*In response to readers’ feedback, this article has been edited to include additional context surrounding Patricia Godsey’s lawsuit against Journey House.
Every year, defendants with substance use issues throughout Central Virginia find themselves ordered to live in unregulated recovery homes – or sober homes – as they await their day in court.
To find out how this started in Henrico County, I talked with Michael Feinmel, the deputy county manager for public safety. As a former deputy commonwealth’s attorney who oversaw organized crime, narcotics and human trafficking cases through 2022, Feinmel was intimately familiar with the evolution of recovery housing as a pretrial solution.
Screenshot: Henrico County website
Starting around 2016, when a new wave of the opioid epidemic gripped our community, many people arrested on drug charges overdosed and died before they made it back to court. That “scared the hell out of the judges,” Feinmel said. So, they started denying bail to defendants with an opioid addiction – unless they could get admitted into treatment.
As that stipulation traveled through jail grapevines and into the community, non-clinical recovery house operators answered the call for treatment providers.
And for the next few years, Henrico County courts released numerous inmates to the care of unlicensed, unregulated sober home operators, thinking they were sending them to inpatient treatment centers.
Reality surfaced around 2020, Feinmel recalled, when he and a few others realized what was happening and brought it to the courts’ attention. But that revelation didn’t come with alternatives. There weren’t – and still aren’t – enough inpatient treatment centers to meet demand.
2020 was also when COVID-19 struck, presenting a new lethal threat to inmates in overcrowded jails. As the pandemic put pressure on courts to release nonviolent offenders, many of the judges decided the recovery house option was better than nothing, Feinmel said.
That same year, the state appointed the Virginia Association of Recovery Residences (VARR) – a nonprofit made up of recovery house owners and operators – to certify and oversee Virginia recovery homes (except for democratically run Oxford Houses). As Henrico County judges asked for help distinguishing between the good and bad recovery homes, prosecutors presented the VARR list of certified houses.
That wasn’t enough to satisfy the judges, Feinmel said. So he and other justice system officials created a program called CHIRP – Community-based Housing for Individuals in the Recovery Process – which added some prerequisites for recovery residence operators seeking to house court-ordered defendants and to receive county funding for their initial bed fees. In addition to being VARR-certified, a CHIRP-approved recovery home had to pass a safety inspection and agree to a list of stipulations such as maintaining a supply of naloxone (the opioid overdose reversal drug) and reporting overdoses to the county – the latter of which they have not been doing, Feinmel reported.1
On the limited occasions the CHIRP team receives direct complaints about VARR-certified operators, they refer complaints with “apparent validity” to VARR for investigation – which Feinmel says isn’t conducted as thoroughly as they would like.
Organizations whose exploitative practices I’ve covered to date – True Recovery, WAR Foundation, Journey House Foundation and Starfish Recovery & Wellness – all have houses on the CHIRP approved list.
That wasn’t surprising to Feinmel. Before I launched this project, he had already heard about many of the same ethical issues I’ve covered, he told me in a June 2023 interview. The CHIRP program can’t weed out bad actors, he said. Henrico County, as is the case with all Virginia localities, doesn’t have the authority to provide oversight of recovery residences. Courts rely on the state to do that, and the state relies on VARR.
Once the court orders a defendant to a sober home, the operator has all the power. Despite what they represent to the court, there’s no guarantee they will act in the best interest of the new resident or even accept them for their first night there.
***
In December 2020, 34-year-old Cassie Godsey sat at Riverside Regional Jail, making notes of everything she needed to do to conquer her 13-year battle with an opioid addiction. “Form a network of girls,” “stay clean” and “do the right thing” were among the items on her list.
More than a decade earlier, Cassie got hooked on prescription painkillers amid a series of four surgeries for a collarbone injury and a surgical infection.
When she was 10 or 11 years old, she was sexually assaulted by someone she should have been able to trust, said her mother, Patricia Godsey. “So when having surgeries as an adult … and many pills, just like so many others – it changed everything.”
