‘Mom, I’m not a psychopath’: Teen says he told his mother ‘I’m not this murderer’ in bodycam clip captured months before he allegedly stabbed her to death

Background: Collin Griffith speaking to cops months before he allegedly killed his mom (WFTX/YouTube). Insets left to right: Collin Griffith and his mother Catherine Griffith, knife used to murder Catherine Griffith (Instagram/Polk County (Fla.) Sheriff’s Office).

A teen accused of stabbing his mom to death in Florida — two years after claiming to kill his dad in self-defense — can be heard talking to his grandmother in a newly-released bodycam video about how he told his mother, “I’m not a murderer,” less than a year before allegedly taking her life.

“I was saying, ‘Mom, I’m not a psychopath,'” Collin Griffith, 17, can be heard telling his grandmother in a bodycam video captured by a deputy with the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office and released by local Fox affiliate WFTX on Tuesday.

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“I’m not a murderer,” he recalled saying to his mother, Catherine Griffith, 39, during a fight they were having in November 2023, which prompted police to be called and led to him being arrested for domestic violence. “I’m just trying to peacefully leave or peacefully coexist. She kept telling me to shut up and shut up, and when I wouldn’t shut up, she hit me.”

Griffith, who is charged with first-degree murder, was in the back of a police car while speaking to his grandmother during the video. He can be heard telling a deputy that he’s “in a constant state of fight or flight” and worried that he may attack his mom.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=5O3rz9cCRLA%3Fsi%3D5clcEuEUE6oc1bjG

“If I think she’s going to do something, even if she’s not, I might act,” Griffith says. “I’m not going to, like, go crazy or anything. But I’m not sure, honestly.”

The deputy goes on to ask, “You’re not sure if you’ll hurt your mom?”

Collin replies, “Only if she tries to hurt me.”

Griffith is behind bars in Polk County after allegedly killing his mother on Sept. 8, according to police officials. The slaying took place in a 55-and-over community in Auburndale, some 50 miles east of Tampa, where Griffith’s grandmother is a resident and where the bodycam footage was captured in November 2023.

Griffith allegedly called police after murdering his mom and told a dispatcher that they “had a very long fight and she fell on a knife.” Cops said they found Catherine Griffith stabbed multiple times in the neck. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a press conference in September that her injuries could not have been accidental.

“The medical examiner said it’s just not reasonable or plausible that she died the way that he said she did,” Judd said. “It just didn’t happen.”

In February 2023, Griffith allegedly killed his father in Oklahoma but avoided prosecution after successfully claiming self-defense. When Florida deputies encountered him after his mom’s murder he was allegedly acting “calm, cool, collected,” according to Judd, who said that Griffith showed “zero remorse.”

“He looked the deputy in the eye and said: ‘I know my rights,” Judd recalled Griffith saying. “‘I want an attorney.'”

Griffith’s grandmother can be heard telling police in the bodycam video from November 2023 that the teen didn’t want to live with his mother anymore before she was killed.

“Collin did not want to come back home,” she tells a deputy. “And I said, ‘You don’t have a choice, you have to go back home.’ And he said, ‘No, I want foster care,’ and even the corporal said that foster care isn’t good for you. You have issues you need to work on.”

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Before police were called, Griffith allegedly pushed his mother to the ground and “stomped on her” after she took away his video game privileges, according to PCSO officials. Griffith claimed self-defense, but that argument failed, and he went to jail.

Two months before that incident, Griffin was involuntarily committed for mental health reasons after he allegedly made a threatening statement, claiming: “I’ll kill myself, or I’ll kill my mother by shooting or stabbing her,” according to police officials.

Polk County authorities have asked prosecutors to charge Griffith, who is being held without bond, as an adult.

Marisa Sarnoff contributed to this report.

Prosecutors dismiss charges after Kent State police arrest director of School of Health Sciences

Adriana Gasiewski, Reporter

July 18, 2024

Ellen Glickman, then-director of Kent State University School of Health Sciences, called 911 on May 9, 2024, to tell police she was locked out of Nixson Hall and had to use the bathroom. | Screen grab from police body camera footage

Editor’s Note: This story was updated with the most recent information regarding professor Glickman’s case, including the expungement of court documents. 

Prosecutors have dismissed charges against Ellen Glickman, director of Kent State University’s School of Health Sciences, after police charged her on May 9 with disorderly conduct by intoxication.

Body camera footage from the incident has made rounds across the internet in recent days, including in Daily Mail.

“Information not apparent in the video was presented to the municipal court which resulted in a timely dismissal of the entire charge,” Friedman and Long, from law firm Friedman Nemecek Long & Grant, L.L.C., said in a statement.

Court records show Glickman’s charges were dismissed after she completed 10 hours of community service and agreed to pay court costs. Her court documents related to the incident were also expunged on Nov. 21, 2025. 

