More than 800 children have been reported murdered by a parent going through divorce or separation in the United States since 2008. More than 100 of those cases included rejected pleas within the family court system to intervene before the child’s death.

Oftentimes, the people making final decisions on the cases don’t have specialized training on domestic violence or family abuse dynamics.

There’s now a growing push to change that.

Ali Kessler only knew her son's father a short time before she learned she was pregnant. They were never married, never lived together and he wasn't there for the birth. Kessler says the father made it clear repeatedly in emails, texts and phone calls that he wanted nothing to do with the pregnancy. But then shortly after Greyson was born, his showed up wanting half custody.

“When I spoke to a lawyer, they said pretty much unless you can really prove that the other parent is unfit, they are going to get 50 percent custody no matter what,” Kessler recalled.

Kessler says Greyson’s father made co-parenting extremely difficult and was verbally abusive to her the entire time.

“I sent him a spreadsheet of 11 schools that I toured and made lists of pros and cons and finances and everything and he said no to all of them,” she said. “I would get texts saying, ‘You're a wonderful mother and Greyson's lucky to have you’ and then I would get texts saying, ‘You deserve to have your head separated from your body,’ and he wrote, ‘I’m not the violent type, but God will deal with you.’ He has told me in person and via text his life mission will be to make me suffer.”

Meanwhile, Kessler says Greyson wasn’t adjusting well and would throw tantrums and act out after spending time with his father. She said the 50/50 schedule had Greyson confused and upset.

Fed up with the abuse and taking over parental duties often times during dad’s visitation time, Kessler said she filed contempt motions, requests to change the time-sharing, and asked for a psychological evaluation on her son’s father.

The threats and abuse escalated when Greyson’s father started contacting Kessler and her boyfriend. She filed for a stalking injunction and a domestic violence injunction in May of 2021.

“I wrote in big letters I feel for my life, my boyfriend’s life and most of all, my child's life. I included 250 pages of text messages and documentation.”

A judge denied the domestic violence injunction, just as a mechanic found a tracking device on Kessler’s car. Greyson's father told her he knew she had been to the courthouse and he stopped taking Greyson to school.

“I called the police three times to get wellness checks to knock on the door. Each time they knocked, no answer, there's nothing they can do their hands are tied.”

Meanwhile, Kessler’s attorney also filed for an emergency pickup order. It was also denied. She tracked down the landlord of Greyson’s father’s apartment who agreed to let a locksmith open and door with police there.

“At four something in the morning, I get a knock on my door and it’s the investigators about three officers letting me know that they found my son in his father's apartment where I told him that he was and that they were both dead and that he was shot in the head and that he was gone. And then, that's all I heard. The following day, I got a notice from the court saying that my lawyer filed an injunction for stalking, and it was approved. So, basically, they're saying I wasn’t safe, but it was ok that my child would go to him.”

Danielle Pollack with the National Family Violence Law Center is helping write legislation like Greyson's Law and similar bills across the country.

“If the average person understood what happened inside our family courts, they would not stand for it. It’s shocking,” Pollack said.

Bills that require courts to consider criminal convictions in custody cases expand the definition of domestic violence to include psychological abuse and coercive control. Some legislation would also require judges and other custody workers to receive training on child sexual abuse and family abuse dynamics.

“The idea is to prioritize child safety over parenting rights. Abusers use the court sort of as a tool to continue their harms to the victim and most of them to the child,” Pollack said.

Federally, a provision in the Violence Against Women Act would provide incentives to states to properly train the courts. One of the few national studies inside family court cases found they disbelieve child abuse claims, especially sexual abuse, at high rates.

The study also found when a mother reported any abuse and a father claimed alienation, the mother lost custody nearly half the time. Pollack says there are tens of thousands of children trapped in prolonged abuse.

After leaving what she describes as an abusive marriage and spending years tied up in family court representing herself due to financial abuse, Tina Swithin founded One Mom’s Battle in order to educate people how to navigate the system with an abusive partner.

“They have to put their trauma aside and almost go into it with a strategy mindset,” Swithin said.

Swithin says she recently learned there are few requirements state by state for judges to have even the basic training in domestic violence, much less things like coercive control.

“What we know from research is that it only takes one person to create a high conflict situation, but both of them get that label and that's really lazy. We need to do better,” she said.

Through One Mom’s Battle, and with the help of other organizations and parents like Ali Kessler, they are getting proclamations all over the country to designate November Family Court Awareness month.

