Into the labyrinth

I feel obligated to put a trigger warning… This is a long story and there are several newspaper articles paste did that go into some detail about what Larry did

Labyrinth
Thursday 18 March 2010 Late morning/Afternoon
sadly my ride in the cop car was so uneventful I don’t really remember it. I just remember the brilliant, bright morning and driving on the same roads Larry, the girls, the babies and I had driven on countless times prior to this… I wondered if Larry’s ride in a cop car had been like this or if there was a tension in the air, if the cop driving knew what his deal ws.
I wondered about the FBI and ICE and US marshalls and CPS people that had been in our home and what were they doing now? Were they still there in our home? Had they gone back to wherever it was they came from and on to some other case?
Could they shake something like this? Go from taking out a chomo, then a quick smoke break then on to whatever they were working on next? How did they all get ready to do the raid? I guessed there were loads of meetings and at some point in the past 12 hours my name and Larry’s name for sure were carried around on paperwork that glided around the city before it and the people came to our house…
Were these folks as afraid as I? Not for the same reasons… But going int an unknown where you could maybe anger up some gun nut has got to be a bit stressful…
What were the kids doing? I had read enough stories about how children of abuse especially the kinds of abuse I was told they had been taken over had to go to the hospital to get a checkup… I don’t know for sure but I’m guessing the chances were good that at some point that day or the next Skye and Benjamin had rape kits done on them… That Skye had to go through what was likely scary, painful and confusing… The physical checkup/rape kit. Was she by her self? Was there someone there to give her a cuddle? And Ben… were they being loved?
From what information I gathered over the next hours and days they spent from Thursday 18 March through Monday 22 March in protective custody at some holding place for young people…
A year or so earlier I read a book about children in protective custody that had been taken off their parents for suspected child abose, of all kinds. The holding facilities were over crowded, under staffed places where children were warehoused. One little girl suffered a bad ear infection that went untreated for days and while she was in “care” something so dramatic happened to her that she was a changed child when she finally went home, frightened of everyone and bursting in to hysterics when someone tried to give her a cuddle…
I was afraid for my kids, a fear that would of paralyzed me if I let it… I still felt like I was trapped behind a thick glass wall, but I learned to make this work for me… I was able to unplug parts of my mind, my feelings to get done what I had to do, so what would of froze me in fear was just another thing on a conveyor belt, just a thing that needed tending to, then on to the next thing… and then the next. Just keep moving, keep not feeling.
I told myself I could not afford to break down… There would be time for all that when Skye and Ben aged past the point CPS could oversee their lives… I’ll break down when I’m dead…
I was helped into my friend’s house and the cop left.. I don’t remember much… I did cry… I did do a lot of that… I was a champ at balling… If it were a sport I’d bring home the gold. I took loads of showers too to do my balling because I didn’t want to bother anyone. It isn’t fun to watch someone ball and ball…

My friend tried to see if some mental health supports could be established for me… Our mental health system is a nonexistent joke. Because I wasn’t trying to off myself there wasn’t much to be done…
I wasn’t going that low… My kids needed me and if I tried to kill myself not only would that make me look like a horrid parent, it would mean they would be stuck in whatever limbo they then found themselves in. F that. Fine. I figured, I searched for the line connecting my strong emotions to cry or feel sad and yanked those too. I functioned of a blank robotic F this I got shit to do. mindset. I stuffed all the other bothersome feelings way way way down into a box and padlocked the box and tossed the key into he ar back dark corner of my mind.
I haven’t had emotions that functioned properly from that time to this. I hate to let anyone save for my best friend and my mom see me upset to the point of tears… I’ve slapped a varnish of “I got stuff to do, breaking down in a heap of emotions isn’t one of them” and I guess this might have me come off as a detached, no feelings having bitch or something but you gotta do what you gotta do.
I am a hammer a lot of the times and most everything is a nail… I am fluent in sarcasm and I have a dry acerbic wall around me that few get to peak behind…
The only people I can let my guard down around and do things like show mushy love feelings are my mom and my kids and my best friend Jenae and Heather my guide dog… My dogs are the only beings I can act totally silly around to the point that people have caused me of being nicer to my dogs than any person. I don’t mean it to be like that. I love my kids I can be hard on them, I can have a sharp mouth but… I figured the sooner they learned the world was a cold place that would chew you up and spit you out and that sometimes bad things happened to good people… The only choices you have are rise above it and gleam strength from it or you could let it crush you to dirt and destroy your life. Don’t be sorry for who or how you are and if people don’t like it? screw ‘em.
I tried seeing someone about my feelings but they told me I had an anger problem. I’m not mad, really I’m not. I’m just loud and opinionated and don’t have time for touchy feeling crap…
At any rate back to that day… I finally dozed off into a fistful sleep. The first loss of consciousness I had separating me from SSkye and Ben. the first of who knew how many.
Where were they! Were they okay? Were they getting fed and changed and loved?
Next thing I know somebody is at the door and my friend is waking me up because people are there needing to talk to me and ask questions…
The investigator from earlier that morning and somebody I had never seen before, a large no nonsense black lady with the prerequisite lipstick and pantyhose and clipboard of questions… This was the frontline CPS investigator woman…
We never did hit it off, but being buddy buddy with the people you are looking into for all sorts of horrid things done to children is not in the job description… She had a wall for the same reason I did… It was easier to get done what needed doing, some of which was sole crushingly horrid from behind a wall… Like people that work with radioactive things have a wall with built in gloves to do what they need so they didn’t have to come into direct contact with something that could kill them.

