I’m about to link a thread that in and of itself is very disturbing.  Being a stepmother myself and living in what I recently learned was termed a “blended family” for some time now, I had no idea that there could be this many stepparents out there who harbored outright hatred of their stepchildren.  Not until in my research I stumbled on to this thread – actually, I have to say this “forum” because this particular thread is only one of several with the attitudes voiced in this forum entitled “Stepfamily Forum”.

Then within that thread I’m going to be discussing a specific post.  I want to say upfront that when I read it there was enough that made me fear it COULD be Terri Horman that I did, in fact, submit questions to a contact who I asked if Kaine Horman could answer in order to determine if it could be Terri.  Kaine’s answers to those questions led me to believe this is NOT Terri Horman, but I can’t help but point out that somewhere out there is some child in a dangerous situation.  And if the person who posted this comment takes issue with my opinion on that….they can go suck eggs.

I’m sharing this for a couple of reasons.  To show that there ARE stepparents out there who are not mature enough and not emotionally stable enough to be stepparents.  As a stepparent I can tell you that I take issue with anyone who wants to try to cast stepparents – in some blanket stereotypical fashion – as evil people.  I think a person is either bad or good – but not by label.  So there are bad parents (note Teghan’s mother, or Casey Anthony) just like there are bad stepparents.  But I also share this with you because I wonder…could this voice a possible motive behind Terri’s thinking – IF she was, in fact, involved in Kyron’s disappearance?  Read these words carefully and consider that question.

From this thread on “iVillage Garden Web:  The internet’s garden & home community” in the forum “Stepfamily”.  Thread title “Can’t accept my Stepson”.

http://www.thathomesite.com/forums/load/step/msg011826118329.html?60

Approximately 3/4’s of the way down the page a post by “stepmom2kids” posted on Saturday, March 13, 2010 at 18:35:

I hate my step kid too. Its not pleasant to think of your husband with another woman making babies, much less having to care for them yourself as a free babysitter, and all the bull that comes with it. Out in the wild, hippos, lions and various other mammals will kill these offspring. I can’t stand my step kid, and he lives with us
Anyways, if I didn’t know him I’d say he’s a very sweet kid, that has a speech disorder/learning disorder, and as long as I wouldn’t have to be around him for extended periods of time, I’d like him, or be indifferent. But since he’s my step kid and I’m his main caretaker, I harbor a lot of resentment, that I worry may harm my health carrying all of this secret hate around, or that it will come around band bite me in the ass somehow later on. It is very unnatural having step kids, very unnatural to love them, it goes against nature is how it feels anyway.  I have often wished he’d get out of my life, but we can’t afford to pay child support and I have my own daughter to worry about. If we pay more than we can afford each month, how am I going to take care of my own daughter? That would agonize me much more than gritting my teeth everyday and enduring my stepson’s presence. I too would get up and do the gig if I only had to have him 3weeks out of the year. I used to wish that he would choke to death, and one day at a buffet it actually almost happened, man, did I regret that wish, I cried so much, I felt so sorry for his helpless little face as he chocked for air. I couldn’t have lived with the guilt if he’s dad wouldn’t of been there to save his life. Now I just wish he’d get abducted by aliens or something, Just kidding. He’s okay sometimes, but usually talks like a retard behind his years. I think he has some kind of learning disability that makes him very good with numbers, but a social retard (in my spiteful opinion). According to the dad he is a genius…Pff.. HAHA! What happened to me, I used to be nice, I still am a very nice person, it was normal for close friends to call me one of the nicest, accepting friends, accepting and befriending anyone for who they were. But being a step mom has brought out the worst in me, and is certainly the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I feel like Angelina Jolie in that movie where the police give her a kid that is not hers and he’s calling her “mom”, she throws a pan at the wall and shrieks, “I’m NOT YOUR MOTHER, DON’T CALL ME THAT!!!”. That’s what I want to do when he calls me mom. Instead I shutter inside, and on the outside, I smile sweetly and say, Yes? This is what my life will be from now on because I married a good guy who already had a kid.

Okay, you can probably immediately see why I emailed in questions to be submitted to Kaine Horman on this.  A stepmother with a small daughter “putting up with” her stepson and voicing hatred and wishes of him choking to death….kind of set off sirens for me.  So I submitted the following questions (in so many words):

1.  Did Kyron have a speech impediment, but more importantly did Terri ever say SHE thought he had one?

2.  Was there ever an incident in which the family was out at a buffet, Kyron choked, and Kaine had to assist him in order to help him stop choking?

