Unfair Park from p6 while in foster care and the children she birthed by the supposed CPS whistleblower and someone purporting to be an advocate. Stafford now believes both of those people were Baucum or someone helping her. Still, Baucum said she had no idea any- one was looking into her past at the time or that it would be brought up during her cus- tody hearing. “I was pretty much ambushed with it in court,” Baucum said. “Once Rhonda Hunter showed all her evidence, talked about what I went through in trial, that was trauma for me all over again because I chose to block that out. I chose not to focus on what I went through as a child.” Birth certificates for the children Bau- cum supposedly delivered when she was a child were submitted to the court as part of her custody hearing. The court determined these documents were fake. Baucum says it’s all true. This is her tell- ing of her time in the foster care system: “I was sexually abused as a child. CPS is well aware of that. They put me in a number of group homes and foster homes, or group homes in Houston, and tried to overmedi- cate me on medication to keep me just quiet. I ended up going into another group home called Avalon, which everyone is well aware of, and I was able to pretty much be safe.” She left Houston for a group home called Avalon Center in Eddy, south of Waco. “I was safe, I was protected, I was able to do hypnotherapy, trauma informed care, and they took me off all of the medication that Houston CPS had me on,” Baucum said. But she claims her CPS past somehow managed to follow her to DFW, which ul- timately sparked her custody battle. She claimed Stafford, Hunter and Washington were able to locate the children she birthed while in foster care. But she said she wasn’t kept in the loop throughout their investigation. “While Tonya Stafford was on Facebook exploiting my case, telling my story about what she found, I was in her protective cus- tody shut off from social media,” Baucum said. “I didn’t know what she found, who she found. I wasn’t able to meet my children, none of that. I wasn’t given an opportunity, nor was I talked to. I found out once we went to court that they were able to uncover all of this information.” In her telling, that’s why the psychiatrist that examined her may not have been able to determine whether she was telling the truth. “From there, that’s where you get the psy- chiatrist who’s saying ‘Well, one day she says one thing and the next day she says another.’ No,” Baucum explained. “The one day I came into your office, we were talking about abuse to Journi and how I didn’t make the calls against myself to get Journi removed, and that I’m not a psychopath, and all these extra things. Then, I’m ambushed in court about having children and being raped as a child.” Asked about the claim that she was be- 8 hind the threatening text messages and phone calls, as well as law enforcement vis- its to the homes of people related to the case, she said: “My issue with that is this entire case began from threatening calls, threatening reports, alleged texts, harass- ment from [a UTA student] to the police department, CPS and all these different things. Journi got removed because of these very same issues.” Considering this, she said, it’s ironic that her newfound detractors believe she’s threatening and harassing people and that multiple social media pages have been cre- ated to discredit her. “Like, no. I haven’t threatened … I didn’t even know there were people that doubted me until all these dif- ferent [social media] pages … and all these different people have gone out of their way to harass and harass every person that stands up to support me,” Baucum said. “Anyone that stands up to speak for me, they’re getting harassed and threatened. So, how is that the narrative now, they’re trying to tie it back and say, ‘Oh, well Brianna’s threatening us and sending police and things to our home.’ How am I going to get your home address? How would I have the energy to call and harass anyone, threaten, text and harass when I’m fighting for my freedom. Not only am I fighting for my free- dom, I’m fighting for my daughter, getting my daughter out of this toxic situation.” Baucum says her story hasn’t changed and that her detractors are all bullies. “It’s not fair that they’re basically coming together as bullies, trying to change the nar- rative of the story to coincide with what CPS is saying – that I’m a threat to society, that I’m harassing people when that’s not the case – and it shouldn’t be painted that way. Just because these individuals don’t like me “Generally speaking, I’m the attorney and I take the ultimate lead when strategic decisions have to be made. I’m the one to make them and certainly I try to make them in conjunction with my client.” But, it’s ultimately his call, he said. “I don’t want to call multiple witnesses that are just go- ing to repeat the same thing,” he said. “That does not do my client any good. It doesn’t do me any good.” This also applies to records his clients may want submitted into the case. “That’s my responsibility as the attorney, and it’s not always a popular decision, but that’s what I have to do as her attorney.” While they may have had disagreements in the case, Bronson said he’d still call him- self a supporter of Baucum’s. “I am a sup- porter of any client I represent. As their attorney, I have to support them,” he said. Still, he said he thinks Baucum got a fair shake in her custody hearing. “I thought the judge was very fair to us and I expressed that to her,” he said. But, he said if he had been on the case from the beginning, things may have been different. “I wish they were different,” he said. Baucum gave the Observer a list of peo- Nathan Hunsinger Dr. Maxine Davis, an assistant professor at UTA’s school of social work, and Tonya Stafford, a legal advocate for Baucum, raise their signs in protest of UTA. Now Stafford no longer supports Baucum’s claims of innocence. and joined together to say X,Y,Z, that is not the truth.” She added, “You’re all jumping on the bandwagon to bully, and it’s not OK because my truth still stands. I didn’t hurt my daugh- ter. I’m not out here running around like a maniac or psychopath threatening and ha- rassing people.” Before the end of Baucum’s custody hearing, she’d get a new attorney named Clifford Bronson. He has about 27 years of experience and most of it is in child welfare cases. In emails Baucum sent the Observer, she indicated she wasn’t happy with some of Bronson’s decisions in her case, asking why he didn’t call certain witnesses or sub- mit certain pieces of evidence. Bronson said Baucum was nice through- out the trial. “I know she absolutely loves her daugh- ter,” he said. He didn’t want to get too specific but said, “There were some unique aspects of this case that made it a little more difficult.” He said some clients may have a prior his- tory with CPS, grew up in the system, have a criminal history or mental health issues. Sometimes, these things can make a case harder to navigate. ple to contact who she said could attest to her good parenting of Journi and some of her other claims. One was Rene Coleman, who works at a child care facility in Dallas called Quest for Success. Coleman told the Observer she only saw Baucum as a thor- ough parent to Journi, someone other par- ents could learn from. Coleman said Baucum went above and beyond vetting Coleman as well as Quest for Success, ask- ing for proof of her education, proof that she had a valid driver’s license. Baucum even asked what kind of cleaning supplies were often used in the facility to make sure it wouldn’t be a problem for Journi’s aller- gies, Coleman said. She also had us reach out to someone named Rachel Richardson, who Baucum said went to middle school with her and could attest to the claim that she was preg- nant at the time. Reached for comment, she said she didn’t know much about Baucum and her case. “But I do remember Brianna being pregnant in middle school,” Richard- son said. “I didn’t know, like, right when it first happened. Just she used to always wear these big jackets to school even when it was hot outside. I don’t even remember how the classmates and I found out that she was pregnant. I think maybe one day she may have had it open in the classroom or some- thing like that. But I remember her being pregnant.” No legitimate proof of this claim was ever offered up in court, but Baucum says it’s true and that details from her past like this are what CPS is trying to cover up with her cus- tody case. Through a whirlwind of competing and often contradictory claims, some still don’t know what to believe. As for Stafford and Monroe, they think everyone involved owes Journi an apology. Monroe said, “Not only do I want to re- tract my support for Brianna, but I think that we – I speak for myself and I hope I speak for everyone else as well – we owe an apology to Journi because she’s the victim here in this case.” AUGUST 25–31, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.com
