THE CASE OF JESUS’ WAYWARD SISTER

               “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.”
                                                                                         –Mark Twain

               Today, alternate realities and conspiracy theories proliferate through nutty social media and Internet outlets, attracting millions of believers with stuff which would have been dismissed as nonsensical rubbish 25 years ago. For example, if the conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton running a child sex trafficking ring out of a pizzeria had been floated in 1997, only a handful would have given it much thought. Today, hundreds of thousands of misguided souls believe it. That said, I wonder if anyone today would believe that God not only has a son who lived on Earth two millennia ago, but he also had a daughter, who, in 1997, was walking this Earth in Southwest Florida! If millions of people today believe Donald Trump is God’s chosen savior of America, then perhaps several hundred thousand misguided souls would also fall for “The Jesus’ Sister” theory. Nevertheless, back in 1997, about five or six people believed her and became her loyal followers and subjects. Although the Bible records that Jesus had a sister, maybe more, they were either half-sisters born of the same mother, Mary, or were step-sisters, Joseph’s daughters from a previous marriage, if he had one. However, the woman I met claimed to be Jesus Christ’s half-sister by sharing the same father – the Lord Jehovah Himself. One very notable difference between the two: unlike her alleged half-brother, this woman was not without sin. In fact, she was a criminal.

I encountered her when she appeared in the court over which I presided at the time, the Dependency Court of the Juvenile Division of the Twentieth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida, in Fort Myers. When I became a Circuit Judge in 1986, one of my duties involved presiding over cases involving the involuntary commitment of the mentally ill. Accordingly, I came face to face with at least two or three inmate-patients who claimed to be Jesus Christ. I also met undercover FBI agents and CIA spies. One even asserted that J. Edgar Hoover – dead for over 20 years – was on his way to secure his release from the hospital. It’s humorous in a sad kind of way how paranoid schizophrenics frequently claim to be heroic or well-connected figures. Anyway, I never confronted a woman who claimed to be God’s honest to . . . er, gosh, daughter. In the following case, I did not confront Jesus’ sister at an involuntary commitment hearing. I met her because the State of Florida had removed her two children from her custody, and here’s the weird reason why.

The self-described deity disclosed to being given a conventional name at birth, but had discarded it in favor of Queen of Heaven, or just Queen. She was an attractive, well-spoken African American woman in her thirties. She was tall and a little plump in contrast to her pale white, thin-as-a-pencil husband. He went by a Biblical prophet’s name, so, let’s give him a fictitious name of another prophet: Isaiah. His long, light brown hair, parted in the middle and hung down straight as plumb lines to his white tunic, presented a striking resemblance to those ubiquitous portraits of a Breck-shampooed, blue-eyed Jesuses seen hanging in Sunday School classrooms. While Isaiah dressed very Biblical, I never saw the Queen in her regal regalia, only the dayglow orange jumpsuit provided by our local Sheriff to his inmates.

Queen and Isaiah had two children, a son eleven years old and a daughter nine. I only saw them in video-taped interviews and they were well-groomed, well dressed and well-mannered children who showed no signs of abuse or neglect. But that was not the reason the State of Florida was seeking to place them in foster care. Their mother was incarcerated and couldn’t make bail, and their father was homeless. There were no friends or relatives nearby to take temporary custody of the children, so they had to be temporarily sheltered in foster care.

Until this family came to the attention of law enforcement and the Department of Children and Family Services (DCF), they lived like, well, royalty. They occupied penthouse suites at one of Southwest Florida’s toniest resorts. How they paid for their luxurious lifestyle was the problem. The Queen of Heaven, you see, was a thief; an armed robber to be exact. Her “church,” to the best of our knowledge consisted of Queen, Isaiah, perhaps the children, and a handful of followers whom she referred to as her “deacons.” At her commandment, the deacons’ sacred and solemn mission was to procure “offerings,” usually from convenient stores and at the point of a gun. It worked well until, well, they got caught.

Although Queen never sullied herself by participating in the heists, the cops were able to tie the robberies to her, and she was arrested and, like her alleged brother, taken to the modern equivalent of the ancient Roman Custodia Publica, i.e., the Lee County Jail. Because Isaiah had been away for most of their stay in Southwest Florida, law enforcement could not make a case against him. Without a home or any visible means of support, plus being really creepy and delusional enough to believe he was married to God’s only daughter, DCF was concerned if he could even care for his children under ideal circumstances. Therefore, the children were taken into custody and the following day Queen and Isaiah would have their shelter hearing, where I would decide whether to release the children to their homeless, jobless, delusional father, or place them in foster care. The children were not present.

So, there before me stood Isaiah as we waited for the bailiff to bring Queen out of her holding cell. When she walked in, Isaiah dropped to his knees, his forehead touching the floor, and arms extending outward, ironically in the Muslim prayer position. The bailiff ordered him to his feet, and there they stood before me while I silently read the lengthy affidavit which prompted the children’s removal. Judges, as neutral arbiters, are trained never to show emotion or telltale facial expressions, so, as I read, I had to refrain from crying out “holy shit!” After reading the affidavit, I informed the parents that there was probable cause to keep the children in shelter care, and asked them whether they wished to present evidence in opposition to the shelter petition. They did, and two of her deacons, the principal actors in the robberies, were called to testify.

