Law Judge jails father for blaming her for son's death - Mother killed son after being given custody

https://www.wxyz.com/news/region/ma...dly-criticizing-court-system-in-macomb-county (https://archive.vn/7psYP)

(WXYZ) — He lost a custody battle, then his son lost his life. He blames the court system. He voiced his strong opinions on social media and the next thing he knew he was locked in jail.

“He was so full of life,” said Deborah Vanderhagen of her grandson. “I am trying not to cry.”

On September 22 it will be the two-year anniversary of the day Deborah Vanderhagen’s grandson Killian lost his life. She believes her son Jonathan Vanderhagen is justified in feeling the court cost her grandson his life. He died in the custody of his mom after her son asked for sole custody.

“His lawyer said something is going to happen to this child. You need to get him away from the mother. There are too many red flags. And the judge said, oh that is in the past,” said Deborah Vanderhagen.

The police report filed after two-year-old Killian died shows he had a previous medical condition and investigators did not believe there was evidence Killian’s mother was responsible. His dad felt otherwise and repeatedly posted criticism of the judge and friend of the court on his Facebook Page.

Judge Rachel Rancilio saw the posts, many of which are publicly targeted at her. She apparently felt uncomfortable and possibly threatened.

The Macomb County Sheriff’s office responded and found he criticized what Judge Rachel Rancilio pinned on Pinterest as in his opinion inappropriate, posted videos saying he feels she and others responsible for Killian’s death, and blamed the court system for his loss.

The investigative report also says at no time did he threaten harm or violence.
Still he was charged with malicious use of telecommunications services and released on bond. Then he made more posts, such as one that reads, “Dada back to digging and you best believe I’m gonna dig up all the skeletons in this court’s closet.”

A judge ruled he violated his bond conditions. He now is in jail on half a million dollars bond.

His mom says she feels he simply was exercising his right to free speech.
“He just wants justice. He don’t want to kill anybody. He don’t want anybody physically hurt. He wants them to acknowledge what they’ve done and get justice,” said Deborah Vanderhagen.

A jury trial is scheduled for September 13.

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

Stop being exceptional. If a judge orders you to stop shitposting on the internet and you end up in jail because you do it anyway it's what you get for being an idiot.
How is this different from breaking any other court ordered bond conditions and ending up in jail because of it?

The right to free speech is a right. Not a privilege that the fucking government can take away when they decide you use it to say things they don't like. That would be the opposite of a right. The judge was not within his powers to do this.

 

[a feel]

The right to free speech is a right. Not a privilege that the fucking government can take away when they decide you use it to say things they don't like. That would be the opposite of a right. The judge was not within his powers to do this.

Then what are you mad about? Surely your courts will remember that. Or maybe the judges were well within their powers because none of us actually knows what really transpired and we're mad on the internet based on one news outlet's narrative.

 

[neverendingmidi]

Then what are you mad about? Surely your courts will remember that. Or maybe the judges were well within their powers because none of us actually knows what really transpired and we're mad on the internet based on one news outlet's narrative.

He'd have to appeal it, probably will too.

Be interesting if he fights it all the way to the supreme court.

 

[Damn Near]

That judge should kill herself, for real

 

[Spicy Hog]

Of course the judge is a woman. What an absolute cunt, it's disgusting to think how hard you have to fight to prove somebody is an unfit mother and still lose.

 

[NotoriousD]

This really doesn't shock me one bit. A bit off the rails, but DCF in particular has waaaay more power and authority than they should. I'm gonna avoid power leveling as much as humanly fucking possible, but I'm going to provide an example based on a friend:

DCF came out to a friend's house. I was there personally, this isn't second hand bullshit. They had a case against them by the daughter living there at the time. This case read like a literal fucking lifetime movie, stating that they all regularly partake in activities like the family holding her down while one of them beat the shit out of her, then rotating, among many, MANY other insane things that, again, sound like stuff you'd only see in a lifetime movie.

The caseworker that arrived was required to read this few page claim that read like a bad fanfiction to them, out loud, uninterrupted. He took it all seriously. Grandkid got taken out of the house that night. None of it was real, their daughter was just a crazy bitch and thought "oh cool I can abuse the system to take the kid away from them".

I later talked to this friend of mine, and asked if there were any updates since that crazy night. Turned out yeah, there were. The child was sent to relatives of the daughter's, who had DCF called on THEM, because he wouldn't stop crying and screaming. The kid was instantly taken away from them. DCF was also supposedly(this is second hand)trying to take the kid away from both parents as well.

