Assignment

“Tell Momma Why You Cry”

Dallas Observer

November 17, 1994

The "K" Family

Most of the houses in this quiet, middle-class Richardson neighborhood look alike - wide, one-story, brick homes with small, manicured front lawns. The home of Sam and Kathy Krasniqi has one distinguishing feature: rain or shine, several pairs of men's and women's shoes can be found lined up on the porch next to a mat that says, "Friends Are Always Welcome."

These shoes are just one symbol of the Krasniqi's faith. Muslims, they explain, never wear shoes inside a mosque or in their homes because both are holy places that must be kept scrupulously clean or their prayers will be invalidated. This is also why the Kranniqis does not allow pork to be cooked or eaten in their house.

Immigrants from an Albanian region of what was once Yugoslavia, Kathy and Sam Krasniqi sit barefoot in the back den of their darkened, four-bedroom house. Tears run down their faces as they watch grainy videotapes of their two children, the only tangible connection the couple still has to their 10-year-old daughter, Lima, and 14-year-old son, Tim.

For the past five years, Tim and Lima have lived together in a series of foster care placements around the state, after a jury in a Dallas County family court terminated the Krasniqi's parental rights - the court's equivalent of the death penalty for a family.

This harsh and irreversible punishment came at the end of a strange case that began in 1989 when several witnesses reported seeing Krasniqi fondle his daughter during a karate tournament in a Plano high school gymnasium in which his son was competing.

Several years after the family court ruling, Krasniqi finally had his day in criminal court. Collin County Judge Nathan White acquitted him of the charge of indecency with a child primarily on the strength of testimony from Massachusetts anthropologist Barbara Halpern, one of the country's foremost authorities on the peasant culture of the Balkans.

Halpern explained that Sam Krasniqi's actions were done not with sexual intent, but rather with playful affection in keeping with his culture, which cherishes children and showers them with physical affection. But it was an empty victory for the Krasniqis, whose children, by then, were lost to them forever.

"If I am danger, why am I not punished? Why am I not in prison? But my children are?" a bewildered Sam Krasniqi asks as he wipes tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. The Krasniqis believe their children are indeed prisoners - prisoners of the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services.

The state agency (known as the Department of Human Services (DHS) when the case began) is charged with protecting children's best interests, but the Krasniqis say it unfairly took their children away. Child Protective Services (CPS) placed the terrified Krasniqi children, who had never even been left with a baby-sitter before, in a series of group homes and foster families, none of whom ever gave the slightest consideration to the children's ethnic and religious heritage.

Today, Tim and Lima are being raised by a Christian family. They are being taught to accept Jesus Christ as their savior and eat pork. They are destined to forget they ever had another family, another faith and another language.

The videotapes that Sam and Kathy Krasniqi watch show a mother's valiant attempts to stay connected to her children, to keep them tied to their family of origin, to their culture and to their religion.

The videotapes were taken during visits Kathy was allowed to make with her children every two months in an office, guarded by a police officer, inside the Texas Department of Human Services building on Maple Avenue in Dallas.

State District Court Judge Hal Gaither made the rare decision to allow the visits after the Krasniqi's parental rights were terminated in 1990, ten months after the incident at the karate tournament. The visits began in late fall 1991 and continued through the spring of 1993, when the Krasniqis' appeals of the termination were exhausted.

In the videotaped visits, Kathy brings Tim and Lima the ethnic foods - petla and peta - she used to make them at home. In addition to toys and games and clothes, Kathy also brings pizza from one of the several Brother's Pizza Restaurants the Krasniqi family owned in Dallas - before mounting legal expenses forced them to sell their once-thriving business.

She brings them large stacks of pictures of family members and friends. "Do you look at the pictures, Lima, when you miss mommy?" Kathy asks, Lima nods, and then curls into her lap while Kathy tells her and Tim the stories of the day they were each born.

Each visit ends with Tim and Lima looking into the camera and saying good-bye to their father, who they call "babi," Albanian for daddy. And before Kathy leaves, they beg to know the date of the next visit.

But as the years have stretched on, later tapes record how familial bonds and memories fray. In tapes taken a year and a-half ago, the children strain to remember Albanian - the only language they ever spoke in their home. They forget the names of cousins and even the Albanian first names of their mother and father: Sadri and Sabhete. The tapes also capture the sadness and confusion the children feel being caught between two cultures.

During one visit in the early 1990's, the children show up wearing crosses. They confess to Kathy that their foster parents take them to church three times a week, where they sing and pray to Jesus.

At a following visit, held June 25, 1992, after a psychologist appointed by the court to supervise the visits complains to DHS, the crosses are gone from the children's necks, yet Tim is wearing a T-shirt that proclaims "Jesus is in Control."

As Kathy tries to talk to her children about their Muslim faith, explaining the holy month of Ramadan when Muslims fast every day until sundown, Lima suddenly breaks into sobs. "Don't cry, Lima," Kathy says, stroking her daughter's long silky black hair. "Tell mama why you cry?"

Slowly Lima confesses that in her foster parents' home she has eaten pepperoni, which contains pork. Choking back the tears, she says she's afraid her mother will be angry. "Don't worry," Kathy reassures her. "Do you know how much mama loves you?" Lima nods her head yes. "A lot," she says.

It has been a year and a-half since Kathy last saw her children. The Krasniqis have learned that one of their greatest fears has been realized - their children have been converted to Christianity.

The last shred of the life Lima and Tim once knew, the last link to their parents, has been broken. Last week, the Krasniqis were devastated to learn their children were formally adopted by their Christian foster parents two weeks ago. The news came, not from child welfare authorities, but from an Observer reporter who learned of the adoption while checking facts.

