No Note Needed

Ed Ward, MD

Trevor Goddard, 37, of North Hollywood, California, committed suicide on June 8, 2003.  Goddard was at the height of his career.  His credits include, Mortal Kombat, Men of War, JAG, Deep Rising, Gone in 60 Seconds, and the recently released, Pirates of the Caribbean.  Few know that Trevor was in the middle of a divorce and finding out just what that means to a loving father.  There were many articles on his death, but, only one mentioned his pending divorce. 

Unknown man, unknown age, of Kendallville, Indiana, committed possible suicide in the only article released on his death.  There was no response, the typical media response, to the email sent by his close friend to the 22 email addresses at kpc news.  When this article is pubished, the author will send them the address of this article, the name of the unknown man, the link to their story, the link to the email to them, ask them their secrets to sound sleep and ask them, again, to do a follow-up story on James Betzner.  They must have some great remedies to sleep after ignoring the email sent to them and still not publishing another story.  Will those remedies work for the next unknown man article?

Robert R Steadman, 33, of Sewickley Township, Pennsylvania, hung himself in April, 2003 during his second imprisonment for failure to pay child support.  Since Robert was only one sentence of the story dealing with suicide watch policy changing for that prison, it is unknown if this second jailing was a 90 day recycle.  The recycle is a jail term of 90 days.  After 90 days, the prisoner is released, only to be greeted by another incarceration for failure to pay child support for 90 days and the cycle is continued.

Reinaldo Rivera, 25, of New Jersey was jailed for failure to pay child support.  He hung himself with a sheet after one week in jail in April, 2003. 

Mark Edward Dexel, 42, of Canada hung himself on January, 23, 2003 in a Kamloops motel after he was banned from seeing his son by the Canadian family courts.

Derrick K. Miller, 43, of San Diego, California, walked up the steps courthouse steps to the San Diego family court's security guard on January 7, 2002.  Miller had recently been judged to pay support he obviously did not have.  While holding his divorce papers in one hand and pulling a pistol in the other, he told the guard, "You did this to me!".  Derrick quickly pulled the trigger, on the only option left to him and many other fathers, that sent a bullet through his head and died. 

Carl Tarzwell, Jr., 37, was arrested on June 20, 2001, for failing to pay child support. Carl hung himself within a few hours of being jailed. Carl's death was revealed in a November, 2001, article dealing with excessive suicides in prison.

James Gunter, 45, an emergency services police officer, described as "one of those steely, go-to guys, a natural in a crisis", took his life on the third try while incarcerated for the third time.  James was arrested for failing to pay child support and failing to stay away from his ex-wife.  Gunter's daughter stated, "He couldn't stand to be away from his kids,".  James Gunter found peace on September 15, 2000.  It was not until March 24, 2002 that Jame's story became noted by the press in a story about jails being at fault for lack of care in suicides. 

Randy Johnson, 34, of  Sommerset, Kentucky hung himself on the second day of his incarceration for felony failure to pay child support in January, 2001.  He could have been sentenced to 5 years.  Johnson worked for the Sugar Shack making donuts.  His employer said he was trying to lead a new life. Johnson's story is revealed in an article about suicides in Boyle County prison.

Darren Bruce White, 34, of B.C., Canada, killed himself sometime between March 12, 2000 and March 17, 2000, when his body was found.  Darren's suicide came shortly after a court ruling he was capable, something US family courts are also known to do as attested by the author in his personal experience, of paying $2,071 a month in support.  The court had no concern that he was paying $439 a month support in his first marriage and was only making $950 a month salary.  White's daughter, Ashlee, expresses her grief regarding the current system.

Dimitrius Underwood, 22, the defensive end for the Miami Dolphins, slashed his throat with a kitchen knife when the Lansing police tried to arrest him for failing to pay child support.  Dimitrius's story, due to his notoriety, was published quickly on September 28, 1999.  But, as usual, the article only dealt with the effect and not the cause.

David Guinn, 38, incarcerated for probation violations and was behind on his child support, hung himself on November, 1998.

James A. Poore, 33, of Bristol, Tennessee, arrested for failing to appear at a child custody hearing, found a shotgun while on a work release program and promptly blew a hole in his chest in March, 1999.  Sheriff Eddie Barnes stated it would not stop the work release program.

Kenneth Taylor, 40, of Nebraska, hung himself while jailed for felony child support in November, 1999.  

Every year 24,000 men commit suicide. Every 22 minutes one male commits suicide.  Based on the fact that a divorced male is 2.5 to 3 times more likely to commit suicide than the average male, the estimate for divorced men, most likely fathers since there is tremendously more trauma placed on them, committing suicide every year would be 15,000 to 18,000 men. 

When will it stop?  How will it stop? Where is the men's backlash?  Many splintered equal parenting groups are asking the same questions. 

One small group of 13 fathers, Hunger Strike for Justice, has pledged to start a hunger strike on September 25, 2003 in an effort to break the media blockade and the lack of government address of family, children and individual rights.  Their determination, resolve and effectiveness is yet to be tested, but, they have had enough of injustice.

Felons can't vote.  The dead can't demonstrate.  Men running from incarceration can't take legal remedies.  Jail severely limits protesting and information dissemination.  Those that are stretched to their limit have neither the effort, nor the time to do very much, except to be with their children when they can, if they can.  Many that would fight this deadly system see no hope and have been crushed, emotionally, financially and spiritually.  Many are afraid they will lose the little access they have to their children if they make waves.  Media ignores the problems being caused and promotes the deadbeat bandwagon.  The government does the same, while spending billions more than they collect in the child support scam and even more billions for those incarcerated.  That just does not leave many left to be activists.  

It is estimated that the total national number of incarcerated fathers for failure to pay child support is 250,000.  Some believe the number is closer to 400,000.  According to the Missouri legislative report, in 1998 there were 1,770 misdemeanor failure jailings and 900 felony jailings.  Every year, there has been more and more hysteria to lock up "deadbeats" by the states.  The author has seen similarly populated states in the 4,000 range in years 2000 and 2001.  It's not hard to see those numbers could very well be true.