What Christopher Knew
“Beyond Abuse; It Was Torture,” by Derek Sheppard, dsheppard@kitsapsun.com.
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From “And Triplets Make Ten: A Heart for the Children of Liberia,” by Kimberly Forder, written in November, 2005:
In our journey as Christians, my husband’s and my desire has been to have a deeper, more intimate relationship with Christ. Over the last couple of years this hunger has grown, and we have been asking questions about our purpose, why we are here, and wondering how He wants us to serve Him…
Derek Seabeck, writing in the Kitsap Sun, on August 29, 2006:
As 8-year-old Christopher Forder lay on his bedroom floor, stricken with pneumonia, heavily bruised and nearing death, his father called a family meeting.
Inside the family’s Seabeck-area home, the father, Robert, told his seven children they had a choice: They could bury their brother in the backyard, or call 911 and risk having the state snatch all of the children away because of Christopher’s obvious bruising.
Later that night, Nov. 24, 2002, the parents tried unsuccessfully to revive Christopher with CPR, and a son called 911…
Kimberly Forder, “And Triplets Make Ten…“:
Early last year, we received an e-mail asking for people to be praying for a set of triplets in Liberia. We felt such a quickening in our spirits that I e-mailed back saying that we were willing to be their family if the Lord was willing. This was June 22. Whew!! By the next morning, I had four e-mails in my in-box! The West African Children Support Network (WACSN) had, upon receiving our message, gone out to the village where the babies were living, and found them in a cubby hole in the ground with no food and very little clothing. They had already brought them back into the orphanage and started our paperwork! Our adoption was final in Liberia on July 23, but through a series of events, our babies’ homecoming was divinely delayed. During this time, the Lord was at work in my husband’s heart, drawing both our hearts to the people of Liberia. It wasn’t too long before Bob shared that he was traveling to Liberia to pick up our children — and to see how we could serve the Lord over there!
Our babies — Nathan, David and Grace — arrived home on March 10. I was blessed to be able to fly into Washington DC to meet them, and continue home to Seattle…
Again, from the piece published in the Sun:
The account of Christopher’s last moments is contained in court documents alleging that his mother, 44-year-old Kimberly Forder, abused and neglected her son to the point of death, never seeking outside medical help as his pneumonia grew worse…
From later in the same article:
Court documents outline conversations detectives had with three children that detail a pattern of abuse against the family, especially Christopher.
One child told detectives that Christopher was beaten an average of six times a day. It was alleged Kimberly Forder was the primary disciplinarian.
If he didn’t chew his food correctly, his mother would take away his food, sometimes for days at a time, documents allege.
The boy resorted to stealing scraps from a compost heap, and eating dog food.
If the boy soiled himself, he was forced to wear the dirty diaper, sometimes on his head.
If he didn’t wash his clothes correctly in a 5-gallon bucket, his parents were accused of dunking his head in the dirty water “until he stopped struggling,” court documents said.
Christopher had been with the Forder family four years after his adoption. Daily beatings were the norm, family members alleged in court documents.
Michael Forder told detectives that his parents started treating the children better after Christopher’s death.
The alleged pattern of abuse comes in stark contrast to the cheerful, healthy picture of the family on the Forders’ Web log…
Writing in a weblog located at http://liberia4jesus.blogspot.com/, one of the Forders, most likely Kimberly, posted the following blog entry on May 25, 2006:
Today we have our home inspected for the new buyers. Please join us in prayer for favor with this inspector, and peace over our household as we will be here during the three hours he will be doing the inspection. His job is to pick apart our home… kind of reminds of the devil pointing out all of our sins to God. Now I am off to tidy…
If anyone was whispering in God’s ear about sins in the Forder home, it was Christopher Forder, not the devil.
And maybe God took heed.
I will update this entry later this afternoon.
Maybe then I’ll feel less like puking.
UPDATE, 3:02 p.m. EDT
Already it is obvious in comments being left on this entry that readers share with me a sense of outrage and dismay about this story.
As always, some people are providing their own links and insights as well. Before continuing on with the story proper, I’m going to post a portion of a perfectly appropriate rant left by Christen in the comments:
Being a product of foster homes and keeping as much a vigilant eye on it as I can, let me tell you something far worse: it happens everyday. But people become desperate. I’ve lived in three foster homes that were definitely in it for the monthly paycheck. Now some people say “you can’t raise a kid on those checks!” (a defense many “bad” foster parents use) - but that’s the point. They’re NOT raising the kids. They’re not doing ANYTHING with the kids. Some adoptive parents, if the child was in foster care to begin with, continue to be paid (a common misperception is that once adopted the parents no longer receive stipends. Not true in most states). Florida, Mississippi and Chicago all have the most unveiled cases of foster/adoptive home abuse than others.
(…)
Want to help? Be a foster parent. Flip the odds. Make more GOOD homes and outweigh the bad ones….
