The Little Boy Who Was F3d To P1gs…

The Little Boy Who Was F3d To P1gs…

We’re talking about a little boy. A little boy lost in this world through the hands of t0rtur3rs that literally sound like they’ve come from a different universe. Adrian was a beautiful child, and he was murd3r3d over time in the most barbar1c of ways. Let’s go into the details of this case. Adrian was actually born in May 2008.

His parents were Diana Pierce and Michael Jones. They were never actually married, and in his earliest years, he actually lived with his biological mother alongside his siblings including his older sister. His grandmother, she said, “He always told me that he was going to play football, and when he smiled, the whole room lit up. He just had the most amazing smile he does. He’s absolutely stunning little boy when you see the early pictures of him. He just has one of those faces that anybody would find cute and adorable.” When Adrian’s around 2 and 1/2 to 3 years of age, Kansas welfare child authorities intervene. Basically, they discover that he’d been left unsupervised at home, which of course is absolutely neglect or shouldn’t happen.

So, it’s ironic that this is considered serious enough for the state to remove him from his biological mother’s care. And it’s ironic because if that’s the bar for having a child removed, he should have been removed 300 times over in the situation that he ends up in. So, it’s really interesting to have that parallel in the backdrop of this story.

The fact that he’s left at home by himself, and that gets him removed from his biological mother. And yet, what we’re going to talk about is far more serious, and the instances that occur when the authorities get involved with him when he’s living with his father are far more serious, and yet they allow him to stay.

Now, following his removal, this is in September 2011, the state then placed Adrian with his father, Michael, and his stepmother, Heather Jones. This, of course, is meant to put him in a far safer environment. Instead, it is genuinely the worst place he could have possibly been. It’s a place that is worse genuinely than hell.

There were guns and drugs in the house, and on top of that, there are two sadistic, evil monsters who live there. Now, don’t get me wrong. I appreciate in America you are allowed guns, but there is an understanding that those guns are put somewhere safe or locked away. That isn’t the way that this plays out in this household. They’re everywhere.

So, that is dangerous full stop for a child to be around. Michael A. Jones, his father, he was born on January the 11th, 1971. He was around 45 years of age at the time of Adrian’s death, and there isn’t a lot documented about his early and personal life. He describes himself in an interview as 6’2″, 240 lb, and also a steroid user.

He claimed that he frequently worked out, and detectives did actually say that he was somebody with a very large build, so he fits that description. And again, put that as a backdrop in this case when we’re talking about a man of that height and weight being highly physically abusive to a child.

I mean, the danger is clear just from that description. Now, Michael, he was married to Heather Jones. They lived in a rental property in Kansas City, and multiple children were actually in that home. Heather Jones, the stepmother, though I’ll use that term very loosely, she was born on the February the 4th, 1986. So, she’s younger than him.

She’s around 29 years of age when this crime was committed, and she entered the household as stepmother to Adrian, and she lived with Michael and the other several children in Kansas City. I would say their relationship was relatively volatile. So, they are together, and then they are separate, and then they are together.

Now, there was again not very much documented on her background, although I think if we were to actually look into it, we’d just have some kind of repetitive evil because of who she is within her nature. Now, Heather, she had been subject of an allegation of child abuse involving another child in the household 2 months before Adrian moved into their home.

And this means that the Kansas Department of Children and Families were aware of them. Because later down the line, documents are actually released confirming that that child had been explored regarding the abuse allegation, but essentially, they unsubstantiated that claim at the time. They investigated and didn’t believe that there was abuse playing out, which makes no sense whatsoever.

So, clearly the family are already before Adrian moves in known to the Kansas Department for Children and Families, and that bothers me. There’s a potential step parent in this situation who’s already had allegations levied at her for being abusive towards a child in the household, and yet the father and she are now allowed to take Adrian in.

That probably also speaks to the desperation that children’s services have about placing children because it’s quite challenging, particularly for a child who isn’t very young, to get placed with families at times. So, I guess that the bar for placing a child in these situations is relatively low at times.

Not that it should be, but it’s just evidenced by what we see play out time and time again in these situations. Now, that investigation into the potential abuse of a child in the household that wasn’t related to Adrian, it does get investigated, but ultimately it’s deemed unsubstantiated at the time. I’m going to tell you, this happens time and time again.

The words “unsubstantiated.” Why? Well, because the parents said they didn’t do it. And I kid you not, we’re at that level a lot of the time when it comes down to the word “unsubstantiated.” As if abusers are going to be like, “Yeah, I was definitely doing that. I was being very violent to that child.” They’re not going to say that.

It comes down to this. If the home looks tidy, if all the kids aren’t saying the abuse is playing out, if the parents like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Never happened. And the reason they were harmed was because they hurt themselves.” That usually ends up as an unsubstantiated claim. You would almost need at times in these circumstances to have things happening on CCTV for the child to be taken seriously, and that’s a terrible indictment right now of many services that are out there.

Now, the reason that complaint happened was because an individual had noticed that there were guns all over the house, and also somebody had noticed that there was no food in the cupboards. And if you’ve got lots of children, they need to be fed, and they need to be safe. So, you would imagine that that would be enough for an investigation to find that there was a neglectful atmosphere in that home.

Now, only 3 months after that last report is made about Heather, DCF investigator report that the kids get spankings till, quote, their butts bleed. That was the complaint that went in. Now, Michael and Heather, when they’re talked to by DCF, they say, “No, it isn’t.” I kid you not. That’s what happened. They were asked the question, “Did you do it?” They said, “No.”

And at this point, DCF concluded the allegations were unsubstantiated. Like I said, the bar is very low in many of these situations. Now, we get to December 2011. Heather ends up taking one of the children to the hospital because apparently this child has had a reported seizure. She tells the medical staff at that point that this child, who’s been taken to ER, has been pushed down the stairs by 3-year-old Adrian.

Let that sink in. We’re now in a situation where a 3-year-old little boy is being accused of seriously injuring another child essentially. Now, doctors, they end up questioning Heather’s statements because first of all, the child she’s taken to the hospital has got internal bleeding. Also, that child has got bruising that clearly doesn’t add up to falling down the stairs.

And Heather at this point then goes on to tell the medical staff that Adrian, 3 years of age, had also had hit the child with a rod. Again, we are talking fantasy land. I have a 2 and 1/2-year-old coming up. And even if she picked up a rod and tried to hit me with it or tried to hit somebody else with it, the damage that she would do would be very minimal because with respect, she isn’t very strong.

So, the idea that Adrian could legitimately push a child down the stairs or go and grab a rod and hit them to a degree where they’ve got internal bleeding and horrendous bruising makes no sense whatsoever. Bear in mind, Heather, she was the only adult present and that means that clearly she was the individual who had abused that other child.

And essentially this also establishes a pattern that will recur later down the line because this is something that is used conveniently to excuse injuries on all the kids. Adrian gets blamed for harm within the household. And it’s really challenging for children who find themselves in this dire predicament. It happens time and time again.

So, as a family with an abuser within it, what will tend to happen is the abuser will know to pick certain individuals, the ones who are most vulnerable, the ones they feel they can coerce into silence, and then they will treat other children relatively well. And that’s really powerful when investigations happen because of course, if you have an investigation into the way that you’re parenting your children and then two of the kids out of the three kids say, “Oh, no, mom or dad’s fine. We don’t get harmed. You don’t get hurt.” And they’ve been primed to make sure that they’re negative about the child who’s being dehumanized and abused, that serves as a protective mechanism for the abuser because it tells a story that is distinct from truth, but actually seems to be confirmed by the other siblings. So, that’s the reason why very often one child will be singled out for all the abuse and all the blame.

