Children usually go through tough times when their parents go through divorces. Some of them need counseling to be able to handle this, but in the case of this particular story, the child went through a much grimmer path. Shannon and Michael decided to get a divorce back in 2007. Once they started the process, you could see that it was going to be one of those divorces where things get very nasty very fast.
There were several points where they needed to agree on. The one that was more complicated was the custody of their son. They simply didn’t seem to agree on anything. The mother went to the DCF to report that Michael was being abusive towards the little boy. This set off an investigation and DCF went to visit the family where Michael lived.
They could not find any basis for abuse, so the judge awarded him full custody. Shannon was outraged by this decision and really took it upon herself to do something about it. One day, she decided to take the boy and flee to where they could not be found. Richard filed a missing person’s report. He was very scared of what the mom could do, but especially of the possibility of him not seeing his son again.
The police started the investigation and spoke to many witnesses regarding the whereabouts of the mother and her child. After about two years, they still had not gotten any conclusive information as to where they might be. The police got a lead indicating that the little boy’s maternal grandmother had provided the mother with a hiding place. The officers executed several search warrants without achieving much success. Finally, there was an anonymous tip that helped crack the case and shed some light as to what had really happened.
The police got to the home of Diana Dobbs in order to search for Shannon and Richard. Diana is Richard’s grandmother, and when the police got there once again, she denied that they were there. The police continued searching until they found a secret room hidden away from the naked eye. How about that? Shannon and Richard were found crouched down inside of a secret hiding place that wasn’t any bigger than a small bathroom.
Poor Richard was not given the chance to spend any time outside like any other normal boy because his mother had been hiding him from the rest of the world. When he was rescued, the officers noticed he was very pale as a result of what the mother had done. He had not received any medical attention, either. Richard’s social skills were also not developed because he had been denied access to other children.
His mother and grandmother were both arrested for their participation in this crime, and Richard was given to his father. According to Michael, the allegations of abuse have always been false. Child welfare investigators have determined that Shannon and Diana were the real abusers. This is one of those cases where justice prevails. Click on the video for the full story!