Glickman’s attorneys argued that her record should be expunged because of more than 30 years of service to the university with an unblemished professional record. The court found “That the interests of the Applicant in having the official records pertaining to the case expunged outweigh the legitimate needs of the government to maintain those records.” The motion was granted by judge Melissa R. Roubic.

Emily Vincent, director of university media relations, said in an email that the university is aware of Glickman’s situation and does not comment on personnel matters. Since the incident, Glickman’s university profile has gone offline. It is not known whether she will face disciplinary actions from the university.

Kent State Police audio | Alton Northup

Officers responded to a 911 call from Glickman asking for assistance with her key to Nixson Hall around 10:30 p.m. that night. When officers arrived, they said they noticed an odor of alcohol on her, according to an incident report.

After helping Glickman into the building, officers told her at least six times they did not want her to drive and asked her to call for a ride at least eight times before they arrested her for disorderly conduct by intoxication, according to body camera footage.

Glickman, still dressed in a cap and gown, said she had attended the school’s commencement ceremony and had a drink in a colleague’s office prior to the arrival of police. 

When Officer Alec Womack called for back-up, Officer Trevor White agreed that he could detect an odor of an alcoholic beverage and that her speech indicated she seemed to be intoxicated, said Tricia Knoles, a sergeant with the Kent State University Police.

“I had a drink,” Glickman said in the body camera footage, adding, “you can smell a little alcohol on me, that’s fine.”

In an incident report, White said after Glickman used the bathroom in Nixson Hall, he told her that he would not let her drive her vehicle home, to which Glickman responded she will drive her Tesla home.

Glickman then began to walk down the hall to prove she was able to drive herself, and she informed the officers she was going to call Kent City Police.

White said Womack offered Glickman another chance to call someone to drive her home and she told the officers she was going to call Captain Gettman of Kent Police Department. There is no Captain Gettman at the Kent Police Department.

“After numerous attempts of getting her to call someone, they decided to arrest for disorderly conduct by intoxication so that she would not cause harm to herself or others,” Knoles said.

At one point after her arrest, Glickman appeared to question the officer’s tenure, according to body camera footage, and said, “I’ve worked here 28 years. Can I speak to somebody who’s been here a long time?”

Glickman’s lawyers said she looks forward to returning to the university.

“[Glickman] now looks forward to continuing to provide her students with the high-quality education that her school and Kent State University has always been known for,” they said.

Knoles said White and Womack responded appropriately to Glickman’s call as it is the university police department’s primary goal to keep the community safe, which includes making necessary arrests. 

Best Interest of the Child: One mother’s fight against a claim of parental alienation

by Marc E. FitchFebruary 25, 2024

In October of 2023, Casey faced a contempt of court hearing in Connecticut’s family court system for allegedly refusing to cooperate with a court-appointed psychologist assigned to handle reunification therapy between her two young sons and their estranged father.

Casey and her ex-husband had divorced following a domestic abuse incident and arrest in 2020 ending a four-year dysfunctional marriage. The divorce proceedings quickly escalated into a high-conflict divorce – one in which the parties were so at odds that the divorce involved hundreds of motions filed, accusations, protective orders and years of court proceedings.

The two young boys in this matter had been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after witnessing the domestic violence and were resistant to seeing their father. In January of 2023, the court appointed Dr. Bruce Freedman to oversee reunification therapy between the boys and their father so that both parents could be involved in their upbringing.

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This was the fourth attempt at reunification. Previous attempts had been marred by the children’s resistance and trauma, according to Casey. Some of those past reunification therapists, and the boys’ individual therapists, felt the boys were not yet ready for reunification until they had properly dealt with their PTSD. In essence, they needed more time.

But it had also been years since their father had spent any significant time with them due to the ongoing court proceedings. Casey had full physical custody of them and had protective orders against her ex-husband.

Out of money, Casey had begun to represent herself, while her ex-husband had an attorney, already putting her at a disadvantage when dealing with the intricacies of court procedure and law. She was not only facing a contempt of court charge for hindering reunification therapy but she was also being accused of alienating the children from their father.

According to the plaintiff’s disclosure of an expert witness, “Dr. Freedman is expected to testify to his opinion that [Casey] is alienating the two minor children from their father and the facts that have been presented to him and what he has witnessed himself, which resulted in this opinion. Dr. Freedman is also expected to testify that a change of custody is in the best interests of the minor children in this case.”

Parental alienation is an idea that has taken hold in family court systems throughout the country and internationally. It essentially posits that when a child of divorce, particularly a high-conflict divorce, is resistant to seeing one parent and clings to another it is because they have been influenced and coached – that their mind has been poisoned against the estranged parent. 