I've come to the sound conclusion from this and other similar incidents that the entire system is just fucked and good luck if you have a kid, I mean it. But holy shit when I was younger I used to think the hard part about raising a kid was raising the kid to grow up a responsible and proper individual. Now it seems almost as hard to keep a kid long enough to raise him/her to not be a broken mess.

And of course the case displayed in this thread IS different, but similarly of a corrupt nature. Mothers do inevitably have it easier I find, and the gender bias is very apparent.

Major power level at the end, but it's situations like I read in this thread and stuff I see happen to other people that ultimately made me swear off having kids. It's just not worth it. You're FAR less likely to have the law stick its boot up your ass if you just avoid having children, because that's a hotbed in the legal scene.

As for the judge, I dunno what to say. She's a huge cunt abusing her power, but to my understanding good fucking luck getting justice from a corrupt representative of it without a massive pushback campaign of some kind that she can't entirely ignore or lock up.

 

[RG 448]

Or maybe the judges were well within their powers

That is not a safe assumption when talking about family court in the United States. The judges in those circles are incompetent at best and crooked at worst. And there’s very little oversight and plenty of lobbyists who work to keep it that way.

 

[moocow]

As for the judge, I dunno what to say. She's a huge cunt abusing her power, but to my understanding good fucking luck getting justice from a corrupt representative of it without a massive pushback campaign of some kind that she can't entirely ignore or lock up.

This is how people get shot. Grieving father, punished by the same system that failed to protect his child, no (legal) recourse, with a name and a face to attach to all that pain and nothing to lose.

I'm not saying that's what should (or will) happen, but I won't act surprised if it does.

 

[Yovevires]

No women in positions of power. Repeal the 19th amendment.

 

[AprilRains]

Absolutely, but we don't know what really happened based on only your OP.

Then find a source with better and more complete information which supports your opinions.

 

[thx1138]

Judges, especially women judges, do not brook people talking smack about them. They're power-hungry authoritarian shits, again especially the women, doubly so when it comes to family court, and they will fuck you up. I have all the sympathy in the world for this guy.

 

[Megaroad]

Wasn't this a Law and Order episode already?

Iirc, women are usually favored not because of waman respect, but something to do with the government usually getting some kinda benefit. I'll ask lawyer friend to clarify this since he deals with custody battles.

 

[RG 448]

I'm not saying that's what should (or will) happen, but I won't act surprised if it does.

That kind of rage is totally understandable, but justice doesn’t have to come at the price of a man’s soul. What should and could very probably happen is a big fat class action lawsuit.

You seem pretty plugged in in terms of knowlege of the family court bullshit, and thematically it goes hand-in-hand with the private adoption industry and the foster care system, in that there’s a shitload of money to be made destroying biological families (traced back to the persecution of Native Americans, and brought into the modern age by classism), and it borders on cronieism when it doesn’t balls-out cross that line.

Have you heard about that class-action lawsuit levied against Utah over all those kids illegally adopted out by “Christian” adoption agencies? Shit’s bad now, but parents being trampled by these machines are grouping up. I think a lot of people are gonna get their comeuppance within the next few decades, and continued organization is the key. Might be rambling a bit here, but it’s rare to find people out in the wild who know what the fuck they’re talking about when it comes to the seedy underbelly of child services and family court.

I am unironically impressed by the number of people in this thread who get it.

 

[⠠⠠⠅⠑⠋⠋⠁⠇⠎ ⠠⠠⠊⠎ ⠠⠠⠁ ⠠⠠⠋⠁⠛]

Is there anything stating that the judge he criticized is the same one that set his bond conditions? Or that the one setting the draconian half a mil bail for violating is the same?

Or is everyone being exceptional?

Doesn't even matter. He has every right to burn down- figuratively- anyone connected in any way to the family court system over this.

Iirc, women are usually favored not because of waman respect, but something to do with the government usually getting some kinda benefit. I'll ask lawyer friend to clarify this since he deals with custody battles.

I imagine men awarded sole custody are less likely to get child support from the mother than the reverse, but they're very rare birds and this sounds a bit like a MRA talking point rather than a major factor in driving the dynamics of family law.

 

[usernames can change now!]

I hope the judge in question is recalled and made unemployable by internet mobs. Thankfully, her address and phone number are easily available on Whitepages, and Reddit is in full ragemode, so that's an entirely plausible outcome. I hope she likes flipping burgers.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 85?

