The following article is the original "What Ever Happened To..." story published Monday; plus a final sentence that comes from a similar article published in the Houston Chronicle.
Judith Ann Hayles is proud of the 16-year-old grandson who lives with her in Hall County. A high school junior, he has a computer, shows an aptitude for electronics, and jams on the guitar with friends.He talks about joining the Marines when he graduates, "but I won't sign for him if we're still in Iraq," his grandmother said. "I know he'd like to study music, too. At his age, what he wants can change."
What won't change is the fact her grandson already has a child of his own, a 14-month-old boy, born to his 38-year-old wife who is now in prison. Because he is still a minor, the newspaper is not using his name.
Hayles doesn't want her grandson's name revealed, either. "He's getting out of the situation he's been in, and I don't want everybody to know his past."
The teen's past involves Lisa Lynette Clark, the mother of one of his high school friends. The affair became public when Clark, 37, and the teen, then 15, were married in November 2005 by a retired county probate judge who performed the ceremony in his driveway. Hall County authorities arrested Clark the next day, charging her with sexually molesting a minor.
Hayles, who has no fondness for Clark, said the charge was apt.
"She's a pedophile, that's what I think," Hayles said. "I believe she seduced and stalked him, and he was living a double life he kept secret from me."
Although state law sets the marrying age at 16, the marriage was performed under an exception that allows younger people to marry if the bride is pregnant.
In March 2006, Clark pleaded guilty as a first offender to statutory rape and spent nine months in the Hall County Jail. During that time, she gave birth to a 7-pound, 9-ounce son she named Skye Cobain Gonzalez, in part to honor the late Kurt Cobain, founder of the groundbreaking "grunge rock" group Nirvana, known for the early '90s hit song "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
"He loved the music; why I don't understand," Hayles said of her grandson. Cobain, who grappled with drug addiction, died in April 1994 of a shotgun blast to the head.
Skye is being cared for by a woman who employed Clark as a medical transcriptionist, said Hayles' sister, Patricia Redd of Decatur, Tenn. "I've heard the woman's interested in full custody, and I'd be happy about that," Redd said. "My sister's too old to take on a baby, and we know he's being well taken care of."
Clark is now serving a two-year sentence in a women's prison. She pleaded guilty to a Douglas County charge of helping her teenage husband's flight out of state in February 2006. The teenager, who was on probation for a burglary and in a group home in DeKalb County, was caught within two weeks by authorities in Ohio and returned to Georgia. He then spent four months in a state wilderness program and went back to live with his grandmother after his release last August.Assistant Douglas County prosecutor Jeff Ballew said there was evidence that Clark mailed a package, including money and a cellphone, to her husband in Ashtabula. Ohio, where she knew people.
"Hall County's case was pending, and there may have been a motive on her part that he not be available as a witness," Ballew said. "Even if there had been no sex case at all, she facilitated his escape from a juvenile facility, which is a crime."
Clark is scheduled to get out of prison in May 2008. A spokeswoman for the corrections department said the warden would not allow her to be interviewed because of unspecified disciplinary reasons.
Defense attorney Daniel Sammons said Clark has written him "a couple letters. I can't talk about them, but I don't think she's adjusting easily to prison with the isolation from her child and the stark conditions she's in. This was a first offense, and she had no criminal record."
Sammons said when his client is released, a condition of her probation is that she stay away from Hall and Dawson counties.
Hayles said she and her grandson are going regularly to counseling. He's behaving more like an average teen these days, she said.
"He has a girlfriend now and she's his age, thank the Lord."
It was not clear whether the teen was still married to Clark. Hayles and attorneys in the case did not immediately return calls to The Associated Press on Monday.
Sources:
Posts of mine on Lisa Lynnette Clark:
1 comment:
the picture of that boy is not the same boy who married Lisa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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