We got to Valle Vista, I got out of the car and walked over to my ex's.  He got out of his and walked to mine.  He started yelling something at Joshua.  I knew this wasn't going to be productive, but was not feeling the maternal need to come to his defense.  Something was being screamed about being a scientist and that was going to make since soon enough.  I approached my ex's new wife, the mother of the girl in the videos.  My heart broke for her and I just started to apologize feeling so responsible for what my son had done.  I wasn't sure if she would start yelling at me or him, but she just hugged me.  We got inside, told the lady at the desk we had an appointment and I was given the paper work to fill out.  Joshua plopped himself down on a couch and started laughing at the Adam Sandler movie that was playing on the TV in the lobby.  His father and I were both so angry at him and amazed at his utter lack of regard for the situation.  My hands shook so hard I could hardly fill out he forms legibly.  We told him to get up and sit on a couch facing away from the television.  He kept straining his eyes to catch a glimpse of the screen and snickering at the jokes he heard.  It was all I could do to keep from slapping him across the face.  How dare he act like life for all of us hadn't just imploded.  And I didn't even know the half of it.

The intake coordinator brought us back and asked us why we were there.  I told her about the videos trying to give as much detail as I could without traumatizing Cindy's parents.  I gave the recent history of the photos of women going to the bathroom and him urinating on blankets and clothes.  Told her of the 2 toads and 1 bunny he had killed and of me walking in on him choking our dog.  That's when his father spoke up.  The animal killings had continued around 5 he could recall.  And the very weekend those videos were shot, he had pulled the skin off of a live frog.  That is where the scientist comment came into play....his father telling him that it was only OK to do that if he was a scientist.....his father is an idiot.  All of this being told while Joshua sat in the room with, no tears being shed, no remorseful pleas, his cheeks didn't even flush from embarrassment.  Knowing I had specifically asked him about wanting to hurt other animals not 24 hours before and he lied to my face......what else was he capable of?  I began recounting all the odd behaviors, especially the last month or two, especially those involving my daughter.  The day of the engagement party he knocked our bedroom door around 8am, he said my daughter was crying and he had to calm her down.  Her room is not 10 feet from ours, the monitor was on, I sleep light as a feather.  She was not crying.  What the hell was he doing in her room?  I felt so sick.

The woman asked to speak with Joshua alone, my ex and his wife, and myself.  She seemed very sympathetic and alarmed.  Once she was done speaking with all of us she had to call the nurse practitioner on call for orders.  She asked me if I was indeed looking for inpatient treatment, and if there had been any doubt before it was all gone now.  I just found out my son had peeled the skin off of a live animal....something had to be done.  As she lead us back to the waiting room I assumed it was a foregone conclusion that he would be admitted.  I began to remember what treatment had been like for the kids here, the group therapy, the school day....all of which I had been a part of in the past.  Joshua knew what was being discussed, hell I had him pack his own bag, so you think that the time in the waiting room, waiting for this woman to tell us his fate he would be forlorn, distraught.  No, he was flipping through magazines, laughing at the comics he could find.

After 30 minutes or so the woman reappeared and asked to speak with my husband and myself, presumably to fill out the admissions paperwork.  To our shock and horror, he would not be admitted.  He wasn't suicidal, homicidal, or psychotic enough for admission.  The woman was truly sorry, if it was up to her....but of course it wasn't.  She could only give us some numbers of outpatient facilities that may be able to get him an appointment in the next few weeks, tell us to hide the weapons and put alarms on our doors, and until that could be done, lock him in his room.  That was the best they could offer.  The disbelief of this, of the whole day was more than I could take and I nearly passed out sitting in my chair.  She asked if I felt safe taking him home and of course I didn't, so she gave me the number of a runaway shelter that would keep him overnight.  I could not believe, still can't believe this is happening.

