This is another of those posts I guess I put off, in part because I have such difficulty finding the words, but also in part because it’s all so damn heartbreaking.

As always, Bastardette has done important work in laying out the basics of her death and the circumstances surrounding it across two posts she did earlier,

“SOMEBODY NEEDS TO BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS.” ANOTHER DEAD BABY

and

JESSICA SCOVIIL UPDATE: GRANDMOTHER CALLS FOR BROKEN SYSTEM TO BE FIXED

I’ll let readers explore those rather than reiterate the work that Bastardette has already done.

The “system” failed Jessica completely.

The fact that she was almost returned to her parents two weeks before her miserable death is salt in the wound.

I also want to be sure readers follow across to Lainie Petersen’s blog entry, Taking Away Parenthood: Jessica Scovil and the Media’s Use of the B Word, about how Jessica’s parents are now being (wrongly) referred to as “birthparents” (see the media piece below) and how the underlying ASSUMPTION is that once a kid enters foster care their parents have lost parentage to them. This is not only factually incorrect, but it says a very great deal about those utilizing such terminology. Over and over again we see people presuming “guilty until proven innocent” in relation to those who lose their children to the foster system.

Keep such, incorrect linguistic assumptions in mind when reading articles such as this, Birth parents want foster mother charged

Jackson County sheriff’s detectives are waiting to decide whether to charge Osborne, who lives on Georgia Highway 334 near Nicholson, until they receive the results of toxicology tests, said Chief Deputy David Cochran.

An autopsy performed at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab in Decatur confirmed that Jessica died from heat stroke.

“The next step, I guess, for the parents, is to talk to the district attorney and to ask him to move forward with charges on this case,” said Crandall Heard, attorney for Jessica’s birth parents, Robert Scovil and Evelyn Carter. “That’s all they can do as they work to get through this.”

Allow me to add my own voice to those of Jessica’s parents, Wendy Osborne should absolutely be charged. It’s the only way a thorough investigation will take place.

An obituary for Jessica can be found here, Jessica Scovil.

Perhaps I’ll write more as the words begin to come.