I wasn’t going to kill anybody and to be honest, I didn’t hold this unfriendly behavior toward me against her after it was all said and done.
What I did hold against her was the fact she was speaking to me like I were some child abusing monster. She said things like “The state has your kids now and will for at least 30 days while we investigate you for abuse. You might get your kids back… If you’re lucky…
In my head I said “Yeah? You might have my kids now but ever hear of NFL? I don’t mean football I mean not for fucking long do you have my kids… You aren’t going to bully me into being some mean little mouse. I’ll work with you, but I refuse to fear you or you CPS. bring it.”
My mouth said “Yes ma’am…” and “no ma’am…” and yes sir” and “no sir” I answered the long long long list of questions as best as I could… At least I knew where my kids were….
P pictured a giant ant farm like structure. You know one of those glass frames that let you look at a cross section of an ant hill? I pictured one of those… A big sigh on the top proclaiming
“STATE OF KANSAS CPS/FOSTER CARE SYSTEM”… under the sign there were two trap doors and two faceless lipsticked and pantyhose ladies with clipboards in one hand. In the other they had either Skye or Ben by one foot and was holding them over the ope trap door that lead into a huge black tunnel… devious ants shuffling around below at the end of the entry way, rubbing their ant hand together with anticipation over the possibility of a couple more wards of the state…
Fuck that shit. I thought…
Larry and his brother were wards of the state and the state did them no favors clearly. If anyone is going to “mommy dearest” my kids it is going to be me. They are my kids and I am the one that has to bring them up… I wasn’t ever going to fight the state at ever turn like I would of, like I did when I was in my late teens and early to mid 20s when working with voc rehab. pebble without a clue. that was yours truly right here… didn’t get me anywhere save for kicked out to the rehab center in Topeka and a big fat nothing in college… Which was my doing alone.
I wasn’t going to fight them… When I was, my mom kept telling me that the state was running a game and I had to play by the rules or it would be a sad day for me.
I looked at my current mess like that. This. is. a. game. my kids’ lives were the prize. I didn’t know the rules, at least not those first few hours…
I suspected not knowing the rules was a plus the state had to make the parents under their watchful eye dance a little dance and jump through endless hoops.
I got out my phone and started googling stuff… My first stop was the SRSKANSAS webpage. I first came at it from a client mindset and found information for clients… I got the feeling this was just a very thin coating of information and could maybe trip up someone to where they made their plate worse…
I looked for and found a site map… I poked around until I found under a pile of links policy statements and other dull as dishwater things. And then, I found it! the CPS policy manual that spelled out, from the prospective of the caseworkers not the clients, exactly what sort of game we were playing…