My ex's wife worked at a hotel at the time and they would often stay there.  Either they got a discount or would just choose a room to squat in when living in his mother's house with up to ten people at a time wore thin.  My ex had the next 2 days off of work so he said he would take him to the hotel and hopefully we would hear from the police and child protective services very soon.  Surly that would be the way to get help for us.  As the three adults discussed these plans, Joshua walked out to his father's car and began skipping around it.  This was children of the corn creepy.  The boy didn't skip, this whole day and night should of rocked him to his core, made him question everything about himself.  It should of made him as miserably sick as the rest of us....but instead he complained about being hungry and started skipping.

I called my husband when I started the hour plus drive home and put enough words together to tell him what happened, which was really nothing.  I grabbed an empty fast food cup from the back seat and vomited violently into it.  When I got home I vomited some more.  I had found our on my birthday just weeks before that I was pregnant, but I hadn't felt the morning sickness yet.  I could not be sure if the hormones had finally built up enough to cause the nausea.  Well I knew that wasn't it.  The videos Joshua had made kept replaying in my mind, only to be trumped out by the image of him skinning and animal alive.  What the hell just happened to my son, my family, my life.  When I finally reached my husband I crawled on top of him, sobbed, and shook so hard that my teeth were chattering.  I think I shook like that for the first 2 weeks at least.

The police arrived around 8 the next morning.  My husband had gone to work and arrangnd for some time off given the uncertainty of what we were in for.  In my mind I imagined the cops coming in, seeing the videos, and putting handcuffs on Joshua and taking him "down town" if nothing else than for dramatic effect.  Surly that would cut through to him.

They arrived and watched the videos with the appropriate disgusted responce.  We shared with them the disturbing behavior that had been escalating over the past few months.  I did my best to describe his behavior when I found the videos the night before.  His flat affect and apparent lack of any remorse.  Joshua was in his room with the door shut, I assume sleeping, and the police never even saw him.  His father lives in the next county over and that is where the  videos had been made, so they were unable to take any action and to turn the matter over to the law enforcement of that county.  My hopes, if you want to call them that, of him being taken to juvenile corrections were dashed....he was only 11 and juvenile would only get involved if he were at least 12, even though a crime had most definitely been committed.  We begged to them give us some direction, some resource for mental health care, it was grossly apparent to us that something in his mind had cracked and we were clueless on how to deal with it.  All they could tell us is that the department of children services in the next county would be contacted by it's law enforcement and they should be contacting us in a few days.......a few days?  Something had to be done NOW, TODAY!

After they left I got on the computer and searched the phone book for any avenue.  No listings anywhere to "help me, my son is a pedophile"  I called a well known large mental hospital in the state capital who were very unhelpful, telling me I'd have to start with our local mental health agency.  I wasn't even sure if one existed for our small town.  When I did find a number and called, they were closed, it was Sunday.  I called our local hospital and asked for the emergency psychologist, I was connected to a voicemail (it was Sunday) and told to have the hospital operator paged if this was a true emergency.  I work at a hospital an hour away and am familiar with paging doctors so I had no reservations in doing just that.  I called the operator and tried to gather my thoughts of how to describe this horror in my home, seeing them telling me to bring him to the
ER where they would meet me and then most likely transfer him to another facility.  They never returned the page.  I finally decided to call Valle Vista, a behavioral health and addiction center up in the suburbs that I knew serviced children.  I had done some of my nursing clinical up there, hated the place.  After hysterically repeating the story for what seemed like the 50th time today they said we could bring him up for an evaluation but not till 9pm that evening. FINE, whatever time it was at least we had someones attention and this would surly be the start the ball rolling.  At that time I was thinking what a good thing it was that school was almost out.  We would be able to send him off to get the help he needed over the summer and have him back home before the next school year.  A big concern being that he may have to repeat the 5th grade.  What an insignificant concern that was.