Although divorce in previous generations was widely recognized to favor mothers, over the past two decades courts largely adopted the practice of assigning custody based on the best interest of the child, and that largely means involvement from both mother and father. Fathers’ rights groups have been instrumental in pushing for courts to give more recognition to their parental rights and, by and large, studies indicate that in a typical divorce, absent abuse, children do much better when they have contact with two supportive and nurturing parents.

To remedy parental alienation, courts often turn to reunification therapy, carried out by court-appointed psychologists. Reunification therapy can involve therapeutic sessions between the psychologist and the child that eventually reintroduce the estranged parent into the sessions. 

But the idea of parental alienation has come under scrutiny in recent years, as women and domestic violence experts have increasingly pointed out that claims of parental alienation often involve cases that stem from domestic abuse resulting in the allegedly abused parent being naturally resistant to allowing the abusive ex-partner to continue parenting the child. Divorced women are claiming they are encouraged by attorneys not to mention domestic violence in their court proceedings for fear of a claim of parental alienation being used against them in custody proceedings.

Studies have shown that when a claim of parental alienation is made, courts increasingly side with the alienated party and often reverse custody orders, returning children to an abusive parent. A 2023 report to the United Nations, labeled parental alienation a “pseudo-concept” that endangers the lives of women and children. The idea of parental alienation as a psychological disorder has also come under heavy scrutiny by other psychologists.

Dr. Freedman is well-versed in parental alienation, having trained judges, guardian ad litems (GAL) – attorneys for the minor children – and other attorneys in parental alienation. According to his own testimony and curriculum vitae, he has worked on more than 2,400 court cases handling everything from psychiatric evaluations of parents and children to reunification services. 

Casey, naturally, denies alienating the children from their father, saying their resistance to attending reunification therapy is tied to what they witnessed and subsequent incidents, one of which resulted in an abuse substantiation by the Department of Children and Families (DCF) against their father. That substantiation, however, was recently overturned following Casey’s contempt of court case.  

She has fought a protracted court battle, not only with her ex-husband, but also with the GAL originally assigned to the case who recommended Dr. Freedman, and now with Freedman himself.

Casey was not only defending herself against the alienation claim and the contempt of court charge, but she was also seeking to have Freedman removed from the case as she believed he was biased in favor of her ex-husband as Freedman took the stand as a witness for him.

Casey and Freedman’s relationship didn’t start on the best foot. Casey had previously contended in court that the GAL assigned to the case was biased in favor of the father and it was that GAL who recommended Dr. Freedman. Casey had sent the names of two psychologists to her ex-husband’s attorney for possible reunification. 

The attorney had a list of three, including Freedman, and according to email correspondence, checked with Freedman to see if he knew of Casey’s selections. He did not, and the attorney argued Casey’s selections didn’t list reunification services on their website. To Casey, it appeared that her ex-husband and his attorney were getting the specialist they wanted, one who helped dismiss her choices.

Furthermore, Casey sent a long, detailed email to Freedman regarding her relationship with her ex-husband, listing incidents that had occurred causing both her and the boys’ trauma, protective orders, classes she was taking, therapeutic interventions for the boys and DCF investigations. She then asked a series of questions about his written objectives, treatment modality and familiarity with Jennifer’s Law and coercive control, among many others.

Freedman responded twenty days later after he had completed intake interviews for both Casey and her ex-husband, and in his response said such questions would have been “more appropriate for cross-examination in the court before I was selected,” but assured her that he had a long history of dealing with reunification and domestic violence.

He also hadn’t contacted the children’s therapists to discuss their treatment, even though he was authorized to do so. On the stand, Freedman said he wanted to form his own assessment of the boys before reaching out to their therapists but said he had contacted the first court-appointed reunification therapist. 

All this put the initial relationship on shaky ground, leading up to the contempt case and Casey’s motion to have Freedman removed as the reunification therapist in October of 2023.

Under questioning by the plaintiff’s attorney, Dr. Freedman testified that he was originally assigned to the case in January of 2023 and that he set up an appointment for Casey to bring the children to his office so he could meet with them. 

However, Casey indicated the children were fighting her, refusing to go. Freedman said this was concerning because there was no reason the children should know why they were coming to his office or what reunification therapy was. As six weeks had passed since he was assigned to the case for reunification efforts, time was of the essence. 

According to Freedman, typically reunification would happen over 2-3 months with the separated parent being reintroduced into the child’s life and then having regular contact so that therapy could continue from there. According to emails between Casey and Freedman, he planned to have two sessions with the boys before bringing their father in to join them.

The boys’ resistance was concerning because “there was no reason for the boys to know anything about where they were going, who they were talking to, who I was,” Freedman said during testimony, adding that the boys may have been mistakenly told that their father would be part of the meetings.