It works perfectly to enable the abuser to carry on the abuse whilst also using them as the problem within the household that all blame can be attributed towards, including false allegations when they actually truthfully confide that they’re being abused. That’s how that cycle works and is perpetuated. Now, staff also find that Adrian at this point has a black eye.

Also has bruises on his face. So, bear in mind, he’s meant to be the problem child who’s pushing kids downstairs, but he’s got a black eye. He’s got bruises on his face. So, he’s clearly suffering at the same point as the other child. And when she’s questioned about his injuries, Heather actually tells them that Michael, obviously Adrian’s father, has hit him for wetting his pants.

Now, I’m just going to throw out there, if you’re the kind of parent who belts your child because they’ve had an accident when they were a young child, you should have that child removed cuz you are a danger. It’s as simple as that. Children do have accidents. It’s completely normal, particularly when they’re dealing with the horrible dysfunction of being in an abusive household.

Trauma certainly impacts on regulation of bowels and of bladder. So, with respect, it’s likely he is indeed having accidents because of that environment. The fact that she’s admitting that Michael is beating him for daring to do what a child does tells a very negative story about this household without even digging deeper into the details of other abuses playing out.

Now, of course, when it comes down to Michael being questioned about that, he says, “I don’t know what you’re on about. I didn’t even know that Adrian had a black eye. In fact, the reason that I know none of this is because Heather’s got the kids at this point. We split up and the reason that we split up was because she was using drugs and was acting erratic.”

So, again, just a way of projecting blame onto her and displacing it from him. Also, what’s Heather doing with his biological child? With respect, she’s not actually related to Adrian and therefore if he had split up with Heather, he should have taken Adrian with him. That would have made sense if he cared, but of course, I wouldn’t be covering this case if this man as a father had ever cared for this child.

Now, case findings from December of that year also reported that Heather Jones had a quote big boot on and kicked Adrian. Bear in mind, this is all recorded. Also, she allegedly choked him and the witness who saw it and who reported it said that Adrian sounded like he was quote dying when this was happening.

So, this is happening regularly. These reports are going in. Red flags and alarm bells are being raised, many of them. And yet Adrian’s being left in this dire situation. And just to clarify why I’m saying that there are so many red flags, Adrian’s record from DCF is 2,000 pages long. Just let that sink in. 2,000 pages. Now, within days of the incident, several welfare professionals actually contact the family.

This includes the police officer. And the officer stated that he could confirm that Adrian had been hit with a closed fist. Again, I do not believe in any form of punishment that is physical where children are concerned. Everyone has their own belief system and I accept that. The reason for that is research is very clear.

You are more likely to create behaviorally dysregulated and dysfunctional children if you use any form of physical violence towards them. And I’m not just talking about beating in a really bad and negative way. I’m talking about slapping. I’m talking about a primary caregiver using physical punishment to deal with behavior.

What tends to happen is the behavior worsens. heal because the child is not actually thinking about the action that led to the consequence. They’re just thinking they can’t trust their environment and that leads to problems in their behavior down the line. That said, I also acknowledge that some people feel that that kind of punishment works effectively for them as a parent.

But I think we can all agree, whether you are somebody who slap your children or otherwise, that closed fists when an adult male is concerned, beating somebody is highly dangerous and beyond abusive. How is Adrian being left in this situation? Now, during the interview, Adrian actually stated to the officer that his father hit him on the face.

And he also confided in the officer that Heather also did that as well. Adrian’s own aunt actually spoke to the police officer and said, “Listen, this is not unusual. The kids are commonly injured when Heather’s looking after them.” And that same aunt said that Adrian has personally told her that when Heather bruised his face, she tells the other kids to take responsibility for doing it.

And that aunt also said that Heather only hits her stepchildren and not her biological kids. Now, that in itself is devastating, isn’t it? To know that she separates her children that are blood related to her from the children that she’s now meant to care for as a step parent because that means that every single day those kids are recognizing that they are different to those children that she’s born herself.

And in spite of the fact this officer has now got first-person testimony from the aunt and even from the victim himself, he says that Adrian’s safe at his current location, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. And just for a minute to talk about step families, one of the things that we know from research is that children in step families face a higher risk of abuse.

That’s physical, sexual, and neglect. And don’t get me wrong, I’m really pro step families at the end of the day. I live my life in a step family myself. But nonetheless, children in step families suffer more maltreatment than those with two biological parents. Some studies show significantly higher levels in stepfathers and stepmothers.

The Cinderella effects is also a possible reason. So, evolutionary psychologists suggest that step parents invest less in non-biological children because of those lack of genetic ties. And this of course is going to lead to potential higher risk of abuse and even infanticide. Don’t get me wrong, there are other factors that affect these kind of statistics such as age and economic situation.

But specific risks include that when it comes down to step families, a disproportionate amount of fatal child abuse occurs in them. So, when you compare to biological children, stepchildren absolutely face higher victimization rates, especially from caregivers. So, it’s not that step families are a dangerous place. Most aren’t.

But in comparison to when you have two biological parents and one biological parent bringing children up, when a step parent gets involved, this is when we often see a rise in abuse. Now, by early 2012, records show that the family begin moving repeatedly between Kansas and Missouri. So, I absolutely have some sympathy and empathy with child welfare agencies at this point because to maintain oversight and contact, you have to know where people are.

But you should still be trying to follow what’s happening to these children when they are potentially at risk. Now, Kansas DCF workers, they later stated that they continued to coordinate work with Missouri, but those family relocations resulted in long gaps in monitoring. Um, these movements meant the family effectively evade sustained evaluations.

So, from January and February 2012, it’s at this point that more DCF reports are made. These reports are alleging physical abuse of Adrian and also physical abuse of another child in the house by Heather. The report read that Heather would get mad and choke the kids. And again, just think about that, choking. I’m sure for those of you who before were saying, “Listen, I think it’s all right to slap a child.”

You are going to be acknowledging that putting your hands around the throat of a child and choking them is unbelievably dangerous. First of all, you have no idea the impact that could have on their breathing because you’re an adult. What you think is an appropriate level of force is not likely going to be a level of force that you understand can have catastrophic effects and impact on a child because they’re little.

So, the fact that she is doing that is risking their life every time she strangles them. And another reason that they called and reported the fact that there were problems going on in the home is because she actually choked Adrian because he didn’t flush the toilet. So, let’s just imagine the bar of discipline. The bar of discipline in this case is he didn’t flush the toilet and that’s going to result in me potentially choking you to death.

That gives you an insight into the lack of patience per se in this female. She’s looking for excuses to abuse this boy. It’s as simple as that. Now, the case worker, they go around, they ask the kids if Heather was staying at their house with them. At this point, they deny that they’d seen her. One of the kids actually said that Adrian had bruises and that he’d been punched on his cheek, but the child also said, “I don’t know who did it.”

But they also said it was probably Heather. And one of the children actually said they haven’t seen Heather because, quote, “Dad doesn’t want to be with her anymore because she keeps hitting us and we’re moving to a farm so she won’t know.” Now, somehow after that interview, which is highly incriminating on every single level, this is what the record said:

“Facts and circumstances do not support a substantiated finding by clear and convincing evidence. Heather has not had recent contact with the children, which was verified by the oldest child and dad. It appears the older child was disclosing past abuse. The children were observed and did not have scratches on the necks or face. There is not clear and convincing evidence Heather physically abused the children.”