During this awful day Joshua was told to stay in his room.  I did not want him anywhere near my daughter.  Actually when I heard him milling around in his room late afternoon I took him in something to eat and his daily seizure medication.  I was so sure and hopeful that when he saw me again, after the shock was dulled and he'd had some time to sleep on it I would see, feel a truly remorseful, confused little boy begging for forgiveness and help.  I walked in to find a cold, blank stare, a shell of my son....or who I thought my son was.  I told him to just stay in his room and that I was trying to find someone for us to talk to.  I could hear him during the day playing and laughing, watching TV, like nothing was out of the ordinary at all.  My husband went into his room at one point and I know tried to have a serious heart to heart and gauge his response.  He was a equally disappointed and frightened by Joshua's udder lack of regard for what he had done.

It would take us a little over an hour to get to Valle Vista and we were meeting his father halfway for him to follow us up.  It was warm and still very light outside when I went into his room, told his to pack a bag for a couple of days.  I made sure he had all toiletries he may need and his medication.  We got in the car and everything felt like a dream, or a nightmare.  We live on the back side of a lake community and it can take about 10 minutes to wide around the lake to the main road.  He was just staring out the window.  I was still violently shaking, tears uncontrollably pouring down my cheeks as they had been all day...I probably should not of been driving.  My heart breaking, ripping apart as the thought went through my mind that this may be the last time he saw the lake for a very long time.  Finally the silence was broken when he asked me simply "where are we going?" in this low monotone voice.  I told him we were going to a hospital where they had doctors that would be able to help us with what all was going on.  My own actions were making me nauseous.  During my nursing clinical I would often leave Valle Vista crying for those "poor" kids left up their by their parents, how could anyone do that to their own baby?  And now here I was praying they were going to take my baby in.

So there I am standing in his room, filled with a disgust and rage I had never felt.  There he was standing with his back towards me having just seen a demon pop out of his eyes.  What was a person to do in this situation?  I am a registered nurse, a mandated reporter of any kind of abuse.  And I am holding in my hand child pornography directed and produced by my 11 year old son.  So as my mind begins to grasp and accept what I had discovered I am bombarded by all the history with Joshua that I should of recognized as blazing red flags.  Not only the animals killing and recent photos of the women, but every look, whisper, glare, the compulsive needless lies.  Every odd and disturbing occurrence that we all glossed over for years was coming into fiercely clear focus....and I was terrified.  That is when I started shaking so hard and would continue to do so for a couple of weeks.

I told him I was first going to call his father, tell him what I found...and then I would be calling the police.  I HAD to.  Not a word came from him, not a look, not an emotion.  Just blinding indifference.  It was 2 am by the time I called his father and step mother.  I simply told them what I had found and what my next move was going to be.  Their reaction to the news seems strange in hindsight, but how would you expect someone to respond to this news in the middle of the night.  After that call I told him to get in bed and I left closing the door behind me.

I sat on our staircase with the phone.  I didn't want to wake my husband up with this, he had to work in the morning and I was handling it the best way I knew how.  Calling the police seemed extreme, but this is a crime, I had to follow through.  Then I had the thought to call child protective services instead.  I had believed that they would obviously have a zero tolerance on such a thing and would get the authorities involved as needed.  So I looked in the phone book for the 24 hour hot line for our area.....number has been changed or disconnected.  Looked it up online.....number has been changed or disconnected.  Call information and had them directly connected.....number has been changed or disconnected.  I thought you've got to be f@#$ing kidding me.  What if a poor child was trying to call someone to report their own abuse, guess they would be out of luck.  So I called the police.  Not 911, just the local sheriff's department.  As best as I could through burning hot tears of rage and my voice shaking with the rest of my body.  The officer took the information down and said they would send a detective to our home in the morning.  Never in my life did I think I would be inviting a detective into my home.  I took some naive comfort that the police were coming and they would know what to do.

I tried to sneak back into bed without waking my husband, unsuccessfully.  He could tell by my demeanor that something was wrong very wrong.  I told him about the videos and that I had called the police who would be here in the morning.  I could tell immediately that he thought I must be overreacting, but then he asked to see the videos and I sat with him to watched them again for the second and final time.  Then he knew.....I had pulled him into this fresh hell with me and nothing would ever be the same. We both just sat there and shook until the sun came up.