First I hunted out the sections that talked about right where I found myself and what to expect…I then read other sections that talked about bring the family back together or ending parental rights… After about three or four days between feeling numb and talking to people I started to get a plan together on what I was going to do.
My way of coming at it was to stay several steps in front of CPS… To know what court likely would require of me and to be on the case worker like stink on a dog poo… Telling them what idid and asking what I could do next to help them help my kids…
Friday 19 March 2010
That next day a lot happened that seems like a blur to me know… The things I will relate here happened near but maybe not exactly on this date. Some stuff might of happened the day before and some a day or more later but all within the first several days prior to going to court for the first time on Tuesday.
At some point I made all the alls to all my friends to let them know.
They were shocked. mad… sickened… and they all asked what they could do.
Some of my friends took it upon themselves to organize… to drop everything to come up that weekend next to clean out the house. It was not my home any more and I didn’t exactly have a home. just friends, and eventually a fresh new version of hell called living with Larry’s crazy aunt Judy…
We will meet her soon enough… Trust me…
My folks hit the ground running too even though my dad was in end stage kidney failure due to him being diabetic and recliner bound unless someone helped him into and then pushed a wheel chair… He had teams of health care providers in daily to tend to him while my mom worked full time as an RN at a clinic. Not only did she have my dad to worry about but also her dad that was having health problems too and then there I come piling more and more and more on top of her…
She took pictures of my childhood home to show they had room enough for the three of us… They figured out how to cope with child care in the day time. One plan was if Were allowed to be there to help my dad and one if I were not…
My friend took me out with her on Friday afternoon… It was the first time in about six weeks that I had been outside… Like I said earlier, Larry was funny about that…
Being out in the world was strange… Everything was loud and fast… I had to look away from the other cars and things zipping by outside when we were going someplace because it made me motion sick to do otherwise. Besides that I felt like there was a bright sign blazing above my head everyone could see that said “BAD MOM”
Our story made it into the newspaper and on TV… The day after it all went down.

From U.S. Department of Justice
March 19 , 2010
ICE INVESTIGATORS FOLLOWED TRAIL FROM AUSTRALIA TO OLATHE, KAN.,
IN CHILD PORNOGRAPHY CASE
KANSAS CITY, KAN. – Larry L. Howard, 41, Olathe, Kan., has been charged with producing child pornography, U.S. Attorney Lanny Welch said today.
A criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., charges that Howard took pornographic photos of a 2-year-old girl, which he traded over the Internet for more child pornography. The complaint says the investigation began Sept. 1, 2009, when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children ( http://www.missingkids.com ) received a tip that a man in Australia had uploaded child pornography to the Flickr.com website. The Australian Capital Territory Police identified an Australian man, Troy White, as the user who posted the photos and filed child pornography charges against him.
Investigators learned White had been producing child pornography and swapping files over the Internet with other producers of child pornography around the globe. Among White’s contacts was an American who went by the Internet alias Blyndman68. Australian Federal Police shared the information with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Cyber Crimes investigators, who followed Blyndman68’s electronic trail to Olathe, Kan. On March 18, 2010, agents of ICE, the Olathe Police Department and the U.S. Marshals Service served a search warrant at Howard’s home, resulting his arrest.
“ICE and its law enforcement partners work tirelessly to investigate child predators who seek to sexually exploit innocent children,” said Gary Hartwig, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Chicago.
If convicted, Howard faces a penalty of not less than 15 years and not more than 30 years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Olathe Police Department, the U.S. Marshals Service and Australian Federal Police investigated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kim Marin is prosecuting. This case is being prosecuted as part of the
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Justice Department’s Project Safe Childhood. For more information see http://www.projectsafechildhood.gov .
In all cases, defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty. The indictments filed merely contain allegations of criminal conduct.
URL: https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/ks/PressReleases/2010/mar/
March19a.html (note, this article is archived at thee URL and was accessed at 5:17A CDT 24.07.2019
From The Wichita Eagle Crime and Courts section
Kansan charged in global child porn case
March 20, 2010 12:00 AM, Updated August 08, 2014 02:56 PM
Pornographic photos of a 2-year-old girl that had been sent across the globe through the Internet were traced to an Olathe man this week, authorities said.
Larry L. Howard, 41, of Olathe, was charged Thursday in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., with producing child pornography.
The complaint alleges that Howard took pornographic photos of a 2-year-old girl and used the Internet to trade them for more child pornography.
The investigation started Sept. 1 when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a tip that a man in Australia had uploaded child pornography

to the Web site Flickr.com, according to U.S. Attorney in Kansas Lanny Welch.
Australian Capital Territory Police traced the photos to Troy White of Australia. Law enforcement agents there filed child pornography charges against White. Investigators said White had been exchanging child pornography with others across the world, including a user that went by Blyndman68.
Law enforcement officials discovered that Blyndman68 was actually Howard. On Thursday, the Olathe Police Department and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Cyber Crimes investigators arrested Howard at his Olathe home.
If convicted, Howard faces 15 to 30 years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000, the U.S. Attorney said.
—Kansas City Star
URL:
https://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article1032467.html
(Accessed 5:30A CDT 24.07.2019) From WIBW 13 News Topeka, Ks
Australia Child Porn Case
Leads To Kansas
13 NewsFri 3:48 PM, Mar 19, 2010