There was reason for the boys to know, however, because it had been part of the court order that the boys would be informed by their therapists of the reunification therapy. Casey also has audio recordings of her initial intake meeting with Dr. Freedman in which he instructed her to be sure the therapists told the children their father would not be at the meetings.

As a compromise, Freedman agreed to come to Casey’s home to meet with the boys so they could get accustomed to him before meeting with him in the office. The visit didn’t go well.

“For the first twenty minutes it was an extremely chaotic scene, the boys were running around the house screaming and crying, running into their rooms and slamming the doors,” Freedman testified. He and Casey were eventually able to get Freedman into one of the rooms when they calmed down and he played with the youngest and got the elder child to promise to come to his office. 

Freedman was able to meet with the boys for roughly twenty minutes during the home visit, and it was the last contact he had with them. 

According to emails and testimony, the boys continued to resist coming to Freedman’s office and there were numerous scheduling conflicts around Casey’s work schedule and the boys’ schedule with their individual therapists and school events. Freedman said he would not return to the house and wanted to conduct the therapy in a neutral setting, his office.

“Obviously, they’re – again, this is my clinical impression – they’re heavily under the influence of their mother and maybe the maternal family, and they’re in their mother’s home. They’re obviously frightened of me for whatever reason, so I need to be able to get them in a more neutral setting where I can talk to them myself without a parent immediately present,” Freedman testified. “I could see … that I should expect an extremely difficult time to pry these boys away from the influence of their mother against their father.”

Freedman also testified that he was concerned that during his home visit, the youngest child approached him and said, “Daddy hit me,” as if he was coached to do so. He testified that he felt the boys’ home environment had been “poisoned against the father,” and that reunification therapy would not be effective in that environment.

After several failed attempts to get the boys to the office, Casey asked Freedman for guidance. His advice was to pick the boys up at school, so that they were already in the car, and then drive them to his office and he would take it from there, adding again that there was no reason the boys should know where they were going or why. 

According to emails between Freedman and Casey, she refused to lie to or trick the boys as it went counter to their therapists’ recommendation of being truthful and transparent. She also indicated that something similar had been done by the former GAL with a bad result, creating further distrust among the children.

At this point, the process had dragged on for months with no progress. There were multiple issues played out in both emails and in court over who canceled which meeting, how much was being charged for those meetings and Casey asking for more guidance. Dr. Freedman indicated he was trying to carry out his reunification plan to no avail. 

“My plan at that point was I wanted the boys to have a two-week period over the summer, since the summer vacation was approaching, in which they would be with their father without having any contact with their mother so the positive aspects of their relationship with their father could be solidified sufficiently to sustain them through further services,” Freedman said. “Lots of time with a parent can greatly sustain, to restore relationships that were present before.”

Freedman said children spending time with an estranged parent should not have electronic or phone access to the parent as it can be “detrimental” to reunification goals.

When the father reached out to ask about reunification progress, Freedman responded by sending the email exchanges between himself and Casey to the father and his attorney – a point of contention that Casey made during her cross-examination, arguing that he was effectively aiding the opposing party and violating her privacy.

On the stand, Freedman also questioned Casey’s portrayal of abuse and its effect on her and the children, ultimately making her resistant to cooperating with reunification. Throughout the hearing, Casey was not allowed to bring up her abuse allegations over multiple objections by the opposing attorney as it was not pertinent to the contempt matter.

However, it is precisely this issue that has raised the ire of women’s groups, family court reform activists and domestic violence organizations: that domestic abuse allegations and incidents are being ignored in the machinations of the family court system, and by the contracted experts and GALs who facilitate custody evaluations, reunification therapy and psychiatric evaluations under the guise of combatting parental alienation.

“For whatever reasons she has, I believe, to exaggerate the dangerousness of [the father] both to herself and her children, there are some clinical factors that have a lot of weight in producing that behavior,” Freedman said.

Casey objected, but she was overruled.

Court appointed psychologists and custody evaluators are assigned by judges to render their expert opinions, and the court often defers to those opinions. Disputes among families are rarely black and white, but sometimes those expert opinions are at odds with what the child wants, even teenagers, and the legal act of arranging families based on those opinions can have consequences, both good and bad.

Court appointed evaluators and clinicians are also a bit of a closed system. Freedman testified before the Connecticut Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee against a bill that he says would have allowed parents to choose their own evaluators, something he said was “extremely misguided and destructive.”

“This would allow parents to shop around for evaluators of their own choice. These evaluators would not have to prove their education and experience, their objectivity, and they would not have the benefit of comparing and contrasting information and testing for both parents,” Freedman wrote. “Parents in highly contested custody cases are not interested in objective opinions. They are often entrenched in their own beliefs and viewpoints, and will work hard to find mental health practitioners who support and agree with these.”

