Episode 41

Sword and Scale

Incongruity

History, Society & Culture, True Crime, Documentary

4.0 • 63.8K Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2015

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Luckily there aren't very many examples of the perfect storm occurring in a community where a dysfunctional family, a broken child-protection agency, and a community that makes a series of unlucky decisions end with the death of a beautiful, happy and loving 5-year-old little girl. Episode 41, however, isn't one of them. On January 8th, 2015, Phoebe Jonchuck was thrown 62 feet off the Dick Misener Bridge in Tampa, Florida. As a result, she died at the hands of her father. Her mother, on the other hand, was absent. After the child's death, revelations about her would be made public that would show how little Phoebe Jonchuck never had a chance. Of course, had the Florida Department of Children and Families done its job, this story would have never had to have been told. But they didn't, of course, and the list of other actors in this story that could have stepped in and didn't is too long to list. Nobody cared enough about this 5 year old girl to take action beyond the bare minimum other than attorney Genevieve Torres whose calls and cries were ignored and dismissed. When you have a system so broken that an attorney insisting that a 5 year old is in danger goes ignored, then what good is it?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence. It is not intended for all audiences.
0:05.2	Listener discretion is advised.
0:31.3	Welcome to Sword and Scale, episode 41, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real.
0:34.7	Well, like this, like this.
0:51.2	This week, the story of a little girl and the community that failed her.
0:56.3	Time and time again, multiple warnings were ignored, dismissed, or mishandled, leading to a chaotic conclusion that would light a fire under a bureaucratic
1:02.7	and ineffective system, a system created to protect those most vulnerable, and all it would
1:09.2	take would be the death of a little girl. Hillsborough County 911. What is your emergency? There must be no worse guilt than knowing you could have saved someone's life. Well, my boss, the attorney, she just met with new clients that she's got. I'm going to put your own hole. She's going to pick it up and tell you what happened. This is attorney, Genevieve Torres. Hi. This is 911. What's your emergency? Yes, okay. I have a client that came in. The client of money hiring me yesterday. I'm a same attorney. He just came in, and then he has a child with him, his daughter. He left my office. He came off with the Bible and started talking to me and saying that I was the creator, I was God, and then he wanted me to read the Bible to him. I said, I can't. He's in Swedish. And I started being really, I mean, he's nuts. Okay. And he's going to, he's going out with a child. Did you say he assaulted you? No, no, no, he didn't. But what I'm saying is he's out of his mind and he has a minor child with him driving to a church now and I should have kept the child and he was saying things like, I was supposed to find his paperwork today for a case. He's like, well, don't follow paperwork is not going to matter anymore. And then he wanted me to pick him to the church,
2:52.5	and then he wanted to leave the child here,
2:53.8	and I should have kept the child,
2:54.9	but now he's left with the child.
2:56.6	Did he make statements like he wanted to harm himself?
2:58.9	No, but he keeps saying things like that he said that,
3:04.6	he keeps saying that I was the God wanted me to he keep saying that I was God and I
3:10.5	keep saying I wasn't and he said that he would need to go to the church to get baptized now
3:14.2	and that he not to file and think that things are not going to matter anymore and he wants to leave
3:20.8	the child here and then he didn't want to drive and then he wanted to drive so I I don't know if he's undressed. How long did he leave? He was just five minutes ago. What is he driving? Oh, Kirsten, did you see his car? Oh, he's not a, um, oh, is it the box car that looks like a box? It's not a box. Is it a Mini Cooper?
3:41.6	It's tiny.
3:42.6	It's something like that's a white car.
3:45.6	It's a white tiny car that kind of looks like a thing.
3:49.6	Like a two-door car?
3:50.6	It's a two-door or four-door?
	...

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