THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 22, 1997 TAG: 9701220372
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH SIMPSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 241 lines
A kick in her womb confirmed for Melissa Lockwood what she didn't want to admit to herself.
She was pregnant.
But even then, the 16-year-old girl from Slidell, La., was intent on one thing: keeping the baby a secret.
For months, she told no one. Not her mother, not her friends, not a counselor.
It was not until Jan. 7, 1996, when she was writhing in pain on her bedroom floor, that she confided to a high school girlfriend, Bridgette Pitts, that she might be about to give birth.
By the end of the day, a 6-pound, 13-ounce baby had been born.
That child, named Brianna Angelique Pitts, began life in this world under very shaky circumstances: Her birth certificate was fraudulent because the wrong names were listed as the parents. Her birth mother, 17 at the time of the birth, wasn't properly counseled, and steadfastly refused to tell her parents about the baby. And a woman who tried to arrange adoption of the child, which was Melissa's desire at the time, wasn't licensed by the state of Louisiana to do so.
The baby landed in the Chesapeake home of Gary and Mary Prevette, who had tried unsuccessfully for years to have a child. The couple began caring for the baby in January 1996, and filed a petition to adopt her.
But the adoption came to a screeching halt when Melissa decided, five months after giving birth, that she could no longer keep the secret. She told her parents, Lisa and Mark Lockwood, also of Slidell. And the three of them began a battle to regain custody of the child, who is now 1.
Last week, Judge Eileen Olds of the Chesapeake Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court granted legal custody to the Prevettes and gave the Lockwoods visitation rights. Even though the ruling settled custody for now, it did not resolve the case for good.
``It's not over by a very long shot,'' said Anthony Mulford, who is the court-appointed attorney for Brianna. ``There were laws that were clearly broken in this case. Without revealing my sources, I can say that four different investigations are going on.''
The Lockwoods plan to appeal the judge's decision. Slidell police have confirmed they are investigating whether placement of the child was illegal. And the Chesapeake couple, who declined to be interviewed for this article, cannot proceed with adoption because they need the consent of the birth mother.
Perhaps most important, there's an innocent, brown-eyed, curly-haired child hanging in legal limbo who will one day wonder why.
``At the very least, we have a very unfortunate situation where you have a child who is going to be seeing two sets of parent figures and it will be awkward at best to explain to her why,'' said William Lane Nuckols, a Virginia Beach attorney who represents Melissa, the birth mother. ``There are going to be a lot of questions on her part and not a lot of answers.''
The tangled custody case brings to light several issues, according to adoption experts: the importance of having professionals - whether they be attorneys, adoption agencies or social service departments - involved in arranging adoptions from the beginning. The need for minors to be better informed of their rights, and for parents to be more involved in their teen-agers' decisions. And the risks involved when unqualified agencies - with good intentions or bad - dabble in the complicated process of adoption.
The story of little Brianna begins in Slidell, when Melissa realized in fall 1995 that she was pregnant. ``I didn't know what to do,'' Melissa said in an interview last week. ``I was scared to tell my Mama.''
As the months passed, and her stomach grew larger, her parents asked her repeatedly if she was pregnant. ``She was gaining weight and I started asking her questions,'' said Lisa, Melissa's mother.
Melissa kept saying no, she wasn't pregnant, even though she had begun to feel the baby squirm inside her. Then one day in January 1996 she began having labor pains. She says she called a high school friend, Bridgette Pitts, who in turn told her own mother, who is also named Bridgette Pitts. The elder Pitts sent her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend, Jason Peters, to pick up Melissa, according to Melissa.
Melissa said the elder Pitts told her she ought to tell her mother, but Melissa insisted that her parents not know. So Pitts and her daughter took Melissa to a hospital in Bay St. Louis, Miss., just over the Louisiana state line. Melissa said she was admitted under the name of Bridgette Pitts, and under the Pitts' medical insurance, so that hospital officials would not call her parents.
The baby was born that night. Melissa said her high school friend, Bridgette, chose the name Brianna Angelique, giving the baby her own middle name. And when it came time to put down names on a birth certificate, the name of Bridgette Pitts was listed as the birth mother, and the birth father was listed as ``unknown.''
