parents must remove clothes, toys and other items used to identify as the opposite gender.

Zucker says the children who continue to exhibit Gender Identity Disorder after this are in that small minority of transgender people.

Other psychologists balk at the idea a transgender person can or should be cured. Diane Ehrensaft is a California psychologist and author who says Zucker’s approach doesn’t work.

Children who end up accepting their birth gender were never transgender, she said. They might be gay or be more fluid in their definition of gender, but they do not hold the deep belief that they were born into the wrong bodies.

Such children, she said, when forced to conform to the gender of their anatomy, may hide the behavior. That can lead to anxiety, depression, acting out and, for some, substance abuse and suicide.

Ehrensaft wrote a book, “Spoiling Childhood: How Well-Meaning Parents Are Giving Children Too Much — But Not What They Need.” But she said there is no comparison between a child pushing for a later bedtime and a child insisting he is really a girl. ?

* * *

Last spring, toward the end of first grade, Ben pestered his mom and dad for a new name.

He hated that china plate on display in the dining room curio that listed his birth date and name, Benjamin James.

Together, they came up with a new name: Mary Kathryn. Katie for short.

Katie at home, Ben at school.

Katie was Katie all summer, and his mother began buying girl clothes.

She also realized she and her husband needed help.

They rejected Zucker’s approach. “This does not go away, this is not a phase,” said Katie’s mom.

Instead, they enlisted Megan Smith, an Omaha therapist who works with transgender people. A licensed therapist with a master’s degree in counseling who initially was a social worker, Smith has counseled women in prostitution. A number were transgender — men passing as women.

Smith declined to comment on Katie’s situation, saying she would not discuss a client.

In general, she said she has heard a lot of sad stories from transgender adults. Many were rejected by families and kicked out of their homes. Bullied at school, they dropped out. They turned to prostitution to survive and drugs to cope.

“If the child is truly transgender,” Smith said, “it’s not going to go away.”

* * *

At most schools, the emphasis on gender is reflected in the same-sex lines of children walking down the hallway and the gender-specific restrooms, locker rooms and sports teams.

Schools often are not equipped to deal with gender identity issues. The Omaha Public Schools try to discuss concerns, like restrooms, while honoring the family’s choice of gender for the child. Millard said it was a private family matter. Westside said it hadn’t dealt with any cases.

Teachers at St. Wenceslaus Catholic School appeared to take Ben in stride. They allowed him to use the nurse’s restroom. When his letter to his Kimball, Neb., pen pal said “I’m a boy-girl,” his first-grade teacher told him that was a little personal for the first letter and saved it for his parents.

Last fall in gym class, a classmate told Ben he was a boy. Ben responded by spitting on the classmate.

Ben’s parents decided they had to move faster to transition Ben to Katie.

The church leaders, however, said Ben was welcome as Ben but not as Katie. This came just as Ben was telling his parents he would refuse to go to First Communion if he had to wear what he called a “tuxedo.”

His mother didn’t want to force Ben into a suit; nor did she want to spring “Katie” on Ben’s classmates at Mass.

She found the option of First Communion at Sacred Heart parish in north Omaha, where her family had worshipped with Katie as Katie.

But when the mother took the case of Ben’s transition to Katie in third grade to the chancellor for the Archdiocese of Omaha, the Rev. Joseph Taphorn, he said no.

In a recent interview, he explained the decision. From the church’s perspective, Taphorn said, one is either male or female and can’t change.

He added: “It’s not fair to other children or families to introduce this question and this issue that is obviously a very real and serious one.”

Educated in Omaha’s Catholic schools, Katie’s mom was hurt and upset. She asked friends by e-mail to show their support by putting empty envelopes in the collection plate.

Later, she said she didn’t want to hurt the school, but wanted to spark discussion.

Katie’s mom decided to end the school year a week early. “Katie’s waited long enough to be Katie,” she said. The child will enter third grade at a public school in fall.

On Mother’s Day, Katie was oblivious to all the grown-up turmoil. She showed up at her grandmother’s suburban home wearing a turquoise tank top with a sparkly star, and jeans that had the cuffs dotted with faux jewels.

She played in the basement with her 5-year-old brother. She sat on her mom’s lap to nuzzle.

Her thick, sandy brown hair now is past her chin. Blue clips pin back the short parts.

Dancing into the kitchen to color a picture, her voice and manner were so girl, it would be difficult to tell she was a boy.

* * *

Puberty, of course, could change that.

Unless Katie decides to be Ben before age 11 or 12, her parents will try to get her on puberty blockers.

