This site is copyrighted, supported, and maintained by the Equal Justice Foundation.
| EJF Home | Join the EJF | Comments? | Get EJF newsletter | Newsletters |
| DV Home | Abstract | Contents | Tables | Index | Bibliography |
| Chapter 11 — Violent Women |
| Next — Women who kill their family members |
| Back — Abuse and violence against children |
Colorado Springs Gazette August 29-31, 2002
Denver Post August 29-31, September 1-5 2002
On the tape of the 911 call a breathless Michael Farber, age 47 told the dispatcher “A house break in. They stole my son, my son. He's 9 years old.” “Before I knew it they had overcome me and given me a pretty good beating and taken my son away,” a bruised Farber said later.
An armed kidnapping of a child is always national news but this was no ordinary crime and serves as a classic example of the chaos a woman with a personality disorder can generate in today's legal system.
After the kidnapping suspicion quickly turned to the boy's mother, five-times married Debra Rose, age 38, who resided in Colorado Springs. Court records show that Ms. Rose has a history of drug and narcotic use, including at least morphine, Demerol and Valium, allegedly for migraine headaches.
Michael Farber was her third husband and Nicholas is one of four children she has borne. She worked as a stripper at the Fabulous TNTs' Gentlemen's Club in Colorado Springs.
A review of court records in Colorado and California by the Associated Press show Ms. Rose was entangled in custody disputes in at least two failed marriages and was on the giving and receiving end of several restraining orders.
As the confusion in the press reports showed, it is always difficult to sort out the lives of such women as Debra Rose. Thus, some background is necessary as to who the players are and when things happened.
Nicholas is Debra's second child. Her firstborn is Ashley Mejia, now 19, who presently lives in southern California. Debra Marie Malone married Ashley's father, George Mejia, in 1983 when she was 19. George Mejia said he and Debra divorced about three years later, and they stayed in touch, but only infrequently.
“I knew her when she was 17, and we were divorced when we were 22 or 23. We had a child together, but that's about it. I really haven't talked to her.” Mejia is reported to have said.
Shortly after her first marriage she met the man who would become her second husband, Jim Reed, whom she claims verbally abused her. In an interview with the Denver Post on September 5, 2002, she said about Reed: “I don't pick men very well.” However, we think it more likely many men made a disastrous choice in her.
That marriage lasted seven months.
After her second marriage failed, Debra married Michael Farber, a Palm Springs disc jockey, now age 47. They were married in 1991. Their son Nicholas was born on March 9, 1993.
Nicholas was 2 when Debra filed for divorce from his father on Dec. 11, 1995. The proceedings were bitter from the start, with Debra accusing Michael of domestic violence after she became pregnant with Stanley Rose's child. Such allegations are a common ploy by women who attempt to cover up their infidelity by charging their husbands with domestic violence.
Their divorce was finalized June 16, 1996, just eleven days before she gave birth to her next husband's daughter.
Stanley Rose met Debra, then Debra Farber, at a California bar in late 1995, and she became pregnant on their first date. “She was married to Mike at the time, but she told me she was his roommate,” Stanley Rose said. “I never fell in love with Debra, but she got pregnant on the first date. I was just trying to do the right thing. She called me at work and said, ' I know I don't know you very well, but I' m pregnant.' “
During the custody battle over Nicholas with Michael Farber, Debra claimed the boy would be better off living with Stanley Rose, the man she married August 24, 1996 — two months after the birth, on June 27, 1996, of their daughter, Winter, now age 6. Despite her obvious infidelity [she was 9-months pregnant with Stanley's daughter], the court agreed and Nicholas went to live with his adulterous mother and her new husband.
In September 1997, Stanley and Debra had a son, Dane, now 5-years old. When Dane was 9 weeks old, the couple moved to Colorado so Debra could get distance from her failed marriage with Michael Farber, Stanley claimed.
In Colorado, the Roses started anew. Stanley Rose launched a trash business, which took time to get going. The family's finances were tight, and the family needed a second income.
Stanley Rose said he wanted his wife to work a “regular job,” but after six months, Debra Rose took a job at Fabulous TNT' s, a strip club in Colorado Springs, first as a cocktail waitress, then as a stripper where she enjoyed both the male attention and the $300-$500 a night she made.
The money gave Debra Rose entry into the high life with fine clothes and jewelry.
