11/4/2006 - The Party
Filed Under (My Story) by dad on 18-08-2008
In 2005, my wife was a member of a mommies only forum on the internet. She began expressing her frustration with the fact that fathers were not allowed to participate with a couple of friends she had met. They decided to start their own forum for all parents, including fathers.
Working in technology and having done web development in the past, my wife asked me to if I would be interested in developing the site and being a member. A little hesitant at first, I decided to help and try participating to see if I would like. A week or two later, we launched a site and forum that was a registration only forum that allowed parents within our metropolitan area to join and discuss parenting topics. The site grew slowly, but was well liked by everyone. My wife and I began making new friends and really enjoyed the interaction.
As our friendship grew, members became interested in meeting face-to-face. The founders of the forums decided to begin a series of quarterly face-to-face get togethers. The first would be in a public place since only a few of us had met personally prior to meeting online.
A number of these face-to-face get together occurred. As members became more and more comfortable with each other, they decided they preferred having the get togethers at our home rather than out at other locations.
Our final get together was on November 4th, 2006.
The day it all began
The party was scheduled to begin at 4:00 and members began arriving on time. I received a call at 4:00 from Rose and Scott*, two of our best friends from the forum. They said they were running late and would be there around 4:30. They in fact didn’t arrive until 5:00pm.
Rose and Scott arrived with their two children, Evonne age 4 and their toddler son. We greeted them and talked with them for a bit. Rose seemed to be quite agitated as noticed by both ourselves and other members. I then spent time mingling with the other members until it was time to start cooking the food. At this point, there were 13 adults and 14 children in our home including us and our children. I went out on the back deck to begin cooking the hamburgers and hot dogs for everyone.
Finally finishing up the food, I came in and prepared my food and sat in the living room floor and ate with many of the other guests. This was around 6:00. I finished eating, and continued talking with a number of guests.
Many of the children, including mine were playing in our front “entertainment” room. The children were watching movies, playing on the computer and playing with various toys in the room. For this particular party, my wife and I had decided to block the stairs to keep everyone downstairs. This was due to a few parents not watching their children during prior parties and also because our 6 year old son wasn’t feeling well and was laying down in his room. We advised the parents of this, but they chose to stay.
While talking to the members, I noticed that the children were opening and closing one of the double doors to the entertainment room, and mentioned this to another male member since one of the kids doing this was his daughter. He said he had tried to stop them but couldn’t. So I walked over to the office, and propped one door open with our vacuum cleaner, and opened up the other door and put a large wicker chair in front of it to hold it open. I asked the children to please leave the doors alone that someone was going to get their fingers smashed. The importance of this will come clear later.
The biggest mistake of my life
While in the living room/kitchen area, I noticed that Evonne was hanging around her Dad and not playing much with the other kids. I noticed she seemed bored, I asked her why she wasn’t in the front room with the other kids? Knowing that Evonne was often shy offered to walk in there with her, and she agreed. I did this because her mother was ignoring her and her father had his hands full with their toddler. Her father was right next to us when I made this offer and he encouraged her to go.
I stopped at the back of the entertainment room, behind where my kids and the other kids were sitting, and told her she could sit down and watch the movie with them. I began to walk out and she followed. She seemed hesitant to stay in the room. So, I got down on my knees to her level to tried to encourage her to watch the movie with the other kids. She walked over in front of me and sat down on my lap. I was on my knees, sitting on my feet. I told her that I couldn’t stay in the room very long and that I needed to go back in with the adults in a minute.
After a few minutes, I told her my feet were hurting and that she had to get up, so I pushed her into a standing position and got ready to get up. She acted like she wanted me to stay, so I sat down cross legged moved back and she again sat down on my lap. Turns out, sitting with her would turn out to be the biggest mistake of my life.
My oldest son turned around and talked to me and Evonne about the movie. As he talked, I noticed he kept glancing down at Evonne as if trying to make me notice something. I looked, and realized she was sitting with her legs open. I pushed her knees together, and pulled her dress down over her knees, and said to her “We don’t want any boys seeing up your dress”.