The blockers, the first stage of medical intervention, delay puberty. A boy on blockers won’t get his Adam’s apple. A girl won’t get her period. If the blockers are stopped, the child proceeds with puberty.

If not, the child proceeds to take cross-hormones. Boys develop female characteristics, including breasts. Girls gain deeper voices and facial hair.

Most of the transgender patients Dr. Carol Milazzo treats in the Sacramento, Calif., area show more than physical change.

“When I first see them,” the former Omaha pediatrician said, “they are very introverted, very insecure, and then they come out of their shell. They just blossom tremendously in social skills and, generally, happiness.”

Milazzo’s clinic has treated about 150 transgender patients, some as young as 10. The youngest prescribed cross-hormones was 15. They come from as far as 500 miles away.

* * *

The Omaha parents constantly ask themselves: Are we doing the right thing?

Then they think about how their middle child loved to play with Polly Pocket dolls, still is a Hannah Montana fan and often strikes a pose with hand on hip.

And how Katie is unequivocal when choosing girl clothes.

For Katie right now, there is no uncertainty.

Several days ago, a present arrived in the mail.

Her grandmother had ordered a replacement plate for the curio. Overjoyed, Katie took the old Benjamin James plate and wrapped it in three plastic sacks.

She threw it with all her might, shattering it to pieces.

In its place, on display in the dining room, a new china plate reads: Mary Kathryn.

Katie.

Al Zimmerman, DCF, Arrested On CHILD PORN Charges

TAMPA, Fla. — A former spokesman for Florida's child welfare agency was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison Friday for taking nude photos of teenage boys, including a 16-year-old under the agency's care.

Al Zimmerman's arrest prompted a review of hiring policies and personnel files at the Florida Department of Children and Families to make sure every employee has had a criminal background check. The former TV newsman pleaded guilty in January to a charge of producing child pornography. Other charges were dropped as part of a plea agreement.

Zimmerman apologized to the victims and his family.

"I keep hoping I'll wake up from this, that it's a bad dream," he said. "I've pretty much destroyed my life."

U.S. District Judge Susan C. Bucklew sentenced Zimmerman to 24 years, four months, which was at the lower end of the sentencing guidelines.

One of his attorneys, Eric Kuske, said Zimmerman waived an opportunity to argue for a lower sentence because he wanted to save his family and the victims the humiliation of having details of the crimes recounted in court.

"Most of my tears have been for the people who have suffered for my mistakes," Zimmerman told the judge.

Prosecutor Colleen Murphy-Davis said Zimmerman preying on a child in the foster care system was "the ultimate insult." Zimmerman was the public face and media liaison for the child welfare agency.

Prosecutors said in court documents that Zimmerman paid one boy for sending him photos and took his own photos of the boy posing nude and masturbating.

The boy told investigators his friends began gathering at Zimmerman's house, where they were given alcohol, the document said. Zimmerman lived in Lakeland in central Florida and part-time in Tallahassee.

Another boy told investigators he photographed himself nude with his cell phone camera on five or six occasions and sent the photos to Zimmerman, who then sent him money.

The documents also detailed explicit e-mails authorities said Zimmerman sent to one of the boys describing poses and activities he wanted in photographs to get top dollar from overseas pornographers.

After learning that he was being investigated, Zimmerman asked a child welfare agency computer technician to throw his home computer in an outdoor trash container so authorities couldn't get access to it, prosecutors said.

DCF must do better

A little boy in foster care is dead by his own hand, but a poorly functioning child welfare system also is responsible. Last month, 7-year-old Gabriel Myers hanged himself on an extendable shower hose while in a South Florida foster home. At the time he was taking a combination of psychotropic medications, one of which carries a warning that it might lead to suicidal behavior in children. State law was ignored in giving the child the medicines without consent from his mother or a judge. In the final outrage, this child was given risky drugs but not the intense attention he so obviously needed.

St. Petersburg Times staff writer Kris Hundley reported that at the time of his death, Gabriel was taking Vyvanse, an ADHD drug, and Symbyax, a combination antipsychotic and antidepressant, which warns of heightened suicide risk in children particularly when first prescribed.

Six times, Gabriel's caseworker had documented that the Department of Children and Families had parental consent for the medication. But there was no such consent. Gabriel's mother signed a general medical authorization on the same day she was found unconscious in her car with powder cocaine, crack and oxycodone in her possession. But when a child is in state custody, a parent must give explicit consent after being "expressly informed" about changes in a child's medication, including being told of medications' benefits and risks and about alternative treatments.

That never happened in Gabriel's case, and it appears this case is not unique. It has been a common practice for DCF workers and physicians to fail to obtain parental consent when a psychotropic drug is for a nonpsychotherapeutic use, under the mistaken impression that the law didn't require it.