When the prescriptions ran out, Cassie turned to the cheaper street drug, heroin – a habit that held her hostage for years.
Cassie wanted badly to stop using and start living her life, her mother said, but she hadn’t been able to do so on her own. The trip to jail forced her to detox, but it also made her more likely to overdose if she were to relapse after being released.
Authors of the 2020 Henrico Recovery Roundtable Report explained why:
Ironically, one of the most dangerous times for an opiate user is after they have been detoxified. The reason is that although an active user will become more and more tolerant of the drug, during detoxification this tolerance is reduced back to a baseline level. The user who relapses and uses a dose of drug that in the past they were able to tolerate, can now overdose much more easily. This explains why many overdoses occur immediately after people are released from treatment or incarceration.
Presenting to the roundtable on Aug. 13, 2019, Hon. Bryan C. Dunkum, presiding judge for Henrico County General District Court, said the following:
I can tell you from experience that one of the worst feelings in the world is to allow a defendant to go out on bond with conditions and find out before they make it back to court that they have overdosed and died.
But recovery house owners don’t always operate as if they, too, appreciate the impact their decisions can have on someone’s life, especially during that critical transition from jail.
Before Cassie’s bail hearing, Patricia Godsey located an opening at Journey House Foundation. She wrote the organization a check for $4,500, and staff provided a letter to Cassie’s lawyer confirming her acceptance into the “Intensive Monitoring Program.”
So, after roughly a month of detoxing behind bars, Henrico County General District Court granted Cassie’s release directly to Journey House’s care.
The rest of the story, in her mother’s words:
Click to read what Cassie’s best friend, Will, shared at her funeral.
Six months after Cassie died, Patricia Godsey told Chesterfield County Sheriff Karl Leonard about her experience with Journey House. Leonard relayed Godsey’s concerns in an internal email to several county employees and then wrote the following:
This was a systemic breakdown from possibly lack of assistance from Riverside to lack of care from Journey House. (By the way, we do not use Journey House as a resource ourselves because of concerns we have which is why it is important Virginia move forward with some sort of certification program for recovery homes which right now have no oversight.)
In response to a request for records detailing Leonard’s cited concerns, a sheriff’s office representative said the records did not exist.
April Hutchison, reentry coordinator for the Chesterfield County Sheriff’s Office and a then-VARR board member, responded to Leonard:
Virginia has a recovery certification program which is VARR (Virginia Association of Recovery Residence) VARR is funded and overseen by DBHDS and they have to follow certain guidelines. Journey House is a VARR Certified house. I would suggest that (Patricia Godsey) call the VARR office and file a complaint on the Journey House Foundation so that they can be investigated and reprimanded.
“VARR is not a state agency though,” Leonard wrote.
(The full email thread is available here.)
When I asked Leonard to elaborate on the concerns he expressed about Journey House three years earlier, he wrote, “I cannot recall specifics now. I had to have been under the impression they were not VARR certified or perhaps I had Journey House mixed up with another recovery house that was not VARR certified.” He added: “I did verify we had used Journey House in May of 2018 but then the next time we used it again was August of 2023. Not sure why the gap there other than we do not select where people leaving our jail go, they pick the place they want to go to and we pay for the first 30 days if it is a VARR certified residence.”
In November 2021, Patricia Godsey did what Hutchison suggested. She got in touch with VARR and filed a complaint against Journey House.
But according to VARR, Journey House did nothing wrong.
In a recorded phone call, VARR employee Bob de Triquet informed Godsey that Journey House was “compliant to the VARR standards” because staff reported Cassie’s positive COVID test to Henrico County and submitted incident reports to VARR (after Cassie died). De Triquet gave no indication that Journey House had a responsibility to ensure Cassie’s welfare after she was court-ordered to Journey House for her own safety.
As a result of Cassie’s death, he said Journey House implemented one “corrective measure” – the organization would start requiring negative COVID tests before accepting residents from jail. There was no indication they would do anything differently the next time a participant tested positive for COVID, which was inevitable in 2021.
The COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly added a layer of challenges for recovery house operators. But by the time Cassie was released from jail in January 2021, Journey House had had a year to adapt to the public health crisis.
Surely, Cassie wasn’t the first resident to test positive for the virus. And she couldn’t have been the last, even if Journey House began requiring negative screens before accepting residents from jail.
How many others were dropped off at Patient First? What happened to them?
Journey House owner Michael Tillem declined to answer questions or release records pertaining to Cassie, despite having her mother’s written permission to do so. Tillem wrote:
First off, our deepest condolences to Ms. Godsey and her family. COVID and the disease of addiction have both resulted in countless lives lost and caused devastation and grief for everyone. At this time, we are declining your request for documentation on the grounds that Patrica Godsey commenced litigation and sought to impose liability against Journey House Foundation, despite the underlying facts and based on a flawed theory of liability. And although the Court rejected that flawed theory of liability by dismissing the lawsuit immediately, we are not at all inclined to revisit those claims by defending our position a second time in the press. The judicial process has spoken, and we implore Ms. Godsey to listen. Finally, please note that we have advised our counsel of this request and together we will monitor all social and other media to ensure that no actionable defamation occurs. We are praying for Ms. Godsey and will continue to stay focused on our mission to help individuals struggling with the disease of addiction find a new way of life in recovery.
Godsey did file a negligence-based lawsuit against Journey House in January 2023. But there was nothing in the file to suggest the court “rejected a flawed theory of liability.” In fact, Tillem’s lawyer never broached the subject of liability. Instead, he pointed to two technicalities: 1) Godsey filed without an attorney, which she would have needed for a negligence/wrongful death claim and 2) Godsey failed to file a Bill of Particulars.
Nonetheless, Godsey’s lawsuit was irrelevant to my inquiry. As I explained to the Tillems, I was looking into Cassie’s situation from a perspective of ethics and best practices. Given the lethal consequences that followed Journey House’s decision to abruptly drop Cassie into her mother’s care, I wanted to know what, if anything, Journey House would do differently the next time a participant had to be removed at no fault of their own.
But the Tillems did not respond to any follow-up questions or a request for comment.
VARR took a similar approach. Rather than answer questions about VARR standards and expectations, the organization provided a detailed timeline of events regarding Cassie and Patricia Godsey.
Like Tillem, VARR emphasized the dismissal of Godsey’s lawsuit, which she filed more than a year after her complaint to VARR. VARR President Sarah Scarbrough and Executive Director Anthony Grimes did not respond when asked how the lawsuit was relevant.
According to Godsey, she did not volunteer to have Cassie stay with her – Journey House gave her no other option. “Literally, they said, ‘She can’t stay here. You got to come get her,'” Godsey told me. “They just left her there (at Patient First).”
Nothing was “agreed by all parties,” she said. When Cassie called her pretrial officer on the ride home that day, she had to leave a voicemail.
Since Cassie died more than three years ago, Patricia Godsey has learned more than she ever wanted to know about recovery housing — specifically about the industry’s lack of transparency and oversight. With that in mind, she filed the lawsuit against Journey House in hopes of compelling Michael Tillem to answer questions and provide the information VARR declined to give her. She also wanted to bring awareness to the oversight gaps that left her daughter without proper care during her transition from jail.
In the last couple of years, Godsey has become an advocate for improving accountability in recovery homes — motivated not only by her daughter’s death but also by stories of the families she’s connected with since Cassie died. Meeting with legislators and government officials at every opportunity, Godsey hopes to help raise the standard of care for Virginians struggling with addiction. Her lawsuit against Journey House was just another piece of her efforts to bring about change.
Realizing the statute of limitations for a wrongful death claim was about to expire, Godsey filed without an attorney, hoping she could figure out what to do on her own. But like most anyone trying to navigate the court system without a lawyer, Godsey didn’t know what she didn’t know.