From the very beginning, the Krasniqis pleaded with workers in the child welfare system to be sensitive to their children's Muslim identity. But even though the agency professes to value heritage, little was done in this regard.

When the State first put Tim and Lima in protective custody in March of 1990, they were placed in the Buckner Baptist Children's Home in East Dallas, where they were taken to revival meetings. When Kathy and Krasniqi visited during that time, their children asked them if they had accepted Jesus Chris as their savior. When the Krasniqis complained to the children's caseworker, their attendance at the ongoing revival was "limited somewhat," according to DHS records.

Jan DeLipsey, the psychologist who supervised Kathy Krasniqi's visits with her children, wrote to the court and described her personal distress at the system's disregard for the children's heritage and religion. According to an affidavit she filed with the family court, she asked the children's caseworker - the third they had had in as many years - whether he had investigated placing the children with Kathy Krasniqi's brother in New York, who knew the children and had expressed interest in adopting them.

"I have not, and would never, investigate relative placement in this case, because these people always stay together," was the caseworker's reply.

Marc Richman, a Dallas attorney whose office helped handle the Krasniqi's legal appeal of the parental rights termination verdict, attempted to raise the adoption issue with Winfield Scott, the guardian ad litem appointed by the court to represent the children's interest in legal issues.

"He didn't have the time to discuss it," Richman says. "No one seemed too concerned. If it was a Christian child who was told to forget Jesus, who was told to get on a rug and pray to Mecca, who was taken to a mosque or a synagogue, you better believe someone would be concerned. The walls would be coming down."

In the last few months, as Tim and Lima's adoption by their Christian foster family drew closer, the Krasniqis finally found a sympathetic and deeply concerned audience in the Islamic Association of North Texas, a non-profit religious group that represents the 150,000 Muslims in North Texas.

Several prominent Dallas Muslims were outraged when they heard the Krasniqi's story. They felt the family court's punishment was too harsh, especially on the mother, who was never charged with anything. They particularly were incensed at the state's total disregard of the children's background.

In recent months, Ali Sheik, a Pakistani oilman and one of the mosque members, has discussed his concerns in several meetings with Fred Seale, the Arlington-based regional director of Protective Services for Families and Children, a division of the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services. Sheik says Seale has admitted his department made a mistake and plans to rectify it as best they can. In the future, for example, incoming caseworkers will be taught about the Muslim faith.

In addition, Sheik says that Seale also told him that several caseworkers have researched Islam at the library at Southern Methodist University and plan to make the information available to Tim and Lima, if they want it. Seale told the Observer he could not discuss specific cases. The Islamic Association felt Seale's response falls far short of protecting the children's culture and religion.

In late October, the Krasniqis and several members of the Islamic Association filed a motion on behalf of the Krasniqi children, asking the court to replace the children's guardian ad litem with Khalid Hamideh, a Dallas lawyer who represents the Islamic Association of North Texas and has served many times as a guardian ad litem to children of Muslim faith.

"We hope it is not too late to bring these children back to the religion and culture and heritage of their forefathers," says Hamideh. "The best these parents can hope for is that their children be adopted by a Muslim family who will give them proper teachings, to reverse the damage that has been done, so when they become adults they will want to know about their parents, to be around their parents and their culture and their religion that has been taken aware from them out of ignorance and bias."

Present guardian Winfield Scott would not comment, citing the pending litigation. The hearing on the motion to change the guardian ad litem is set for November 21st. Just two weeks before the scheduled hearing, however, the children were officially adopted by their foster parents.

"It's very clear to me that the adoption proceeded post haste after we filed a motion for a hearing," says Gary Noble, the lawyer presently representing the Krasniqis. "DHR and the guardian ad litem were given notice of the hearing and proceeded with the adoption in an attempt to keep a lid on the facts we were going to bring out in the hearing."

As far as Noble and the Islamic Association known, the hearing will be on as planned. In addition, the Krasniqis are preparing to challenge the adoption and to sue DHS "for negligently and maliciously disenfranchising the children from their religious heritage."

The Krasniqis know all of these legal maneuvers are a desperate attempt to restore to the children what has been taken from the, to provide them a voice which was denied them throughout all the proceedings.

They also know that it is unlikely they will ever get Tim and Lima back, but they hope that somehow they can at least regain contact with their children and perhaps reconnect them with the religion and culture. A heritage lost in what anthropologist Barbara Halpern calls "a tragic cultural miscommunication."

Sadri Krasniqi was born 56 years ago in Yugoslavia, an ethnic mosaic, composed of six republics that were gerrymandered into a country at the negotiating table of Versailles after World War I.

The Krasniqi clan lived in an autonomous Albanian region within the Serbian republic, called Kosovo. Ethnic and religious ties run deep in this part of the world, and so do centuries-old animosities, which roiled into bloody warfare several years ago, catapulting this little known region into front-page news.

But even before ethnic bloodshed focused the world's attention on the region, anthropologists had found it a fascinating area of study, particularly the Krasniqis' Kosovo. Kosovo, more than any other part of the Balkans, clings to a value system with ancient roots, where marriages are arranged, several generations often live under one roof and unwritten medieval codes prevail. The concept of honor and shame are very strong in this subculture. Vendettas and blood feuds are an integral part of this world. In the village, men's and women's lives are lived in separate social spheres and certain taboos prevail. A woman, for instance, would never kiss her husband in front of her father.

Sam Krasniqi lived his childhood in a village near Pec, venturing out only after high school to attend his country's equivalent of a trade school. Good jobs were scarce in Kosovo, a particularly depressed region of Yugoslavia, where industrial development came slowly.