And foster care advocates say that DCF's internal records are abysmal in tracking children taking psychotropic medications. This also suggests that proper consents are not being obtained.

DCF Secretary George Sheldon is responding appropriately to Gabriel's tragic death. He is closing the loophole that allowed the prescribing of mood-altering drugs without parental consent. He has named an impressive committee to investigate Gabriel's death and make recommendations. Sheldon also made public the details of Gabriel's situation rather than try to cover up DCF's failings. That alone bodes well for an honest accounting and a sincere desire to reform.

But to prevent a similar situation, Sheldon will have to look beyond a caseworker's failure to inform a parent and address a system's failure to adequately meet Gabriel's needs.

Gabriel said he had been a victim of sexual abuse before moving to Florida, which means he should not have been placed in any foster home where there were small children present. As Gabriel started engaging in inappropriate touching, he was bounced from one foster placement to another to protect other children. This kind of shuffling can add trauma to a child who is already at risk.

Gabriel also didn't receive all the behavioral therapy he needed, and he lost the therapist with whom he had established a relationship. Sheldon noted that in the days before his suicide Gabriel changed medications, moved to a new foster home and received a new therapist.

Sheldon has it right when he says that Gabriel's death "ought to mean something." State law needs to be followed when prescribing medication for children in foster care. And particularly when it comes to damaged children, there has to be a recognition that drugs are no substitute for basic human care and attention.



[Last modified: May 11, 2009 07:35 PM]

Alamo follower in N.J. regains custody of son, attorney says

BY ANDY DAVIS

Posted on Thursday, May 7, 2009

URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/259025/

An 11-year-old boy who spent five months in foster care will return home to his father, a member of the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries who lives in New Jersey, after a judge found no evidence the boy had been abused or neglected, the father's attorney said Wednesday.

The boy was taken into custody by the New Jersey Department of Children and Families' Youth and Family Services Division in January after a report that the boy had been physically abused, said attorney Rosemarie Anderson of Iselin, N.J. Anderson was appointed by the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender to represent the father, Steve Wedel.

The Youth and Family Services Division later determined that the allegations were unfounded, Anderson said. After a hearing in Elizabeth, N.J., on Tuesday, a state Superior Court judge ordered the boy returned to his father within five days, Anderson said.

"I think it took a little longer than it should have, but in the end the right thing was done," Anderson said.

The case was hailed as a victory for the ministry by the advocacy group CPS Watch Legal Team, which has sued the Arkansas Department of Human Services on behalf of the church over the removal of 36 children from their homes on ministry property in Arkansas.

The Arkansas agency says ministry children are endangered by practices that include underage marriages and beatings over disobedience. Tony Alamo, the group's 74-year-old leader, has been incarcerated since Sept. 25 and is awaiting trial on charges that he transported five under- age girls across state lines for sex during the past 15 years.

In November, the state Department of Human Services obtained court orders in Miller and Sebastian counties allowing it to take 128 ministry children into protective custody. It is continuing to search for 98 of them and has sought the cooperation of child-welfare officials in New Jersey and other states.

Wedel's son was not among the children named in the Arkansas court orders.

Cheryl Barnes, the CPS Watch Legal Team's litigation specialist, said the New Jersey ruling shows that not all ministry children are at risk.

"New Jersey has declined to follow suit with Arkansas in removing children on the basis of association with the Tony Alamo ministries," Barnes said. "Instead, they looked at this child [Wedel's son] individually, and they didn't find any abuse in that individual case."

Lauren Kidd, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Children and Family Services, declined to comment, citing privacy laws on child-abuse cases.

Arkansas Human Services Department spokesman Julie Munsell said her agency still believes ministry children are at risk of abuse, but it recognizes that the circumstances in each case are different.

"That's one of the reasons why every child's case is heard," Munsell said. "Every parent in that case will have the opportunity to demonstrate to the court their capacity to be able to parent that child."

She also noted that the goal in each case is to reunite children and parents, provided that conditions are met to ensure the safety of the children.

Wedel, who didn't return a call seeking comment Wednesday, and his wife share a home with fellow member Robert Streit and his wife in Elizabeth. He attends services at a ministry church in nearby New York City.

In Arkansas, judges have required church members to move off church property and find jobs outside the ministry before they can be reunited with their children. Barnes said the Wedels and Streits rent the house where they live from a man who is not a member. She said she doesn't know where Wedel works.

Caseworkers in New Jersey, accompanied by police officers, initially visited the house at 5 a.m. Dec. 5, searching for ministry children who had fled with their parents from Arkansas, according to an affidavit Streit filed in the Arkansas lawsuit. The Wedels were not home at the time, Barnes said.