The answer came back “No to both.”

So, I don’t THINK this is Terri Horman, but I have not been able to set aside this post.  Because what IF it does voice some of the thinking that could have been going through her head.  What IF she did really want Kyron to go live with Desiree but she didn’t want to see the loss in income?  After all, if a child goes to live with the other parent it isn’t just a loss of the child support you recieve, it is DOUBLE that loss because you begin to pay it to the other parent.  Could this hideous post hold insight into what may have happened in Terri’s head?  Was she “faking sincerity” in her stepmotherly role while all the while harboring deep hatred, even wishes of harm to Kyron?

I don’t know.  And I’m not trying to accuse her of such.  But this post, ever since I discovered it, has haunted me and I just wonder if it holds insight into what could be a motive.  So I submit it as a starter for discussion.  IF Terri did something with or to Kyron, what WAS her motive?  Or could it be she really is just another eraser killer?

Valhall.

A 25 minute interview was conducted yesterday with Kaine Horman and Desiree Young that I believe is the most informative we have had to date.  I urge anyone following this case who has not listened to it yet to take the time to do so.  A lot of false rumors are cleared up and revelations into what a bold faced liar Terri Horman is were presented as well.  So let’s spend some time on the information given in this interview and set some things straight for ourselves.

What the family knows about June 4th

The information that Kaine, Desiree and Tony have about what Terri says she did, and what problems she has faced concerning the differences between her story and what the investigators have learned has all come from Terri herself. Kaine and Desiree were clear that the investigators are keeping the information they have on what they have learned about Terri’s movements, activities and locations on June 4th close to the vest and they are not sharing that information with the family.  However, Terri flapped her lips plenty as the investigation went along.

Here are the things the family learned from Terri:

• That she flunked two polygraphs and walked out of another one (from prior interviews).
• That she felt persecuted from day 1 and put out by having to be questioned (from statements made by Tony on Dateline).
• That her cell phone pings “pinged in locations she wasn’t at on June 4th”.  Remember, that’s Terri’s statements.  So, in other words, she was admitting that the investigators were saying her cell phone pings did not match where she said she was.
• That Terri explicitly stated, when she told Kaine she needed the pickup on the 4th, that she needed it to pickup the project THAT MORNING.  Apparently, Kaine’s understanding, based on Terri’s statements, was that she was going to the science fair and then bringing the project home once the fair was over.  He now questions, himself, what the real reason was that Terri wanted the pickup since she apparently had no intention of picking the project up until after school, when he was to be back home with the pickup anyway.
• Terri is the one that has been very vocal (apparently to friends who have then shared this information with Kaine/Desiree) that she paid $350,000 to Stephen Houze for him to represent her.
• While not directly answering the question (because both Kaine and Desiree stated they were not to talk of the timeline), Kaine indirectly confirmed that Terri had made some statement about Kiara having some type of discomfort on June 4th (possibly teething pains? or earache? who knows).
• All prior statements made by the family concerning anything about Terri and June 4th have come from Terri and not the investigators.

In addition to those things learned from Terri, Kaine and Desiree cleared up some issues as well as added new information, including:

• Kaine left home at about 7:45 and left work about 1:45.  He states his drive from home to work or vice versa is about a 20 to 25 minute drive.  So he stated he arrived at work that morning “a little after 8″ and arrived home that afternoon “a little after 2″.
• Kaine said that Terri was on her laptop when he arrived home, apparently emailing and on her Facebook account.  Kiara was in her room.  He went and found Kiara, gave her kiss and then started his work from home.
• Kaine states he did not observe Terri acting peculiar or anything else that would make him suspicious about her behavior that afternoon prior to discovering Kyron was missing.
• However, Desiree feels she did notice something “different”.  During that day Terri sent her 3 to 4 emails.  Typically (according to both Desiree and Kaine) Terri is usually quite “verbose” in the emails she sends Desiree (and others, one would assume).  In these emails on the 4th, Desiree states she was very terse, reducing the communications to one sentence emails.
• Desiree states that Terri emailed her in the afternoon and told her she had emailed the school to find out when she could pick up the project so that she could bring it home for Desiree to see.