Maggie Russell is seventeen years old at the time of her interview with Inside Investigator, but two years ago she was given a psychological evaluation by Dr. Freedman as her parents were engaged in an ongoing custody battle. The Russell’s had divorced in 2013, which her mother says was a high-conflict case, and Maggie and her brother, who has autism, remained in the care of their mother in the familial home while the father had visitation.

But in 2016 the father was able to regain control of the home, and, under court orders, the mother was forced to move out within ten days. With no place to go and no steady job at the time, the mother had to move out and leave her son and daughter in the care of her ex-husband.

Over the subsequent years, more motions were filed by both parents for custody, DCF investigations were launched, and accusations were made by both parties. Maggie began to experience mental and emotional issues in 2020, having suicidal thoughts and was hospitalized at one point. The GAL on the case recommended Dr. Freedman to conduct psychological evaluations of the family to help determine custody.

Maggie says that she was initially hopeful upon speaking with Freedman.

“I thought he was going to help us. I really did think, because at this time we didn’t have anybody to see what my dad was really like, so we thought any help is good help. We were just thrilled to have someone help us period,” Maggie said. “I talked to him, I told him my whole story about how my dad treats me and my brother, how he paints my mom to look like a terrible person.”

“He’s [her father] ruined so many things with his stupid claims and his awful lies that people believe without even investigating, without even literally doing their job,” Maggie said.

While Freedman interviewed everyone involved, Maggie became concerned when he only spent a few minutes with her autistic brother. “Even though he’s autistic, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an opinion, a voice.”

Maggie states that she unequivocally wanted to stay with her mother and told Freedman such, giving him a “boat load” of reasons why. When Freedman made his report to the court, he indicated that “the daughter sides with the mother,” according to Maggie.

“In this case, he had a point, I do side with her, but it’s not because of parental alienation,” Maggie said. “The reason why my mom and I had such similar things to say is because we went through the exact same things together at very similar times and we were both treated the same way. The way my dad treated my mom is the same way he treated me verbally and sometimes physically.”

Nevertheless, the court awarded primary physical custody of Maggie’s brother to her father and split custody of Maggie 50/50 with her mother. Maggie believes the court gave much weight to Freedman’s report and the fact that her father earned more money, had remarried, and had a three-bedroom house, as opposed to her mother’s two-bedroom apartment.

Maggie says she recently reported an incident of her father slapping her autistic brother in the back of the head to her therapist, who then reported it to DCF. She also said that her father slapped her in the face and took her phone – a dispute that led to her running away in 2019 and going to the police.

“The reason I ran away was because my phone was the only way I could contact my mom and my mom was the biggest reason I have my phone,” Maggie said. She says she told the police she didn’t feel safe and asked to be brought to her mother’s home. After speaking with the father, however, the police returned Maggie to her father’s house, telling Maggie her father is allowed to punish her.

“My brother and I have each other, that is the only way I can tell you – I know this might be really overdone by saying survived – but we’re literally walking on eggshells when we’re there,” Maggie said.

Maggie said that when she turns 18 in a month, she will leave her father’s house. “I’ve been planning on bailing for years. I should have been out of this house earlier, but I haven’t been because no one listened to me, my words were twisted, and people just thought I was an ungrateful brat.”

“We’re going to help get my brother out as soon as possible, too,” Maggie said. “Because he doesn’t like it any more than I do.” After reaching her 18th birthday, Maggie took to Instagram to tell her story.

This is not the only independently submitted tip about Freedman and the Connecticut Family Court system that led to a conversation with Inside Investigator. 

Joanne is an attorney who has asked to remain anonymous to preserve the balance her family has finally achieved after the “chaos” of her experience in family court that, at one point, she says, had her in tears in the very same courtroom she had argued cases.

Joanne and her husband decided to divorce in 2011 after fourteen years of marriage. The marriage, she says, was not abusive and her ex-husband’s infidelity allowed an unfulfilling marriage to finally end. However, she says her husband was displaying signs of not being well mentally and it began to manifest in the form of harassment and eventually stealing from her, resulting in an arrest.

Joanne spent years returning to court to try to get the harassment to stop and trying to keep their two children with her as she had throughout the divorce process. The kids were resistant to visiting their father and his girlfriend, who had also been sending Joanne harassing texts that also resulted in an arrest. 

“I just needed his behavior to stop more than anything else, and the kids weren’t comfortable being there,” Joanne said, adding that her daughter, especially, was beginning to have mental health problems related to the divorce. But Joanne’s ex was pushing for more custody, and the court ordered a psychiatric evaluation of the family by Dr. Freedman. 

Joanne says Freedman ignored a timeline she had sent him of what had occurred over the past years, ignored the arrests and the kids’ problems, and accused her of lying to and manipulating the children’s school social worker as well as her own therapist in his evaluation, which recommended 50/50 custody.

