She Seeks Justice

 Their names were Cora, Dawson, and Callan Clancy. They were five years old, three years old, and only eight months old when their lives were taken. Yet much of the public conversation surrounding this case has centered on their mother—her mental health, her criminal responsibility, and what punishment she should face—while the three children who died have too often been pushed to the margins of their own story. My latest essay asks us to bring the focus back to the victims. We can discuss postpartum mental illness, debate the evidence, and examine the justice system without allowing Cora, Dawson, and Callan to become secondary characters. They were not merely part of a controversial case. They were three children with names, lives, and futures they deserved to have. Read “Their Names Were Cora, Dawson, and Callan”: https://faithfireandtheforgotten.substack.com/p/their-names-were-cora-dawson-and

 A mother of three disappeared along an Arkansas highway. Her car was later found abandoned near the White River. The front tire was flat. Her phone and cigarettes were still inside. Her keys were gone. But Brooke Allensworth's disappearance is about more than an abandoned car. There were conflicting accounts about the last day she was seen, nearly two weeks passed before she was reported missing, and then came troubling confusion over which law-enforcement agency was actually responsible for investigating her case. Eight years later, Brooke is still missing. She was a nurse. A daughter. A cousin. A friend. Most importantly, she was a mother whose three children have had to grow up without knowing what happened to her. I took a deeper look at Brooke's final known movements, the discovery of her car, the searches that followed, and the questions that remain unanswered. Please read and share her story. Someone may still know something. Read: The Disappearance of Brooke Allenswort...

On November 23, 1988, six-year-old Jessica R. Leininger was staying at her maternal grandmother’s home in Bentonville, Arkansas. Her father reportedly had legal custody of her, but that day Jessica was taken by her non-custodial mother. Neither mother nor daughter has been heard from since. Thirty-seven years later, what strikes me most about Jessica’s case is how little information is publicly available. We don’t have a publicly available photograph accompanying the case information I found. We don’t have basic identifying information about her mother. We don’t know where investigators believed they might have gone or whether Jessica may have grown up under another name. If Jessica is alive today, she is 44 years old. That is why I am asking Northwest Arkansas to help. Someone remembers this family. Someone may have gone to school with Jessica, known her parents or grandmother, lived nearby, or remember hearing about the disappearance in 1988. Somewhere there may be an old school phot...

For nearly two decades, the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has been consumed by arguments about her parents. Their decision to leave three small children alone was reckless, but recklessness is not proof of murder, and the public evidence still leaves room for a far more frightening possibility: a child predator may have been watching, recognized an opportunity, and entered Apartment 5A while the adults were at dinner. In my latest Substack article, I examine the full Madeleine McCann timeline, the Smith family sighting, the pattern of sexual intrusions into Algarve holiday apartments, the investigation of Christian Brueckner, and why I believe the child-predator abduction theory fits the known facts more convincingly than a parental cover-up. This is a detailed, evidence-based look at what may have happened in Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007. Read the full article here: https://faithfireandtheforgotten.substack.com/p/what-happened-to-madeleine-mccann #MadeleineMcCann #MissingChildr...

I have spent years telling the stories other people would rather leave buried. This time, the story is mine. I grew up in the Church of the First Born, a secluded faith-healing sect that shaped how I understood God, illness, obedience, family, and what could happen when someone questioned the beliefs holding the community together. This is not simply a story from my distant past. The church still stands, it remains active, and people that I am related to continue to attend. Writing this required me to confront the complicated truth that people can be sincere in their faith and still participate in a system that causes harm. I did not write this to attack God or mock prayer. I wrote it because my faith no longer requires my silence, especially when children’s lives, family relationships, and spiritual authority are involved. This is one of the most personal pieces I have ever shared. It is about where I came from, what the historical record reveals, and why silence so often protects sys...