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Couple Says Religious Beliefs Led To Harassment
Toby Coleman, Daily Mail Staff
Thursday July 29, 2004
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Charleston, West Virginia - A Clay County couple say the state
harassed them and put their children in foster care for about six months
because they are Wiccans.
Sarah Albright and Nathan Malick III of Widen said in a lawsuit filed last
week that workers for the state Department of Health and Human Resources
urged them to move, forced them to quit their jobs and accused them of
plotting to kill their four children in a satanic ritual.
Their suit in Kanawha Circuit Court demands unspecified damages from the
Department of Health and Human Resources, agency employee Nancy Holcomb and
the foster care agency Braley & Thompson. It also asks the court to enjoin
the department from taking Albright's and Malick's four children again.
A department spokesman declined to comment on the case.
Albright and Malick say their problems with the agency began after they
moved to Nicholas County from Baltimore in 1999.
They say they faced discrimination because, as Wiccans, they worship the
Earth instead of Jesus Christ. Their suit claims that people in the county
falsely accused them of practicing witchcraft and Satanism.
By 2001, a department social worker in Nicholas County gave them $300 and
urged them to leave the county, according to their suit.
They took the money and moved to Clay County, where they say a social worker
threatened to take their kids if they didn't get jobs closer to home.
They say they complied, but then had to fend off a false accusation that
they killed their now 2-year-old child Kenny in a satanic ritual. The agency
dropped the complaint after Albright and Malick showed a social worker and a
State Police trooper the child.
A short time later, Albright and Malick say the agency accused them of
plotting to kill all four of their children. The DHHR took them to court
over the claims and put their children in foster care for six months.
Although they eventually won their children back, Albright and Malick say
their entire family was scarred by their experience with the agency. The
family "suffered great depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress
disorder as a result of the unwarranted, unjustified and malicious removal
of the children from their home and family."
Contact writer Toby Coleman at 348-4886.
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