in 2000, Casey Gann was a desperate woman. She was homeless and jobless at the time and was duped by CPS case workers in Michigan into believing that placing her children in foster care was in the best interests of those children. In 2002, the state of Michigan terminated her parental rights, insisting she had not completed enough of court ordered services to retain those rights. A year later, her oldest son, Ricky, was adopted by Tim and Lisa Holland, who later adopted two of Ricky's half siblings.
On July 2, 2005, Tim Holland called police and informed them that Ricky was missing, suspecting he'd run away. Shortly after, the Hollands completed the adoption process of the last of Ricky's siblings.
A nationwide manhunt and Amber Alert was issued for Ricky, and "America's Most Wanted" aired a show on the missing 7 year old. on January 27, 2006, after police had been investigating the Hollands, Tim Holland led police to young Ricky's remains.
This is hardly an isolated incident. Incidents of abuse, neglect, and homicide have shown themselves to be substantially higher in foster homes than among the general population. The reasons are immaterial; the cover-up by the state "Child Protective Services", however, is VERY material, and is entirely inexcusable.
CPS removes children from the homes of loving parents, all too often because the parents are impoverished. They remove them on the assumption that the state can provide a better home, a safer home, than the parents, and that is all too often not the case. I can testify to the fact that my own exposure to drug abuse and to sexual predators came chiefly not from my parents, who were admittedly dysfunctional, but from the state, whose agents would ironically believe everything bad we said about our biological parents while dismissing everything bad we said about our foster parents as a lie. And yet in this case, as well as the 1987 murder of Lisa Steinberg, the children were dead at the hands of the very people that were chosen to select and to rear them as parents, and who had PASSED the states' criteria for parenting.
The evidence on Ricky Holland is compelling. It appears he was a victim of long time abuse and torture from his parents, something unimaginable for an adult, let alone a child whose instinct is to trust his caregivers to protect him.
It is time we correct the system that has so long allowed, and even condoned these abuses. It is time we begin holding these agencies accountable for their actions. But our lawmakers, and the citizens who elect them, consistently refuse to do so. As I speak, I have been trying to access the "Citizen Review Board" mandated by state law to oversee CPS. The fact is, placement on the board is highly protected by the director of CPS, apparently to include only those who will rubber stamp CPS' actions. I am a citizen, and am more informed than most, but have been unable to even gain information on how to be considered for appointment, despite my repeated efforts to get my name "on the list". Unless the oversight of CPS is open to the general public, it is unlikely that it will ever improve.
Ricky Holland and others like him deserve justice. While Ricky's mother may not have had financial means, she was never shown to be the monster that the "loving parents" the state provided turned out to be. As Ricky rests in peace, his three siblings will have to live the remainder of their lives with the nightmare of their brother's death, not to mention any abuse they may have received at the hands of these state sponsored child abusers. It's time we put an end to this by gutting the system that allowed it to happen.
Whenever you see a news story telling you about all of the good done by CPS, I want you to remember Ricky Holland. Look at his picture, and don't ever forget it:
