SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The state is seeking indefinite custody of a four-year-old girl whose mother is accused of felony battery after a video camera caught her hitting the child.
According to authorities, Martha Toogood -- the girl in the video -- told them her mother, Madelyne Toogood, hit her with an open fist and pulled on her pigtails on Sept. 13, in the parking lot outside a Kohl's department store Mishawaka.
Doctors who examined the girl eight days later said they did not see any bruises or marks on her.
The petition filed by authorities claims Martha said there was a mark earlier from where her mother had hit her on her back.
The state Office of Family and Children said the girl was caused physical and emotional distress because of what her mother did to her.
A hearing on the petition seeking indefinite custody is scheduled for Wednesday.
... Please note two very important things. First the element of "new speak." The writer says "hit her with an open fist." I speak a number of languages, English being my first language, and I don't know what an open fist is. An open fist is a hand, to be hit ... not with a fist but the open hand, is a slap. It takes a real effort to raise a bruise with a slap. The second issue, is that the child now says there was a bruise on her back. Let's think about this. Children make terrible witnesses, as studies have shown, as they try to please the adult questioner. Here she is asked again and again, where there marks that the Doctors did not see. So she now says yes, on my back. She chooses a place she cannot see, so she can please the questioner, while not telling what she knows to be a lie. She knows there is not mark she has seen, so it must be on her back where she cannot see it.

Anti Traveller Bias in the press...
New York Post Andrea PeyserTOO BAD, TOOGOOD - YOU'RE A LOUSY EXCUSE FOR A PARENT
By ANDREA PEYSER
I'M GUILTY - NO, INNOCENT!
Madelyne Toogood, with hubby John, admitted smacking around her 4-year-old daughter - then pleaded not guilty in an Indiana court yesterday.
- AP


September 24, 2002 -- MOTHER of the Year Madelyne Toogood has three small children, four driver's licenses, and two names to chose from - depending upon the state in which she parks her trailer.
But Mommie Dearest has not one permanent address.
The country now is as familiar with Toogood's parenting skills as it is with the danger of Hurricane Isidore. This past weekend, the savage in blue jeans was all over TV, furiously whacking her small daughter about the head, a scene caught on surveillance videotape.
As horrifying as it was to watch, I could not look away.
She had to be stopped.
By the time Toogood surrendered to authorities Saturday - after running to two states and dying her hair brown - she'd morphed into the most despised human this side of Saddam Hussein. She also presented a self-serving story.
Toogood says her child, Martha, made her angry by wandering off in a store, forcing management to page her - twice.
What kind of a mother lets a 4-year-old out of her sight?
This train wreck of a mom is one of the so-called "Irish Travelers" - nomadic misfits of which I'd never before heard. Travelers wander with the seasons, looking for work in home repair. Previously, they drew the attention of authorities only for scamming customers.
Toogood is charged in Texas with skipping out on a traffic ticket and stealing goods from a department store.
About the beating she inflicted on Martha, she told an interviewer: "I shouldn't have did it." And, "Don't raise your hand to a child, it ain't worth it."
Ain't it the truth?
The truth is that Toogood's appalling attitude toward child-rearing is not so different from the thinking of many who see children as personal property to be raised as they see fit.
Little Martha Toogood is now in the care of strangers, while her brothers, ages 5 and 6, are with relatives. I feel for a child ripped from her parents. But this travesty of a family can't continue.
By foisting a bizarre, authority-shunning way of life on kids, the Travelers put them in danger. Toogood and her kind should be kept miles from children. Unless they agree to settle down in a place where they can be watched.
Until then, I thank God for videotape.

The article above was in the New York Post. Anyone who does not see the prejudice in it, I can't help you, sorry. This is only one of about 60 examples sent to me by Travellers around the country.