When she was deployed for a three-week work trip that overlapped with her court date, she called the court and requested to postpone the hearing. While she was waiting on what she thought would be a phone call advising her of a new court date, the case proceeded without her. At the first hearing, the judge set another hearing date a few weeks out and ordered Godsey to file a Bill of Particulars. But Godsey didn’t get the memo.
In mid-April, when she went to the courthouse in person to follow up on her request to postpone the hearing, she was advised that the case had been dismissed in her absence.
Whether or not Journey House could have been held liable for Cassie’s death is a question I did not explore for this story.
VARR, on the other hand, purportedly requires operators to be transparent and to meet “rigorous” ethical standards, which far exceed legal compliance.
When Godsey first got in touch with VARR, she asked for a copy of the incident reports Journey House submitted regarding Cassie, but VARR did not provide those records.
In January, I requested the same incident reports along with Journey House’s response to Godsey’s complaint and any documentation showing the date Journey House contacted Cassie’s pretrial officer. VARR did not release those records to me either, even with Godsey’s written permission to do so. When I asked for the records again last month, Scarbrough wrote, “As it relates to incident reports and items of that nature, that is not something that we provide publically, as information within is often confidential and protected by HIPPA.”
Henrico County declined to provide me or Godsey with the report that would have shown when Journey House made contact with Cassie’s pretrial officer, stating it was prohibited under federal law. But the FOIA officer wrote, “(I)t is my belief that Journey House is obligated to release this record to Ms. Godsey as she is the administrator of Cassie Godsey’s estate.”
Whether Journey House got in touch with Cassie’s pretrial officer immediately or after her death, some central questions remain unanswered:
- If faced with the same situation today (a new court-ordered or other participant tests positive for COVID), would Journey House do anything differently?
- Under VARR standards, what information are immediate family members entitled to when a loved one dies?
- What obligation does a VARR-certified operator have to assist a participant who is discharged at no fault of their own?
The latter two are among many questions VARR has yet to answer relating to resident rights and oversight of VARR-certified housing. For example:
- Under VARR standards, can a recovery house operator require their employees and house managers to sign non-disclosure agreements that have the effect of banning them from disclosing unethical conduct, as Starfish Recovery & Wellness did?
- Can an operator forbid residents from having any contact with evicted residents, regardless of the reason for their dismissal?
- Does VARR take any measures to hold operators accountable for their own recovery or at least for abstaining from illicit drug use?
- When an operator relapses, is it acceptable for them to have clients take over as staff?
So far, this project has covered an array of exploitative and predatory practices in VARR-certified recovery housing where people with substance use issues are routinely court-ordered to live – coercion into substandard outpatient programs for alleged kickbacks, power and control tactics, sexually predatory behaviors and exploitation of labor, among other issues.
Still, there are so many stories left to tell here in the Richmond area.
“We kind of created a monster” regarding getting people bailed from jail to recovery homes, Feinmel told me. The problem, he said, is that the state delegated oversight to a nongovernmental organization (VARR) that “isn’t really answerable to anybody.”
Patricia Godsey is one of many who says that needs to change. If she had known about the prior complaints VARR received on Journey House, she might have located a different organization for Cassie. Without transparency or independent oversight, information that could help family members make such critical decisions is too easily buried, she said. “I was not allowed the option to make a good, informed decision.”
She added:
It’s not about shutting down these houses. It’s (about) giving them the oversight so things like this don’t get buried. So people don’t get murdered in houses by people that are mentally ill and (barely) out of jail.
(See CBS 6 reporter Melissa Hipolit’s segment on a REAL Life house manager who stabbed a resident to death in 2021 (and was later convicted).)
What does effective oversight in recovery housing look like to you? Please reach out to share your thoughts.
In January, state Sens. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Loudoun County) and Barbara Favola (D-Arlington County) introduced legislation through a language-only budget amendment that would have created a path for the state to provide oversight of Virginia’s certified recovery residences.
Favola told me she expected opposition to the proposed legislation but that she and Subramanyam were “both going to work very hard to get the amendment passed.”
For unknown reasons, that amendment ultimately did not survive. It has yet to be seen if they will try again next session.
