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Haleigh Poutre pulled herself back from death for a reason.
Doctors can only say it had something to do with her young brain’s wondrous ability to absorb horrific trauma and keep on functioning. While that may be an answer, it’s hardly a reason.
Others, who’ve been privileged to see this child, believe one reason Haleigh has survived the alleged battering and abuse by her stepfather and aunt may lie deep in her “extraordinarily courageous little soul.”
Simply put, Haleigh wants to be loved.
“Clearly, she was not ready to abandon her search for a loving home,” said one source with knowledge of this incendiary case. “Perhaps somewhere, deep in the core of her being, beyond the memory of pain and torment, she holds fast to the expectation of a life shared with adults who are trustworthy and compassionate.”
Such a home would have to be a special place, one where Haleigh would be embraced by foster parents skilled enough to compensate for all the havoc she suffered at the hands of her first family, the one she was tied to by blood and circumstance.
In a perfect world, Haleigh Poutre, now 14, would be graced with a second chance. Her “extraordinarily courageous little soul” would be allowed to complete its journey toward a sanctuary of love and safety.
Sadly, we live in a world of lawsuits and 51As. We find ourselves at a time and place where Jason Strickland, the stepfather accused of beating Haleigh to the very edge of brain death, has his defense lawyer primed and ready to abuse this little girl all over again with legal challenges to her “mental competence.”
In pulling herself back from death, Haleigh Poutre has now begun to piece together fragments of the nightmare that was her life. The story has emerged in court documents that do not paint Jason Strickland as a trustworthy or compassionate stepdad.
This is not good news for the accused child batterer who went to court to block the state’s request to have his comatose and “brain dead” stepdaughter removed from life support. Keeping Haleigh on life support, you see, kept Strickland further away from a murder charge.
But what Jason never imagined, let alone counted on, was that the child that he and his wife, Holli, had “rescued” from her sister, Allison, would recover enough of her memory to begin describing what few of us dare to imagine.
Now, Strickland’s defense lawyer must find a way to prevent Haleigh’s memories from becoming witness testimony. The only way to do that is to challenge her competence, to argue that the brain-damaged girl is not able to provide key testimony against the very man charged with damaging her brain.
That is just one of the many sad and tragic ironies of this awful case. Holli Strickland, who took custody of Haleigh from her sister, Allison, no longer has to worry about the girl’s recollection. Holli committed suicide shortly after the case exploded into public view.
Some three years ago, the doctors who surveyed the damage done to Haleigh Poutre’s brain gave the little Westfield girl no chance of survival. Sometime in the near future, these confounded practitioners will find themselves on the witness stand, asked under the pains and penalties of perjury, to offer their best guestimates on the “viability” of one extraordinarily courageous little soul and her ability to recall the horror she survived.
Will the legal system wind up abusing Haleigh Poutre all over again?
Maybe the reason Haleigh pulled herself back from death was to journey toward a place where she might one day discover the kind of love she never knew. Unfortunately, before she can make it all the way home, it looks like she will have to take on the family that nearly destroyed her and confront a cast of court-appointed strangers in suits and ties, who will claim that they are seeking nothing more than the truth, the whole miserable truth.
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She just wants to be loved... Haleigh’s courageous fight
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