For several years Krasniqi was a bureaucrat in the communist government, investigating worker's compensation claims. He spent the next ten years as a police officer in his village, where his brother served as chief of police. As is common in his native region, Krasniqi had to leave if he could ever hope to support a family.

In 1971, at the age of 30, Krasniqi arrived in Chicago. He worked 18 hours a day at two jobs. He was a punch press operator at Zenith radio and was chief superintendent of a high-rise condominium. After leaving Zenith, he worked for a janitorial firm. In 1979, when he saved enough money to start his own business, he returned to Yugoslavia, where his parents had chosen a bride for him.

All he knew about Sabhete Goga - 15 years his junior - was that she was from a different village in Yugoslavia and that her parents made sure she was from a good family and a good background. As is the custom, Sabhete, or Kathy, was still living at home, though she was in her mid 20's. Her mother had died when she was eight and she looked after her father. Krasniqi and Kathy had only a few months to get to know each other before they married and returned to Chicago.

In 1980, the Krasniqi's first child was born. They named him Urtim and in a concession to their new culture, called him Tim. Shortly after, the Krasniqis moved to Dallas and Krasniqi went into the pizza business. In 1984, Lima was born and as their family grew, so did their prosperity. By the late 1980's, Krasniqi would own as many as five Brother's Pizza restaurants from Mesquite to Arlington, from the West End to a North Dallas location near Valley View Mall - the one at which he and his wife worked.

Friends and business associates of Krasniqi's describe him as a devoted father and a hard-working businessman, at times stubborn and headstrong, but trustworthy. "If all my clients were like him, I wouldn't have any banking problems”, Mito Miteff, a Fort Worth lawyer and banker of Albanian descent testified on Krasniqi's behalf in the 1990 family court trial. Miteff's bank had lent Krasniqi money on several occasions to finance his businesses and he never missed a loan payment, Miteff said.

By the late 1980's, the Krasniqis owned a Mercedes Benz and a four-bedroom house on Keller Springs Road. Even as they plunged into the economic system, the Krasniqis cleaved to their ethnic heritage. They spoke Albanian in their home and with their children and socialized only with other Yugoslavs. Their grasp of the English language was poor, limited to what they needed to run their pizza parlors.

Their lives revolved around the children, which was very much in keeping with their village backgrounds. Kathy remained at home with Tim and Lima until they were ready for kindergarten. "I never knew what this mean - baby-sitter," she says, shaking her head. On Saturdays, when Kathy had to work in the restaurant, she took Tim and Lima with her.

Confronted with a new culture, Krasniqi sought stability in his traditional code of honor. In the mid 1980's, a Garland arson investigator trying to get to the bottom of a series of arson-for-profits in the Dallas/Fort Worth area allegedly done by several Yugoslavs came to Krasniqi. Krasniqi, a cop for a decade in his village, knew several of the men and volunteered all the information he had about the crimes and risked retaliation by testifying for the prosecution in at least one trial.

Krasniqi, according to his lawyer, also provided information to the Federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms about a Yugoslav ring of gun and drug traffickers, who were suspected of running weapons back to Yugoslavia.

In the late 1980's, in a case of mistaken identities, Krasniqi was questioned as a possible suspect in the murder of a Chicago police officer. Krasniqi convinced the authorities he was not their man. Then, with the assistance of his police chief brother back in Kosovo, Krasniqi helped the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) find the more likely suspect - a man with the same last name and first initial as Sam Krasniqi, according to Krasniqi's former lawyer, Marc Richman, who spoke to agents about the case. (Citing its policy of confidentiality, the FBI would not discuss the case with the Observer.)

On Saturday morning, August 12, 1989, Tim Krasniqi begged his father to attend his karate tournament. In the two years that the 9-year-old had been taking karate lessons, his father never had seen him compete. Tournaments were always held on Saturday, Krasniqi's busiest work day. This time, Krasniqi gave in to his son’s request. Lima, 4 ½ years old, changed into her prettiest dress - a red sailor dress - and put on plastic dress-up shoes. In Kosovo, when children are taken out in public, they are always dressed in their best. Krasniqi packed up his video camera and headed off with his son and daughter to Shepton High School in Plano.

The tournament started at 11:00 a.m. and Krasniqi and Lima sat in the front row, to be as close as possible to Tim when he competed. Sitting one row above them, a few feet to the right, was Mary Lou Taylor, a mother from Coppell, who was in the stands that day to watch her two children and husband compete in the tournament. Shortly after the tournament began, Taylor's attention was drawn to the spectator in front of her. She watched as a 50-year-old man with thinning gray hair repeatedly rubbed the underwear-clad buttocks and bare legs of a little girl who was laid out across his lap. He also slipped his hand under the girl's panties and caressed and squeezed her buttocks. "He lifted her to face him and rubbed her front chest under her little dress. He then put his hand inside her panties from the leg opening and squeezed her vagina," Taylor wrote in a statement she gave police. Taylor called 911. A police dispatcher in training was sent to meet the woman, because she was in plain clothes. The dispatcher watched Krasniqi and Lima from across the gym and, according to her testimony, saw Krasniqi put his hands on Lima's underwear. The dispatcher informed an undercover police officer who had arrived what she had seen and he sat behind Krasniqi and corroborated the dispatcher's story. Two uniformed police officers placed Krasniqi under arrest and took him, Lima and Tim to the Plano police department, where the children were put in the protective custody of the Department of Human Services.

The authorities had the rarest commodity of all in child molestation cases - witnesses. From the outset of this case, it seemed police and welfare workers suspected the worst.

