[StBernard] Mother details 4 years without her son

[Westley Annis]

Mother details 4 years without her son
St. Bernard father says case overblown
Monday, September 21, 2009 
By Chris Kirkham
St. Bernard bureau
The 10-year-old boy living in suburban Phoenix, Ariz., had just finished
fourth grade. He had lived with his mother, Kalyn Loe, since birth and had
not seen his father in more than two years. 

The couple kept in contact over the years, and the father, Daniel Ballard,
was begging to see his son for a two-month summer vacation to New Orleans in
2005. 

So Loe put him on a plane in late June. She wouldn't see him again until
four years later, after news that he was discovered malnourished and in
deplorable living conditions in rural St. Bernard Parish. 

On Sept. 9, authorities found the boy, now 14, in a foul-smelling, cramped
recreational vehicle. Ballard admitted to investigators that the boy had not
attended school or seen a doctor in more than four years. 

Booked with cruelty to a juvenile, Ballard was released last week from St.
Bernard Parish Prison after posting $25,000 bond. An initial court
appearance will be in December. 

The boy, who has not been publicly identified, was admitted to a hospital
for treatment of a broken arm, broken finger and cellulitis, a bacterial
skin infection that can be life-threatening if untreated. Authorities said
he weighed 60 pounds; Loe said he was 84 pounds. 

There are spots on his head where hair isn't growing, Loe said, and several
welt marks on his back. She said he reads at a fourth-grade level and
struggles with basic arithmetic. 

Back with Loe in Phoenix, the boy is starting over after four years of
isolation and exclusion from mainstream society. The story of how the boy
came to Louisiana -- and dropped out of sight -- is a bizarre chapter in the
life of a child born to wayward teenage parents who never officially
determined custody. 

An interview with the boy's mother reveals the sorrow of a woman who regrets
letting her son slip out of sight and who tried unsuccessfully for years to
locate him. 

"I thought about going there many, many times," she said. "But where? Where
would I look? Danny had him so excluded from the world that it would have
been impossible."

Ballard said the facts have been blown out of proportion, saying he and the
boy had lived in the RV for only a month and that it wasn't a bad living
situation. 

--- Teenage parents --- 

Loe was 18 when the baby was born. Ballard was only 15. The couple had
another child together two years later. Growing up in Findlay, Ohio, the
pair stuck together for a few years but eventually drifted apart. Loe moved
to Michigan and later Arizona with the children, and Ballard moved to
Louisiana. 

In her 20s, Loe worked as an X-rated actress for Hustler videos and did
photo shoots while caring for the two children, and later another. Loe said
she put enough money aside to move to Arizona, buy a house and attend
college. 

She said she's now a full-time student, with a bachelor's degree and a year
into a master's in secondary education program at Western International
University, outside of Phoenix. University officials did not return a phone
call and e-mails Friday seeking to confirm her enrollment. 

Loe said she had put the adult film and modeling career behind her when she
decided to allow her oldest son, then 10, to board a plane and visit his
father in New Orleans. Ballard had told Loe he was getting his life
together, that he had a GED and steady job. 

It was late June 2005, and the plan was for the boy to spend two months with
Ballard and return to Arizona for school. 

At first, she recalled, there were daily phone calls in which he would say
how much he enjoyed seeing his father. 

She said she begged Ballard to take the boy out of the state when Hurricane
Katrina was coming, but Ballard told her the flights were booked and the
highways were jammed. Loe's mother eventually picked them up at a Baton
Rouge shelter and took them to her house in Tennessee for a few weeks. 

Ballard then asked her whether the boy could return with him to New Orleans
to help clean up and gather their things. She said her mother trusted
Ballard and said they were doing well, so Loe agreed. Then the communication
went quiet, she said.

--- Calling the authorities --- 

After weeks of failed attempts, she finally got through to Ballard, who told
her, "You're never going to get him back. He's doing good down here," she
recalled. 

She said she later called a local sheriff's office in Arizona, the New
Orleans Police Department, the Louisiana State Police and the state
Department of Social Services. At every turn, she said she was told that
without formal custody, Ballard had just as much right to keep the boy as
she did. 

"There's nothing I could do except sit back and wait and wait for the next
phone call," Loe said. 

Sporadic phone conversations from then on would come from anonymous numbers.
If she asked detailed questions about where the boy was going to school or
where they lived, Ballard would hang up. 

Outside a Metairie apartment complex last week, Ballard asked why Loe
wouldn't come to New Orleans and pursue the matter further with police, if
she really couldn't find him. He said the arrangement was that she would
keep the daughter and he would take their son. 

"It wasn't any short-term thing. It was where he was going to live," Ballard
said. 

He said his son had attended school since he came to Louisiana, but he would
not say where. The boy might have fallen off a bike or gotten hurt while
playing, but he said he knew of no broken bones. 

"I know the situation, and I'm not trying to put it out there," he said. "I
love my son. We're a team. . . . My son is not with me, and that is the most
painful, lonely thing I have gone through in my life." 

Though calls were tightly controlled, Loe said the boy told her they were
having a great time. She remembered hearing about fishing trips and dirt
bike shows.

--- Boy helped cut grass --- 

Much of what happened during the four years is still unclear, she said. Loe
said she's reluctant to ask too much too soon, allowing the boy to revisit
the experience at his own pace. 


>From what she has gathered so far, Ballard and the boy lived in several

apartments across the New Orleans area and had only recently gotten the RV.
He told her that his father owned several inflatable "space jump" birthday
party toys available for rent. They had also bought some lawn mowing
equipment, and the boy said he was helping out. 

After St. Bernard Parish Constable Tony Guerra discovered the boy while
serving an eviction notice two weeks ago, the boy led Sheriff's Office
detectives to Loe. She flew to New Orleans on the night of Sept. 13 to meet
with state Department of Social Services officials, and the next morning she
was in St. Bernard Parish court at a custody hearing. 

She said the state had questioned whether she could take the boy home,
arguing that more investigation was needed. 

"They were making me sound like I was a bad person, like I did bad for my
son," Loe said. "I can't go down to Louisiana and start at one corner of the
state and go looking. The state of Louisiana said there was nothing they
could do, and then when (the boy) is in trouble, 'Yeah, I should have done
more?' " 

Court records of the custody proceedings in St. Bernard were confidential
because the boy is a minor. Interim state Judge Robert Klees, of the 34th
Judicial District, handled the case but said he could not comment. 

A spokesman for the Department of Social Services said the agency cannot
comment on specific cases because of confidentiality regulations but that
the department works with the courts to make sure children are placed in
safe environments. 

Loe said the Louisiana Department of Social services is closely monitoring
the living situation in Arizona and that child protective authorities in her
state will also be checking up regularly. 

--- Sense of confusion ---

Even after his return to Arizona on Sept. 14, the boy wonders what was wrong
with the way he was living and questions why his father had to go to jail,
Loe said. 

Less than a week into his new life in Arizona, the boy is enjoying plentiful
food and lots of time with the PlayStation, Loe said. But the limited
communication over the years has led to a sense of resentment and confusion
for the boy, she said. 

"He asked us questions like, 'Why didn't you ever call us?' " she said. "His
dad was telling him that he wasn't ever going to see us again, that we
didn't love him." 

She's planning group counseling for the family to reintegrate the boy into
their lives. 

Loe plans to start the boy on an online home schooling program to brush him
up on four years of missed classes. 

"I want him to be able to get a high school diploma. His future, he thinks,
is cutting grass," she said. "He's going to be 15 in November, but I have
the next three years to let him find out that life is great for him."