A Kosciusko County woman says she has been repeatedly jailed for not taking her daughter to visit her father in prison.
WNDU reports Jennifer has been in jail on three separate occasions, spending 32 days in total at the Kosciusko County Jail.
She says she took her daughter to meet her father for the first time last year at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility.
“When I took her there, she just clenched to me, had her arms around my neck, wouldn’t look at him or talk to him,” Jennifer says. “He tried to force her to, you know, like hug her and kiss her and stuff, and he was sitting there making remarks and when he gets out of jail, ‘You will be with me.’”
After that experience, Jennifer says she will not take her daughter back for visits, which has landed her in contempt of court.
An Indiana Court of Appeals opinion says the father, Samuel Davis Jr., has shown “no significant period of law abiding behavior.” He is currently serving a 15 year sentence for a drunk driving incident that killed 22-year-old Victoria Anderson in 2010.
WNDU reports that Davis is representing himself in the paternity case in Kosciusko County. The case docket shows that his visitation order appears to date back to December of 2014.
The case docket also indicates that in March of 2017, a Guardian Ad Litem was appointed to represent the best interests of the child.
Prison records list the earliest possible release date for Davis Jr. as November 1 of 2019.
