Category: COURT VICTIM

Falling in love and getting married cast two very different couples into the same nightmare. A BuzzFeed News investigation. By Heidi Blake and Katie J.M. Baker Posted on September 19, 2021, at 3:54 p.m. ET Beyond Britney This is part 2 of a BuzzFeed News investigation Part 1: They Both Fought To Break Free From Guardianship. Only One Escaped. Part 3: “My Human Rights Are Being Violated”: Fighting A Family Conservatorship Early one August morning, a young woman in camouflage shorts and a plastic tiara slipped out of a building in Rock Springs, Wyoming, and hopped into the Dodge Neon idling outside. She snatched a brief kiss with her childhood sweetheart, waiting at the wheel in cowboy boots, before he gunned the engine and set out along the Flaming Gorge canyon. At 7:15 a.m., just across the border in Utah, Arieana Wynter and Jesse Jones were declared husband and wife. It was 2,000 miles away, in Florida, that a retired engineer and former Navy reservist named Doug Keegan donned a crisp suit and said his vows. His bride wore a white dress dotted with pink flowers. Monica Steele had transformed Keegan’s life since the pair met the previous year. After decades as a bachelor, he finally had someone to cook for, sing to, and teach how to swing a golf club. They had already honeymooned in Kenya. Now it was time to make it official. “When I said, ‘I’m going to love you forever,’” he later recalled, “that was cemented into my heart.” The two couples were worlds apart in age, wealth, and social background — but their marriages had something in common that neither could have imagined. Each one would be used to support arguments that both Wynter and… Read More

For people under guardianship, the system can be dehumanizing, dangerous, and even deadly. For the professionals — who can control hundreds of people at a time — it can be very profitable. A BuzzFeed News investigation. By Heidi Blake and Katie J.M. Baker Posted on September 17, 2021, at 1:02 p.m. ET Beyond Britney This is part 1 of a BuzzFeed News investigation Part 2: They Both Fought To Break Free From Guardianship. Only One Escaped. Part 3: “My Human Rights Are Being Violated”: Fighting A Family Conservatorship They can isolate you: A teenager with cerebral palsy was snatched from the school gates and hidden from his parents. They can bleed you dry: A successful rheumatologist was declared incapacitated after a bout of depression and lost her million-dollar waterfront home. And they can leave you to die: A 46-year-old man died under a do-not-resuscitate order that went against the desperate pleas of his wife. All three nightmares share a common cause: These people had been placed under the care — and control — of legal guardians. America’s guardianship system was designed as a last resort to be used only in the rare and drastic event that someone is totally incapacitated by mental or physical disability. In those cases, conscientious guardians can provide vital support, often in complex and distressing circumstances. But an investigation by BuzzFeed News has found that the system has grown into a vast, lucrative, and poorly regulated industry that has subsumed more than a million people, many of whom insist they are capable of making their own decisions, and placed them at risk of abuse, theft, and even death. The #FreeBritney movement has drawn international attention to the case of Britney Spears, and wrongdoing by individual guardians… Read More