Mike Johnson, the Plano police officer assigned to the case, would confide in state caseworkers that he thought Krasniqi might be into pornography. His reasons: Krasniqi had a video camera with him (the tape, it turned out, was of a Yugoslav birthday celebration at the pizza parlor) and that Krasniqi grinned when he was arrested. Detective Johnson said “the man seemed to get a charge out of everyone seeing him molest the child and then see him get arrested," according to the notes of a Child Protective Services caseworker.

A Collin County child welfare worker named Lisa Black videotaped an interview with Lima and Tim. Sitting in a police department office, hugging a stuffed animal, Lima tells Black in the tape that her father has touched her on her "rushka (an Albanian pet name for genitalia), but never under her clothes.

The tape of Tim's interview could not be located, but according to Black's notes, Tim had seen his father touch his sister on her private parts on several occasions. He stated his father tickles Lima on her private parts and she likes it. When questioned further, Tim revealed his father also touches him on his private parts at his house. Tim stated he doesn't mind his father doing this.

Charged with sexual abuse of a child, Krasniqi's bond was set at $25,000. Krasniqi remained in jail over the weekend, while Kathy tried to make sense of what had happened. "If you live in Albania 1,000 years, you'd never hear such a thing, someone having sex with a child," says Kathy in a recent interview. "If I ever caught my husband doing such a thing with his fingers, putting them inside our daughter, he wouldn't have those fingers anymore."

On Monday afternoon, while Krasniqi remained in jail, two caseworkers from Dallas County Child Protective Services arrived unannounced at the Krasniqis' home. According to her case notes, Meredith Wunderlich, the primary person assigned to the case, was struck by several things upon entering Kathy's home - how immaculate it was and that Tim was in his underwear at 4:30 in the afternoon and how Tim and Lima shared a bedroom, despite the house having four bedrooms. If she asked, Wunderlich - three years out of college with her B.A. in social work and no children of her own - would have learned that there are religious reasons for keeping a Muslim home so clean. Also, that Tim was about to change into his karate uniform and that Tim and Lima shared a bedroom, because, until very recently, their two cousins and uncle had lived with them.

Wunderlich, who did not return calls to the Observer, had to explain to Kathy what molestation meant. "If you mean something sexual like with me and my husband, you are wrong," Kathy responded. "It is not a sexual thing and there is no harm to my children," Kathy told Wunderlich. Kathy also apparently had no idea what the Department of Human Services was nor how they worked.

Wunderlich took Lima into her bedroom to interview her. "Tears welled up in her eyes because she was obviously nervous about what was about to be said," according to Wunderlich's notes. Lima did not want to talk about events at the karate tournament, although Wunderlich tried to prod her by reminding her "that was the day your father was arrested for doing some bad things to you." Lima did tell Wunderlich that her father had touched her in her home on her breasts and vagina, which she pointed to with her finger. Asked whether she had seen her father touch her brother on his private parts, Lima said one time.

The caseworker took Tim into the back den to question him. According to the caseworker's affidavit, Tim told her his father had rubbed his private parts over his underwear on at least one occasion.

"I tried over and over to explain to Kathy that there was no question in my mind that her children had been sexually abused," Wunderlich wrote. Over the phone, Wunderlich and her supervisor decided the children should be placed in a foster care setting - some place where they would be well cared for, looked after and believed," Wunderlich noted. "I told her it would not necessarily be a permanent placement."

"One hour away from my children would be too long," Kathy interjected. Fumbling for her keys and purse, Kathy demanded her children come with her. The children were crying and the caseworkers went over to them. Tim yelled out, "I didn't know, I didn't know it was wrong!" Kathy begged the caseworkers to leave. Then, holding onto her children, Kathy dashed out the back door to the garage and sped away. Kathy and the children returned an hour later to find the police at their home. Unfamiliar with Child Protective Service procedures, the police told the caseworkers they had to leave.

"I told Kathy that this was not the end of my involvement and she would be seeing me again," Wunderlich wrote in her notes.

The following day, a Tuesday, Sam Krasniqi, whose lawyer had cautioned him against talking to police, agreed to talk with Wunderlich, who told Krasniqi she wanted to help his family. According to Wunderlich's case notes, he admitted touching Lima and Tim, that it was acceptable in his country and it was just a big misunderstanding. "He denied it was sexual at all and said that I could kill him if he was lying and if it was sexually gratifying to him."

Krasniqi has since insisted that Wunderlich misconstrued what he was telling her. At the karate tournament, Krasniqi insists he was just playing a game with his daughter - touching the parts of her body and asking her to say their names.

"I tell Wunderlich, how can you love your children and not touch them?" Krasniqi explains, sitting in his home, surrounded by pictures of his children when they were younger. Nowhere in Wunderlich's case notes does it indicate that anyone in her department tried to research the Krasniqi's culture. If they had they might have learned what Barbara Halpern, the anthropologist from Massachusetts, testified to in Krasniqi's criminal trial. The Krasniqis come from "very physically demonstrative culture. Children are universally adored. Until they attain school age and venture beyond the household gates, they are the constant subjects of hugs, caresses and overt displays of affection."

Alarmed by her interview with Krasniqi, Wunderlich was even more determined to remove the children from their home. She got a court order and, after talking with her attorney, Kathy surrendered them to DHS.

The children spent ten days in the home of foster parents - a terrifying experience. The children would later tell their parents and the caseworker that the foster mother brandished a knife and yelled at Tim because he got out of bed to get a glass of water.

On August 23, the Krasniqi family had a hearing in the Dallas County Courthouse as required by law. Wunderlich was represented by her supervisor, Carol Duncan, who recommended that the children be returned to their mother, because the children had been so emotionally stressed by the foster care placement. The court ordered the family into DHS-sponsored group treatment. Sam Krasniqi was barred temporarily from any contact with the children.