Meanwhile in Henrico County, Feinmel does what he can to promote recovery at the local level. He currently serves on the Henrico Addiction Task Force, which is looking for more community engagement. Anyone interested in getting involved can get in touch with Feinmel directly or visit the new Henrico Sports & Events Center at 12:30 p.m. on Sept. 30, when the task force will be hosting a community event with a resource fair and educational sessions on addiction.
There are many people working in Henrico County who care about doing the right things, Feinmel said. “We really are trying.”
As always, please reach out to me if you have a story to share, and please subscribe to receive future installments as the series on money and power in recovery housing continues.
Scroll below to view investigative stories in The Parham Papers series, or visit the homepage to explore all articles, including legislative updates.
(1) As part of the initial application process, operators of CHIRP-approved recovery residences agreed to submit an incident report to Henrico Community Corrections “anytime naloxone is administered to a person in the residence or on the property.” In January, Feinmel reported, “We have not had consistent reporting on overdoses at CHIRP recovery homes. This is something that we have been attempting to schedule a meeting with VARR to discuss as a part of the revised CHIRP approval process.” As of June, he said VARR operators were still not reporting overdoses, per their agreements. He added: “Internally to the county, there are mechanisms for information sharing among police, probation and other County officials that enable some information gathering regarding locations of overdoses, but we know we are not capturing all of this information. The Addiction Task Force maintains a Data Committee that are working diligently to develop platforms for information collection and sharing to help guide future decision making.” Click to return to article.
(2) The contract Ms. Godsey mentioned is Henrico County’s “Agreed Upon Order Regarding Recovery Residence.” It delineates what the defendant and the recovery house operator agree to do when someone is released to the recovery residence on bail. Among other conditions, the defendant agrees to stay at the recovery residence, and the recovery house operator agrees to “ensure defendant’s compliance” and “report immediately to Probation/CCP any incident in which the defendant does not return to the Recovery Residence…” The evening before Cassie’s hearing, her lawyer emailed Journey House a copy of the contract to sign and return, but the contract in the court file was not signed by a Journey House representative. (Click to view documents exchanged between Journey House and Cassie’s lawyer.) According to Feinmel, who developed the agreement, the court has no authority to enforce the terms agreed to by the recovery house operators: “The only party that the court can control is the defendant because they’re before the court with a criminal charge.” Click to return to article.
(3) Michael Feinmel can be reached at fei@henrico.us.
Firstly, I am saddened by this young ladies passing and extend heartfelt condolences to the grieving family. Secondly, As a point of obtaining the medical records, Va. Code § 32.1-127.1:03. Health records privacy. Specifically, Section C, Line 32. “To the State Health Commissioner pursuant to § 32.1-48.015 when such records are those of a person or persons who are subject to an order of quarantine or an order of isolation pursuant to Article 3.02 (§ 32.1-48.05et seq.) of Chapter 2;” could be a resource to obtain the records held by JH. Once in the hands of the Health Commissioner, the sealed files can be released to the family.
How is it protected healthcare info if she was never in a healthcare facility? That’s a peer run organization and so is VARR.
ghg
Sarah Scarborough is (redacted) and has zero business as head of VARR. She owns a recovery house and appointed a house manager that k!lled someone. Among other issues like giggling over someone’s lack of recovery. We all know which video I’m referring to. She needs to go!
https://www.wtvr.com/news/problem-solvers/problem-solvers-investigations/he-went-to-a-recovery-house-to-get-his-life-back-the-house-manager-allegedly-killed-him
– Taryn Fletcher 🙂
you can own a non profit?
LMAO all you’ve got is a technicality? Straight from linked article, “Real Life is accredited through VARR, and Doctor Sarah Scarborough, who owns Real Life, is the President of the VARR board.”
read the filed lawsuit in this murder and your opinion of her, Real Life and VARR should be clear. Bad decisions = bad and predictable outcomes. No one owning a home or having “skin in the game” should be in charge of their own oversight.
Real Life is a nonprofit! You should probably do some research before commenting on things you clearly don’t know about. You can not own a nonprofit it is a board.