Which is ludicrous because whilst the older child may have been coached to say what they said, clearly the younger children were telling a very different story. And also, Adrian did have marks on his face. Now, in June 2012, a family preservation progress said Heather Jones hit the children with objects or her hands, which left marks and bruises. That’s actually in a report.

How is Heather allowed near any children, full stop? Now, it also said she may have been using methamphetamine and she accidentally shot herself in the foot at a convenience store. I mean, it’s unfortunate that Heather wasn’t a better aim, with respect, because if she could have just maybe used that gun and shot herself in the head, none of this would have actually happened.

And some of you might think that’s quite mean of me to say. Believe me, by the end of this case, you’re going to wish that she shot herself in a fatal manner. Now, another document actually states that Heather accused Michael of trying to kill her on two separate occasions, one time with a car, another time with a gun. So, we’re talking about volatility of the highest level.

How can these adults be in charge of fleas, let alone children? Now, Heather and Michael actually separated at some point during this period. She’s then ordered to stay away from him. They then create this safety plan. I’m going to use the word safety plan in inverted commas at this point because, believe me, no safety plan actually makes the children safe in this case.

But this is put in place by DCF and this means that she isn’t basically allowed to contact Adrian or the other children. But bear in mind, there is another monster in their life regarding the father in this case. And yes, people are laying blame at her, but right now she’s just the fall guy in this situation because the father in this case is an absolute tyrant on every single level.

Ultimately, that separation doesn’t last. They do get back together. And lo and behold, in July 2013, Missouri Children’s Division received a hotline report alleging physical abuse and neglect of Adrian. They could genuinely have had a hotline just for the cause of Adrian because they are countless. And yet he’s still in the care of these monsters.

Now, this report triggers an investigation and as part of the Missouri investigation, Adrian’s interviewed by a Children’s Division worker with law enforcement involvement. So, you would imagine this is a perfect opportunity. Obviously, they’re going to hear about the horrors that he’s enduring and remove him. During this interview, he explicitly states that his father, Michael Jones, kicks him and punches him in the stomach.

Bear in mind, as I said earlier, this is a 6’2″ 240-lb steroid user of a father who is violently attacking this little boy. And he talks about his stepmother, Heather Jones, pulling his ears hard enough to cause significant pain. He also tells them that he’s been locked in his bedroom, sometimes from the outside world, for long periods of time.

He said he’s terrified of both the adults and records describe concerns including behavior consistent with chronic trauma, a heightened fear response, and emotional dysregulation. Now, at this point, Missouri Children’s Division complete a formal safety assessment which concludes that Adrian was, quote, “unsafe in the home.”

That there’s also a risk of continued physical abuse from both father and stepmother. Despite that finding, Missouri Children’s Division don’t remove Adrian from the home. They leave him in that hellhole. Instead, they decide they’re going to implement in-home services and monitoring. Now, that decision down the line is later described as catastrophic failure.

But that’s too late, isn’t it? It’s too late when the catastrophic failure has played out in real time and somebody is dead. Also, what on earth is going on that they have literally got it written down that he’s in danger in that home. And that bad things are going to happen if he’s left in that situation.

The reality is, unless somebody is monitoring that situation 24 hours a day by being present in the environment, you cannot quantify or qualify what might happen. You just have to act on the report and remove the child from that situation. Now, during follow-up contact, Heather even admits to some of the behavior.

She says, “Yeah, you know, we do get violent with him. We do pull his ears, for example, but you know what? It’s just, quote, discipline.” So, now she’s even acknowledging the level of abuse and he’s still left there. Now, according to the records, the other children’s stories were also problematic cuz they’re inconsistent.

And what they say, therefore, as far as the services are concerned is, “Oh, well, because of the inconsistent stories, the abuse can’t be proven.” Yes, it can. You’ve literally had a report saying how dangerous the environment is. And the fact that children are inconsistent in their stories is because some of them will be well coached and some of them will likely be too young and they’ll slip up and tell the truth.

That should not be the bar that’s measured to state whether a child remains at home or otherwise. And bear in mind as well, at this point, Heather’s still not legally allowed to be around children unsupervised, which would indicate that she and the father in this case were abusing Adrian in front of each other. So, they’re both complicit in the abuse.

Now, in August 2013, a case worker actually contacts Kansas Child Welfare and this actual worker says, “Adrian’s disclosed physical abuse to me. He’s told me that Michael and Heather are both abusing him.” And that case worker said, “I’m really worried. I’m seriously concerned. The children are being homeschooled. They’re rarely seen by anyone outside the family, so we have no way of monitoring what’s going on behind closed doors.”

Even though that particular case worker gets in contact and clearly demonstrates there is a level of concern that we should all have regarding what’s happening to this child, the records don’t show whether DCF even bothered to follow up on that warning. Then we get to October 2013. This, again, is at a point where there are clear deteriorating conditions that are playing out in Adrian’s life.

So, the Kansas DCF have received a report that Adrian’s has been seen eating from the trash and that he’s exhibiting behaviors typical of a child in prolonged distress, so he’s hoarding food, severe emotional instability, and also self-soothing behaviors. At this point, when it’s investigated, Heather tells the social worker that Adrian’s been hospitalized multiple times and that they’ve actually brought him back to Kansas for evaluation.

I think that the suggestion here is that he has behavioral and emotional issues. So, again, it’s very much a projection of blame towards him. Uh, “We’re doing our best, but this child is a deep problem.” Cuz that is the lie they’re going to tell. That is the problem they’re going to peddle, that he’s a problematic child and that they are struggling with him, that he is the root of the problem and he is somebody that needs to be solved as opposed to the environment that is destroying him needs to be rectified.

Now, by 2014, unsurprisingly, Adrian’s behavioral and emotional deterioration prompts mental health professionals to actually recommend him to a higher level of care because bear in mind he is living in hell. So of course behaviorally and emotionally he’s going to be clearly struggling. But the fact that mental health professionals are deemed to be appropriate for him suggests like I said that he is being considered the issue as opposed to a symptom of what’s happening around him.

In March 2014 he ends up getting admitted to Spofford which is a residential treatment facility in Grandview, Missouri. This specializes in children who have experienced trauma and abuse and neglect. At this point Adrian gets diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. This is a small child, a young boy. He’s getting diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The only place that he’s dealt with the trauma is in his home. So he should never be being returned to a place that causes this chronic issue. And when they look at the behavioral symptoms they see bedwetting, hoarding food, picking at sores. Apparently he’s setting small fires and also he’s getting aggressive.

But then of course you’re going to feel all those things when you’ve been so horribly treated. The world is not a safe place. Adults are your enemy because your primary caregivers who are meant to protect you are doing the opposite. So why would you trust authority figures? Also bear in mind this is when he’s actually in a treatment program.

His parents don’t engage at all. They show absolutely little interest in supporting his recovery and Spofford staff say that there were repeated failures by Michael and Heather to attend meetings or just participate in the aftercare planning which is obviously for their benefit but they’re just not concerned, they’re not bothered, they’re not engaged in any way. We get to May 2014.

This is when a primary therapist literally emails a supervisor saying “I am so concerned. I am really worried about the father’s non-involvement.” They describe Michael’s absence from treatment planning as effectively abandoning his child and because his therapist was so concerned they actually plan to file a hotline report with Missouri authorities because of the lack of parental engagement.