Other things revealed concerning the time of June 4th:

• While it was not explicitly stated what day Terri took the project to school, Kaine explicitly states that Terri did use the pickup on a previous day (it is assumed by this writer it was Thursday) to take the project to school.
• Contrary to previous understandings the classes formally toured the science fair on Thursday and did their “reports”.  This most likely means that Tanner Pumala’s recollections of events about a 6 student group and a “substitute teacher” who led them through the fair is about Thursday.  It also most likely means that Tanner’s recollection of Kyron saying he wanted to go back and see the cool “electric” project was on Thursday. This is not confirmed, but it starts to make Tanner’s account “work”.  But it also opens up new questions for Friday June 4th.  When did the science fair end that morning?  Was it 9 a.m.?  When did classes formerly convene that morning?  Was it 9 a.m.?  The reason this is important is if the time was set aside for family members to view the fair until 10 a.m., and classes and roll call were not to officially begin until 10 a.m., then why in Sam Hill would Terri leave Kyron in a chaotic, basically under-supervised situation for an hour?  I would really like to know the correct answers to these questions.

About Terri’s lies:

Desiree was asked about her statement that Terri has always been a liar.  The interviewer asked her if she could give an example.  This was an uncomfortable moment in the interview because apparently there is at least one if not several “big whoppers” Terri has told connected, most likely, with Desiree/Kaine’s marriage break up and how that all went down.  Desiree passed on sharing that and it was also stated in the interview that they were unified they would not go into those past relationship issues.  However, Kaine and Desiree gave the following as examples of Terri’s lies:

• The lie that Terri and Desiree were good friends before Kyron was born – a Terri lie.
• The lie that Kaine hired Terri to move in and take care of Kyron – a Terri lie.  Kaine responded that when Terri moved in (which is apparently only because they were in a relationship and had nothing to do with being altruistic or performing a caregiver service) Terri had a full time job.
• Kaine’s statements about other areas of their lives he has since questioned Terri’s honesty about:  Kaine makes the statement that he did not know about the lies Terri was telling other people (the “fiction”, as he refers to it) prior to 2005.  He does not go into detail about what the “fiction” was.  In 2005 is when Terri decided to “compete” in bodybuilding.  It was at this time that Kaine learned that she was lying about how much she was drinking and how much drugs she was taking.  She went from 180 pounds to 123 lbs in 4 months, competed in one competition, and then that was it for her competition bodybuilding.  During this time she was drinking herself to sleep at night and overtaking stimulants, fat-burners and other over-the-counter medications.  When Kaine was asked if she took steroids he basically said that he could only say what Terri told him (which was apparently “no” ) but at this point he doesn’t know what to believe.
• Not explicitly stated as a Terri lie BUT SOMEONE has misled media/people to believe that James permanently moved out of the Horman home and in with his biological father several months before Kyron disappeared.  Also, SOMEONE has led certain media to believe it was because of a bad relationship with Kaine.  According to Kaine, this is all untrue.  First, he states that James had not permanently moved out of their home, but that James spent the summers with his father.  When Kyron went missing it was decided, due to what was happening in the Horman home and the investigation, it was best that James stay with his father.  Kaine also states that the “friction” was mainly between James and Terri.  While he admits that he and James butted heads at time from typical teenage boy/father role disagreements, he stated that he and James have a good relationship and that there were lots of times Kaine was having to act as mediator between Terri and James.  Apparently Terri was not handling dealing with James well.

Miscellaneous information provided:

• Terri’s first polygraph (which she failed) was on Monday, June 7th.
• Kaine, Desiree (and Tony’s?) polygraphs were on Tuesday, June 8th.
• Kaine stated that he really didn’t keep up with how or where Terri spent her days when he was at work.  He stated she would go off “doing her stuff” and until Kyron went missing he really had no reason to question what she was doing or where she was going.
• Since Kyron went missing Kaine has been told by friends that he and Terri visited and possibly spent the night with that after he and Terri would leave their home their alcohol stash would be measurably lower…which indicates the possibility that Terri continued to hide her alcohol consumption past 2005 when her over consumption was revealed via her DUI.
• When asked if they think DeDe Spicher was somehow involved in Kyron’s disappearance, Desiree offered that she had no factual reason to think that but due to DeDe not cooperating and acting so smug when asked questions about Kyron Desiree couldn’t help but have a motherly bad feeling about DeDe.
• Kaine talked about the potential importance of information that might be gleaned from Terri’s friends she has communicated with since Kyron’s disappearance.  He stated they had learned that Terri throws little snippets of information out to each person, but never reveals enough information to one particular person for them to get the full picture.  He stated she may have given each friend she has communicated with since Kyron’s disappearance some piece of information that when all friends are interviewed and all statements put together it could lead to a clearer picture of what happened on June 4th.
• Kiara has not asked to see Terri.  Kaine describes Kiara as a “new kid” since living outside the presence of her mother.

