Julian Youth Academy

[VeraAnne]

Whitmore is in the middle of absolutely nowhere. I wonder how much access this woman had to a car. I think she was suffering from pregnancy denial.

I agree with the pregnancy denial, but she could have called 211 to get the baby to safety. For some reason the fact that she checked on the baby for 4 days just really bothers me. It just doesn't make sense. Most of the time women will put the baby in a dumpster or wherever and then never return. I can somewhat accept someone having a baby while in denial and then throwing it away to pretend that it never happened. I just don't get someone returning and seeing the baby day after day and still doing nothing to help it.

[emmiedahl]

I think the reason that she did not call for help is that she lives in Whitmore, a town with probably less than 200 people, all of whom are really good at running their mouths and gossiping. It is a very right wing, fundamentalist area. She would rather cover her tracks than get exposed because she lives in such a good Christian community and works at such a lovely Christian school.

[VeraAnne]

That may be it. I'm sure the shame played a large role in the whole situation. I just get really weird vibes from the whole thing. Did you read the LA times article on the school. They talked about how girls were punished with "No Talk" where they weren't allowed to so much as look at another student for up to an entire month. I don't even know what a possible conspiracy could be, but the whole thing seems very cult-like to me.

[Lillybee]

Something is not adding up. The school has 11 or 13 students, with one teacher. All their internet sites are either down for maintenance or deleted. I have been unable to find anything on the net about the connecting organization that she was supposedly working for F.A.C.E.S.S.

[deepasducks]

I definitely get a "troubled teen industry" vibe from the descriptions of the school. There are a lot of private so-called therapeutic boarding schools that are fraudulent and abusive at pretty much every level, and may or may not involve an overtly religious component. As sugaree suggested, the school doesn't sound especially fundie, but it does have a lot of similarities with other troubled teen "schools" I've read about, especially the isolating punishments and intense control of students' daily lives that nevertheless allow the school to tell parents they don't use corporal punishment. It's like all these schools use the same playbook, and it sounds like even "success stories" from the schools wind up with a lot of problems as a result of what was done to them.

(I realize it could sound like I'm defending the woman who starved her newborn to death, which is not my intention. It's more that I have read about a lot of schools that sound like this one, so I wanted to share the info and see if it strikes anyone else the same way)

http://www.helpatanycost.com/resources.php (resources recommended by Maia Szalavitz, who wrote a gut-wrenching investigative book about the troubled teen industry in 2006)

http://www.cafety.org/index.php (Community alliance for the ethical treatment of youth)

[Lillybee]

I think that this is a pretty fundie school. When the site about Julian Christian Academy was open, it did say that the only music the girls were allowed to listen to was Christian, and that they could only watch Christian TV. I know how you feel deepasducks, I don't want to sound like I support this woman but I feel that there is something that is not right about this school. I do wish my newspaper would look into it.

[Lillybee]

The local paper did an article about the school. Some of the comments are pretty interesting. http://www.redding.com/news/2011/nov/19 ... ks-school/

[snarkykitty]

Oh my goodness. This sounds like such a sad story. I just question how this woman managed to hide her pregnancy from an entire school as everyone claims she did. It seems like someone must have wondered at some point. This story has some more alleged details:

http://www.krcrtv.com/news/29742277/detail.html

Also, I find it very weird that all of the school pages have mysteriously gone down for maintenance. I can't help but wonder what is going on behind the scenes.

I think that this place must have some stuff in common with some of the Hezbiah - type "schools" for girls. Read the comments below this article: http://www.krcrtv.com/news/29742277/detail.html

"They should have been shut down long before now! was a student there for 10 months and 10 days. hate everything they say they are, and glad this came out and hope they loose everything. Wish I could sue them for all the stress and pain they caused me! not to mention the staff that said they had the rights to do what they did."

and

"This story is appalling in every aspect. A friend of mine went to this school and told me of the weird things that go on there. I find it hard to believe that any decent parent would send their children here with hopes that it will help them and they would be cared for while people like this are in charge and the mentors."

and

"I went to the "school" as well... There are so many things that have happened there.. I'm suprised it is still open taking "troubled teens". Dig deeper."

and

"I went to this "christian school" and there are many stories to be told, I can't believe it has taken this long to reach the media."

[Lillybee]

Bumping this because this case is finally being tried. Jessica has been in the county jail since Nov 2011.

This is an updated news article

http://www.redding.com/news/2014/may/21 ... w-she-was/

[Trynn]

If she had access to a car, would a neighboring city have been an option?

I lived for 2-4 years in a small town, and when I wanted to ( legally) buy booze (which my parents disproved of.) I'd drive about an hour to tr nearest neighboring town to do it.

[Lillybee]

I doubt that she had access to a car and even if she did I doubt that she would have been able to use it alone. I read the comments in the Redding Searchlight article about the school and those comments really made it seem like it was a fundie reform school.

What this woman did was awful. I wonder how much the purity culture has played into it, though. I wish that she would have had someone to go to and talk about the pregnancy but I have a feeling that she was in denial about it.

The local paper has made a big thing about her keeping the pregnancy secret was because she didn't want to lose her life style. My question is, what kind of lifestyle can a person have living and working at a fundie reform school.

[nomoxian]

couldn't she have found a phone and called paramedics? or lie and say "it's a miracle!" when the baby popped out?

this whole thing makes me sad and sick. there is no reason or excuse for what she did.

[lawlifelgbt]

Safe haven laws notwithstanding, maybe she couldn't get off the campus or didn't want anyone to see her abandoning the child or be questioned about why she had left?

There are a lot of reasons why she might have acted irrationally- denial, the hormonal changes immediately after birth, postpartum mood problems.

But, couldn't she at least, when she put the baby in that abandoned area, have called 911 and said that she saw an abandoned baby there? EMTs would come and get it, and she wouldn't have to admit it was hers.

[Mama Mia]

One of the original news articles states she drove to Redding, a large town, at least twice after giving birth and before the bAby died. So there is really absolutely no excuse. If anything she would have had much less chance of discovery if she had put the newborn in a covered basket and driven to a fire station or hospital in Redding. Horrible.