Melissa said her friend's mother told her to list the younger Pitts' name, Bridgette Pitts, on the birth certificate, so hospital authorities wouldn't call Melissa's parents.
``She told them everything, because I didn't know what to say,'' Melissa said. ``I asked Miss Bridgette, `How am I going to pay for this?' and she said not to worry about it, that her insurance would pay,'' Melissa said.
The elder Bridgette Pitts testified in Chesapeake juvenile court last August that it was Melissa's idea to use Pitts' medical information.
The elder Pitts ran an adoption service called ``Bright Beginnings,'' which is not licensed with the state of Louisiana. Melissa said the elder Pitts asked if she wanted to place the child for adoption, and she said yes. ``I didn't know what else to do,'' Melissa said.
At first, Pitts said a woman in Slidell would adopt the child. ``I thought, `OK, that's good, I can see the baby and everything else,' '' Melissa said. But after a few days, during which Melissa stayed with the Pittses, a woman called to say she could no longer keep the child.
The baby came back to the Pitts' home, and Melissa helped care for her for a few days. ``I fed her, changed her diapers,'' Melissa said.
Then the elder Pitts said she knew of a Virginia couple who wanted to adopt a child, Melissa said. Melissa signed ``an act of surrender'' - a document that is the first step toward placing a child with another family - but she signed as a witness rather than as the birth mother. And the name of the birth mother was listed as Bridgette Pitts, Melissa's high school friend, and the father as Jason Peters, the younger Bridgette Pitts' boyfriend.
The surrender papers appear to have been notarized by Texas notary Gwayne Dennis, who in August 1996 signed an affidavit saying she had never seen the papers, had never met the people in question, and wasn't authorized to notarize Louisiana documents. She also said the notary stamp on the papers was not one she currently uses.
Melissa said the elder Pitts took the baby to the airport in New Orleans, where Gary Prevette picked up the child.
Lisa Lockwood had gone to the Pitts' home looking for her daughter while she was there, but Melissa refused to see her. After a few weeks, Melissa returned home to her parents. When Lisa saw Melissa's stomach was smaller, she strongly suspected her daughter had given birth. She kept asking Melissa. ``I kept saying, no, no, no,'' Melissa said. And when Lisa took her to the doctor, she refused to be examined.
But five months later, Melissa confided to another high school friend that she had had a baby in January. The friend's mother convinced Melissa to tell her own mother.
``That night I told my mom,'' Melissa said. ``And I told the baby's father. He was very upset with me. I told both of them that night, and said I wanted to get my baby back.''
Lisa and Mark Lockwood contacted Slidell police Sgt. Terry Parta, who tracked the baby to Chesapeake. In a telephone interview last week, Parta said he is still investigating the case to determine whether placement of the child was conducted illegally. Mississippi police also have informed Nuckols, Melissa's attorney, that the department is investigating the case for insurance fraud.
When a reporter called the phone number of Bridgette Pitts in Slidell, the person who answered refused to identify herself and said she didn't know anything about the case. ``Do not call here again,'' the woman said.
The Lockwoods' attorneys say laws controlling the transfer of a child across state lines for adoption placement also were broken. All 50 states belong to the Interstate Compact, in which states work out a plan so that laws of both states involved in a child placement are abided by, and so that adoptions can proceed without conflict.
Suzanne Ashford, director of Virginia's Interstate Compact, said she could not comment on a specific case, but said there are situations in which children are transferred illegally without knowledge of the compact.
One of the purposes of the compact is to ensure adoptions proceed without hitches, Ashford said, and when that review isn't done, the cases often bog down in juvenile court.
Which is exactly what happened in the case of Brianna Pitts.
Last week's hearing on legal custody brought to a head the dispute over where Brianna should go. With the Prevettes and their family at one end of the courthouse waiting area and the Lockwoods huddled at the other, the parties waited a tense 2 1/2 hours for the case to come up on the docket. After a two-hour closed hearing, the Prevettes emerged with legal custody, the Lockwoods with tears and anger.
``I cannot understand how this can be done with so much fraudulent paperwork,'' Lisa said.