Valhall.

Yesterday it came out that Jose Baez borrowed Casey Anthony’s poopie pants and is now deep in the throws of his own poopie-pants-dance over a parody that some “unnamed blogger” put up of him using one of his publicly published photographs on his Facebook account.  According to unnamed sources Baez, seen stomping down north Orange Avenue with one of those big sticky pacifier rings in his mouth, mumbled something about he was going to go find a real lawyer who by golly would help him get his pictures back….or something to that effect.  I think he wants to sue someone.

RUMOR HAS IT that the blogger in question is BlinkonCrime.  And RUMOR HAS IT that the picture in question is this one…

A parody put together by either Blink herself or one of her readers – who cares who did it.  Okay, first let me point out that the photograph above is copyrighted by Blink.  She has the right to do that because it is a parody created and published on her site.  I have now shared it with you on my website in a manner that actually meets the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) by providing a link back to Blink’s site and stating where I got it.  In fact, if you look at the URL of the pic…I didn’t even copy it…I just linked it.  BUT, let’s pretend Blink woke up this morning with HER poopie pants on and she didn’t like that I posted her picture on my site.  Guess what?  She has to follow the requirements of the DMCA in order to get me to take down this photograph.

What are those requirements?  Well, she must issue a 24-hour takedown notice to me.  But actually, there’s a little more leeway on my side than that.  Because I am a non-profit, individual blogger…she has to issue me a takedown notice that requests I “expeditiously” take down the copyrighted material.  In other words, me being one person, I am given time – because I might be in Zimbabwe with no internet tubes available – to take care of the issue.  If I were a large profit-making internet site, the 24-hour take down notice would apply.

But wait…what if, instead of posting Blink’s parody pic I had taken it and further manipulated it in a manner to create a new parody of say…Blink?  Or bloggers?  Or sleazy lawyers???

Blink – as well as Baez – would now be in a nine-line-bind.  Because it has been ruled in MoveOn, Brave New Films v. Viacom, that the right to individual citizens or organizations communicating their thoughts on the internet tubes TRUMPS the poopie-pants dance of entities not liking those parodies – even if those parodies are produced using what the poopie-pants entity thinks is copyrighted material.  In fact, in that ruling, Viacom, who was using “automatic takedown notices”, had to agree to set up a hotline, review any complaints they received from online organizations/individuals who received one of those takedown notices and felt they were in error (i.e. say against first amendment protected parodies) and ISSUE A REINSTATEMENT NOTICE if the review found that Viacom had been in error!

So…I would suggest that Baez continue to look for that real lawyer, tread lightly, and pull that big stick out of his ass.  Because he is not doing himself (or his clients) any good acting like a total moron in public.

P.S.  to Blink…if you want me to take your picture down issue me a take-down notice.  I’ve decided I’ll be in the Peruvian rain forest for the next week and I’ll get it down as expeditiously as I can. 

Valhall.

Well, you don’t have to be in Oregon to contribute to that Wall of Hope that steadily grows.  If you would like to contribute your thoughts in a letter, or send a memento, you can do so from anywhere in the world.  Simply send your gift to:

Kyron’s Wall
c/o Brooks Hill Historic Church
11539 NW Skyline Blvd
Portland, OR  97231

One nice thought is to help contribute an origami crane toward the goal of a Thousand Cranes of Hope for Kyron.  You may view an instructive video here that helps you make an origami crane.

Valhall.

As we all know in rock-paper-scissors, paper defeats rock.  For those of us following the circus previously known as the murder trial of Casey Anthony for the cause of seeking justice in Caylee Marie Anthony’s  murder, we also know that Bobble-headed Baez and Myelin-deficient Mason have thus far used the rock as their primary weapon of choice.  In fact, recently, in a post-hearing impromptu interview Mason gave outside the Orange County courthouse, we see how this battle strategy plays out.  He states:

Uh yeah, it’s been, the public has been made to believe that these people searched the exact area, um, where the body was, or tried to and couldn’t.  The fact is the didn’t try to, and they didn’t, they weren’t there, and it was impassable at the time. So there’s a lot of people who are mistaking things of what happened back in the summer of 2008 and what happened in the winter of 2008.

