Something about this Story does not Pass the Smell Test

Many of us depend on the media to give us the pertinent information from which we can create and build our opinion but lately the media has become the catalysts that forms that opinion.  We read only a few of the lines because we now look only to the headline to tell us how we should feel about a particular subject.  Some of us have gotten wise to this and now will read the entire article once maybe twice and diagnosis what the writer was trying to get us to believe as well as seeing a few points that they might have missed.  This is one of these such stories.

It is titled “Missing Atlanta teen was hidden in plain sight in Georgia suburb for four years” from an unknown author for an unknown publication but to understand what I am trying to say, you have got to read the entire article which is below.

“Police found Gregory Jean Jr hidden behind a false wall, a captive in his father’s house, but for four years he had been in plain sight, an abused child growing up in a Georgia suburb. And still he remained invisible.  Police did not search because they did not know he was missing. Child services reportedly knew but were unsure where to look. His school in Atlanta knew something was not right, but lost track after his father and stepmother withdrew Gregory, supposedly for home schooling.  It was the price of life on the margins. His father, Gregory Jean Sr, and stepmother, Samantha Davis, allegedly kept him to avoid paying child support to his biological mother, Lisa Smith.  Smith, 38, believed to be an immigrant from Haiti, lived some 400 miles south in Florida. She alerted child services but did not notify police, possibly because she was afraid to do so.  Gregory said he was beaten with a stick, humiliated, forced to work as a maid, banned from celebrating Christmas, and isolated from his alleged captor family and the wider world.  A Cinderella, said some. But in a twist that could have been scripted by Mark Zuckerberg, the 13-year-old orchestrated his escape not by shimmying down a drainpipe or appealing to a neighbor, but by sending his mother a Facebook friend request, triggering the police search that eventually found him.  It was not straightforward: Gregory had to connect a cell phone without a service provider to a Wi-Fi network, then download an app that enabled calls via Wi-Fi. “I just went on [Google] Play Store and I downloaded an app called Magic Jack and I called my mom,” he later told reporters. He sent the address and picture of the house in Clayton County, near Atlanta.  Police visited last Friday but left after Gregory’s father and stepmother said they had not seen him in years and suggested he was in New York.

“There was a lot of deception,” Clayton county police sergeant Joanne Southerland told a press conference later. “They denied, but no physical obstruction.”  Smith called police again with more details of his location inside the house – supplied in real time by texts from Gregory. They found him early Saturday behind a false wall in a linen cupboard in the attic of the garage, a cramped nook between insulation and wooden beams. “I was so grateful to the police officers when they found me,” he said later. “I kept saying, ‘thank you, thank you’.”  His mother and sister, Tracy Guervil, 19, drove through the night from Orlando to Jonesboro, Georgia, to be reunited with him. The scene of them hugging and weeping melted hearts across the United States. “It feels good,” said Smith. “It was too long.”  Gregory, wearing a bobble hat and brilliant smile, expressed festive spirit. “This is my mama’s Christmas gift – my whole family – this is their Christmas gift.”

Now I know that some of you will be asking just what makes this story sound a little undone for me and to be perfectly frank, I do not know exactly where to start.  So let’s just jump right on in. 

My first issue is where were the rest of the children and what, if anything that were saying or have said about this.  If Gregory Jean the second did go visits his father and stepmother with his little brother but stayed when the little one went home how was that arraigned?   Was this kid being punished when stashed within the walls or did he actually live thee since some part of the article mentioned him sleeping in the garage?  Why his father was never mentioned in his complaint about living there.  It appeared to be all about the step mother.  These are but a few of the questions I have but I am sure you get the drift by now.  Bottom line, I know that sometimes when a stranger invades the family of children, they are often viewed with suspicion and looked upon as the reason their family split.  They can be caste as demons long before really getting to know them or finding out the real reason behind the split in the first place.  If this child was abused, as this story clearly implies he was and one child of the step mother was abused then it looks like someone has a case.  I just have to say that just because it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck does not always means it is a duck.