Throughout the fall, the Krasniqis diligently abided by the court order. Krasniqi rented an apartment and attended a sexual offender's group treatment program run by Chester Grounds, a staff psychologist with DHS. Grounds said in court that Krasniqi originally admitted in group that he had sexually abused his children, including putting his finger in his daughter's vagina, but that Krasniqi later recanted. "The justification he gave for changing his answer was he did not understand our language and the questions we were asking or the way in which we were asking the questions," Grounds told the court. "Chester Grounds made me crazy," Krasniqi says. "He says plead guilty and I will get two years probation."

"I say, 'You mean say yes to a lie, say yes to something I never hear in my life - sexually abuse children? So I say (to Chester Grounds), I'm guilty for you and no one else. Then on the stand, he says I confessed.'"

From the outset of the case, Wunderlich thought Krasniqi's chances of being rehabilitated were slim. "In my opinion, it is not likely that we will be able to reunite Sadri with his family," Wunderlich wrote in late August. "The abuse is too interwoven into his relationship with his children. I believe it will be a long time, if ever, before he can successfully learn to relate in a non-sexual way with his children."

Throughout the Fall, Kathy attended a women's group on Tuesday nights (for mothers of abused children) and Tim and Lima attended a group for sexually abused children. Kathy told the group that touching children's genitals is all right in her country, but that she realized it was not all right in this country, according to the caseworker's notes.

In the children's groups, both Tim and Lima said little. Tim told Wunderlich he didn't like talking about everyone's problems. "I tried to explain to him why this was so important, but he said his life wasn't as bad as theirs (the other children)," according to Wunderlich's notes. Both children told the group that they missed their father terribly.

After the Tuesday night groups, the children asked Wunderlich if they could call their father. "They are always excited about updating their father on everything that's going on with them," wrote Wunderlich, who monitored phone calls. "Their spirits seem much higher during conversations with their dad then at other times."

During the fall, the children also underwent physical examinations at Children's Medical center Reach Clinic, run by Dr. Paul Prescott, the leading local expert in examining children for sexual abuse. "I am somewhat concerned that the children have not told us the full extent of their sexual abuse," Wunderlich wrote in her case notes. "I had hoped that this exam might shed some light on this."

Tim was examined first. Prescott tried to comfort the child, who was crying. Prescott asked Tim about his abuse and Tim replied, "No one has hurt me," but said that his father had touched his private parts. Prescott found no physical evidence that Tim was sexually abused. Nor did he find any physical evidence of abuse during his examination of Lima, who met the doctor with ease.

As ordered by the court, the Krasniqi family had individual psychological evaluations with an independent therapist named Jan DeLipsey, who worked on a contract basis with DHS. DeLipsey reported that neither parent would benefit from group therapy because their poor English would prevent them from understanding much of the interaction. DeLipsey strongly recommended individual counseling.

In addition, she suggested that Kathy, whom she found to be emotionally, socially and financially dependent on her husband, also participate with her children in family therapy. DeLipsey cautioned that "those who participate in any legal proceedings involving Mrs. Krasniqi should take care to explain proceedings and have her repeat the explanation back in her own words to assure her understanding."

DeLipsey's words of caution would prove to be prophetic in coming months, but they were ignored by DHS. So were her recommendations that the family members would be best served in individual and family counseling. However, on the strength of DeLipsey's evaluations, Wunderlich approved visitations between Sam Krasniqi and his children to be supervised by herself. The first supervised visitation between Krasniqi and his children was scheduled for January 3, 1990, five and a-half months after his arrest.

Wunderlich arrived at the Krasniqi home on Keller Springs Road at 3:30 p.m. to find the house burned to the ground, the charred remains still smoldering. Kathy Krasniqi was standing in the middle of the street, disoriented. "There's not even a spoon left," she kept saying. She also lost the only picture she had of her deceased mother. The children walked over to Wunderlich, accompanied by their father. He held both children in his arms and wept. The caseworker then went to talk to the firemen, one of whom informed her the fire was arson caused by a bomb and timing device.

The Krasniqis and Wunderlich decided to go the family's restaurant so the family could get something to eat and Kathy could figure out where she and her children could stay. On the way to the car, Krasniqi picked Lima up and twirled her around. "They looked like they were having the best time," Wunderlich wrote, thinking of the fire. "It looked and felt out of place."

After three hours at the pizza parlor, the caseworker had to leave. After phoning her supervisor, she told Kathy that she and the children could remain there a little longer, but that Krasniqi was not to be alone with the children. She also gave her permission for Kathy and the children to go to the restaurant the next day to eat, Kathy says.

Kathy and the children moved into Krasniqi's apartment on Keller Springs and for a few nights, he slept in the restaurant, before leasing another apartment near his restaurant on Montfort.

Through the months of January and February, everyone continued to attend their group therapy sessions. By now, the arson investigator had made Krasniqi the primary suspect and told Wunderlich that Kathy might also be involved. The investigator said the motive was either murder or money, according to Wunderlich's notes.

Krasniqi was tried for arson a year later and acquitted. He steadfastly maintains his innocence, but won't speculate on who might have done it. Having been a police informant and a boss who has fired employees, Krasniqi will only say he has made his share of enemies.

On Saturday, February 17, Carol Kendall, a woman from Kathy's DHS therapy group, went to the Krasniqis' restaurant with her three children. Knowing that Krasniqi was not allowed to see the children without supervision, Kendall was surprised to find Kathy and the kids with Sam Krasniqi.

