Gary Staton - Widower Who Abandoned 9 Children After Wive’s Death
Posted on September 26, 2008
A Nebraska man, Gary Staton, felt he had to abandon his nine children at a “safe haven”, after the death of his wife. Before we judge, the man was out of work and unable to properly care for his children. Gary Staton said his life “fell apart” after the death of his wife. Children have been placed with family members and on October 8th Gary Staton asked for visitation rights to his abandoned children.Read Updates after the bump.
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Update:
The dad who left nine of his kids–all of them 17 and under–at a hospital recently asked a juvenile court judge today to let him visit them.
The kids are staying with relatives in Lincoln, even though the judge wanted them placed in foster care in Omaha. The state is appealing the judge’s order. Today the judge told him she can’t let him see them while the appeal is pending.
The kids’ father–Gary Staton–said he was leaving them under the state’s new safe Haven law because he couldn’t take care of them. His wife–the children’s mother–died a year and a half ago.
Previous:
This is a heartbreaking story, and a situation most of us cannot even imagine. Gary Staton’s wife passed of a brain aneurysm, days after giving birth to their youngest child, leaving him with 10 children to care for by himself. Unable to care for the children, he made the tough decision to leave them at a children’s safe haven in Nebraska.
“I was able to get the kids to a safe place before they were homeless,” he said. He said he made the final decision Wednesday to take the children to Creighton University Medical Center. He said he handed a woman there the birth certificates and said he was there to surrender his kids.”I hope they know I love them,” he said. “I hope their future is better without me around them.”
This law allows caregivers to abandon babies and teenagers at safe haves at hospitals without fear of prosecution. This law was first in place to protect infants, it was expanded in a legislative compromise to protect any “child.” Some have interpreted that to mean anyone under 19.
Gary Staton anonymously left the five boys and four girls — ages 1 to 17 — at Creighton University Medical Center’s emergency room on Wednesday evening. He has a 10th child, a daughter who is 18 and was not dropped off.
Kathie Osterman, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services department, said that several relatives have offered to take the siblings.
Staff members were busy doing background checks on Friday, hoping to place the children within the next few days.
Gary Staton said that his wife died early last year, very shortly after the delivery of their youngest child. Staton said he quit his job because of his wife’s death and family responsibilities, but he was not able to pay rent or utilities, or take care of his children.
“I was with her for 17 years, and then she was gone,” he said of his late wife. “What was I going to do? We raised them together. I didn’t think I could do it alone. I fell apart. I couldn’t take care of them.”
Staton said he left the children so they would be cared for properly, and wanted the best for them.Staton and his wife were cited in 2004 for child neglect. An article in a North High School newspaper quoted Staton’s oldest daughter as saying she graduated at 16, in part to care for her younger siblings.
“I was always feeding kids, checking homework and sending kids to bed,” Amoria Micek was quoted in the paper as saying. “I just don’t have anyone backing me up any more.”
The courts become involved once a child is abandoned under the safe haven law. Although a parent’s rights are not taken away automatically, it might be difficult to regain custody.
What do you guys feel about Gary Staton and his decision to abandon his nine children? Do you feel it is the right thing to do in his situation?
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Images: AP
Source: news
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YEP FOLKS, it’s again an american!!
Had these cursed parents ever thought about using condoms, having a vasectomy, or spaying/neutering?
@ Gerard Vandenberg: How rude. Why would you say something so ignorant?
This poor man was simply overwhelmed by the tragedy of his wife’s death and the tremendous responsibility of caring for nine (!) children. Very likely, he himself wasn’t raised to raise children. While the children’s grandparents have declared that they were willing to help, why did they wait to be asked? Anyone in their right mind would know that it is virtually impossible for one person to work and raise nine kids, no matter how much you love them.
Who criticizes a single mother when she gives up her child for adoption, so that the child can have a better life? No one expects their spouse to die and leave them to raise their kids alone. In this case, unexpected and tragic circumstances led this single father to give up what he loves most, in the name of love and in the hope that they could have a better life.
Someone needs to reach out to this man, help him get a job, find a way to help him organise his household (where are all the do-gooder volunteers when you need them?) so that this family, shattered by grief and desperation, can be reunited and find a way to get back on the right track.
Magazines are always publishing stories about large families -biological and adoptive- and how loving and admirable they are. Of course, these families have two parents to bear the load. Would the articles be so admiring if one of the spouses died, leaving the care of the kids to the remaining spouse?
Do you govern your life by the possibility that your spouse may die and leave you with the kids and the mortgage? If people did, probably no one would have any kids at all.
There but for the grace of God go many of us more fortunate ones.
My heart goes out to this overwhelmed father and these poor children.
They worked to save Superman’s house, for crying out loud; why doesn’t someone work to save this family. All the kids have anymore is their father and each other.
It’s better to have a child in the foster care then on the street. That had to have been a really hard thing for him to do. I will soon have 4 children and I love them with all my heart, I could never leave them anywhere. Though if I knew that I would be homeless I would definatly atleast ask family for help. I pray for those childrens sake that they have a bright and happy future.
PLEASE! Their 16-year-old was raising those children, not the parents! They were cited for neglect in 2004, people! When will unfit parents learn to use a condom!!!!!!!
the state will pay welfare and house them wont they? How could he give them ALL up? They are probably better off.Although the foster care system is a horror in itself.Poor kids.