That day a deputy sheriff, whom I will call Mike, was one of two bailiffs assigned to my courtroom. Mike was a bull of a man, muscular, shaved head, thick blondish-gray mustache perched below a nose that might have been broken a few times. An avid motorcyclist, Mike, could easily pass for a Hell’s Angels if he doffed his deputy sheriff’s uniform and donned a black t-shirt, a leather jacket and ragged jeans. Despite his menacing appearance, Mike was one of the nicest, friendliest guys working in court security. Though soft-spoken with an unmistakable New England accent, his stare alone could freeze inmates in their tracks. So, Mike fetched the deacons from their holding cell and brought them into the courtroom. Walking behind them, as was protocol, he failed to keep his eyes fixed on his charges because, when the deacons first spotted Queen, they, like Isaiah, hit the floor and reverenced her holiness. Mike, poor fellow, kept walking and went ass over teacups, somersaulting over them and onto the floor. In a flash he sprang to his feet.[1] Mike, always business-like, ignored the gaff and ordered the deacons to get on their feet. Again, I had to stifle a mirthful facial expression. I respected Mike too much to shine a light on his misfortune.

The hearing proceeded. Queen, Isaiah and the deacons had nothing of substance to offer, and I ruled that the children had to remain in foster care while the case proceeded forward to trial. Queen and the deacons quietly returned to the Sheriff’s custody, and I never saw her again. Isaiah protested my decision not to return the children to his custody, despite offering no plan on how he could keep them safe, housed and fed. He vowed to return and rectify the gross injustice I had perpetrated.

Months later I learned Queen had pled in criminal court to multiple counts of armed robbery and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. The Queen of Heaven was now Queen RICO.[2] Accepting the reality that she would never again parent her children during their minority, and knowing DCF had located and placed the children with suitable members of her extended family, she did not demand a trial. Isaiah, on the other hand, would not go quietly into the good night.

Queen, despite her delusion and larcenous proclivity, apparently was not a bad Mom. The children spoke highly of her, loved her, and were quite upset over the forced separation, which, to their shock and sadness, they later discovered would last well beyond their childhood. On the other hand, they said very little about their father. I got the impression they did not spend a lot of time together, and there didn’t seem to be much of a father-child bond. Looking back, I now wonder if he was actually their biological father. However, both he and Queen swore under oath he was their father, and under Florida law, DNA testing was neither required nor performed.

Nevertheless, once Queen was out of the picture, Isaiah became insistent on getting the children back, but there was one slight problem: he totally refused to cooperate with DCF and the court. Once a child is removed on grounds of abuse or neglect, the culpable parents are required to successfully complete a case plan to demonstrate they have the ability, the means and the capacity to safely and competently parent their children. Isaiah, insisting he shouldn’t have to work a case plan, didn’t. The only thing he did was show up in court and complain about me refusing to return the children to his custody. Time ran out on Isaiah, and I had only one option left which was to grant permanent guardianship to one of Queen’s relatives and close the case. With no chance of their mother regaining custody, the children were satisfied with the relative who stepped up and took custody. I concluded this case was a win for the children, and that’s all that mattered to me.

Isaiah, on the other hand, disagreed. In my 28 years on the bench, only two judges in my county were picketed outside the courthouse. I was the second. The first was my mentor, so I was in good company. Usually, the pickets would start around noon when more people were out on the streets. A few people unknown to me marched with him. Isaiah usually stood behind a large sign proclaiming my heresy and his oppression, and his fellow picketers circled around him. From a window overlooking the picket site I could see him but not hear him shouting at the building. I recall one summer afternoon during a downpour I saw him standing out there all alone, screaming and gesturing furiously, his soaked tunic clutching his bony frame, his long hair clinging to his face in strings. That was the last time I ever saw or heard from him.

As I write, Queen of Heaven is probably released from prison for good behavior. Without a cult, I’m reasonably sure she abandoned her claim to be Jesus’ blood sibling once she got to prison. Her son is now in his mid-thirties and her daughter in her early thirties. I wonder what kind of relationship they have. I actually hope it’s a good one because I believe that, despite her quirks, that’s what the children would want. Isaiah? Who knows?

Obviously, it’s never the policy of any Dependency Court to take well-adjusted, well-cared-for children away from their parents. In this case, the children had to be treated the same as orphans because Mom was physically gone and Dad was mentally gone. The children did not want to be adopted so no effort was made to terminate parental rights. I believed permanent guardianship with a suitable relative was in the children’s best interest. Because the parents were so weird and the circumstances so compelling, this case, from a decision-making standpoint, was one of my easier ones. Contending with Isaiah wasn’t easy, but every wrong move he made just made my job easier and easier.

“Beware of false prophets . . . By their fruits you will know them.” (Matthew 7:15 – 16)

[1] Reminiscent of Dick Van Dyke’s iconic ottoman tumble at the beginning of his popular 60’s TV show.

[2] Racketeer Influenced Criminal Organization