Take note as Christen is speaking with an authority few readers can claim.
Some incidental links relevant to Kimberly Forder and the son she has in jail at the moment as well, courtesy of CrimeBlog.US reader Jill B.:
Superior Court Case Summary for the case against Kimberly Forder — so far;
Superior Court Case Summary for the rape case against Michael Forder.
Another thing before I go on — since my blogging is a combination of news coverage and on occasion, pure opinion about whatever story I’m researching, I think I should make it clear that I have no intention of doing any Christian-bashing here. Based on past experience with stories where the supposed religiosity of the people involved was at issue, I am almost certain a number of people will read the words written by Kimberly Forder, see how she presented herself and her family to the world, and want to rage at how the Forders now appear to have been hiding behind an evangelical, fundamentalist Christian veneer even while evil was allegedly happening on an almost daily basis in their home.
I’m a Christian myself, but pretty far from any kind “fundie,” which is a pejorative someone conjured up a few years back to refer to Christians who seemed to wear their religion on their sleeves at all times. Still, I’d prefer any discussion of this case in the comments stay away from any ad hominem “all you fundies are hypocrites” attacks. There was a time I’d have been leading the way with that sort of criticism, but I’ve outgrown that. Some Christians with arguably fundamentalist views are completely sincere in trying to live as Godly a life as they can. I am often disgusted by the crazy bandwagons fundamentalists ride, like trying to ban Harry Potter books or treating the Left Behind books as if they are anything but poorly-executed fictions designed to tweak the endtimes anxieties of a certain class of readers, but I have had friends who were fundamentalists, and deeply sincere about their beliefs. I will not disrespect them by letting anyone say or saying myself on this weblog that the Forders are an example of what’s really happening in the minds of people with similar beliefs. They are not.
Folks inclined to make those statements can find an appropriate forum on the Usenet somewhere, I’m certain.
A number of people, based on comments and e-mails I’ve received, have noticed some more peculiar details from the Forder family’s weblog, liberia4jesus.blogspot.com. In a comment on this entry, cassee01 mentioned this entry posted in June of this year. Quoting:
Yesterday we had car appointments, and took the afternoon off to go to the park, and to Point No Point lighthouse for one last visit. We really needed to uplug for a while, and play with the kids. For those of you who know about our son who passed away, Point No Point was his favorite place to go. It where we spread his ashes, so it is a place with special meaning to our whole family. I will leave you with some pictures to enjoy. Hopefully I can post one more time before tomorrow. God Bless!
If you followed the link to the Case Summary for the rape charges against Kimberly and Robert Forder’s son Michael, age 23, you saw that Michael Forder was charged with rape on July 13th of this year.
Between July the 11th and 18th, it appears the Forders were journeying to Liberia.
The blog entry made on the 18th, indicating they had made it to Africa, held no indication of what might have happened with their son back in Kitsap. In fact, I found no mention of anything untoward at all. Just more of Kimberly’s eerie praising of Jesus, protestations about all the wonders God was working for her and her family. I wonder if such things were her mantras to ward away demons she herself had created?
If the Kitsap Sun article is accurate, and Derek Sheppard indicated in the piece that documents filed with the court to support Kimberly Forder’s arrest were among the sources used to write the article, this was a family that once sat around and discussed burying a dying brother even as he languished on the floor of his bedroom. They lived off the beaten track in Seabeck, and it would seem they used more than just constant proclamations of Jesus’s goodness to hide what must have been festering inside. They took advantage of distance, of being remote from anyone who might look a little too closely at what was happening in the home.
That doesn’t smell like madness. It smells like intention. The great move to Liberia, which the Forders — at least Kimberly — seemed to view as their opportunity to save the souls of many “unwashed” starts to seem desperate, even though it appeared to have been in the planning stages for a year.
I go back now to Michael Forder, the 23-year-old son whose arrival home was so much anticipated by Kimberly in this blog entry.
I wasn’t sure until I found this page published by the Kitsap Sun in February of this year that the young Marine pictured in this liberia4jesus blog entry was indeed the same son. This is the proof from the Sun’s “Neighbors” page:
Michael V. Forder
Marine Corps Pvt. Michael V. Forder, son of Kimberly A. and Robert E. Forder of Seabeck, recently completed 12 weeks of basic training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, Calif…
Michael Vincent Forder completed his basic training, came home in late June, and by July 13th he was in jail, accused of raping an “adult” female relative.
It is as if the Forder family was a study in everyone’s darkest imaginings about the flipside of the non-existent “American Dream.”
The light: upstanding and charitable Christians, working as foster and adoptive parents to give homes to all the unwanted kids they could handle, moving into missionary work.
The dark: controlling and cruelly abusive to at least one or more of those adopted children, having gothic family meetings in which they discussed burying the boy in the back yard. It now appears that the abuse ended with the boy’s — Christopher’s — death… a homicide.
