CHICAGO (AP) \u2014 In horrifying detail, prosecutors described how three children, trapped in the back seat of their mother\u2019s car, screamed for help before they drowned in 4 \u00ac\u03a9 feet of water in an Illinois lake while their mother and her boyfriend escaped unharmed.<\/p>\n
Amanda Hamm was convicted of child endangerment and served five years in prison for watching her boyfriend carry out a plot to drown her 6-year-old, 3-year-old and 23-month-old children in 2003 because they interfered with the couple\u2019s relationship and his sex-and-drugs lifestyle. He was convicted of first-degree murder and is serving a life sentence.<\/p>\n
Now in a bizarre twist, Amanda Ware and her new husband are fighting to gain custody of three children \u2014 ages 5, 3 and 1 \u00ac\u03a9 \u2014 she had after leaving prison. They were taken away by child protection authorities last year after a doctor recognized Ware as the former Hamm.<\/p>\n
A Cook County judge on Friday will decide whether the children of Amanda and Leo Ware were abused and neglected, even without evidence that they were physically harmed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a scary problem for all the people involved … but most of all for the judge who has to decide whether to send these children home,\u201d said Bruce Boyer, director of the Loyola University child law clinic in Chicago, who\u2019s not involved in the case. \u201cWhat\u2019s so difficult is that the likelihood of something going wrong may be low, but if does, the consequences are so high.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under a legal concept called \u201canticipatory neglect,\u201d the court is not required to wait until a child is harmed before intervening if someone has harmed or endangered a child in the past, Boyer said, adding that such findings aren\u2019t unusual in child welfare cases. On the other hand, parents cannot be disqualified for custody solely because of their past if they prove that they\u2019re a capable parent.<\/p>\n
But prosecutors and child protection authorities told Judge Demetrius Kottaras last week that, although none of the three living children has been physically harmed, there is direct evidence of current abuse and neglect. That includes domestic violence by Leo Ware against his wife and others, substance abuse and Amanda Ware\u2019s failure to follow treatment for mental illness, which created an injurious environment for the children.<\/p>\n
In 2012, Chicago police responded to a domestic abuse call at the Ware\u2019s house after Leo Ware struck his wife. The next year, while she was pregnant, Amanda Ware sought an order of protection, saying she feared for herself and her children because Leo Ware was using crack cocaine and might become violent. Two weeks later, she had the order dropped.<\/p>\n
Combined with the parents\u2019 histories, \u201cthis freight train of evidence is bearing down on three current children who must be protected,\u201d Assistant State\u2019s Attorney Joan Pernecke told the judge, according to transcripts of the hearing.<\/p>\n
Attorneys for Amanda, 39, and Leo Ware, 49, said the children showed no signs of abuse and were healthy, even crying and taking off their shoes and socks to try to prevent child protection workers from taking them from their home last year. They also said no problems had ever been reported to the state Department of Children and Family Services until a doctor at a hospital where Ware gave birth recognized her.<\/p>\n
Amanda Ware has a long history of depression and abusing drugs and alcohol, and 20 years ago told a mental health worker that she wanted to kill herself by driving into a lake, prosecutors said. During her 2006 trial, witnesses said she was abused and manipulated by boyfriend Maurice LaGrone Jr., who also terrorized her children \u2014 none of them his \u2014 including by putting one child\u2019s head in an oven and chasing a child with a knife. While he couldn\u2019t keep a job \u2014 and didn\u2019t want to watch the children while Ware worked \u2014 she bought him expensive clothes and jewelry, according to testimony.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors at that time said she couldn\u2019t live without a man so was willing to sacrifice her children. When the couple wanted to move from Clinton, Illinois to St. Louis, Ware asked her mother to take custody of two of the children, but she said she could take only one.<\/p>\n
Months later, the couple drove to nearby Clinton Lake, about 150 miles south of Chicago, where on Sept. 2, 2003, LaGrone drove the 1997 Oldsmobile Cutlass down a boat ramp, at some point jumping out with Ware.<\/p>\n
Both claimed the deaths were an accident and that they tried but could not get the kids out. Rescuers eventually called by Ware said it took just two minutes to remove the bodies.<\/p>\n
Amanda Ware would not discuss the case before Friday\u2019s hearing, but last year told the Pantagraph newspaper in Bloomington, Illinois, that she would never get over the deaths, \u201cbut I have to try to move forward and having a home, a husband and a family is the biggest part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leo Ware said in a telephone interview that the couple is being targeted unfairly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey want to compare me to Maurice LaGrone, but I take that as an insult; these are MY kids,\u201d he said. \u201cWe raised my kids for three years before they decided it was a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leo Ware admits to a criminal past as a gang member and drug dealer, but insists he\u2019s put that all behind him. He also said his wife deserves a chance to move on.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all make bad decisions in life,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is about moving on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CHICAGO (AP) \u2014 In horrifying detail, prosecutors described how three children, trapped in the back seat of their mother\u2019s car, screamed for help before they drowned in 4 \u00ac\u03a9 feet of water in an Illinois lake while their mother and her boyfriend escaped unharmed. Amanda Hamm was convicted of child endangerment and served five years … Continue reading Illinois mom who watched 3 kids drown fights for new family<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-24869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24869"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=24869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}