Alibi Schmalibi, Part II

Alibi Schmalibi, Part II

In my last post, I began a discussion about Terri's very own words which were e-mailed to a friend on June 5, 2010.  We left off, ironically, in the "chaotic" school hallway where Terri reports she last saw Kyron. 


In a later e-mail on June 5, Terri explains what happened that fateful morning:

“I didn't just drop him off, I spent time with him,

took pictures and he was in safe hands I thought

as I watched him walk down the hall."

She also goes on to say:

"The past 2 weeks he's been acting really weird.

Staring off into space.  Can't remember anything.

Walks into the room and then back out, stopping

to stare and then move on.  The doc

thinks that he is having mini seizures and I made

an appt on Thursday for next Friday to

have him checked out."

Let me get this straight.  In fact, can we get a show of hands here?  Put yourself in this situation with your own child or grandchild:  It's a "highly chaotic" morning in the school hallway.  People are running around everywhere, "no coordination."  It's just plain a nightmare.  Meanwhile, you've spent the past two weeks growing concerned about your child because he's just not acting like himself.  He's acting bizarre, frankly, and you're worried - worried enough that just yesterday("Thursday") you called the doctor.  Yes, that's right, less than 24 hours ago your doctor told you your child may be having "mini seizures"!  Meanwhile, your baby daughter is sick and cranky.  You need to go get her some medicine pronto.  So what do you do?  Do you walk your precious 7-year-old to his classroom and make sure he's in "safe hands" - either with a teacher or another trusted adult?  Or do you leave your possibly seizure-prone child in the hallway and assume he's in safe hands and hope for the best?

Chew on that for a moment.  Give it some thought.  What would YOU do?

Meanwhile, let's talk about seizures.  Seizures are a scary thing.  Mini seizures - also sometimes called absence seizures - are described on epilepsy.com as "brief episodes of staring."  In children, they "usually begin between ages 4 and 14" and "can resemble...episodes of daydreaming."  


In diagnosing a seizure disorder, according to WebMD, a doctor would first need to "rule out" other conditions, including whether the possible seizures are caused not by epilepsy but by "drops in blood sugar or pressure, changes in heart rhythm, or emotional stress."  In other words, this is not a diagnosis a doctor is just going to absent-mindedly make over the phone.  Don't believe me?  Ask a doctor.  I personally have asked several doctors about this and not a single one has said that he/she would diagnose such a potentially lethal condition over the phone - not just for health reasons but for liability reasons as well.  Imagine, if you will, a doctor telling you your child "might" be having seizures and telling you to come in next week.  What if your child had a seizure in the meantime and choked or died?  That doctor would be looking at a HUGE lawsuit and might even lose his/her license to practice.  Seizures are serious.  The general response that I've received from doctors has been that they would either tell the parent to bring the child in immediately, or to head directly to the nearest emergency room. 

But again, let's give Terri the benefit of the doubt here.  It's the morning of the science fair, she has a sick baby, the hallway is chaotic, and just yesterday the doctor said Kyron might be having mini-seizures and to bring him in next Friday...Friday, June 11...the last day of school, and apparently the soonest they could squeeze Kyron in for a doctor appointment to rule out possible fatal conditions such as drops in blood sugar or blood pressure, changes in heart rhythms, seizures, etc.  She must have been seriously worried about her stepson.  I mean, you would be, right?  So surely she talked to her husband, Kaine, about this appointment, right?  Surely she mentioned to Kaine that Kyron's doctor "thinks that he is having mini seizures"?  This is something a father would want to know, right?

Well, apparently Terri didn't think so.  Because, guess what?  She never told Kaine that a doctor said he might be having seizures.  According to this interview with Kaine, Terri "had been focused on Kyron's spaciness" but he "didn't see anything out of the ordinary."  He said Terri was "pushing" for Kyron to be checked out by a doctor.  Good for Terri for stepping up for Kyron like that.  But if she was so concerned why on earth did she leave him alone in chaos-land at the science fair that morning?

Oh, and one other important thing.  She apparently neglected to mention the seizures to Desiree, too.  Remember, Kyron was supposed to be heading to Desiree's house for the weekend and Terri didn't think this was an important thing to mention?  Something to tell her to watch out for?  Especially when Kyron was supposed to be going fishing with his stepfather, Tony?  Wouldn't Terri have been concerned about Kyron falling into a lake during one of these seizures or getting himself into some other kind of trouble when he was "spacing out"?

Well, apparently she wasn't concerned one bit.  She wasn't concerned about leaving him in a chaotic hallway.  She wasn't concerned enough about the doctor mentioning the word "seizure" to rush Kyron to the ER or at least tell her husband or Kyron's mother about it.  She wasn't concerned enough about it to mention it to law enforcement when they were out searching for him.  There was only one person Terri was concerned about in those June 5 e-mails: herself.

Perhaps former Multnomah County Sheriff's Office captain Bruce McCain said it best when he told CBS News:

"It's all about Terri, poor, poor Terri, and not a single

concern about Kyron.  She's already making

alibis, talking about a chaperone and on and on

about doctor's appointments"

Sadly, I couldn't agree more.

Next time: we'll continue discussing Terri's own words as she builds herself an alibi just 24 hours after Kyron disappeared.