This from Canadian blogger, Crooked in Canada:
With regard to the suicide-murder in Drumheller, Alberta…
Meara McIntosh-Whether or not police, social workers, and the courts thought a grief-stricken Drumheller woman was a pain in the ass or not, all three parties at least as far as I’m concerned, are the reason McIntosh’s estranged husband had the opportunity to murder her three-year-old son.
Cops, social workers and the courts knew that Rich Saunders was a dangerous and volatile person around his soon-to-be ex-wife and three-year-old son otherwise on the days that Saunders was to have custody of his son, the couple wouldn’t have been forced to hand over their son to one another at the local RCMP station.
I’m not talking about a couple in the midst of a bitter divorce and child-custody dispute that the police, social workers and courts weren’t familiar with, after all they had been aware about the family’s struggles for the 18 months prior to the murder-suicide.
This is an perfect example of the sometimes nonchalant and lackadaisical attitude authorities have when it comes to such issues. What really gets me about this case is that despite the constant involvement of the cops, the courts and social workers in this case, none of the aforementioned had the good sense to at the very least make sure that the father had only supervised visits.
The police had the evidence to back up such an order; after all they were privy to a lot of information regarding the battle between husband and wife. They knew about the threats the husband had made against his wife, they knew that he was more than a little irrational, and they almost certainly would have revealed their knowledge at sometime during the couple’s many court appearances, and yet for some reason the husband was allowed to have unsupervised visits with his son.
And social services, where the f**k were they in all this, sitting on the top of the fence hoping that the whole thing would blow over in due course? Surely they would have been aware of the risks for the child involved. They would have had to known because somewhere along the line of this bitter divorce and child-custody dispute that endured 18 months somebody from the courts or the police, perhaps even the mother herself would have informed them of what was an obviously volatile situation for a child to be in. Somebody failed this mother and her now dead child.
If ever there was a case of negligence to be made against authorities, this is a good one to make.
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Comment by Canadian Gypsy — October 10, 2008 @ 9:53 am
I am an old high school friend of Richard Saunder. I believed he was very kind and had a big heart and was very devestated and shocked to hear the news of what happened. I hadn’t yet read the details of what happened and had a hard time believing Richard would do something like this
From personal experience I realize that people who are domestically violent whether emotion or physical have a cunning way of hiding it from their family and friends. They can even get sympathy by portraying the victim as the one who is the problem. Unfortunatly woman who are abused suffer extreme side effects and these side effects such depression and paranoiah are used them to justify the abuse.
I have been in 2 woman shelters. I have been hospitilized and called crazy for speaking out about the fear my ex caused me. I was told I was paranoid even though my screens were busted and there were fresh foot prints on my balcony, and outright threats on my life.
A friend and I were in a car chase in the middle of the night where we had to pull into someone elses drive way in order to escape.
He uttered threats on my life, he pounded holes in my walls, he was down right abusive. He told everyone I was crazy and a liar. And eventually I started believing that I was going crazy. I learned in the woman’s shelter that the term is called “crazy making.”
I was so beaten down and had no one on my side except for a friend who witnessed alot of it.
In the summer, I ended up on a psych ward suffering from paranoia. I thought there were camera’s in my place, I was suffering psychologically from the abuse. Social Services stepped in and placed my daughter with him. He had them convinced I was making it up, that I was crazy. He filed for custody. I was devestated.
One night we spoke on the phone. I had been drinking and so had he. He invited me over to talk things through. We got into a fight and he tried strangling me. His mom who lives with him ripped the shirt right of his back trying to get him to stop. She drug him in the other room and I phoned the police to get escorted out. When they arrived he told them I had a mental disorder and had showed up and assaulted him. They threw me in jail for the night. I was outraged and feeling extremely hopeless.
His mom was looking after my daughter while he worked. She is a crack addict and an alcoholic. I begged Social Services to investigate. I was very worried about my daughter in that environment. No one listened. He told them I was crazy and made it up.
My daughter is disabled and goes to daycare where specialists work with her twice a week. Everything came to a head when his mom showed up drunk to pick her up. The police were called and Social Services was then forced to snip her hair for drugs and take me seriously.