Now Spofford ended up setting a discharge date of September the 4th, 2014 but the conditions for that discharge required his parents to follow through with school enrollment, therapy appointments and ongoing mental health treatment. What records show Michael stated that he didn’t plan to follow those requirements.

So even though they’re saying “We’re going to release him to you as long as you follow through with these particular commitments,” the moment that parent goes, “Yeah, I’m not going to do any of that.” Surely that would be in a massive alarm bell. You wouldn’t want that child returning to that completely inhospitable environment with a primary caregiver who doesn’t care and isn’t going to engage.

But Adrian is still released back into his care. And unsurprisingly when there were no consequences, well the abusers got no reason to change their behavior. So the abuse escalates significantly in fact after that discharge. So within weeks of Adrian returning home those warning signs they reappear again.

Now there’s then an email. This is October 2014. This is when Heather tells Adrian’s therapist that Michael hasn’t enrolled him in school and that Adrian’s behavior has sharply worsened. She also said that she can’t control him and that his regression is severe. But despite this Adrian remains with Michael and Heather.

So the therapist is aware that none of the protocols been followed. Adrian’s behavior is disintegrating further because he just is a devastated, terrified child and the primary caregivers are saying, “Oh, we can’t cope, we can’t control him and there’s massive regression.” Why is nobody removing this little boy? Now it’s around this particular time Heather’s making really disturbing posts on Facebook.

There’s this Facebook group which she was actually the admin of named “Fuck everyone else.” Honestly I kid you not. I’m going to just throw it out there. As far as names for a Facebook group “Fuck everyone else” is not the most inviting reality, is it? You know, I’m not imagining the admin’s going to care that deeply if the tagline is “Fuck everyone else” and the group name is “Fuck everyone else.”

And in this bizarre group she’s posting really disturbing comments about Adrian. She’s discussing restraining him. In fact she describes on one post that he’s a psychopath. I think she mixed that up. I think she was meant to talk about herself in that way but just decided to project that onto Adrian because believe me this woman is psychopathic in nature.

She also goes on in this group on a Facebook page to discuss the fact that she’s literally restrained Adrian to an inversion table. That’s one of those exercise tables. It’s usually quite helpful if you’ve got like a negative issue with your spine. You hang upside down in it and you shouldn’t hang upside down for very long periods of time.

So there’s a way of using these positively but if you are literally strapping a child to an inversion table and probably hanging upside down just to torture him, that’s dangerous. Also she talks about beating him, forcing him to do extended physical tasks and also on these posts describes a strong hatred for him.

She’s literally out there proudly describing her feelings without any concern about other people’s ideas regarding who she is as a human being because she doesn’t see anything wrong with it. And that’s what makes her so dangerous because she is literally able to write these things to the general public and it doesn’t concern her because she’s dehumanized him to such a degree that he’s actually an object, not a child.

And in one comment Heather actually posted on December the 28th, 2014 she said, “I’m scared to look at my phone afraid I might be the next Melissa Pinson and feed some pigs a body.” Just bear that in mind because it’s going to become very real towards the end of this case. Now there are also Facebook posts where she discusses her and Michael’s relationship troubles and says that she only stays with Michael because it would cost her too much money and hinder her lifestyle.

Honestly completely bizarre and yet contextually expected with somebody with no soul. And she has no soul. So without a doubt those kind of things would bother her. Now going into 2015 the treatment of Adrian inside the home evolves into what I can only describe as a regime of punishment and dehumanization. Michael does what we see more and more these days in abuse cases.

He installs a network of CCTV cameras throughout the entire property because if you want control this is going to give you full and absolute control. You can then watch everybody and criticize everybody and then punish people for those criticisms as much as you wish to because CCTV will catch every single action of every individual in that household and you will be the arbiter of whether that deserves some kind of horrible discipline or abuse.

Now that footage is later recovered by the authorities and it’s horrific because it captures approximately nine months of Adrian’s life as his condition just deteriorates beyond measure. That surveillance footage revealed that Adrian was often forced to stand for hours with his hands raised. In other recordings he’s strapped to an inversion table, blindfolded, bound with bandages and handcuffs.

He’s also filmed handcuffed by his hands and feet and left outdoors eating from a bowl without using his hands. So they’re enjoying this abuse, they’re enjoying this torture, they’re thinking of bigger and better ways to harm him. The very fact that they’re making him eat from a bowl without using his hands, they want to make him feel like an animal, not like a human.

And one video captured someone that literally hitting him in the face with a broomstick. And there were images from that same period that show injuries on his body that are consistent with taser burns. He’s got really bad bruising on his body. He’s got severe malnutrition. He’s unbelievably he looks like he is someone and no disrespect to anyone with Jewish relatives who were in the Holocaust but he genuinely looks like someone who would have been at Auschwitz. I am not exaggerating.

That is exactly what he appears like. In the final months of his life Michael and Heather actually stop referring to Adrian by his name. In fact they start calling him the boy. So that strips him of his identity. And he actually was kept for long periods of time in a small white tiled shower stall.

Often he’d be naked, he had no bedding, he had no comfort. The surveillance footage is capturing this all in real time and it’s showing him weakening over time. His frame is growing thinner, his movements are getting slower, he’s growing visibly weaker as food gets more and more withheld. And authorities said that he was literally a child being filmed starving to death.

And there were other episodes of extreme mistreatment during this period. So in one incident and this is breathtakingly evil, Adrian’s forced to stand overnight in neck deep water in the family swimming pool. He’s entirely isolated from the outside world. He is just being tortured and abandoned on every single level.

And there are actually pictures that you can look up. I’ve left them in the description below that will take you to some of the horrific images of him in these situations. I know that that is challenging for many of us but I know that some of you will be curious and it is on public record so I have included it in the description.

Now we don’t exactly know when Adrian died but court documents within the family’s wrongful death lawsuit estimate that he died sometime between mid-September and mid-October 2015. That death goes completely unreported to authorities and there is literally no attempt by anyone in the household to notify anyone. And so the truth of what happened remains concealed basically all the way up until November the 25th, 2015.

So, this is the day before Thanksgiving. This point, the Kansas City police are dispatched to the Joneses’ property. It’s on 5201 North 99th Street. And the reason they’re dispatched is there is an incident of domestic abuse. So, Heather Jones has contacted the authorities saying that Michael Jones has physically assaulted her.

Now, when they arrive, the officers, as you would imagine, speak with Heather. And she ultimately tells them that her husband, Michael, has struck her with his fists and his hands, has choked her around the neck, and then has fired a handgun in close proximity to her. Now, with respect, that could not have happened to a nicer woman.

Honestly, I have no sympathy or empathy with her. I know that what’s happened is abusive there, but my goodness, this woman is deserving of any abuse that she comes into contact with. Amen to that. I genuinely mean that. Amen to that. Now, the fact that she was comfortable calling the police, even though we know that Adrian is now and has just off the planet, that demonstrates just how little connection she has with reality.

Because inviting the police and the authorities into her world at this moment in time is quite a dangerous thing to do. Because when they’re aware of somebody and aware of their household and their situation, they may start to ask some questions. Now, at that point when he apparently shot that gun, by the way, in close proximity towards her, apparently she was holding a small child at that point. Doesn’t surprise me.

Like I said, Michael is your classic abuser, a classic bully, classic perpetrator. But she is not exempt from this situation. She herself is a perpetrator of the highest level. Now, the police obviously want to know where Michael is. She says that he left before the officers arrived. And with respect to this incident, the officers can see red marks around Heather’s neck, and also similar marks on her face.