"Your honor."

I imagine men awarded sole custody are less likely to get child support from the mother than the reverse, but they're very rare birds and this sounds a bit like a MRA talking point rather than a major factor in driving the dynamics of family law.

MRA talking points are right on this particular issue.

 

[Oh Long Johnson]

Doesn't even matter. He has every right to burn down- figuratively- anyone connected in any way to the family court system over this.

I do not understand. You don't want to know if the second judge he faced put a figurative gag on him as a bail condition? How about whoever sent him to the pokey with a half a million dollar bail? Might be judge #2 or might be someone else. Are they just unimportant as well?

This man's son dying is potentially on judge #1, but everything that happened after that child's death has led to further and further potential injustices that have absolutely nothing to do with the sorry state of family courts in the US, aside from the fact that having tits gets you preferential treatment in any and every element of criminal and civil justice in this country. But if you want to criticize any of it, it would certainly help if we knew more than a sloppy article with a headline that makes it sounds like the judge he was criticizing had him imprisoned.

 

[QI 541]

Legal system is such a shithole that it makes people swear off having kids
Solve this problem by mass importing someone else's kids from some third world shithole

Well done, western society.

 

[Dracula's Spirit Animal]

Then what are you mad about? Surely your courts will remember that. Or maybe the judges were well within their powers because none of us actually knows what really transpired and we're mad on the internet based on one news outlet's narrative.

Feel terrible for that dad, and I wouldn't have any problem if he actually took justice into his own hands against the original family judge.

Generally speaking, I'm in favour of following the law, but I certainly think this is just a legal system dogpile on a grieving father... one of two or more victims of a bigoted legal system. How the fuck can a legal system think they should be able to censure him in any way without inciting or threatening violence against the judge? It's Clown World shit.

But @a feel , you're doing something we all do occasionally. There should be a term for it, and there probably is. It's digging a hole in a thread with obstinate pedantry.

 

[⠠⠠⠅⠑⠋⠋⠁⠇⠎ ⠠⠠⠊⠎ ⠠⠠⠁ ⠠⠠⠋⠁⠛]

I do not understand. You don't want to know if the second judge he faced put a figurative gag on him as a bail condition? How about whoever sent him to the pokey with a half a million dollar bail? Might be judge #2 or might be someone else. Are they just unimportant as well?

This man's son dying is potentially on judge #1, but everything that happened after that child's death has led to further and further potential injustices that have absolutely nothing to do with the sorry state of family courts in the US, aside from the fact that having tits gets you preferential treatment in any and every element of criminal and civil justice in this country. But if you want to criticize any of it, it would certainly help if we knew more than a sloppy article with a headline that makes it sounds like the judge he was criticizing had him imprisoned.

He would have every right to let er rip all across social media at every individual involved in the legal system even if he only felt motivated to do so because his first morning shit at work was excessively dense and hurt a little coming out, and it reminded him of a time that he got a speeding ticket.

As it is, he feels that the legal system effectively killed his child. So he's absolutely justified in saying some hurty words that do not amount to threats about the officers of the court, whether they're the specific ones responsible for the family court decision that affected him or not.

I did some more digging into things. It seems the kid had hydrocephalus (not the thing where they get the fully caved in heads, or at least not a severe case of it) but was mostly fine.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190907033839/https://www.gofundme.com/team-killian

It appears that there ended up being duelling funerals.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190907034428/https://www.gofundme.com/killiansfuneralfund

Mr Vanderhagen has been imprisoned by this judge for two months through her setting the ridiculous bail amount. Apparently the trial is in a week or so.
https://archive.li/dh9sI

EDIT: Vanderhagen's speech trial is on the 13th. This is probably the first trial I've seen advertised as a Facebook event lol

https://www.facebook.com/events/524041391685647/

Some spicy dialogue about the mother, Zatora Duff, between someone- possibly her sister in law- and one of Johnathan's Eskimo brothers on the YouTube video version of this story:

Spoiler: ETC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edn5K6-m7Ss

Yeah, I would say that using opiates during pregnancy is probably a factor that should cause CPS and the courts to have a close look at your fitness to parent and a real close look after your child dies in your custody. No big deal tho!

Copblock types out in force on the local Sherriff's FB page..
https://www.facebook.com/pg/macombcountysheriffsoffice/posts/