Kendall reported to her DHS group leader what she had seen. "I noticed her husband could not keep his hands off Lima," according to Kendall's affidavit. "He was constantly touching, kissing, hugging or stroking her." After Wunderlich met with Kendall, she drove over to Brentfield Elementary School in Richardson to question Lima and Tim. Reluctantly, the children admitted they had seen their father without DHS supervision at least once since the fire. "But my mother said we could see our father as long as she was there," Tim yelled out. "My father didn't hurt me," Lima shouted.

Wunderlich and her supervisor made the decision to remove the children from their home and place them in an emergency care, under the Texas Family Code. Wunderlich put the children in her car. As they drove past the school, the children saw their mother, who was unaware of what was happening, as she waited in her car for them to come out of school, as she did every day. The caseworker told the children not to look toward their mother as they drove past. The children obeyed.

As required by law, a hearing was held for the emergency removal of the children a few days later to determine whether the children had been in immediate danger. The hearing was held in the courtroom of Judge Hal Gaither.

Carol Kendall testified about what she witnessed in the pizza parlor the previous Saturday afternoon. Wunderlich told the judge that she was frightened of Kathy, because she threatened to kill her the first time she went to her home to remove her children. (There is no mention of this threat in Wunderlich's notes, though she testified that there was).

In addition to testifying that Kathy was still uncertain about whether she believed her children had been abused, Wunderlich told Gaither that the parents were suspected in burning their own home. She also said she thought Kathy would disappear with her children if the court returned them to her.

When Kathy took the stand, assistant district attorney David Cole aggressively questioned her about disobeying the court order that prevented Sam Krasniqi from seeing the children unsupervised. In broken English, Kathy did the best she could to explain to the court that she thought it was all right to bring the children to the pizza parlor as long as she was with them. She explained that when Krasniqi was granted supervised visits, Wunderlich had allowed her to be in the restaurant with her children and Krasniqi unsupervised on two occasions - the day her house burned down and the next day, when she and her children went there to eat.

Then Winfield Scott, the children's guardian ad litem, grilled Kathy Krasniqi. Scott, a former prosecutor with the Dallas County District Attorney's Office, had been appointed to the case in August, but in the ensuing seven months had never met with the Krasniqis. Also, from documents Scott filed with the court, there is no indication he had ever met the children until the trial.

Scott peppered Kathy with questions, mostly about whether her husband kept a gun in the house and the circumstances surrounding the house fire. When Gaither asked him the relevancy of these questions, Scott replied: "I just consider it another indicator of the propensity toward violence, if these people don't get their way to live in a manner that they want to live."

When it was over, Gaither took Lima and Tim to his chambers to interview them. Gaither asked the children whether their father had ever touched their private parts. Lima said yes, but never underneath her clothes. Tim said he didn't remember ever being touched by his father, except when he was a baby. When pressed, Tim said he didn't actually remember being touched by his father when he was a baby, but he must have, because his father touched his sister's private parts when she was a "little, tiny baby."

"And nothing has happened in the last six or seven years. Is that what you're saying? And that's the truth?" Gaither asked. "Yes, sir," Tim answered. Gaither quickly made a decision about the children's fate. In all good conscience, he said, he couldn't let the children move back in with their mother. He set the date for the termination of parental rights trial for April 9, 1990, a little more than month away.

For the next 30 days, Tim and Lima remained in the Fort Worth Assessment Center, where once again they were required to undergo physical exams. This time, Tim was so frightened, he got ill during his exam. Dr. Molly Hansen, a pediatrician, found no injury of a sexual nature. But in contract to Dr. Prescott's findings five months earlier, Hansen claimed she found physical evidence that Lima had been sexually abused, including scarring in her vagina and rectum and a hymen that was only partially intact.

The Krasniqis' parental rights termination trial lasted three days. Originally the trial was going to be scheduled after Krasniqi's criminal trial, but with the emergency removal of the children, the Krasniqis pushed for a speedy resolution, so they could be reunited as a family.

Though the civil and criminal cases theoretically have no bearing on one another, a finding of innocence in the criminal trial could be a mitigating factor in the family court case. But a vindication in criminal court later can't reverse a family court ruling.

Proceedings with the civil case first was one of several tactical missteps committed in the Krasniqi case. Perhaps the biggest mistake Krasniqi and Kathy say they made was hiring Robert Hedrick, an attorney recommended by their banker. They now think they would have been better served by a specialist in family legal matters. The Krasniqis say they erred again in asking Hedrick to represent both of them because they couldn't afford to hire two attorneys. If Kathy had her own attorney, she might have been able to make a stronger case for the court to at least preserve her parental rights.

Dr. Hansen testified first and her damning testimony about allegedly finding vaginal scarring went unchallenged. The Krasniqi's attorney did not call Dr. Paul Prescott to present his findings, which were radically different than Hansen's. (In open court a few months later, during a hearing for a new trial in his case, Judge Gaither even referred to Prescott as the preeminent local physician in the area of sexual abuse.)

The Krasniqi's attorney managed to get the court to order that Lima undergo another exam by Prescott. When Prescott couldn't be located, another doctor from Children's Medical Center conducted the procedure. According to her report, she found no evidence of scarring and she couldn't be certain whether Lima's hymeneal opening was larger than normal; her measurements were smaller than Hansen's. But this doctor did not testify in court. Instead, she just submitted an affidavit, which the jury may or may not have read.

Both Sam and Kathy Krasniqi took the stand, at first with an interpreter who had difficulty understanding Albanian. A better interpreter was found and they took the stand again. Krasniqi denied touching his daughter's private parts at the tournament in any more than a playful way and further denied inserting his finger inside her. "If I touched like they say, I would not be here now. I would shoot myself or I would go on electric chair. I tell this to everyone from the time that this whole thing started."

