“They are making great progress with their son. They are in counseling with the child and things are getting better,” VanNoy said. “This has really turned into a blessing in disguise. … It’s very difficult, this whole process. They never wanted to criminalize the child for the issues that he has.”
The couple is accused of dropping off their adopted 9-year-old son at Butler County Children Services on Oct. 24 with a bag of clothes and a letter from his mother. In the letter, Lisa Cox wrote that she would always love the boy and signed it: “Your Mom.”
“I will never, ever forget you. You will always be in my heart,” she wrote in the letter. “I pray one day you will come to see and believe that. And that you will understand why we did what we did. I want so much for you to be healthy and happy. You couldn’t be happy in our family, but I know you will find happiness some day.”
The couple adopted the boy when he was four months old.
Lisa Cox made a 911 call after her son allegedly grabbed a steak knife and threatened to kill his family.
“He’s on medication. He’s seeing a psychiatrist. This is the first time he’s gone like this. He’s ransacked my house. We are locked in the bedroom,” Lisa Cox told a dispatcher in the Aug. 9 call placed shortly before noon.
VanNoy said Tuesday the boy has been spending a good deal of time with his parents in their $300,000-plus home in the Trails of Four Bridges subdivision.
“That’s what it’s been all about, he is getting help,” he said. “He’s spending a lot of time in their home, he is getting treatment right now, but he comes home to visit all the time.”
Gmoser said he is glad the child is getting help, but said the case isn’t about help — it is about abandonment.
“I’m sure they wanted him to get help, but they weren’t going to be involved in the helping,” he said.
Gmoser filed court documents that indicate Lisa Cox contacted Children Services in mid-September seeking services to help deal with her son’s “unruly and disturbing behavior.” The documents say she claimed he was a threat to her safety and the safety of her family.
The documents say by late September the parents, “in concert” with Children Services, agreed to terminate parental rights and responsibilities. The Coxes were advised to tell the child about the looming separation. The Coxes brought their son to Children Services on Oct. 24 and the court documents indicate the child did not know why he was there.
“He did not know and was not told by his parents that he would never return to the only home he has known or see his brother and sister again,” the document reads.
After his parents left him, the child was “sad and tearful” and told his caseworker he thought he was going to a hospital “to be fixed.”
Court documents showed the parents expressed an interest in reunifying with the boy a day after the case was presented to the grand jury. The juvenile court proceeding to terminate parental rights and responsibilities has been delayed pending the criminal matter.
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