“When we read the report, it was so traumatic,” Joanne said. “How did he come up with this, after all the things that are documented and everything else?” 

“He said I had no insight into how badly I was contributing to the situation,” Joanne says, calling it a “disaster of a report” that was filled with factual errors, including getting names wrong, aside from what Joanne says were “misrepresentations” of what was actually said. “Basically, anybody who agreed with me or the kids that this wasn’t a good situation for the kids, they were being manipulated by me, like I’m some big master manipulator.”

“Trial was set for the next day, and they just accepted his recommendation,” Joanne said. “It was irresponsible. If you have domestic-type stuff going on and you just ignore that? I don’t understand.”

Joanne says that things continued to escalate after the court awarded 50/50 custody, with the kids constantly calling her from their father’s house upset with the dynamic in the household. Eventually, it culminated in a domestic incident between the father’s girlfriend and Joanne’s daughter resulting in police intervention but no arrests.

Following that incident, Joanne returned to court where a judge overturned the 50/50 custody arrangement, returning primary custody to Joanne. Joanne says she eventually settled the matter for less child support than she probably deserved but that it was worth it to put an end to everything.

Joanne says that things are much better now between the two households. The father takes the kids every other weekend and for dinner on Wednesdays. The divided family has reached a point of amicable co-parenting, something she had hoped for all along. However, Joanne’s experience with family court and court-ordered psychologists has left her angry and disappointed in the system itself.

“It was just a complete failure of so many systems,” Joanne said. “I wanted to sue Freedman and I probably would have had a case, but I couldn’t. It would be a medical malpractice case and in order to do that it takes a lot of upfront money, and I was broke.”

“This whole system completely destroyed me,” Joanne said. “Somehow it was my fault that I was trying to keep my kids safe.”

Like the idea of parental alienation, reunification therapy has come under increasing scrutiny in other states in recent years, particularly in Colorado, following the deaths of children who were returned to the custody of a parent accused of abuse. Moreover, reunification therapy and treatments like week-long camps attended by the child and the estranged parent under the guidance of therapists were painted as coercive and traumatizing for the child.

In 2022, federal officials passed the Keeping Children Safe from Family Violence Act, also known as Kayden’s Law, named after Kayden Mancuso, a 7-year-old girl from Pittsburgh who was murdered by her father during court-ordered custody time, even after Kayden’s mother had presented evidence to the court of the father’s domestic violence.

Under Kayden’s Law, testimony regarding abuse is limited to those who have a demonstrated expertise in that particular kind of abuse; limits the use of reunification therapy and camps without scientific proof of the treatment’s validity, effectiveness and value, and there must be ongoing training for judges and court personnel on family violence, according to the National Safe Parents Organization. However, other expert testimony — like testimony regarding parental alienation — remains unrestricted.

“Empirical research indicates that allegations of child physical and sexual abuse are regularly discounted by courts when raised in child custody cases, with fewer than one-fourth of claims that a father has committed child physical or sexual abuse believed; and where the allegedly abusive parent claimed the mother was ‘alienating’ the child,” according to the Congressional Findings listed in the law. “Scientifically unsound theories that treat mothers’ abuse allegations as likely false attempts to undermine the father are frequently applied in family court to minimize or deny parents’ and children’s reports of abuse.”

The law further specifies that there should be no removal of care from a “safe parent;” that the child cannot be cut off from contact with the safe parent, and “Any order to remediate a child’s contact resistance must address the resisted parent’s behaviors or contributions to the child’s resistance first, before ordering the preferred parent to take steps to potentially improve the child’s relationship with the parent they resist.”

However, the law, which comes with increased grant funding from the federal government, must be adopted by states. The law, being new, has not yet been taken up in Connecticut, but other states have already moved forward.

Colorado instituted Kayden’s law in 2023 following a series of articles by ProPublica that found court-appointed custody evaluators who had been accused of domestic abuse were advising the court on cases “involving allegations of domestic violence and child abuse,” and that the camps were utilizing coercive measures to force children into complying with reunification.

California followed suit, passing Piqui’s Law in 2023, instituting the same measures and named after another child, Piqui Andressian, who was murdered by his father following court-ordered custody, despite evidence of past abuse.

Danielle Pollack, policy manager for the National Family Violence Law Center, helped craft the federal legislation and says the family court’s reliance on such experts in cases where there is abuse or safety concerns involving children is “mystifying.” 

“These alienation experts are frequently hired by a litigant accused of perpetrating family violence in order to help defend against those abuse claims,” Pollack wrote in an email. “As empirical research has shown, it is an effective legal strategy in child custody disputes, especially for fathers accused of abuse.”

“Furthermore, the remedy commonly recommended by such ‘alienation experts’ is also dubious, and costly: ‘reunification’ treatments or camps. Such treatments are not rooted in sound best practices, and children come away from these programs profoundly traumatized in many cases,” Pollack continued.