So, she obviously has been abused. Officers then go on to interview Heather at length because she’s now a victim of an aggravated battery and assault charge. And this happens at Providence Medical Center. Now, it’s during this particular conversation she becomes really emotional, and she tells them that she has information that’s going to ensure that Michael will never get out of jail.

So, that’s her motivation, isn’t it? Her motivation is, yes, she has been abused by him. Like I said, I don’t feel any sympathy or empathy with her at all. I think she deserves what she is in life, which is a horrendous abuser and perpetrator. And if she gets a taste of her own medicine, well, I think she’s absolutely deserving of that.

But nonetheless, what is she doing in this situation? She’s being entirely manipulative. She’s thinking, “Mhm, I don’t really want Michael in my life anymore. Obviously, it’s not nice being beaten by a man. It’s horrific. Like I said, she equals him as being a perpetrator of the highest level. But as an individual, she’s going to resent that he’s attacked her. She’s going to address the potential that she could end up in an even more dire situation with this kind of perpetrator cuz he’s far bigger than her.

And if he’s got the potential to kill, which he has, then she probably is very afraid of him. The idea of him being locked away potentially for the rest of his natural life, well, that’s going to probably be very appealing to her. So, after she’s given this bit of information across, she’s then transported for a more detailed interview.

She then goes on to tell the police that Michael had a son who’s about 7 years of age named Adrian Jones. She also says that this child was, quote, “mentally disturbed.” Yes, we know why. Because he was living with you. Who wouldn’t be mentally I’m mentally disturbed just knowing what you did to him, let alone imagining being the child, the 7-year-old little boy who is being attacked by you for such a long period of time.

Of course, he’s going to be mentally disturbed. He’s going to be traumatized beyond measure. She also tells the police that Adrian had lived with them, but that he died, and that his body had been fed to swine. Just let that sink in. Look a bit like that Facebook post where she literally says that she essentially would like to feed him to the pigs.

Now, officers, they recalled they’d seen a barn at the property, and they’d noted that it did actually contain several pigs. She also tells the officers that Adrian had been diagnosed with PTSD disorder and severe emotional detachment, but she then describes that he’s like a psychopath, and then like a serial killer. I kid you not.

There is genuinely a hell beyond hell beyond hell for this kind of individual. Because let’s just unpack that a little bit. This child, this little boy, 7 years of age, he’d been diagnosed with PTSD. That’s not cuz he’s a psychopath. Listen, just let’s clarify for a moment what a psychopath is. Now, I appreciate there is a spectrum where psychopathy is concerned.

But let’s go to the point that she’s describing, a serial killer. So, we’re on that Ted Bundy level of psychopath. We’re on 38 out of 40 on the psychopathy scale. That’s what she’s accusing this little boy of. Now, what do we know about psychopaths? Yes, they feel, but they only feel the real big hitters. That’s why they do the things that they do.

Cuz life is really numb without feelings, and they can’t understand the nuance of emotion. Therefore, they need the really big hitters such as hate and humiliation and aggression and volatility and violence to feel anything. So, PTSD is about as far away from that as one could ever imagine. Because if you have post-trauma, it’s cuz you feel deeply. It’s cuz you’ve been harmed deeply.

It’s cuz you’ve been traumatized deeply. It’s cuz you felt fear. All of those things play into it. Therefore, that discounts his potential, with respect, for being a psychopath. And also, severe emotional detachment, yeah? Why would you attach to anybody when you’ve been made to feel like you are nothing? This little boy has been systematically abused for many years.

There’s no point attaching to one of the primary caregivers. They hurt him. So, of course, there’s severe emotional detachment. And the fact that she can speak about this child who she said has been fed to the pigs in this way, again, it is a reflection of her traits, not his. She is the psychopath. She is like a serial killer. Not that beautiful little boy.

Now, she went on to say that Adrian was violent to the young girls living in the house. You know that’s a lie cuz we know that the reality is the siblings were primed to just lie about those things. And she even says that he had attempted to insert a Superman toy inside one of the young girls. So, basically, now he’s a sexual molester as well.

She’s trying to throw the big guns of abuse at him and make him reputationally sullied so that the police feel sorry for her and see that absolutely there’s a reason why he ends up being fed to pigs. Now, she also claims that while she was pregnant, Adrian attempted to stab her in the abdomen. Just going to throw it out there.

If anybody deserves to be stabbed by this child, it is she and her partner. Both of them deserve whatever that child have liked to have done to them. I don’t believe it happened, but I’m saying he would certainly have appropriate motive, a righteous rage to go ahead and do those things. Now, despite the fact that she said this, she then goes on to detail months of abuse, confinement, and seclusion that Adrian suffered from the rest of the family.

So, she’s trying to manipulate the police into believing that even though she did nothing to help this child, there was reasons behind it, you know, he was somebody who’s being sexually inappropriate with other kids, he was violent, and therefore she couldn’t actually intervene. And also, she was with this bully, his father, who was just so violent towards her.

And she’s just this innocent witnesser of all these events as opposed to a perpetrator who’s directly abusing this child themselves. She told the police that they would routinely strap him to a crib mattress, they would handcuff him, they would shackle him in their bedroom closet. Eventually, they would place him in a shower stall of the bathroom.

And every single one of those would happen for hours or days at a time. So, this is just constant imprisonment in the most horrendous of ways. She also described accounts where he desperately tried to escape and break free because he has a survival mechanism within him. He’d be desperate to escape because he knows that something terrible is going to if he doesn’t.

She actually spoke of one time when she apparently tried to sneak food to him. But when Michael, his father, discovered that she’d, you know, tried to beg to give him some food, he’d knocked her teeth out. Well, if we’re going to believe that, we’re going to ask the question, well, if it was so bad, and you knew that this child has been deprived of even the most basic food rights and needs, why did you not, once you’d had your teeth knocked out, call the police? Just walk out your door.

Knock on a neighbor’s door. Ask them to call the authorities. Get yourself some support. Why would her behavior be, all right, I’ve had my teeth knocked out now. I just won’t take the kid any food. That was the lesson? Makes no sense whatsoever. She also goes on to say that on September the 28th, 2015, Michael had approached Heather in the house and said, quote, “We have a problem.”

He also says, “But I’m going to take care of it.” So, this is clearly when the worst has happened to Adrian. She said that after he’d announced this, he’d remained in the master bedroom for several days. He wouldn’t allow her or any of the kids to enter the bedroom. Then, allegedly, he pressured her to locate and purchase some pigs.

To which she does. She goes on Craigslist, and she does that. And just to note, the seller of those pigs ended up telling the investigators, when they were asked about this, that yes, Heather did acquire the pigs from them. But she said the reason she was buying them was because they homeschooled their children, and they wanted to teach them how to raise and care for animals before slaughter.

So, we are meant to believe that Heather was completely unaware of what was happening. You know, you just casually get asked to go and buy several pigs by your partner and you’re like, “Okay. Okay, I’ll do that.” Said no one with any rational mind ever. You know, if you’re in a situation where you’ve been told there’s a problem, but your partner’s going to create a solution.

First of all, you’re going to be like, “Uh what what’s the problem?” And if they’re like, “I can’t I can’t tell you the problem.” You’ll be like, “I I need to know what the problem is.” And they’re like, “I’m definitely not going to tell you the problem. I’m just going to withdraw to my room for several days.” Now, if it was me, they wouldn’t get to withdraw to the room for several days because I would be in the room saying, “Tell me the problem. Tell me the problem. Tell me the problem. Tell me the problem.” It’s as simple as that.