On the stand, Krasniqi did admit that he realizes Americans might view the way he touched his daughter as inappropriate. "I understand now," he said. Several family friends and customers of the Krasniqis testified on their behalf about their devotion to their children. No one, including Elijah Zabic, a family friend who had lived with the Krasniqis for several months, had ever seen evidence of his sexually abusing either Tim or Lima.

Asked if he thought the children would be endangered if returned to their parents, Zabic said, "No, sir. They are endangered now. They destroy them now. That's the destroying part right now."

Perhaps the most damaging testimony came from the caseworker Meredith Wunderlich, who told the jury that if the children were returned to their parents, DHS would be out of the case, and that the children would likely be abused again. The jury was led to believe that there were only two options in this case - terminate parental rights or restore the children to the parents unsupervised. But those are not the only options, according to the law.

"In a termination trial, if the court does not order termination of the parent-child relationship, it shall (1) dismiss the petition; or (2) enter any order considered to be in the best interest of the child," according to Chapter 15.05 of the Texas Family Code.

In other words, says Craig Jett, a lawyer who represented Sam Krasniqi in his subsequent criminal trial, "The judge had other options, if he chose to look at them. The children could have stayed in foster care while the parents got more counseling. They could have been put with family members." But the jury decided there was "clear and convincing evidence" - the burden of proof in these cases - to terminate both Krasniqis' parental rights.

To many observers in this case, from lawyers to mental health workers, what happened to the Krasniqis was like being given lethal injection in a petty theft case. "I've personally worked with far worse sex offenders - cases where a father had sexual intercourse with his daughter for a period of time - and their rights were not terminated," says Franklin Lewis, a North Dallas psychologists who specializes in the treatment of sexual offenders.

Lewis treated Krasniqi for two years after the parental termination trial and does not consider him a sexual offender. "He engaged in some sexually inappropriate behaviors, which he explained were acceptable in his culture," Lewis says. "He's always denied he engaged in those behaviors for his own sexual gratification. I tried to get him to understand that his actions were not acceptable in our culture."

The termination decision "stunned the hell out of me," says Lewis. "I personally think there is a lot of injustice here." Parental termination cases are serious, and fairly infrequent, occurrences. Last year in Dallas County, for instance, CPS handled approximately 4,000 cases of confirmed child abuse, neglect, and abandonment. In only 136 cases for that year was there a parental termination judgment. But parents rarely win these cases, says Judge Gaither. "The only time I have seen one of these cases won (by parents)," Gaither told the Observer, "is when a parent says, 'yes, I did it, but I've changed and here's how and it can't happen again.' That's the only successful defense."

Krasniqi now believes if he had pleaded guilty to touching Lima and sexual intent, he could have eventually gotten his children back. With bitterness edging his voice, Krasniqi says, "In this country you have to lie to win."

The Krasniqis appealed the termination ruling all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear their case. The termination ruling was upheld at both the state and federal appeals level, a fact the prosecution, Judge Gaither, and DHS officials like to point out. But the courts never considered the Krasniqis' appeal on the merits of the case, because one of the attorneys handling the appeal missed a crucial filing deadline in the appeal. The higher courts never received the statement of facts - the court reporter's transcript of the trial - which was due 120 days with a 15-day extension allowed - after the initial decision was rendered.

Krasniqi's attorney, Craig Jett, and the office of Marc Richman, which represented Kathy in the appeal, fought to no avail to get the appeal heard on its merits. Richman even spent $20,000 of his own money trying, unsuccessfully, to get the state appeals court to change its rules governing deadlines in civil cases. "We said to the court, 'punish us, don't punish our clients,'" says Richman.

Krasniqi would have better luck with his criminal trial, held in February 1992, almost two years after the termination hearing. But the vindication came too late. In preparing for the case, Craig Jett heard about Massachusetts anthropologist Barbara Halpern from DHS psychologist Chester Grounds, who told him DHS had contacted her early on in the Krasniqi case, but they never drew on her expertise in Balkan peasant cultures.

When Krasniqi heard about Barbara Halpern, he immediately flew to Boston. Upon his arrival, he phoned Halpern in Amherst and requested a face-to-face meeting - all characteristically Albanian, Halpern would later remark.

Halpern knew a little bit about the Krasniqi case. She had indeed been contacted several years earlier by a supervisor in the Dallas County Department of Human Services, who asked Halpern for her assistance. Halpern asked for more information, but when it arrived, Halpern decided not to help DHS. "It seemed to me all they were interested in was getting a conviction," she says. Now in her early 60's, Halpern and her husband spent time in the Balkans, particularly in village communities, with their three children on and off for the past 40 years. Fluent in 10 languages, Halpern has written or co-written four books on the cultures of the former Yugoslavia. She also has advanced training in child sexual abuse.

Halpern detests testifying as an expert witness, calling it "a bitter game where the object is destroy your credibility." But after her meeting with Sam Krasniqi, which was conducted in Serbian, Halpern says, "I felt a moral commitment to try to do some good, to she what light I could."

In court, Halpern painted a detailed picture of the culture of Krasniqi's native land. She described it as a very dignified culture, with a strong moral code, where perhaps the biggest sin was to dishonor one's family.

In Albania, and by extension the Albanian enclave of Kosovo in Southern Serbia, the people are physically very demonstrative, much more so than in the United States and other parts of Europe. Men kiss and hug each other passionately when they greet; soldiers walk down the street hand in hand; and parents kiss, hug and caress their children as if they were pets.