The light: an elder son, blonde, handsome in an All-American way, went off to become, of all things, a Marine.
The dark: about two weeks after the son arrived home, he was arrested for what sounds like incestuous rape.
And even years after Christopher Forder died so horribly, under such cruel circumstances, kids were being adopted into the Forder home. People are already raising questions in the comments about that, so I’ll say it too… how the hell did that happen?
Anyone better equipped than I am to do this should try and archive (mirror) the liberia4jesus blogspot blog. Robert Forder is apparently not in custody yet, and may have access to Kimberly’s accounts. I wouldn’t be surprised if things began to get deleted.
Also — in the “WTF” department is this — www.myspace.com/liberia4jesus. It is a mostly blank MySpace that hasn’t been used since August of last year. In it, Kimberly Forder styled herself “Aunt Kim,” and her headline was “Living life on purpose for Christ.”
This is one of the most disturbing stories of its kind I’ve run across in a long time. I’ll continue updating as I learn more.
Remember… the people I’m writing about in this blog entry, in particular Michael, Kimberly, and Robert Forder — if the allegations against them are true — are not Christians. They aren’t anything but animals.
UPDATE, 5:07 p.m. EDT
An example of spin-in-action. This sort of thing happens all the time, but this example is particularly pertinent to this story.
Service to Servants describes itself this way:
STS personnel within the United States are all non-compensated volunteers who pay their own expenses including travel costs.
It’s not about us, it’s all about Him. There is no empire building here. We are open to all true believers who would like to serve those who are serving the world. We would say that there’s room at the top for you but there is only one top in this ministry and that is God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The rest of us are simply slaves to a perfect Master.
Here is a link to the main page of the Service to Servants website as crawled by Google on August 24, 2006. The following was on the page that day:
Robert & Kimberly Forder recently chose to give up their comfort in America and move their family to Liberia to serve God there. I really love people who understand their purpose in the Kingdom. Here’s a note from Jenny Groothuis about a conversation she had with Kimberly today.
Kimberly Forder called from Liberia today and talked about some of the recent births she has attended. She said it really is miraculous how any of these moms and babies make it when you see the conditions surrounding the births. (nothing sterile, no assistance of any kind really) In one of the births the cord prolapsed and the baby was born white and totally still. A zero for an APGAR score. Kimberly had a bulb syringe to offer the midwife (and lots of prayer!) who suctioned that little one for 20 minutes and the baby miraculously came to life and 4 days later looks to be doing well. While the statistics are gloomy for mother/infant mortality in Liberia—60% of the babies die before one year of age, one in 14 women die in child birth…..the upside is that 40% actually live and 13 out of 14 women make it through the birth…
In what could be a coincidence, the same site today — www.servicetoservants.com — no longer has the anecdote quoted above on the front page. A check of the page info via Firefox shows the page was last edited late yesterday afternoon (August 28).
Not that I blame Service to Servants, when I think about it.
If you know someone in Liberia, say in the capitol city of Monrovia, send them a link to this blog or to Derek Sheppard’s article in the Kitsap Sun.
If Robert Forder is still there, maybe that would speed up his coming back to the U.S. considerably.
UPDATE, 6:50 p.m. EDT
Thanks to Chris, who posted this in the comments:
“Former Seabeck Woman Charged…“
The link will take you to an article published on August 28 by the Central Kitsap Reporter, written by journalist Kassie Korich. A quote:
It wasn’t until earlier this month, nearly four years after Christopher’s death, that detectives were provided with enough information to arrest Kimberly Forder.
The sheriff’s office received a referral report from Oregon’s Child Protective Services, stating that the eldest biological daughter, who was 22 at the time of Christopher’s death, had come forward with information regarding her adoptive brother’s death.
“The details of the alleged abuses … They are quite graphic and chilling,” Boyer said.
According to court documents, the sister told detectives that Kimberly Forder had starved and beaten Christopher daily for four years. She said her mother would throw him into a shed where the family kept its ducks as a form of punishment and left him there for several days without food, water or blankets. She added that Christopher was told that since he acted like an animal, he should be treated like an animal…
To me, it is clear who the animals were in this situation. More:
On July 12, 2006, nearly a month before the sheriff’s office received the CPS report, patrol deputies responded to the Forder household for an allegation of sexual assault by the family’s eldest biological son Michael Vincent Forder, according to reports. He is currently in Kitsap County Jail on charges that he raped his younger biological sister. He was interviewed in jail on Aug. 20 regarding Christopher’s death and confirmed much of what was reported by the eldest sister…
But, Michael apparently said to investigators, his parents did improve after Christopher died.
So maybe just one extra dose of lethal injection medication when the time is right, then, as opposed to an extra helping.
Chris also found this post made August 21, 2006 in a newsgroup, referencing Kimberly Forder’s work in Liberia.
More updates later.