The judge found that Melissa's actions after the birth were tantamount to abandoning the child, according to Mulford. ``The birth mother took a pro-active stance to say she no longer wanted the child. That's good enough for the Prevettes to get legal custody, but not for adoption,'' said Mulford, Brianna's court-appointed attorney. He said his opinion was that the child should be returned to her birth family to avoid confusion down the line.
Stephen Comfort, the attorney representing the Prevettes, said the hearing was a simple custody matter. ``The girl abandoned the child at birth,'' he said after the hearing. ``And my clients received legal custody of her.'' At this point, he said, the couple will not proceed with adoption because they don't have consent of the birth parents, a requirement of adoption.
Lisa and Mark Lockwood, who are 36 and 40, respectively, say they will keep trying to get back the child, and filed a petition for adoption in Louisiana courts several weeks ago. The family wants to name the girl Courtney Nicole, even though the legal custodians call her Ariel Lee Ann.
Lisa believes her daughter's rights were violated, and that money was illegally exchanged for the child.
She has a copy of a Bright Beginnings bill, signed by the Prevettes, for $7,399, for ``baby girl Pitts born on 7 January, 1996.'' The bill is broken down into expenses such as counseling fees, mother's clothing, phone calls, administration fees, application fees and medical costs.
Virginia law allows fees to child-placing agencies for ``reasonable and customary services'' and to birth parents for medical expenses related to the birth. However, Bright Beginnings is not a legal child-placing agency, according to Louisiana's Department of Social Services.
``I understand that my daughter was a big part of this, but she's young and didn't know any better,'' said Lisa. ``There were adults involved in this who should have known better.''
Unless the court determines that consent is being withheld ``unreasonably,'' Melissa's refusal to give up parental rights will thwart any adoption attempt, said Nuckols, essentially leaving the child without legal parents for the time being.
The Lockwoods' attorney in Louisiana, Norman Robinson, said he will proceed with the petition for adoption in Slidell, which could end up in a showdown between the birth family and the legal custodians, and between the state of Louisiana and the state of Virginia.
``We believe the child should be returned to Louisiana and the child's natural family,'' Robinson said.
Melissa said the baby's father, her former boyfriend, Cedric Cooper, wants to be involved in raising the girl but can't afford to visit her in Virginia. For her part, she says she is angry about her rights being violated after her baby's birth but also feels regret.
``If I could have done anything different, I would have told my Mama,'' Melissa said. ``I wouldn't be going through all this if I had just told my Mama.''
Meanwhile, the Lockwoods try to form a relationship with a child they can see for only a few hours at a time. They have visitation rights for a year, at which time the case will be reviewed again. They've already visited with the child twice, once for a few hours in September, and again in October.
The little girl cried at first, Lisa said, but then became more comfortable with them. Their photos show Melissa and Lisa playing with the child in a hotel room. Gary Prevette stayed outside the hotel room during the visit, according to the Lockwoods.
Lisa knows that developing a relationship with a child who lives halfway across the country will be next to impossible, and she fears the child will become further removed from them as time goes on. ``We will try to get here as often as we can but we will run out of money,'' Lisa said last Tuesday before making the long drive from Chesapeake back to Slidell. ``I think that's what they're hoping, that we'll run out of money and drop out of it.''
Mulford, Brianna's attorney, said both families appear to be fit as parents, and the whole saga has been tragic for both parties. ``You have a family on one side who is desperately in need and want of a child,'' he said. ``And on the other a 17-year-old girl who was afraid to tell anyone she was pregnant.''
At this point, little Brianna has no way of knowing the controversy whirling around her, or of the complicated, convoluted track her short life has taken.
But some day she will.
``I think it's going to be confusing as the girl gets older and asks the $64,000 question,'' Mulford said. ``Why am I here, and why are my natural mother and grandparents in Louisiana? That's going to be a hard question to answer.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by MORT FRYMAN/The Virginian-Pilot
Lisa and Mark Lockwood suspected something was wrong, but they
didn't know their daughter Melissa had given birth until five months
afterward. The family is fighting to reclaim the baby, who was given
up for adoption.
KEYWORDS: BABY ADOPTION CUSTODY JUVENILE ILLEGAL
ADOPTION FRAUD CHESAPEAKE LOUISIANA