But, let’s just give her this idea that she just allowed him to withdraw for several days. You’re going to be like, “Where’s Adrian? Why isn’t Adrian around anymore? Could something have happened to Adrian? Could Adrian be the problem that a solution was required for?” That would just be an obvious A to B scenario in your head.

But, let’s just say you didn’t do the obvious as I just noted and you just go with it. You’re like, “Oh, he’s just locked away in that room for several days. Maybe Adrian’s with him.” At the point where that same person comes out and goes, “Do you know what I really need?” And you go on, “Do you need something?” “Yeah, I I definitely need something. Yeah.”

“Okay, well, I’m your partner. I’m supportive. I’m here to help. I need some pigs.” “Hm?” “What?” “I need some pigs. I I need several pigs.” “Sorry? Why do you need pigs?” “Don’t ask any questions. Just go and get the pigs.” “I do I do feel like I should ask at least some questions about this.” “Just go and get the pigs. Go on Craigslist. Find the pigs.”

At what point after all that are you like, “Yeah, okay. I’m going to go and do that.” I mean, come on. This is just bizarre, isn’t it? And the fact that she lies and has created this backstory about being homeschooled with the kids and wanting to show them the life cycle. She is manipulative beyond belief.

Now, she goes on to tell the police that Michael had got angry with Adrian because Adrian had been stealing food because he was being starved to death. And I have seen pictures of Adrian, particularly a picture of him when he was stood in that pool where just his head is above the water and he looks like he is a skeleton.

It’s as simple as that. There’s no other way to describe it to you. He looks skeletal. So, of course, he’s going to steal food. He’s going to die without it. So, she said that once he was discovered to have stolen this food, Michael then beat Adrian, punching him with his fists. Then he confined Adrian to the shower stall in a bathroom and that confinement to that stall in the bathroom lasted for around 8 months.

8 months. She said that Michael refused to allow her to access Adrian at all. So, obviously, she’s trying to say she was trying her best. She was trying to save this little boy. But, no, Michael stood in the way and said, “No.” And on the one occasion that he actually allowed her to see him, she saw that he had swollen extremities.

And she also claimed at this point that she had military medical background training and said that she believed the symptoms that she saw were consistent with internal bleeding. Well, why didn’t you call the emergency services? None of this explains her behavior whatsoever. If you’ve got some kind of training and you know that when you’re looking at somebody it’s clear they’ve got internal bleeding and this is a small child, you are going to do your best immediately to help them unless you’re a monster.

But, of course, she is a monster. She also then says that after that point Michael wouldn’t let her see him and the next thing that she knew, basically, he was dead. She also spoke of a past occasion where she’d watched Michael punch Adrian in the face and apparently it caused such a bad wound that it had needed to be closed with several stitches.

She went on to say around a week before Adrian died, he was unable to stand. He was unable to walk. He was unable to sit upright. And Michael ends up placing him on a lawn chair in the shower and he was then strapped to that lawn chair around his chest to keep him upright. So, he’s clearly dying slowly and in an agonizing way and he’s just strapped in this chair in the shower.

I can’t even begin psychologically to imagine inhabiting that space as Adrian had to inhabit knowing how sick he was. Knowing that this was likely coming to the end of his life in this situation. Tortured for years ending this way. Just imagine processing all of those thoughts, all of those feelings. And obviously, it doesn’t take very long after this event that it’s evident that Adrian is dead.

Now, when she is then allowed to see him, she touches his body, found him cold, found him stiff, and his body is still swollen at this point. She also said that his skin was a yellow color and he was sat up on the chair in the shower because he was strapped into it. And Michael then said to her, “We cover his body.”

She does that and then he went and fed his remains to pigs. The pigs that she purchased. That is literally the description that she gave the officers. You can imagine they’re just a goner. Their jaws will be on the floor. This is something straight out of a horror movie. We’re talking about a 7-year-old little boy. Imagine the process of him dying. The slow, gradual, painful, torturous death that this beautiful little boy went through.

Now, she’s told the police this information and she’s done that for one reason and one reason only. She thinks she can get away with it. She thinks she can pull the wool over the eyes of the officers and blame her abusive violent partner. And in doing that, they’re going to look at her as a victim, not as a perpetrator.

And of course, she tells the police that she’d been controlled by this man. He’d isolated her. Also, she says that he’d gone so far as to manipulate her to take her name off her own bank accounts, which again is coercive control. Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying for one minute she’s not an abused woman. I’m saying that I don’t care about her abuse. I don’t. It makes Michael even more of a monster, with respect, but I don’t care about her abuse.

She’s evil and she is deserving of far worse than she’s experienced and endured in that situation because she is willingly and actively abused a child, ignored this child getting desperately desperately thinner and sicker and eventually dying alone in that circumstance. And she’s allowed that all to play out.

She also tells the police, “Look, the surveillance systems in the house, it will have recorded all these events.” So, she’s basically saying you can get all that information. You’ll be able to see it playing out in real time. And she speaks to the police about the fact that the shower door had been replaced with a piece of plywood and a CCTV camera had been installed over the shower, which monitored that beautiful little boy in his demise permanently.

Now, when they looked at that footage, Adrian didn’t have any clothes on. The reason that they didn’t dress him is because, of course, he’s in a traumatized state. He’s very unwell. So, he’s urinating and defecating and he can’t control his bladder and his bowels. So, hey, just keep him cold, naked. He didn’t have any comfort items in that shower. He didn’t have a pillow.

He didn’t have a blanket. It wouldn’t have made it any better, but there’d have been a shred of humanity, but there’s none there at all. She then said that the plywood was held in place by a wedging a shower curtain rod between the plywood and the adjacent vanity. And she goes on to explain how sometimes Michael would forget to put the rod back in place and Adrian would get out and then he’d just desperately try to get food and when he did steal food, Heather would literally in that moment take him to the monster Michael knowing that he was going to get severely punished, knowing that he was going to get hit and beaten.

This is a full-grown man hitting a child with a full closed fist. She knew about it and she took him anyway. Lastly, she talked about how Michael had removed things like tarps and tiles and wood from the bathroom and other articles that had permeated with odor and brown matter from Adrian’s body and placed it in the yard behind the house and burned it.

And actually, officers when they went around, they did observe burned residue on a pile in the backyard. Now, a short time after this, other officers found Michael Jones in the same vehicle Heather had reported left in. So, this is in the area of 99th and Horton Road in Kansas City. So, understandably, they’ve got all this information now, enough without a shadow of a doubt to arrest him.

They then bring him in for questioning. Now, when the officers interview him, he admits that he’s had some struggles with his wife and “Yes, I did shoot a gun into the air.” So, once the police have arrested him, they question him about his children and he does list his daughter’s name, but he doesn’t mention his son’s name.

So, when they ask him about his son, Michael does mention one son. Says what his age is, where he lives. But, police are like, “Okay, but there’s another son, isn’t there? Isn’t there a son, Adrian?” And at this point Michael apparently tears up and says, “He’s gone.” The tears, without a doubt, are because he’s been found out. Let’s be clear.

Michael isn’t tearing up because of what he did to Adrian. He’s not tearing up because he’s killed this beautiful child. He’s tearing up because the game’s up for him. And he actually goes on to say that he discovered him dead in the shower stall. He then says, “As opposed to calling the emergency services and trying to help that child or just getting the emergency services to tell him what on earth has happened with his child to have died. Instead, he decides that he’s going to stay in situ with his body. So, for several days remains with Adrian’s body and then says, “Yeah, I did actually then get my wife to get pigs and then I fed my child’s body to the pigs.”