Those things, though, did not bring peace or comfort to this troubled woman. Stanley and Debra were married for six years before she filed for divorce on November 19, 1999. The marriage officially ended in 2001, but conflict continued. The couple shared custody of the children, but they were in and out of court with disputes over the arrangements. In May of 2002, a court gave Stanley Rose primary custody of the two children.
Her husband as of August, 2002, is Brent Landrum, age 30. He and Ms. Rose were married October 25, 2000, the same day her divorce from Stanley Rose was final. Until Ms. Rose's arrest on August 15, 2002, the couple shared custody of Nicholas Farber and the two children, ages 5 and 6, from her marriage to Stanley Rose.
Neighbors said Landrum keeps to himself and lays carpet for a living. He also filed for a restraining order against Debra on August 13, 2002, accusing her of stealing money, not paying bills, having a drug problem, and that she was having him followed. He has also begun divorce proceedings.
A child of Landrum's from a previous marriage was reported living with Debra and Brent.
Landrum filed for divorce from Debra in July, 2002.
In court documents filed in one of several custody disputes Ms. Rose is involved in, Mike Wilbourn, a licensed clinical psychologist said Debra's headaches affected her ability to parent but he was more concerned about something else and wrote that:
“She most likely has a personality disorder — borderline personality disorder, which will impact the children more than anything. The research and opinions in the field back me up, and as a result, I cannot see her as the primary residential parent.”
Ms. Rose temporarily lost custody of her son Nicholas to her third husband, Michael Farber, in mid-August after she was arrested in Colorado Springs on August 15, 2002, the day after her 38 th birthday, on suspicion of violating a restraining order, court records show. She was released the next day on $800 bail.
The restraining order had been granted on August 5, 2002, to Stanley Rose of Colorado Springs, Ms. Rose's fourth husband.
Stanley told the Gazette (August 31, 2002) that Debra was currently living off Social Security disability payments from her migraines and may have been bartending.
Stanley Rose said he and other men were drawn in by his ex-wife:
“She's living off men...She was, at one time, extraordinarily beautiful. She's extremely manipulative and very believable. She's captivating. In the Bible, there's a woman called Jezebel, and she destroyed everything around her. And that's what she does.”
Court records show that Stanley Rose and Debra Rose each were given restraining orders against the other as part of their divorce in 2001 but Mr. Rose felt it necessary to file for another order of protection against her in August, 2002.
In filing the second restraining order against Debra, Stanley Rose said his ex-wife had made death threats against him. Records show Debra phoned Mr. Rose shortly after learning the new restraining order had been filed. She also appears to have had a man call Mr. Rose and tell him: “Mr. Rose, your time is up.”
In the melee, Debra was also granted a temporary restraining order on August 14 th against Stanley Rose, accusing him of harassing her, threatening her, having her followed, and violating the rules for child custody set forth in their divorce agreement. That order was later dropped when Ms. Rose failed to appear in court for a hearing.
After gaining temporary custody, Mr. Farber then moved his son to California. Farber, who divorced Rose in 1996, said he found Nicholas “tired, dirty, unkempt and hungry” in Colorado. In court papers, Farber wrote Debra Rose “is known to be disruptive and emotionally disturbing to children and I fear that she would take young Nicholas out of state without permission as she has done in the past.” Such characteristics are entirely consistent with a borderline personality.
There were also complaints from the school Nicholas attended in Colorado Springs about Ms. Rose's deportment. According to the September 1, 2002, edition of the Denver Post (p. 18A), on May 15, 2002, Sylvia Pape, director of the Pike's Peak Christian School wrote:
“PPCS regrets very much to inform you that your presence on the campus must be restricted to the office area. This decision has been based on your many unnecessary, frequent and lengthy visits to the classrooms and the emotional results of those visits on your children.”
Sometime in mid-August, Debra Rose went to Ferguson Pontiac GMC in Colorado Springs. She drove off in a 2002 GMC extended-cab pickup. “The car was purchased...but the purchase was never consummated,” said Dave Stock, general manager at Ferguson. “She never secured financing.” A novel way of “buying” a vehicle but consistent with borderline behavior.
Police found the new pickup taken from Colorado by Ms. Rose near the California-Nevada line west of Las Vegas off Interstate 15, about 220 miles from Palm Desert. A similar vehicle had been seen outside Michael Farber's home during the kidnapping of Nicholas. Ms. Rose was then officially declared a suspect in the kidnapping on Thursday, August 29 th .