"I raised three children in villages very much like the village Mr. Krasniqi comes from," Halpern told the jury. "So what I'm about to tell you is the way my own family lived there, too, some of which seemed a little strange to me when we first started living there. Normally, absolutely normally, children and parents often sleep together ... bathing is often together ... ," Halpern continued. " ... Privacy in the sense I understand you to mean it simply doesn't exist ... Children are adored ... smother with kisses and loved and hugged and caressed, fondled, whatever you want to call that, and being an American, that was hard for me to accept at first. Children are kissed full on the lips. Children are kissed on their buttocks. Genitals and buttocks have pet names. We do in our culture, too, sometimes, and children are kissed there ... The children's genitals were a great source of interest and pride, especially because they represent the ongoingness of the family, the ability to procreate."

This touching of children in Yugoslav peasant villages of South Serbia is done with pride and affection, not sexual intent, Halpern stressed. And it stops at a certain point, at about age seven, when the children leave the home and begin school.

Halpern left the jury with a final point. She knew of not one single case of child sexual abuse in Kosovo. "Child abuse does not occur in this particular culture," she said. "I think it's because touching and overt demonstrative behavior is the norm."

If true sexual abuse was uncovered in this culture, Halpern testified, it would be considered so dishonorable that the family would kill the offender, or he would kill himself.

Halpern's testimony was the turning point in an emotionally charged, six-day trial. Krasniqi had been indicted on four counts of child sexual abuse - two counts of aggravated abuse. Because none of the witnesses' testimony could substantiate the charges of aggravated assault, the judge acquitted Krasniqi of these charges in the middle of the trial. On the single charge left - indecency with a child - the jury was hung seven to five in favor of acquittal.

The case was retried almost two years later. This time both sides agreed to forgo a jury. Collin County Judge Nathan White found Sam Krasniqi not guilty in February of 1994. "I can't say what Mr. Krasniqi did was right," Judge White told the Observer. "But I didn't believe beyond a reasonable doubt he did it for sexual gratification ... I'm not a multicultural type of guy, but the expert from Massachusetts convinced me that the behavior, while not an acceptable demonstration of affection in this country, was at least explainable."

Calling the acquittal a hollow victory, White says, "I find it very surprising, very distressing that the Krasniqis' parental rights were terminated before the criminal case came to trial."

Tim and Lima Krasniqi never knew that the criminal court found their father innocent of sexual abuse. That ruling came in February of 1994. Kathy's visitations with her children stopped a year earlier in April of 1993.

It is unusual that Kathy was allowed to see her children at all after the court terminated her parental rights. But Judge Gaither ruled it would be in the children's best interest for their mother to visit until the appeals were exhausted and a permanent place could be found for Tim and Lima.

Despite Gaither's ruling, DHS was obviously unhappy about the continued visitations. The agency refused to honor the court order for six months. Tim thought his mother hadn't visited him for half a-year because she was busy working. DHS consistently brought the children 20 minutes to 40 minutes late to these two-hour visits, which the agency insisted on having three staffers monitor - in addition to the court-appointed supervisor, Jan DeLipsey.

During these visits, Tim often cried, fearful he would never see his mother again. DeLipsey once tried to console the child by explaining how the system worked, but DHS workers told her, in front of the children, that she could not do so.

Only a court hearing improved cooperation from DHS, but other problems remained. In a July 1991 affidavit, psychologist DeLipsey expressed anger about the way DHS was disregarding the Krasniqi children's culture and religious heritage.

" ... continued foster placements that do not respect their different culture upbringing and values are proving to be harmful to them," DeLipsey wrote. "The religious heritage of these children is Muslim, but no action has been taken to continue learning about this religious tradition. No placement has been obtained which shares similar cultural, language, religious and family traditions."

The affidavit was presented to the court, to the guardian ad litem, Winfield Scott, and to DHS. Nothing was done.

Fred Seale, regional director of DHS, says he can't discuss the specifics of the case, citing confidentiality reasons. But he says a new state law prevents his department from discriminating against a foster family on the basis of race or religion. But he does admit, "to minimize trauma, it is always better to match children racially, culturally and with the same religion."

By April of 1993, it all became a moot point. The Krasniqis had gotten no relief from the appeals process. As far as the courts were concerned, they no longer had children.

Kathy was permitted a final good-bye visit in June with her children - something DHS encourages to help children work through their grief. (The children were never allowed one with their father). Kathy couldn't bring herself to go. "I think part of it was denial," says DeLipsey, "and part she would be so upset she was afraid it would hurt the children."

DeLipsey asked DHS if she could attend that visit with the children. Her request was denied. Sam and Kathy have refused to give up. A year and a-half ago, they turned to a local support group called Victims of Child Abuse Laws (or VOCAL) for assistance. With the help of VOCAL president John Cloud, they appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The court actually considered the case again, but decided against ordering a lower court to hear the case on its merits.

But VOCAL's efforts stopped the clock on the adoption of the children, and bought the Krasniqis some time. VOCAL also put the Krasniqis in touch with attorney Gary Noble, who has defended numerous men charged with sexual abuse.

"This country did wrong by this family," says Noble, who calls himself the patron saint of hopeless cases. "The kids were ripped out of their home, out of their heritage. That trauma is real. It's amazing Sam and Kathy still have a shot. They have reason and decency, but not the law, on their side."

Two thousand miles away, Barbara Halpern wants to know what more she can do to help. "I feel strongly that justice has not been served," she says. "Their lives have been truncated by this terrible confusion. It is a miracle to me they have any gumption left for living."

How much they have left is uncertain.

After learning that her children have been adopted, Kathy says, sobbing, "It's over now. I know what kind of mother I was. My life is over. What do I have to live for?"

Krasniqi then takes a visitor to his bedroom closet. He picks up a handgun and a small plastic bag filled with bullets. "If I don't have my children," he says, "life is not worth living."