In one of the strangest custody cases ever to unfold a Washington State judge has ordered that two teenage boys continue living with their father and step-mom, despite the fact that the step-mother murdered her own children 20 years before.
Kristin and John Cushing were married and had two daughters aged 4 and 8 years old. Kristin Cushing was the typical soccer mom, driving the girls to their activities and taking care of the young family while the father was overseas serving in the U.S. Marine Corps. One night she used a .38 caliber revolver to kill both children as they slept. She was tried by a court in Orange County, California and found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Kristen Cushing underwent years of therapy and medication. While it seems that she has a clean bill of health currently, she may have been hospitalized for her mental health issues as recently as 2008.
After the couple divorced, John Cushing married Trisha Conlon and had two more children, boys who are now teenagers. When Cushing and Conlon later divorced, they agreed on a split custody situation where the boys alternate living with each parent.
Recently Conlon discovered that Kristen Cushing had reconciled with John Cushing and they were living together with her sons. The boys were instructed to conceal the fact that she was around them and Conlon had to hire a private investigator to determine that Cushing was in fact living with her children.
There are also guns in the home.
Conlon, concerned for the safety of her children and not encouraged by the father's willingness to hide Kristen Cushing's presence filed to overturn the prior custody agreement. Unbelievably, a commissioner (someone who makes rulings in a family law case but is not a judge) ruled that the children should stay with the father. The commissioner based this decision on the close relationship the boys had with their father. Obviously he didn't consider the life ending injuries that Kristen Cushing inflicted on her own sleeping children.
A state judge has agreed to review the custody decision but did not make an immediate order placing the boys in their mother's custody. He ordered the children to return to the home with Kristen Cushing and ordered a review in 90 days and appointed a CASA (court appointed special advocate, volunteers who make investigate and reports to the judge) and a guardian ad litem (a specially trained attorney who represents the children's best interests, also responsible for investigating and reporting his findings and recommendations to the judge).
Hopefully at the 90 day review the Judge will order the children to be returned to their mother's custody permanently, and arrange visitation with the father that ensures that the children are never in the presence of Kristen Cushing. It does not matter that she has had years of therapy and rehabilitation. It does not matter that the children like her and get along with her, and that she has a good relationship with the children. These things do not matter because neither the court nor the parents should have taken any chance that Kristen Cushing could snap again and murder these children. If that gamble is lost then nothing could correct that mistake and bring those children back to life.
The father should lose custody immediately and have supervised visitation until he could prove that he had visitation arrangements where it was guaranteed that Kristen Cushing not be present. Not only has he brought this woman into the lives of his children (the same woman who murdered his first children) but he tried to hide that fact from the mother. He knew that what he was doing was wrong. His actions show that his concern for himself (in reuniting with Kristen Cushing) outweighed his concern for the best interests of his children. His kids may be close to him, but he has shown that he is not a good father.
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