Which is just beyond bizarre. He tells the police that the pigs had eaten most of the boy’s body and then he’d collected the remains and the skull and put them into a metal can. Can you imagine saying this? How is he trying to suggest that this child has just died that there hasn’t been some reason and prelude to what’s played out? And then suddenly after he dies, he decides that they’re going to acquire pigs and feed them to the pigs.

That’s not what any parent would do if they were in a situation of innocence. He then tells the police that he removes the remains from the metal can to a tub with a pink colored lid and then he put that pink tub near a chicken coop in the barn behind the house. Michael then ends up circling an area on a map indicating the area of the barn.

So, understandably at this point detectives seek and obtain a search warrant for the property and it authorizes a full examination of the home and the surrounding land. They also received consent from Michael at this point to search his phone and at this point they just come across the horrendous messages, the images, the videos. And I cannot describe this any better than saying with the click of each photo, little by little, Adrian’s spirit just fades.

So, he goes from this healthy, happy little boy to one who just looks like he’s starving to death. He is literally a shell of the child he once was. We get to November the 26th, 2015. That’s the next day. So, it’s Thanksgiving at this point. Police execute the search warrant. And Heather, she’s trying to be miscompliant, isn’t she? She’s trying to figure out a way of getting away with this.

So, she’s agreed to come to the residence that morning. She walks around the property with the detectives and detectives are able to locate partial human skeletal remains stored in the black tub with the pink lid in the barn. So, this is exactly as Michael had described. And even though the remains were in a state of decomposition that made identification very difficult, DNA testing did confirm that the remains were indeed Adrian’s.

The tub was about 10 ft from the entrance of the pig pen and they noted there that five small pigs were kept there. Heather, she came to the barn and she described Michael carrying Adrian’s body from the home in a stock tank that was also in the barn. She described Adrian’s body rubbing against the top of the dividing wall. So, when that happened, it left soft or liquefied tissue substance on the wall.

So, you can just imagine the state of Adrian’s body at that point. Yeah, putrefied, it’s as simple as that. Detectives, they were also able to recover an orange plastic children’s snow sled and Michael had actually described Heather strapping Adrian into it. He also described it having cutouts for Adrian’s hands and feet and when they found it, it did.

Now, Heather, she’s trying to be the victim. So, she denies using this. But in later interviews, she does give a detailed version of how she would use it to restrain Adrian. She also mentioned a black suitcase and she said, “Oh yeah, we used to zip Adrian into the suitcase with his head sticking out when he’s naked.”

And she even went on to say that that suitcase because he was urinating and defecating in it would just be soaked in urine. And one of the detectives understandably said to Heather, “Would he resist or fight because he was being placed in the restraint devices such as a suitcase?” But Heather they literally casually responded saying, “Oh he actually liked being in the suitcase cuz it was warm in there.”

Let that register. This child was happy to be restrained in a suitcase cuz at least when he was naked, he wasn’t as cold when he was in there. They also did find that black suitcase in the hall closet. Now, another thing that she does is she points to a lawn chair next to the fence behind the property and she says that’s identical to the chair that Adrian had spent his last week alive in.

It was a different color, but that was the type of chair he’d ended his life in. And detectives did actually find portions of a lawn chair that seemed to be similar in size and construction that had been burned on a burn pile. Now, at this point, thank God, the other children in the home they’re placed in state custody.

This is after the bones of Adrian have been found and one of them actually recalled to detectives what they had heard during those final hours of Adrian’s life. And Adrian was heard to have even saying, “I’m going to die.” “I’m going to die.” He was seven. A seven-year-old who was so sick, so ill, so malnourished, so tortured, so terrified, he actually knew he was going to die.

Imagine how abandoned that child felt. Because when it comes down to children dying, it’s so rare. Usually it’s with an illness and what happens in those circumstances, you have people around the bed loving that child, compassionately holding that child, cradling them through death. With respect, it’s absolutely the opposite that this child is going through.

He’s completely by himself, completely abandoned. He takes his last breaths by himself, tortured. And he knew he was going to die. That same child spoke to the police and said that he actually heard Michael telling Adrian to “suck it up” when he couldn’t walk because his feet were so swollen. Can you be any more barbaric than what I’ve described in this case?

Now, initially Michael Jones faced charges of child abuse, aggravated battery and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon that was tied to largely the domestic violence incident that brought officers to the home initially. Heather Jones, she was also charged with child abuse. This is relating to her treatment of Adrian and the other children in the home.

Now, a second search warrant is carried out at the home cuz there was so much to go through. It is just horrific trove of abuse. They recover the inversion table that she described in the interviews. At this point, Heather’s with them again and she even takes the detectives to the master bedroom closet and there’s a mouthpiece that they find there and she said, “Oh Adrian had to keep that in his mouth. Wouldn’t be able to talk. So, it prevents him from communicating.”

Then while they’re looking around for other items, she basically moves a dresser away from a window and there’s a board screwed to a window frame and it’s got several wraps of gauze rope around it. And at that point she spontaneously utters, “That’s where Adrian was handcuffed to the wall.” So, it’s just torture equipment after torture equipment.

Now, detectives also discovered that Heather had kept digital notes dating back to 2012. So, shortly after she and Michael were arrested, Heather had given a landlord access to her Apple iCloud account cuz apparently she wanted the landlord to get in and save pictures of her kids. Now, this landlord obliges having no idea that she’s about to log in and see the most gruesome evidence.

She actually said, “As soon as I opened iCloud, I found pictures of Adrian’s abuse.” And that particular landlord now suffers sleepless nights because of the trauma. Now, those notes, those images, they document various punishments and injuries. So, she has kept a record. So, now that story about her just being a victim in all this, it’s just not going to wash, isn’t it? Then on the 9th of December, she’s brought in for another interview and at this point now she’s changing the tone a little bit.

All of a sudden, “I can’t remember things. I don’t really know what happened at all. I seem to have forgotten all of this really important information” cuz clearly she’s now in a situation where they have her in their sights as investigators. So, she clearly doesn’t want to get herself into any trouble. She also doesn’t want to admit to what she’s done.

So, the old “Oh, my memory’s faded and I’ve got no idea of what’s played out.” That’s the trick she’s going to play at this moment in time. Now, she does eventually admit to hitting Adrian in the head multiple times. She also admits kicking him. She also says that okay, yeah, I did restrain him on the sled that they found.

She denies for a period of time that she’d ever used a taser on him, but eventually she folds and says, “Okay, I did use a taser on him and yes, it did inflict burns.” But she said, “You know what? You got to understand why I did that. It was in response to him touching his boy parts.” Like let that sink in. She thinks that’s the rational reason for attacking him with a taser, kicking him in the head, punching him in the head because he was touching his boy parts? And she said, “Yeah, actually Michael, the father in this case, even used the taser on his testicles.”

She said that apparently she had wanted to get him medical attention, but Michael wouldn’t allow it. So, she’s been complicit in all this abuse. She’s engaged in this abuse, but now she’s playing the hero but she was denied that opportunity because Michael said no. She also said that she knew that Adrian was going to die without medical attention, but she actually didn’t seek it.

Now, there’s one point in the interview where she starts crying. This is when she’s pointing at a picture of Adrian saying, “He is the reason I lost my son.” Again, there is no fiery pit of hell that burns bright enough or long enough for this kind of monster. Cuz in this moment, she is literally blaming Adrian for her child being removed from her care.