You clearly did not read. Embarassing for you! I quoted the article so go ask reporter Melissa Hipolit how she would make that mistake. I know EVERYTHING. Distracting from the topic by arguing about what a nonprofit is or is not, is completely irrelevant. That board didn’t put that house manager in charge. I bet the board never even visited the house. The board is a formality. She is responsible for that death and I hope that poor family gets closure. But I’m sure that family didn’t get a FRACTION of what this sycophant is bringing in every year with her taxpayer funded “REAL LIFE”. OVERTHROW SARAH SCARBOROUGH. – TF
that’s right, PREACH
When a person is on bail, or on pre-trial, or probation, they are considered a “ward of the state.” I do not think this young woman should be released from jail as a ward of the state without better medical oversight. Clearly it is as important that she immediately receive medical care for the disease of addiction; whether this care is administered by the jail prior to her release or within 24 hours of her release by an outside provider. To me, if she is under the supervision of the courts, it is the responsibility of the justice system to ensure this is being done before she is allowed to wander the streets. While the peer recovery providers are a necessary component of recovery for persons charged in the criminal justice system, they are not qualified to administer the intense medical care necessary for all persons with severe mental health and addiction based medical issues.
Fair point (Cassie’s mom writing). That is why there should have been an assessment on whether that house was appropriate for her level of need. It wasn’t. Hindsight. This is the courts AND Journey House failing. Journey House, as an “expert” who knows better than anyone else (hmm), didn’t bother to ask to me or Cassie critical questions (assessment questions) to determine this (NARR ethic #1). They seemed to be very concerned however on getting their money in order to get the court letter. No money … no letter. Tells you the priority.
Also keep in mind this was a court order. Since when does JH trump judges orders? Why not call another house who had Covid? Why not give her that individual room they stated in their court letter they had waiting for her? It was social distancing… not abandoned her at patient first alone.
Why didn’t they know or tell me she would be high risk of overdosing? Why not give her subs? Why not give me any guidance? Why not call the CDC for guidance? Why not call other house owners who had covid positive people? Why not call the place you partnered with? Why why why?
Cassie told the truth. She told them she was sneezing. Her temp was 98.6. SHE wanted people to be safe. She could have easily not told anyone. SHE told the truth! And paid the price.
YOURE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!!! If this was a court order no one is supposed to take Cassie to the house but someone HIGH UP from JH (not a parent or a member of the house) and when it’s a court order that person isn’t to stay ANYWHERE ELSE!!! My husband was released to True recovery and the male bed coordinator had to pick him up and he wasn’t allowed to go anywhere but to the house. the recovery house did not trump the judge. If they didn’t comply they went back to jail or the probation office would intervene. They can’t just tell someone just go away cuz of covid. They knew better!!!
Bob Di Triquet. Bless his heart. Traded his soul. Shame.
him and his wife sold their soul to the devil for a few bucks!
“degrading power and control tactics, sexually predatory behaviors and exploitation of labor, among others.“
I’ve had the unfortunate experience of several SLHs in CA and found these types of behavior to be rampant. Control freak owners, substandard living conditions, fraudulent bookkeeping, drug activity and sexual harassment are apparently part of the “recovery process.” I refer to it as the Recovery Industry Complex: hit bottom, rehab, AA, relapse, repeat. Add to this the court-ordered referrals to a faith-based program with abysmal “success rates” and it’s a recipe for disaster. Thank you for shedding light on this issue. The victims are trying to change their life. It shouldn’t put them further at risk.
From:
“we do not use Journey House as a resource ourselves because of concerns we have which is why it is important Virginia move forward with some sort of certification program for recovery homes which right now have no oversight.”
To:
“I cannot recall specifics now. I had to have been under the impression they were not VARR certified or perhaps I had Journey House mixed up with another recovery house that was not VARR certified.”
Perhaps the sheriff’s excuse is right up there with the dog ate my homework. Swim with the sharks enough become a shark?