*blink blink*

Translation:

Me take rock…break coconut.

Okay, at the time I stated that one of the recommended remedial actions by the defense on this issue was to just keep Mason away from microphones.  And I stand by that.

Now, the importance of this excited utterance??? (lol) was that it came in the midst of a year-long battle where the defense has been trying to get their sneaky mitts on all 4000 TES volunteers’ information.  Their motion to get these records was first filed July 16, 2009.  And since that time Mark NeJame, representing Tim Miller and Texas Equusearch (TES), has fought to keep the privacy of volunteers who were not in the specific location where Caylee’s remains were eventually found from being disclosed publicly.  Since July 16 the defense has repeatedly wielded their trusty rock and beat the court about the head and neck trying to get a different answer than what they have been given.  That answer came on August 27, 2009 when Judge Stan Strickland ruled that all records associated with 32 TES volunteers who had been identified by Mark NeJame and Tim Miller to be within 50 yards of where the body was eventually located were to be turned over to the defense and that no other volunteers’ records are to be disclosed.

Now, in that same ruling by Judge Strickland it was ordered that Mark Nejame/Tim Miller would have to allow the defense to view all the other volunteers’ records to discern if there was anybody in the immediate area that NeJame/Miller missed.  They were to flag those documents and then have an in camera hearing with Judge Strickland at which time he would determine if they got a copy or not.  That’s when the rock bashing started.  BAM!  No we want it different.  BAM!  No we want it different…ad nauseum.

Meanwhile, back at the offices of Mark NeJame…the defense continued to NOT show up.  They did, in September 2009, call to inform NeJame that they were sending  “The Presentation Group” to make copies of all 4000 volunteers’ records.  NeJame immediately called TILT and pointed out that was not what Judge Strickland had ordered and that they needed to make an appointment to review and flag any documents so that those documents could be reviewed in camera by the judge and a ruling made case-by-case.  More rock-wielding.  BAM!  No that’s not what we want.  BAM!  No that’s not what we want.

On April 23, 2010 Baez and Mason finally showed up.  An outside monitor was assigned to oversee the review of the documents.  Baez showed up with 2 hours total to review documents (of 4000 people) saying he had another appointment to get to…colonic irrigation, or media interview, or something…not sure of the all-important other appointment, but he had one.  But nevertheless he and Mason were very productive in that 2 hours.  They flagged several volunteers’ papers who had searched in areas 300 yards to 8 miles away from the location of Caylee’s remains.  Good job with that rock.

And then on June 21st Mason took the mic outside the courthouse and made his now infamous coconut-bashing statement.  If it can actually be called a statement.

In the recent hearing held on various matters including the defense’s newest motion to try to get the court to reconsider Judge Strickland’s ruling on the TES matter, the hearing began with a sidebar concerning the TES matter.  At the end of the lengthy sidebar discussion, Judge Perry stated that NeJame could now file a motion on bad faith.  And everybody wondered what that was all about.

Well, if paper has teeth, NeJames’ Motion to Quash the defense’s application for subpoena duces tecum (i.e. their motion to get their mits on all 4000 searchers’ records) has a bite that surely is going to leave a permanent mark.  Not only did he cover the defense’s rock, I think they are collectively suffering a deep papercut at this point.  NeJame detailed the shenanigans of the defense over the past year and illustrated how they had never taken the review of these documents serious, and then summed it all up by quoting Cheney’s rambling soundbite that illustrates they don’t even think any searcher was near Caylee’s remains during the TES searches in 2008.

I think NeJame has done a hell of job showing their bad faith in this matter, but at the same time, I wouldn’t be surprised if Judge Perry errs on the side of the defense.  He doesn’t want this to be an issue that could be brought to the appellate court (an issue NeJame also addressed in his motion).  BUT, I suspect this time Judge Perry is going to cheat in the rock-paper-scissors game and pull out his jackhammer.  I suspect the judge’s ruling on this will be to first break that rock into little pea-size pebbles and then set a FIRM date…no negotiation, no shenanigans, no more stalling…on which the defense will be required to show up, make their review, and flag the documents.  And I also suspect the defense will pepper the court with their new pebbles and flag people there is no way the court is going to agree to allow them copies on (like someone 8 miles away).

Just my guess….but I think that’s how it’s going to go down.

Valhall.