They removed her out of his care and placed her in a foster care. He started phoning me and making threats so I taped him. Hoping to get his threats on tape, I ended up taping him plotting to slash the social workers throat. It didn’t matter when my life was in danger but I guess it does when a government employees life is in danger.
The social worker pressed charges and I ended up back at the same Vernon BC, police station that had thrown me in prison for asking for help.
I get my daughter back in three months. Even though it is now clear I was telling the truth and that I was not crazy but suffering from extreme lack of sleep (for fear of being broken into) and post tramatic stress disorder I can not have my daughter back for 3 more months. There is no reason for this accept an inablitity on behalf of the government to own up to there mistakes.
Comment by Kristin Hagen — November 18, 2008 @ 7:59 pm
Kristin,
They have called us crazy since the dawn of time. I think that’s how the mental health field got started: women and hysterectomies. When they call [you] crazy, its shifts the focus from them, to you. It “otherizes” you so that they don’t have to understand you or understand the situation. Congratulations for surviving and maintaining your strength!
Comment by Rj — November 19, 2008 @ 9:42 am
I too am a friend of the saunders family. a very good friend.
if you were too you would know this is bullshit. yaya you have a rough relationship…haven’t we all? I like how you took this tragic
story and made it all about you. talk about playing the victim for attention.
if you knew rich you would know that he would never physically harm her. he may have wanted to but he NEVER did.
meara was a bitch plain and simple and was one of those women that would use her child in whatever way she could to her ex spouse. imagine every rotten, horrible nasty things a woman can do during a custody battle, this girl did it.
women like that make me sick. with all the dead beat dads out there she should be so lucky to have a man that wants to be there, wants to be a good dad.
his whole family was good to her beacause they are amazing people. during all of this they never said one bad thing about her. they didn’t feel the need to sling shit as she did. granted she has a right to, but maybe if she had handled the seperation like a grown adult and thought of colton’s best interests, this wouldn’t have happened.
and maybe did you stop to think that the local police told her they couldn’t help her because she WAS filing false complaints? which she WAS.
three sides to every story honey.
Comment by a friend of the family. — November 26, 2008 @ 4:16 am
@ a friend of the family–yes there are three sides and often more when “friends of the family” start talking…Don’t come on here trying to deny other dv victims by minimizing their stories aka “rough relationship.” Peace!
Comment by Rj — November 26, 2008 @ 9:25 am
I too notice ‘friend of the family’ must resort to sarcasm and ‘othering’ in order to make thier point. Maybe ‘friend of the family’ needs to be a star on Glenn’s Cult – where not just members of Glenn’s Cult are stars?
Comment by Glenn's Cult — December 27, 2008 @ 9:41 pm
This is to the ***”Friend of the Family Name Caller”***…You talk about the father never wanting to hurt the mother and yet, did you not notice that there is a dead 3 year old boy now buried, never again to be in his mother’s arms? How is this not hurting the mother? There are many ways to “Hurt” someone. You come on here all high and mighty defending a horrible excuse for a Father, and yet you seem to forget that he was the one who MURDERED a poor defenseless little boy!! He may have been the picture of perfection to anyone he wanted to have back him up so he could get his hands on his little boy and take him from the one who loved him the most dear! He never wanted to be a father to this little boy, he only wanted to “Hurt” the mother in the only way he knew she would never forget and that it would never be able to fully heal. Bruises, cuts and bones heal, but a child taken from his mother by a disgusting cowardly man will be a “Hole” in her heart for as long as she lives! Take a step back and really look at this whole story and see if you still feel Manly or Womanly enough to defend this coward. May this never happen to you, for if it does, you will only know too well the “Hurt” this mother is now going through. See if anyone listens if life decides to be cruel to you as well.
Comment by Friend of Mother — January 4, 2009 @ 2:05 am
having known both parties for more than 10 years, i can say that i’ve been there with them through it all (vicariously of course). “he said – she said” is pointless now. what is true is the following;
their separation was very difficult.
authorities involved did not do their jobs properly.
they both wanted custody.
rich won.
Comment by Pamela Kirk — January 19, 2009 @ 9:06 pm
[...] If ever there was a box of loosening to be made… [...]
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