In the room during the whole time, were my children along with man other children. My younger son was upstairs in his room severely sick to his stomach and even vomiting. He was laying down and we were trying to keep him away from the other children, thinking he had a stomach virus. We were very very wrong.
I sat there with her for just a few more minutes continuing to talk with my children off and on. I finally told Evonne that I wanted to go in with the adults. I started to push her up off of me and noticed she was about asleep. At this point, the boys starting laughing loudly, and she jerked up at the noise. I again told her I was going back in with the adults, and pushed her up off of me. She sat back down, and I don’t know whether she stayed in the room or not. I walked out, and into the dining room area where some of the adults were were talking.
Later, Upstairs - Another foolish mistake
Later in the evening I went upstairs to check on my sick son and see if he was okay. While in the room, I heard some other kids coming up the stairs. It was Evonne, another girl I’ll refer to as Addison, my youngest son and two other boys. They wanted to go into our bonus room (my older boys room) where we had let the kids play at previous parties. Trying to be nice, I told them they could go in for a minute, but we needed to get back downstairs.
Addison immediately headed for what my kids call “the hole”. The hole is an area my wife and I hollowed out and finished between the cape windows over our garage. I walked over to turn the light on and tell her to be careful. My wife had placed some storage items in there and that she shouldn’t get on it or mess with it. I was leaned over talking too her (the doorway is only 3 foot tall). I was in the doorway.
At that point, Rose walked around the corner and said “Oh, I didn’t know you were up here”. I got up and walked into the main part of the room to talk to her. Addison walked out of the “the hole” and Evonne went in. Rose told me that Addison was being very mean to Evonne that evening. Rose then looked at Addison and told her she needed to let Rose play as well and that she needed to be quit being mean to her.
We talked for another minute or two, and Rose said she was going back downstairs. I told her I was coming right behind her, and told the kids it was time to go downstairs. We all walked downstairs. I should have never gone up there.
The party wraps up
Scott and Rose left around 7:00pm if I recall. They said they didn’t want to stay late as they had to get up for church in the morning. I thought this particularly odd as they generally stayed well past the other members leaving to talk and spend time with us. I told Rose and Scott bye. Scott shook my hand and said thanks for inviting us and that it was good seeing us again. I noticed nothing unusual.
Later in the forums
At 8:45pm, Rose posted a new thread on the parenting website titled “Thank you” that said:
We had so much fun tonight! Sorry we were late and left kinda early…long drive though…anyway, it was great to see everyone and meet some new faces! Thanks for having us!
Later that evening at 9:34pm, I sent her a private message on on the forums that said:
Have to say, Evonne made my night tonight. When I took her in with the boys, she just plopped down in my lap and about went to sleep, I completely melted. She’s a SWEETY and has me wrapped
I felt really bad about Addison being mean to her, really sorry about that but I think Addison got jealous of me playing with Evonne.
It was really good to see you guys, I just felt bad I didn’t get to talk too you too much. Was either cooking, or herding kids.
You guys will have to stop by and visit just one on one sometime.
Rose replied at 9:41pm with:
I know! That was so sweet! She really likes you!
No Participation from Rose in the forums
On Sunday nor Monday, there was no activity from Rose in the forums. This was highly unusual as Rose was one of our most active members and was in the forums very often. We heard from another member that she could read the site but couldn’t post for some reason. Hmmmm…
My wife received a phone call at the house while I was still at work around 5:00pm, but she didn’t answer as our neighbor’s were over visiting. A second call was received about ½ hour later and a message was left by a detective from the local police department for me to call her back.
Read about my phone call to the detective and what happened next.
* Rose, Scott, and Evonne are not the accusers real names. I was going to use their real names, but my attorney strongly advised me against it as I would be risking a potential civil law suit. Not something I need right now.