Ms. Rose also failed to show for several court hearings scheduled in Colorado Springs during this period regarding child custody and various restraining orders. As a result restraining orders against her were made permanent. Custody of her children was also transferred to the fathers.
John Ciccolella, one of Stanley Rose's attorneys, said Debra Rose is addicted to morphine, Valium and Demerol, which she says she uses to control her migraines. She was almost incoherent at the last court date she attended and is in no condition to raise children according to Ciccolella. “Ms. Rose is an unstable person and a very vindictive person...Those (traits) are aggravated by her use of prescription drugs.” Note that these characteristics are quite typical in the estimated 2.5-3 million adult women in America who suffer from borderline personality disorder.
On Friday, August 30, 2002, 9-year-old Nicholas was found safe in a motor home at a San Diego-area RV park and campground in Jamul, California, about 80 miles southwest of Nicholas' home in Palm Desert. He was with his mother, who was arrested on kidnapping charges. Michael J. Riley also was arrested at the RV park. Mr. Riley was apparently staying in the same motor home with Ms. Rose and the boy. No indication was given of what has become of the three or four other children she left Colorado with.
The break in the case came Friday when a security guard at the RV park recognized a vehicle police had been publicizing: a motor home with Florida license plates and kangaroo decals on the side.
Authorities said Ms. Rose appeared to have altered her appearance, cutting her blond hair and dyeing it black. Nicholas' hair also appeared to have been cut and dyed.
Ms. Rose and Mr. Riley, age 48, were both booked into the Riverside County Jail. Debra is being held on suspicion of felony child abduction, burglary, and battery. Riley was booked on suspicion of conspiracy to commit kidnapping.
Mr. Riley was also wanted on warrants from Lincoln, Nebraska, and Tucson, Arizona, involving financial crimes. Authorities had no home town for him.
However, authorities said Riley was not one of the two assailants who abducted Nicholas at gunpoint from his Palm Desert home after beating the boy's father.
When Ms. Rose was hustled into jail in handcuffs, a reporter asked why she had allegedly taken Nicholas. She replied: “He was taken from me.”
On Tuesday, September 3 rd the Associated Press reported that Riverside County sheriff's deputy Lisa McConnell said two men had been arrested Sunday and were being held in this case for investigation of kidnapping, burglary and assault with a deadly weapon.
Rodrique Edgar Van Blake, 27, of Escondido, California, was identified as a prime suspect. The investigation led to Elias Gutierrez, 28, also from Escondido.
Bail for each of the four was set at $1 million. Nicholas was returned to his father and a California court has now given Michael Farber permanent custody of his son.
The Debra Rose story is in no way more extreme or significantly different from the tales the Equal Justice Foundation receives on a daily basis from men and women throughout the United States and from around the world. Examples: arson destroys a Connecticut man's home a few days after his ex-wife comes from Oregon to visit their children, car windows are broken and tires are slashed, cars are burned, a ballroom dancer's marriage in northern Colorado defines the term “battering,” an oceanographer finally has to move to England after a decade of torment to escape his ex-wife, husbands are stabbed and boyfriends shot, false allegations of domestic violence and abuse are made by the thousands to gain advantage in a divorce or to cover infidelity, and on ad nauseam. And these stories don't begin to scratch the surface of the behavioral problems of the 2.5-3 million adult women afflicted with borderline personality disorder in America.
Yet on Thursday, September 5 th the Denver Post ran a feminist-slanted apologia under the byline of Amy Herdy claiming “Springs woman insists she had legal custody.” Debra Rose states in that exclusive interview that she doesn't know what caused her to be jailed for the kidnapping of her son. Ms. Herdy apparently doesn't recognize the manipulative behavior of the mentally disturbed, or she is incredibly naive.
In the interview Ms. Rose wonders how she can be charged with kidnapping her son when she says she had legal custody of him. Our experience is that women with personality disorders, and increasingly women in general, don't believe court orders apply to them. So, after being jailed for one day in Colorado Springs for violating one of several restraining orders ex-husband's had brought against her, Ms. Rose said she was frantic to find her son [notice it is a man's fault] after Nicholas' father took him to California with the Colorado courts permission.
Ms. Rose is quoted as saying “I started calling the FBI, anyone,” in order to locate Nicholas. She then makes the extraordinary claim [unchallenged by the interviewer] that a sheriff's deputy told her, “If I were you I' d get in a car and go to California and get your son,” and “That was my intention,” Ms. Rose told her unwavering and untroubled interviewer and supporter.
