Stories like this are the reason why I always have a healthy skepticism of child abuse cases, especially cases where there is NO physical evidence, NO adult witnesses and stories that seem unlikely. Its simply too easy for ambitious Child Protective Service agents and prosecutor’s to ruin lives based upon flimsy charges and docile juries. This is also another example of how CPS and prosecutors use absolute immunity as a shield to allow themselves to pursue blatantly unjust cases.
While not a child abuse case, 10 years ago my youngest boy ran into something of that mindset in small-town Alabama. His 7-year-old son had a buddy over for the night. The kids go to bed about 9 p.m. At 10;30 p.m. thete's a knock on the door. It's the local cops with the two boys in tow. It seems the kids were playing detective, had sneaked out the bedroom window, and were caught walking along the street shining flashlights into store doorways "looking for criminals".
OK, no problem with the cops but the kids gets a chewing out. The next day a Child Protective Services guy shows up to "investigate". My boy tells the guy he put the kids to sleep and watched TV. The guy says "You ABANDONED those children. We'll have to look into this." and insinuated they would lose the kid. My boy said he wanted to deck the guy as he scared the beJesus out of the wife.
Luckily, she knew the mayor's wife and the incident was snuffed out straightaway. Had she not had a contact, one wonders what crap my son would have gone through. They left the state within months.