On Dec. 30, the Youth and Family Services Division received a report that the son had been abused and neglected, according to a letter from the agency to Wedel and provided by Barnes. Barnes said the report alleged that the boy had been beaten by another ministry member last summer.

Youth and Family Services caseworkers took the boy into protective custody on Jan. 3 at Newark Liberty International Airport as he returned home from a visit with his mother, who does not belong to the ministry and lives in Overland Park, Kan., Barnes said. The mother could not be located for comment Wednesday.

The boy denied that he had been abused, Barnes said, and the agency determined the claim was unfounded. At the conclusion of Tuesday's hearing, Superior Court Judge Jo-Anne Spatola ordered the boy to be returned to his father within five days, Barnes said.

As a condition of the boy returning home, Spatola required that the boy be enrolled in school, rather than taught at home, and that Wedel submit to monitoring for three months. Wedel will follow those conditions but plans to appeal because he thinks they are unnecessary, Barnes said.

"The son has been homeschooled his whole life," Barnes said. "He tested above grade level."

Statement from Thomas Richards regarding Alamo Ministries Case

I do not at this time nor have I EVER supported any kind of child abuse. I supported Alamo ministries and attempted to defend them because I believe the accusations against them to be false. I have constantly been under attack by enemies of Alamo Ministries for simply testifying publicly these things. I have had my home raided and terrorized by my State and Federal Government for this. They (Alamo Ministry opponents) have continuously attempted to strengthen my connection to their version of Alamo Ministries because I am standing for what I believe to be the truth and they can't stand hearing it. (And what I believe is true and factual is that while at Alamo Ministries all I saw were children very well taken care of and I never saw or caught wind of any kind of "abuse" as defined by the law or any other form of abuse.) They (Alamo Ministry opponents) do this to try and intimidate me and to hinder my right to free speech.

They have now entered into their newspaper saying there used to be a youtube video I did and my picture on Alamo Ministries web site. Alamo Ministries put my youtube video on their web site along with my youtube picture/avatar. I didn't do that. And nobody mentions that I took down that same video from youtube about a month after I had it up. Alamo opponents don't mention that because they want to hurt anyone who is not cooperating with them. And it's no secret that the FBI have badgered people, witnesses in the past to try and get them to say what the FBI want them to say. That includes the use of blackmail. So at this point it's hard to even believe any of their witnesses against Alamo.

I support Alamo Ministries just as far as the U.S. Constitution and the Bible supports them.

My question to Lynn Larowe is why does it appear that you have the FBI and FBI informants write your articles for you? This is why I refused to speak with Lynn as I can clearly see an agenda against Alamo Ministries in every single one of her articles.

Another question I have is where was the child pornography? Isn't that what set the raid off on the Alamo Ministries Properties? Why should I believe the government? Why should I believe the state? You went in there with a "cause", a "reason" yet you found no support of that. And videos of the girls you took into "protective" custody have leaked to the internet stating they were not abused.

That makes me not trust the federal And State governments in this matter. And for me to be attacked for my beliefs has shown that the Government is not for free speech/the U.S. Constitution.

Again, I am on the side of justice. I am on the side of innocence. And I am on the side of freedoms granted by the U.S. Constitution. Period.

And I have not been a "member" of Alamo Ministries for almost 6 years now AND I have been employed by my employer since 1993! And yet they still terrorized my family at 5:00 AM on Dec 5th. ONLY BECAUSE OF MY INTERNET ACTIVITY.

Signed, Thomas Richards

Circuit Judge in Alamo Custody Cases Dies

Texarkana - Circuit Judge Jim Hudson, who presided in child custody hearings involving parents within jailed evangelist Tony Alamo's ministry, died Sunday. He was 56.

Hudson served as a prosecutor before being elected judge in 1991. He was recently nominated to fill a vacant federal judgeship. The Texarkana Gazette reported that Hudson was admitted to a Little Rock hospital March 27th for removal of a cancerous area of his small intestines. Several days following the procedure Hudson developed an infection from which he never fully recovered.

Hudson and another judge have presided over high-profile child custody cases in which some of Alamo's followers have opted for jail rather than say where their children are. In all, 36 children have been taken into state custody. Services for Hudson are pending with East Funeral Home in downtown Texarkana.

Ashton Lundeby, 16, is being held under the USA Patriot Act

http://www.wral.com/news/local/video/5050332/

Teen's mom questions Patriot Act

Ashton Lundeby, 16, is being held under the USA Patriot Act on a criminal complaint that a bomb threat was made from his Oxford home the night of Feb. 15.