(WIBW) – A child pornography case traced to Australia led authorities to Kansas.
41-year old Larry Howard is with producing child pornography.
A criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., charges that Howard took pornographic photos of a 2-year-old girl, which he traded over the Internet for more child pornography.
The complaint says the investigation began Sept. 1, 2009, when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a tip that a man in Australia had uploaded child pornography to the Flickr.com website. The Australian Capital Territory Police identified an Australian man, Troy White, as the user who posted the photos and filed child pornography charges against him. Investigators learned White had been producing child pornography and swapping files over the Internet with other producers of child pornography around the globe. Among White’s contacts was an American who went by the Internet alias Blyndman68. Australian Federal Police shared the information with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Cyber Crimes investigators, who followed Blyndman68’s electronic trail to Olathe, Kan.
On March 18, 2010, agents of ICE, the Olathe Police Department and the U.S. Marshals Service served a search warrant at Howard’s home, resulting his arrest. “ICE and its law enforcement partners work tirelessly to investigate child predators who seek to sexually exploit

innocent children,” said Gary Hartwig, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Chicago.
If convicted, Howard faces a penalty of not less than 15 years and not more than 30 years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Olathe Police Department, the U.S. Marshals Service and Australian Federal Police investigated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kim Marin is prosecuting. This case is being prosecuted as part of the Justice Department’s Project Safe Childhood. For more information see .
URL: https://www.wibw.com/home/headlines/
88659367.html
(accessed on 5:35A CDT 24.07.2019)
From The Sydney Morning Herald Sydney, AU
Australian police help bust child porn ring
March 23, 2010 — 1.45pm
LOS ANGELES – Australian authorities have helped crack a global child pornography ring with arrests in the Australian Capital Territory and the US.

In the US state of Kansas, 41-year-old Larry L Howard faces 30 years in a US prison after being charged with producing pornographic photos of a two-year-old girl and trading the images over the internet for more child pornography.
The breakthrough came in September last year when the US National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children received a tip someone in Australia had uploaded eight images of child pornography to the photo and video hosting site, Flickr.com.
In January, authorities executed a search warrant at the home of an ACT man and found child pornography on his computer and in thumb drives, along with evidence he was distributing child pornography to the US and other parts of the world, US authorities allege.
The ACT man allegedly told police he also filmed young girls at a local shopping centre.
Australian authorities discovered one of the ACT man’s contacts was an American who went by the internet alias Blyndman68.
The information was forwarded to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) cyber crimes investigators, who followed Blyndman68’s electronic trail to Howard’s home in Olathe, Kansas, the US District Court in Kansas was told.
Last week, ICE agents, the Olathe Police Department and the US Marshals Service served a search warrant at Howard’s home, resulting in his arrest.

“Howard admitted to taking the photographs and sending them to other people in Canada and Australia over the internet in exchange for other photographs of nude children,” ICE special agent Jonathan Polner wrote in an affidavit submitted to the US District Court.
Howard faces a penalty of between 15 and 30 years in federal prison and a fine up to $US250,000 ($A272,000).
URL: https://www.smh.com.au/world/australian-police-help-bust-child-porn-ring-20100323-
qstf.html
(accessed 5:42A CDT 24.07.2019)
There were TV reports… I can not tell you much about them because I made an effort to not seek them out although I sure did hear about them.
I know they showed our house… Didn’t even try to hide the house number, focused on the busted asss broke, had been broke from move in day front window and the blinds the pug that used to live with us ha chewed. It was like they took the worst shots of our houseI also learned our neighbors, not all of them but enough of them were drama queens and kings. One guy said the FBI busted in the door wit one of those door busting rams they have…
They didn’t… They knocked on the door as learned later and the girls let them in… If they had rammed the door, I would of heard it rather than the mumbling I describe d earlier.
A neighbor said we were weird. Well neighbor, did it ever crosss your mind to come and talk to us to see if we were weird or if someone needed help? Oh you didn’t? Well screw you… Here’s my auto reply… Big middle finger right at you…
On some of the online stories where they had comments there were moments asking what the mom was dong when this was going on or where was the mom?
Like I said, I was there… I was there and didn’t know. And I already feel like shit about it so don’t need any words out of the likes of you.
I am glad I only went back to that house one or two or three more times. If the press had come poking in I might of told them the most direct path to hell and the quickest way to get there.
I now understand why some people fought up in a bad news story act like ass holes towards the press. It isn’t anything personal exactly, it is just the person has felt with a ton of things and answering some reporter’s seemingly dumb or rigged question is just the last straw.
The investigators, the nice man from the PD and the CPS woman returned for more questions. Did they ask and run out of questions each day and think up more to ask the next? It sure did seem like it…