Dr. Christine Cocchiola, a coercive control expert and board member of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, has received GAL training in Connecticut and believes the court is biased toward 50/50 custody, even in cases of alleged abuse, and that court-appointed evaluators tend to tailor their opinions to meet that bias.

“When mothers claim they are worried about themselves or the safety of their children, rather than going immediately to alienation, why are we not really looking at the foundational aspects of the parent sub-system?” Cocchiola said. “This mother has every right to be worried about her safety and the safety of her children. It’s not rocket science, frankly.”

“There is an assumption that if a father wants anything to do with his children and the mother is against that, then she must be harmful, that she’s the harmful person,” Cocchiola continued. “You cannot protect the physical and psychological well-being of children if you do not understand the dynamics of abusive relationships.”

Grant Wyeth a writer out of Australia who focuses largely on foreign affairs, recently penned an essay on parental alienation and how it’s taken hold in family court systems both in the United States and worldwide. 

“The family court provides a stark lesson in how institutions can easily become captured by bad ideas, and how difficult it can be to weed them out when many actors within and around institutions are professionally – and financially – invested in these ideas,” Wyeth wrote. “And although the concept had a lack of credibility within the psychological and psychiatric professions, the concept gained enough of a success rate that a market opportunity was sensed by lawyers, therapists, professional witnesses and ‘reunification specialists,’ operating in and around the family court.”

Wyeth goes on to relate witness testimony out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in which an attorney questioned Robert Evans, Ph.D., author of The Essentials of Parental Alienation Syndrome: It’s Real, It’s Here and It Hurts. Evans testified that parental alienation is “potentially” more damaging to a child than physical abuse (broken bones), molestation, and rape.

But not all judges are so easily swayed by expert psychological opinion.

During the custody battle between Fortis Dulos and his wife Jennifer Dulos, the family court judge rejected the findings of court-appointed psychologist, Dr. Stephen Herman, who was assigned to evaluate Fotis to help determine custody of the children and had Herman’s testimony stricken from the record. Dr. Stephen Humphrey, who was also assigned to conduct psychological examinations of Fotis, found that he was “‘gregarious and confident person’ with no psychopathic tendencies,” according to the Stamford Advocate.

Both reports were reportedly favorable to Fotis, despite the court finding in 2018 that he was “an immediate and present risk” of psychological and physical harm to the children, according to a March 20, 2019, memorandum of decision. Fotis and his girlfriend Michelle Traconis were both arrested for the disappearance and presumed murder of Jennifer Dulos. Fotis later committed suicide and Traconis is currently on trial.

According to a 2018 Appellate Court decision, a family court judge in 2016 found that forcing two adolescent children involved in a contentious custody case into reunification therapy would do more damage than good, and was essentially punishing the children for not wanting to visit with their father, despite recommendations from the expert witness in psychology and family reunification.

“Ordering their attendance at the program would punish these innocent teenagers for the inability of their parents to become fully functioning and emotionally forgiving adults who could leave their personal war and hatred behind,” the court decision said. “The court finds that ordering attendance at the Building Bridges program, or the less intensive Overcoming Barriers program, to be a draconian solution in these unusual circumstances. Forced attendance at either program would mete out the blame and punishment [the defendant] wishes to impose on [the plaintiff] on his children. The court declines to take this shortsighted step.”

In 2007, Connecticut Department of Correction (DOC) employee Daniel Swoverland sent a suicide note via text to his ex-girlfriend from his 8-year-old daughter’s phone saying their bodies could be recovered at a boat launch. 

Police were immediately alerted. They quickly discovered that Swoverland had recently purchased a handgun and his daughter was not in school. Swoverland was found after he crashed his car, with his daughter inside, after having ingested a large amount of medication. The handgun was also found in the vehicle. A search of Swoverland’s home found another chilling suicide note. Swoverland was arrested and part of his sentence included a restraining order barring contact with his daughter.

In 2011, Swoverland sought to remove the restraining order. Swoverland’s therapist, Lynn Johnson, testified in support of reunification, stating that his actions were entirely due to the medication, and she believed he presented no danger to his daughter. Johnson’s opinion was based not only on her therapeutic sessions with Swoverland but also on a report by Dr. Freedman. Johnson had not spoken to either the daughter or her therapist, according to the court decision.

Both Johnson and Freedman testified that reunification between Swoverland and his daughter should begin immediately. Freedman indicated that Swoverland was a “fun loving guy,” who had been “in a terrible state,” on the day of the incident but did not believe he posed a danger.

