It's hard to say what's more sad: that Jerice Hunter, the Arizona mom whose 5-year-old daughter Jhessye Shockley has been missing for more than a month, has been arrested this week or the fact that it may not change anything for her child. Police in Glendale say Hunter's arrest is the next step in their work to "diligently locate" little Jhessye.
But let's be realistic here. An arrest on child abuse charges is a far cry from pinpointing little Jhessye's location. Police can put all the pressure they want on a suspect, but that person retains the right not to incriminate themselves under our Constitution. And what are the chances this mama's going to talk?
Hunter has more or less been at the center of the investigation into her child's disappearance almost from the get-go. Her older three kids were removed almost immediately after Jhessye was reported missing, her newborn baby taken from her immediately after birth. She's had plenty of pressure. And yet, she hasn't given police anything substantive to aid their search.
In fact, Hunter, who has a chilling background of abusing her own kids, which kept her in prison in California for three years of Jhessye's life, has refused to take a polygraph test and police say she's been uncooperative. She's spent much of her time criticizing the media for racist reporting and the police department for mishandling her daughter's case.
As a mother, it's that last part that bothers me perhaps most of all. Those cops she's bashing are the people who have her child's life in their hands. If -- heaven forbid -- I were in such an awful situation, I daresay I'd be doing back-flips to make their jobs easier. It would be "yes sir, no sir, how can I help you sir" as I did everything in my power to make sure they're putting 100 percent of their efforts on finding my baby. Hunter's attacks on the very people who are working to find her kid reek of a mom with a guilty conscience trying to make herself feel better.
Now she's going to be even angrier with those cops. Plus she's going to have a lawyer by her side telling her not to say anything, lest she possibly incriminate herself. It's not exactly going to be a copacetic relationship between the arrested mom and the cops. Which means Jhessye may very well get lost ... once again ... in the shuffle.
If she couldn't help the investigation when she was on the outside, do you really think Jerice Hunter is going to lead cops to little Jhessye from inside a cell?