My friend Eva and I have this thing with a Ben Folds Five song because we used to hang out, eat chines food, get drunk off our butts, pre children, and dance around and act like fools over “Song for the Dumped” There is a part of the song that says “give me my money back. give me my money back you bitch, I want my money back…” That was the ringtone I made for when Eva would call and wouldn’t you know it… I am mid question session number billion of a never ending line when my phone starts up and plays right through and seems like it got super loud when “Bitch” came by in the song. I was like oh nooooooo! you can’t have a ringtone that says bitch in front of the CPS lady or the PD guy… but not the CPS lady… I tried to stuff the phone down the crack in the chair I was sitting in in my friend’s living room
This phone was going to get me in trouble by blatting out either nonsense that was not good at the moment or just being loud like it had done the morning prior to let everyone in a tricounty range know we needed to go food hsopping.
Having a phone sing out give me my money back you bitch is really likely on the short list of things that got you kicked off the mother of the year list of runners up and for sure got you kicked off the good mom list with CPS…
The CPS woman needed to go look around the house so she and Erin and I went… I didn’t want to go… I couldn’t deal with having to look at our family life just dropped like we had been rapture and flown up to heaven through the roof, leading our clothing behind…
That really is going to be so weird… All at once a bunch of nude churchy people just going up in the air… Don’t mean to be rude but you are not nice to look at in your sunday best 198 year old man lady, I don’t quite know how to feel about maybe seeing you nude… I won’t even the bonus of being blind as a bat so all you would be is a slightly more frightful blob without clothes than you were with… I’ll see every bump wrinkle, fold, liver spot…. AHHHHHHHHHH! Perfectly clear…
Went we did though… As it turned out I’m glad we did because the CPS woman and her cold wall melted just a bit.
The charges that the kids were taken over were the sex abuse and possible physical neglect and because the house was so messy.
At the time I was fighting depression. Larry wasn’t helping he wouldn’t support me emotionally nor bend his back to try and help clean.
I had help from the girls, but they were teenagers… I didn’t expect them to pitch in like grown ups…
We were planning on moving to Wichita in July or August and I had told Larry stuff had better start changing or I was steppin’ and I figured I could either look after the kids and make sure they were cared for as best as I could or the house but not both. I’d do what I could for the house but it wouldn’t be spotless and it really wasn’t…. but I tried… I just figured I’d tread water these last few months before we moved and start over with a fresh clean start…
We were kept in the top level of our split level. On our floor was the kitchen/ dining room, living room 2 bedrooms and a living room and a fenced and gated deck off the kitchen.
Down below was the laundry/bathroom, a living room a bedroom and the garage… I wasn’t allowed to go down stairs and I didn’t want to because Larry kept it so junked up with piles of clutter and trash and old chip bags and food and stuff I didn’t want down there. I would break something from tripping over it or something… So he kept his half his way and I tried the best

with my way. Like a dysfunctional, hoarding disordered Mc BLT carton… the hot side was a hot hot mess…
The CPS lady looked around and she said with an almost kind note to her voice, she could tell I had been trying with keeping the house picked up and that depression was clearly a factor…
We weren’t living there or coming home, we were moving back to Wichita once the CPS part of this whole thing was sorted… and I would have more support from friends and family right there to help me with the things I needed help with…
There was nothing more to be done really, until court Tuesday morning…
But things couldn’t flow easy… Later that afternoon… A whole new complication would pop up in the form of Larry’s crazy aunt Judy… Like if the church lady from SNL and the devil himself had a love child and raised it in a mental hospital… OMG…