Thursday, July 6, 2000
Coateses’ custody battle
ends with judge’s ruling
By Jerry Daniel Reed
Reporter-News Staff Writer
A former Abilene resident was granted sole
custody of her five minor children Wednesday, ending legal wrangling
that was marked by the family’s disappearance for 3 1/2 years.
Joy Coates and her children’s paternal
grandparents, Ed and Jane Coates of Abilene, agreed to the judgment
entered by District Judge Linda Motheral in Harris County. The
order specifies that the grandparents may visit the children “at
any and all times mutually agreed to in advance by the parties.’’
Joy Coates said that means “They don’t
visit unless I agree.’’
The five minor Coates children are Melissa,
17; Isaac, 11; Briana, 9; Gretta, 7; and Amy, who will be 6 Tuesday.
Joy Coates is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
Grady Jolly of Abilene.
Neal Coates, son of Ed and Jane Coates,
said his parents agreed “to wait at least three months and
then talk’’ about visitation.
“I’m not even looking that far
ahead,’’ said Joy Coates. After seven difficult months,
she said, “we’re just enjoying some peace for right
now.’
“I’m just grateful to God,’’
she said, crediting the “prayers of the saints’’
from all over the country for helping reunite her family.
A landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme
Court that sharply narrowed the scope of grandparents’ rights
to see their grandchildren last month was also crucial, said Tim
Telge of Houston, a lawyer for Joy Coates.
The decision in Troxel vs. Granville accords
fit parents wide latitude in determining who may visit their children.
The dispute between the children’s
mother and paternal grandparents hit the courts in 1996 when the
Coateses filed suit for specified visitation rights to their grandchildren.
Dr. Nathan Coates, their oldest son and Joy Coates’ husband,
had died that March of a rare bone cancer.
The views of Joy Coates and her parents-in-law
clashed on many points, including religion and choices for the
children’s education.
After Joy Coates and her six minor children
— the oldest, Shanna, is now a legal adult at age 19 —
disappeared from their Houston home, the grandparents amended
their petition to seek custody, which they were granted in a default
judgment in late 1996.
The next year, Joy Coates was indicted on
six charges of interference with child custody. She and her six
children were removed from a Mennonite mission in a mountainous
area of Guatemala by heavily armed national police last November
and were returned to the United States.
Joy Coates was jailed on $3 million bond,
an amount reduced to $30,000 in January. Mennonite supporters
from around the country raised the bail, and she was freed the
same day.
In February, after the criminal charges
were dismissed, her attorneys moved swiftly to modify the court
order giving her in-laws custody of her children.
At a Feb. 18 hearing, a Child Protective
Services caseworker testified she was certain the grandparents
had been responsible for a phony tip that Joy Coates had made
a death pact to kill herself and all her children so they could
join the soul of Nathan Coates. The grandparents denied making
the call.
At a hearing on April 11, Ellen Yarrell,
a court-appointed attorney for the minor children, said she had
interviewed each child and was moved by how close they were to
their mother, and by their desire to be with her. Joy Coates was
then granted temporary custody, and the two sides began talks
about permanent custody.
In a written statement, Ed and Jane Coates
referred to their actions as an “arduous task of locating
and returning six grandchildren and their mother to their natural
extended family.’’
During the four months the five minor children
stayed in their Abilene home, the grandparents said, they visited
with both sets of grandparents and eight cousins and took part
in a variety of activities such as horseback riding, music and
swimming lessons, Bible Bowl and birthday parties.
“Joy has begun the task of creating
her home in Katy. We are pleased to have helped the children be
reunited with her on April 19, and pray for the success of the
family,’’ the grandparents said.
Contact staff writer Jerry Reed at 676-6769
or reedj@abinews.com.
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