The court disagreed and cast doubt on the opinion of both Johnson and Freedman. “Ms. Johnson’s opinion as to the lack of risks involved and what is in the best interest of the child appears tarnished to this court. This affects the Court’s assessment of her credibility,” wrote Superior Court Judge D’Addabbo in 2011. “These mental health experts’ manner and approach to these opinions and recommendations, including their assessment of the event, cause the Court pause when assessing their opinions.”

This is not to say that abuse allegations are always swept under the rug in favor of reunification when a claim of parental alienation is made. According to available online cases, Dr. Freedman has in the past rejected alienation claims because the estranged parent has taken no accountability for their actions and has no desire to reform, but continued to recommend professional reunification services.

In a 2022 family court decision, a father with bipolar disorder who was required to have supervised visits with his children sought to modify the visitation agreement and hired Dr. Freedman to provide analysis. Freedman determined that the father was not yet ready for unsupervised access to the children and needed further work on parenting skills, however, the judge indicates that Freedman took a negative view of the mother despite never having met with her.

“In his report, Dr. Freedman makes numerous references to his negative impressions about the behavior and attitudes of the mother,” wrote Judge Trial Referee Constance L. Epstein. “Mr. Freedman, however, has never met, interviewed, or even attempted to talk to mother, and quite clearly has chosen to adopt only father’s descriptions of mother’s actions and parental abilities. Consequently, and unfortunately, Mr. Freedman relies on father’s accounts of mother to imply that mother may be the cause of some of the obstacles to father’s ability to parent, a conclusion with which the court does not agree.”

“There is absolutely nothing in Dr. Freedman’s report, or in his testimony, that supports a change in the need for supervision of father’s parenting time,” Epstein concluded.

During her cross-examination of Dr. Freedman, Casey asked if he had recently undergone any training on domestic violence and child abuse. Freedman said that he has vast experience in dealing with families that have experienced domestic violence and child abuse but had not received any recent training.

He also commented that if she had put as much effort into getting the children to his office as she did preparing her defense, they probably would not all be in this situation.

Casey’s ex-husband’s attorney argued that Casey has clearly not cooperated with court-ordered reunification therapy with Dr. Freedman and because summer had already passed, the children should spend Christmas vacation with their father with no contact with Casey for reunification purposes, and that waiting for the children to be “ready” allows for no timeframe because dealing with PTSD could take years.

“It’s not his [Dr. Freedman’s] job to get the children to his office, it’s the parent’s job,” the attorney said. “There was seven months of quiet and no appointments scheduled, I’m not sure how that shows that there was effort to move the reunification forward, how it shows there was a complete effort to cooperate with Dr. Freedman to get the boys to his office.”

“All we’re asking for, your honor, is that the intent of [the Judge’s] order that reunification between these two young boys and their father actually happen. If [Casey] cannot get the boys to Freedman’s office, we have to start looking at other options… a prolonged period of time with [the father] with no contact from [Casey] to allow them to solidify their relationship.”

“The other options have been explored through the divorce process. Dr. Freedman was court-ordered to provide this,” the attorney argued. “Waiting for the boys to be quote-unquote ready or finished with trauma therapy, that is a never-ending cycle that could go years and years. That’s not a realistic solution to this problem.”

Casey continued to argue that Freedman has not reached out to the children’s therapists, nor the last two reunification therapists, relying instead on a conversation he had with the first reunification therapist who worked with the children prior to a DCF substantiation of abuse and a violation of a protective order by her ex-husband.

Casey argued that she has never been allowed to select a provider in her case, from the GAL to Dr. Freedman, saying she preferred an organization like The Village or the Wheeler Clinic that would assign a therapist and therefore have no potential for biases.

At one point, Casey breaks down in frustration. 

“Your honor, you don’t understand, as a victim of domestic violence, when I started my case, I was told not to bring up domestic violence to the court because it automatically becomes something against women. This is what women are fighting everywhere,” Casey said.

“We are told all the time, do not bring up domestic violence because it will get used against you. They will try to make you look like this. Women lose custody of children at an alarming rate when men claim parental alienation,” Casey said. “I’m at the point where if you’re not willing to talk with the therapists and you’re not willing to work with them, how is that what’s in the best interest of the children?” 

Several months later, the judge issued his ruling. Casey was not held in contempt of court, but reunification therapy would proceed with Dr. Freedman as she had not proven any inappropriate or unethical conduct on his part. Casey was to take “all reasonable measures” to ensure the children participate in reunification therapy.

In late January of this year, a reunification appointment was set. However, contrary to Freedman’s previous reunification plan and testimony that he would meet with the children alone before introducing their father to the sessions, the first meeting would include their father, according to emails.

The children did not respond well to news of the upcoming session and a mobile crisis unit was called to the school when Casey tried to pick them up from school for the meeting. Casey was then called back into court on another motion for contempt and change of custody. She has since filed a motion to modify the reunification orders and has filed a HIPAA complaint against Freedman for sharing her emails.