So, she basically says that Adrian lied during an investigation and her child was removed. So, even in this situation where she’s admitting the horrible abuse that he endured, she’s still blameful towards Adrian. Now, as the investigation goes on, detectives gather forensic evidence from Adrian’s remains. They conduct analysis to determine the cause and manner of his death, but because of the advanced decomposition, they can’t actually identify a single fatal injury, but their findings did indicate that Adrian had died as a result of prolonged abuse, starvation, and neglect.

Just harrowing beyond belief, isn’t it? Now, as I said earlier on, detectives had seized the videos from the surveillance cameras. So, at this point, the police were able to view it, and they described the material they reviewed as among the most disturbing evidence they’d ever encountered. Prosecutors formally escalate the charges at this point against both Michael and Heather Jones to include first-degree premeditated murder, as well as multiple counts of child abuse.

The cases then proceeded separately through the Wyandotte County District Court. We get to October 2016. At this point, Heather Jones reaches a plea agreement. At this point, she pleads guilty to first-degree murder and two counts of child abuse. So, on November the 14th, 2016, she was sentenced to life in prison with parole eligibility after 25 years, and also an additional 5 years 8 months for the child abuse charges.

These sentences were actually ordered to run consecutively, so she’ll serve one and then the other. I don’t think this woman should ever be allowed out of prison. What she did is destroy a child over a period of years in the most horrendous of ways. She deserves to remain behind bars forever. During the sentencing, Heather actually made a brief statement apologizing, and she claimed that she couldn’t protect herself or Adrian from Michael.

Prosecutors, however, rejected this portrayal, and rightfully so. They said this woman was an active participant who documented the abuse. She absolutely did. This wasn’t a case of “Oh, no, I had a coercive, controlling, physically abusive partner. What else could I have done?” You could have just told the police the truth from the get-go. When you were being interviewed by child services, you could have said that you were living with a monster. All of those would have meant that you were less culpable. You didn’t because you were fully engaged in the abuse yourself cuz you enjoy sadism.

It’s as simple as that. Now, in 2017, Michael’s case moved toward trial, and before the trial began, because the evidence was overwhelming, he also accepted the plea deal. So, he pled guilty to first-degree murder, and then on May the 8th, 2017, he himself was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years, again.

He should never be allowed out. He’s just a danger to everybody, man, woman, or child. Now, he also received additional time for child abuse, and during his sentencing hearing, Michael refused to face Adrian’s family members. In fact, turned his chair away while they delivered the victim impact statements.

Now, I’m just going to throw it out there. I think that we could have figured a way forward in this moment because the families matter. Him hearing what the family had to say isn’t enough. They wanted to look in his eyes. So, just utilizing some of his past behavior, why not? Get a lawn chair, strap him to it, put some matchsticks in his eyes so that he has to remain with his eyes open, and then he would have been able to hear what they had to say whilst looking directly at them.

But, apparently, it’s not legal to do that in a court of law, so he was allowed to just turn away, which is highly disrespectful. I think he should have gotten another 100 years just for doing that. One detective actually stated that Adrian had been left to, quote, rot in a shower that ultimately became his coffin.

Understandably, when it came down to Adrian’s wider family, they did not believe that the sentence was long enough, and the grandmother, Heather Conway, in particular, said that she felt that it was unfair that when you think about what happened to Adrian, there should have been a sterner punishment. Now, none of you will be surprised to know that later in 2017, Michael filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea and said, “You know what? I’ve decided I don’t want to be guilty anymore. I’d like a new trial.”

And the court was like, “No, you’re not having one.” They didn’t overturn the plea. He remains incarcerated under his original sentence, where he still is today. And let him be there ad infinitum until one day when he takes his last breath, he is escorted by some kind of fiery creature to the pits of hell.

Now, after the court trials, Adrian’s mother, grandmother, and older sister went ahead and filed wrongful death lawsuits in both Kansas and Missouri, and rightfully so. That’s where the actual paragraph at the very beginning of me talking about this comes from. The lawsuits alleged that the state workers in both states had failed to protect Adrian despite years of documented risk, warning signs, and agency involvement.

The lawsuit named DCF, its former secretary, Phyllis Gilmore, and several employees as problems, arguing that systematic negligence allowed Adrian’s abuse and death to go unprevented. And a related Missouri lawsuit focused on child welfare workers and therapists that had been involved in Adrian’s case during the residential treatment.

When it came down to a settlement, a $1 million settlement was agreed, and it cited substantial liability and the desire to focus on systemic improvements rather than prolonged litigation. So, they agreed to settle for that, but also with the caveat that things needed to change. His grandmother later said that the Christmas before Adrian’s death stands out because it’s the last time she was allowed to see him.

She said, “I was getting ready to leave, and he wouldn’t let go of my leg. I knelt down in front of him, and he told me that he loved me, and he wanted to go with me, and I told him that I loved him, and that I would always be there for him, and I’d always keep him safe.” She also says that she still sees Adrian in her dreams, but she says, in these dreams, the story has a much different ending.

She said, in her dreams, she walks in the home with a gun, picks up Adrian, and wraps him in a blanket, rescues him, and shoots both Heather and Michael dead. I have to tell you, I hope that theory where there are other universes operating in the same moment as this universe, parallel universes, I hope one of those, that plays out.

That Adrian’s rescued by a loving grandmother, and that Heather and Michael are erased from that universe permanently. I pray that that’s true. Cuz it would be a beautiful thing to imagine Adrian living out his life in a parallel universe in the arms of someone who loves him. After this, legislators introduced reforms informally known as Adrian’s Law.

These reforms are later actually being incorporated into a broader child welfare oversight bill, and Adrian’s Law was fully enacted in 2021. So, what that does is it requires that during any child abuse and neglect investigations, a child must be visually observed and interacted with by either DCF or law enforcement. That should be bare minimum, let’s be clear.

Also, cases cannot be closed based solely on phone calls or administrative review. Let that sink in that that actually has happened. Just a phone call. Oh, just a bit of admin. Let’s just close it. Governor Laura Kelly signed the bill, and Kansas DCF formally updated its internal policies, making Adrian’s Law part of standard practice.

But, like I said, there’s a very low bar there, isn’t there? That you actually have to go and interview the child and visualize what’s happening in the home, and that you can’t just do an admin job and say, “Oh, well, I don’t think there’s anything to see here,” and close a case. I mean, how many children have been being failed systematically because those kind of procedures existed in the first place?

And it’s terrible that Adrian’s death may make another child’s life last because they won’t be murdered in the surrender’s way. But, for a child have to die for a law to actually take the name of that child because it’s so significant, and the torture was so horrific. It’s just heartbreaking. It’s heartbreaking. Adrian died because of the failures of DCF, without a doubt. Cuz of all those failures.

I know the only people we can lay the true blame at is the caregivers in this case. I get it. But, no. If they had done their job, which they are paid to do, Adrian would have lived. He’d be alive, maybe with his grandma, who clearly loved him. It’s those failures. It’s those prior policies that led to this little boy being starved to death, tortured. He died in the most brutal of ways, and nothing is ever going to change that.

No bill, no systemic changes, none of that’s going to bring Adrian back. I honestly hold on to that dream that his grandmother has of that other universe, potentially, where Adrian is living and laughing, and loving, and thriving. I have no doubt in this universe, he’s in heaven and he’s in bliss. Take care, guys. [music] This video is absolutely dedicated to this beautiful little boy. Fly high, Adrian. [music] You’re free now.

Mhm.