Anonymous Tip: Doctoring the Timeline

Anonymous Tip: A Review Series

Farris tells us that Donna the social worker went to see Gail the prosecutor on Wednesday. This means that after speaking with her supervisor, Blackburn, on Thursday, Donna waited six days before filing her report and speaking with the prosecutor. This was of course the plan, to ensure that when she falsely reported having seen fading bruises, there would be no way to verify if there had actually been such bruises, because by then they would have faded away regardless.

In speaking with Gail, Donna claims that the anonymous tip had come in the Tuesday evening before the Wednesday she visited Gwen and Casey rather than the previous Thursday evening when it had actually come in.

I feel like we need a timeline here:

Thursday, May 5, after hours: Ex-husband Gordon calls in a tip

Tuesday, May 10, after hours: When Donna claims the tip came in

Wednesday, May 11, morning: Donna visits Gwen and Casey’s home, is denied entrance

Thursday, May 12, morning: Donna forces her way into Gwen and Casey’s home and finds no evidence of abuse

Tuesday, May 17, afternoon: Donna finishes her fraudulent report, alleging that she found bruising

Wednesday, May 18, morning: Donna goes to see the prosecutor in order to have Casey removed

I have some questions, here, because something isn’t making sense to me.

Donna changes the date she says the anonymous tip came in (even though this is a very easy thing to check) in order to make it seem like it was investigated immediately, rather than nearly a week later. However, she does not change the contents of that initial anonymous tip. Well, perhaps she does, slightly—she said the report alleged that Gwen “regularly hits” her daughter with a stick, and the anonymous tip didn’t say anything about it being regular. But at the same time, Donna acknowledges that the caller did not state positive knowledge of bruises.

It seems like if she’s going to change the date the call came in, she might as well make it sound more dire. After all, if they checked the original report to make sure it said what was claimed, they would find out that she’s lying about the date anyway. In other words, if you’re going to tell one lie, why stop there?

But the other thing is that Donna has waited six days to speak with the prosecutor about having Casey removed. In other words, six full days went by between when she visited Gwen and saw Casey and when she puts in the report and asks the prosecutor to start the process. Why, then, is changing the date of the original anonymous tip at all important? Won’t the fact that she waited so long to take the next step make how long she waited between the anonymous tip and her first visit rather irrelevant?

Anyway, when she first cmoes into Gail’s office, Donna says this:

“Yes, thanks for seeing me right away. We have such a workload and I just finished the report on this case late yesterday.”

This is the first reference we’ve had to how busy she supposedly is, and we certainly haven’t seen it. Maybe the problem is that Farris isn’t writing the story in a way that lets us see Donna’s busyness. But if Donna really is this busy, why does she have time to falsify a report and put in the time and effort to remove a child from her mother’s home without either legal or ethical cause? This isn’t even about cutting corners to save a kid they know is being abused!

In the context of Donna going through this much effort to get back at Gwen for being uncooperative, Donna’s claim that she has “such a workload” makes no sense, especially given her constant claim that she is in the social work business because of how much she cares about helping abused children.

Next week Donna will make her full case to Gail.