In a classic understatement, even Ms. Herdy admits something went wrong when two gunmen stormed Debra's ex-husband's home, beat Michael Farber and spirited Nicholas away. And how could it possibly be that three days later, Nicholas and his mother were found together in eastern San Diego County?
The mother of four is bewildered by the situation: “How can I steal my child when I had custody of him. I can't believe I' m in jail, and a million-dollar bond — I wouldn't leave my children,” Ms. Rose said.
Responding to reports in the media that her son's hair had been cut and dyed that made it look like she was trying to run away with him, she said it was done at her son's request. “ He wanted his hair blond,” she said. “He wanted it streaked for school” though by then she had him living in a trailer park with yet another man and school nowhere in the picture. And “People don't understand what it's like when everybody you ever trusted has stabbed you in the back. All I ever wanted to do was stay home and bake cookies and have children” claimed the former nightclub stripper.
Heartless [and no doubt poorly-trained in feminist dogma] police claim Debra Rose orchestrated the entire affair, but she disputes that account in her interview: “I don't know what happened. I was staying at a hotel near Disneyland,” she claimed. “I don't know how this happened...I didn't hire anybody. I didn't ask anybody anything.” Note that the truck she had stolen had been found near the California-Nevada border before this, but a woman should never be doubted, and all feelings and emotions are valid in feminist ideology. However, lying and deceit are stock in trade for borderline personalities.
Retreating further into a fantasy world with the help of her interviewer, and ignoring her drug addictions, Debra said she told several people she was concerned for her son because he had an urgent medical situation and needed to be on medication that somehow the father couldn't provide. Then she states: “He [Nicholas] was brought to my hotel room” the morning of August 28 th and she awoke to find him standing there. “He said 'Mommy, I love you.' He put my hand on his heart and went to sleep.”
Don't ask how the kidnappers got into her hotel room, how they knew where to find her, or why they kidnapped the boy in the first place. This interview, after all, is mawkish feminist ideology of a high order.
If anything, Ms. Rose is claimed to have stated she's guilty of bad judgment in men, not of a crime. Nothing is said by Ms. Herdy of the ruin Debra Marie Malone née Rose has visited on five husbands, the disastrous results for the three men who helped her in the kidnapping, and the lives of her four children she has done her best to destroy. Nor is mention made of the four children that Debra reportedly left for California with.
Ms. Herdy, in her maudlin fashion, goes on to say that happiness has so far eluded Debra Rose. Perhaps it would be kinder, and in the best interests of society to realize that happiness will always elude those afflicted with borderline personality disorder, an incurable illness at present. So long as the millions of such women (and, in lesser numbers, men) are allowed to rampage unchecked and unquestioned, nay even encouraged, through our society we will be unable to check or control such basic family problems as domestic violence. And the prognosis for children of women with borderline personalities is singularly disastrous.
Research has clearly established the link between borderline personality disorders and domestic violence. It is time we sought to fix the problem, not the blame.
On October 22, 2003, a jury in Indio, California, found Debra Rose and her three accomplices, Michael Riley, Elias Gutierrez, and Rodrique Van Blake, guilty of abducting 9-year-old Nicholas Farber, Ms. Rose's fourth child. In addition the jury found all four guilty of custodial interference, burglary, assault, and false imprisonment.
Reflecting her delusional existence, Ms. Rose reportedly testified during the trial that she thought Michael Riley, one of her boyfriends, was a CIA agent who could lead an “extraction” team to get her son back after a court in Colorado Springs had given custody of Nicholas to his father. Defying feminist dogma, the jury refused to accept this fantasy.
Ms. Rose's conviction should settle the custody dispute at least until she is released from jail. We can only hope the boy is 18-years old before she is released or our insane courts are likely to give her custody of the boy again.
Sentencing is scheduled for January 9, 2004, and could range from probation (we certainly hope not) to more than 10 years in jail.
I am indebted to Stanley and Lucy Rose for corrections to the above account and relieved to learn that Debra Rose's other children are safe with their fathers.
| EJF Home | Join the EJF | Comments? | Get EJF newsletter | Newsletters |
| DV Home | Abstract | Contents | Tables | Index | Bibliography |
| Chapter 11 — Violent Women |
| Next — Women who kill their family members |
| Back — Abuse and violence against children |
This site is supported and maintained by the Equal Justice Foundation.