Keep digging up the dirt. Expose the crookedness.
well done. I had no idea about this and I work in this world. It makes me want to see where I can advocate
The only reason oxford isn’t VARR approved is because there’s no house manager u have a house position but you don’t have power its supposed to be equality. As for the VARR approved none of them is 100% clean and none of them are safe. You have new people coming in because they don’t want to be on the street or they don’t want to be in jail or they don’t want to go to jail and those are the ones who make it harder for the ones who do want the help and want to change their lives. Then you have the ones with cleam time under their belts but haven’t changed their thinking or behaviors that prey on the newcomers. Unfortunately recovery is no different then the real world. With that being said I do believe if someone is court ordered to be in a specific house that house has to follow the same rules as someone on an ankle monitor. Before the house puts them out they should have to go back in front of the judge to get approved instead of kicking them out on the street not caring if they have a place to go or not. That’s the biggest issue these recovery houses and centers have kicked several people out some court ordered and some not but they feel abandon again and go back out because they have no where to go. Or they are laid back and don’t require a lot of recovery or changed behavior
First of all to Cassie’s mother, I am so so sorry about your daughter’s passing. No mother should ever have to experience that and it is a horrible tragedy to have a life ended so early and needlessly. That being said, to be fair Covid was a novel virus. No one knew what to do when it hit, not even the hospitals. Journey House didn’t break protocol because there were no protocols for something like this. No one was prepared for Covid and mistakes were bound to be made. You can see that at least journey house tried to do the work to learn from the mistake and put something in place so that this wouldn’t happen again. It is natural in grief to want to blame someone, to want some kind of retribution for this horrible thing that has happened. I support what Christa is doing here but she shouldn’t be feeding into this poor mother’s grief spiral. Cassie’s mom: please seek grief support groups and therapy. I am so sorry this has happened to you and your family but feeding into the compulsion to blame won’t help bring you relief. There are some really wonderful grief support groups for parents who have lost children to addiction, GRAPLE RVA would be a good place to start. <3
I’m sorry, but I have to disagree with you here. First, it was a year into the pandemic. This wasn’t brand new. The fact that JH had no protocols at this point, or that their protocols were to drop someone off at patient first, is ridiculous. Cassie was court ordered into their care! That means something. This all speaks to the fact how these RCOs can do whatever they want and never have any accountability. Cassie’s story shines a light on this in a major way. These places throw people away like trash as soon as having them around no longer suits them. Not to mention, it seemed like both Karl Leonard and April Hutcheson thought JH treating Cassie like this was unacceptable behavior. Lastly, when asked, JH never stated they would do anything different in the future. Come on.
They changed their procedures to require a negative Covid test before admitting anyone from incarceration after this happened.
Cassie’s mother has every right to share her story. Perhaps sharing her story is a step towards healing. I think we should tell Cassie’s mother that she’s brave to do so.
You’re right, she does have every right to share her story. I just hope that this is not her only outlet. This is not a therapeutic environment and y’all are not licensed professionals. This woman needs real resources and help that neither we nor Christa can provide her.
Cassie’s mom has been a member of Grapple from the beginning. Cassie’s mom has been in therapy from the begining. Cassie’s mom does not want to see someone else’s child or family member thrown out in the street. There were other organizations that had “Covid houses” but sending Cassie to one of them would take the almighty dollar away from Mike Tillem. I am a friend of Cassie’s mom. I was a friend of Cassis. Cassies mom is trying to prevent this kind of thing to other families. Greed is the culprit here. This was not the beginning of covid. Tillem most def knew of recovery houses with covid beds but who would give away a “body” that has a mom stroking checks.? Not Mike Tillem! He could have made one phone call and gotten her in a recovery house with Covid beds. Wake up. People! This is about GREED & MONEY. Let’s blame the hysterical mother who is not thinking clearly. Bullshit. How about let’s listen to this strong powerful women who is not going to let this corruption continue. Keep deflecting. We have a big problem here in RVA. Anyone denying this is in lala land.
So is Cassie dead?
yes