“The feedback we're receiving is we had no idea. It's also giving survivors an opportunity to have a voice in their community and become involved in change at their level,” Swithin said.

“I will not rest until I get justice for Greyson, because John's dead. John killed himself. There is accountability and I will find it,” Kessler said.

To learn how to get a proclamation in your city, visit FamilyCourtAwarenessMonth.com.

CLERMONT COUNTY, Ohio — Since the pandemic started and schools shut their doors to students, officials in Clermont County said on paper they have seen a drop in child abuse cases, but they fear that just means cases are going unreported.

"If you're a child and being abused, who are you going to tell?" Scott O'Reilly, Clermont County's assistant prosecutor, said. "The abuser in the house?"

O'Reilly said abuse cases are down nearly 50%. However, he thinks just because the case numbers are down means they aren't being reported.

"Normally, when you've got pediatricians, you've got teachers, you've got kind of that front line of defense of child abuse is recognizing it," O'Reilly said. "What do you do when there's not that front line?”

While O'Reilly said people won't see the true effects of child abuse until years down the road, he said that's why he has worked to build the Little Fork Family Advocacy Center, so that he and others can help victims of child abuse now.

"My goal is to get some positive change for these kids, for these families, when... something like this goes through it so we're not repeating the cycle," O'Reilly said.

You can donate to help construct the Little Fork Family Advocacy Center by visiting their website here.

GEORGETOWN, Ohio — The Brown County couple who stand accused of starving and abusing an 11-year-old girl in their care will face a jury this winter.

Margaret and Charles Breeze sat opposite each other in Brown County Common Pleas Judge Scott Gusweiler's courtroom Wednesday afternoon. They didn't say a word, although they did lock eyes briefly a few times.

Their attorneys told the judge they will go ahead with a jury trial later in the year.

Investigators in 2019 charged Margaret and Charles Breeze with two counts each of kidnapping, two counts each of endangering children, and one count each of felonious assault, according to the Brown County News Democrat. An additional tampering with evidence charge was added in January 2020.

Charles Breeze has spent the last 15 months in custody at a medical facility due to a health condition, while Margaret has stayed in the Brown County Jail in Georgetown since her November 2019 arrest. Charles was arrested a few weeks later.

A bill of particulars filed in late February 2020 gave a glimpse into potential evidence and witnesses in the state's case against them, including 20 staffers from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center who could be called to testify. Court documents allege that the girl was hospitalized for 10 days after the Breezes withheld food from her as punishment and locked her in a separate trailer behind their home.

Documents also indicated that a home school teacher in 2019 heard the girl say she was hungry and alerted authorities. Investigators would later say the Breezes watched her with a camera, beat her, made her wear a diaper, and fed her one plate of rice per day.

She weighed 47 pounds and was in liver failure when investigators rescued her, doctors said.

Shortly before prosecutors filed the bill of particulars, Margaret's attorney, Nick Ring, told WCPO the case against his clients was "cherry-picked information...to splash headlines, splash social media, and there’s a lot of information people simply don’t know."

The Breezes' attorneys argue the couple were following recommendations by the Brown County Department of Job and Family Services.

A WCPO investigation shortly after the Breezes' arrests showed that Margaret filed for guardianship of the girl in Bracken County, Kentucky, six years prior to the accusations. She claimed in a petition that she was a foster parent certified in Ohio and the girl's third cousin. She also claimed that a pediatrician had recommended she have guardianship because the girl had "severe behavioral problems." The girl had been living with her mother in Augusta, Kentucky.

A woman who told WCPO in 2019 that she was Charles' sister, Joie Jodrey, said she reported that her brother was abusing a little girl in Brown County in 2017 – two years before officials rescued the girl.

Videos bring back happy memories of Mary Nielsen's two children.

"Teddy was just so sweet and loving. He was a mama's boy, you know," Nielsen said, "Emmy was exceptionally smart. She just had turned 5 in January, and you wouldn't have known it."

Now these memories are all Nielsen has, after her two children were found dead in their father's home last month.

"They had like a special bond, like, they were very, very close, and you could tell they were best friends," she said.

Those two little best friends, 5-year-old Emily and 3-year-old Teddy were staying with their father, Adam Price, last month.

Nielsen lives in Illinois.

"Saturday rolls around, and I was like, it was like 6:30, seven o'clock and I was like, 'the kids haven't called yet,' and I was like, 'they didn't call last night, either,'" Nielsen said.

According to Nielsen, a custody agreement required that the kids check in with her every day while visiting their dad.

"So I started calling him and blowing up his phone and texting him I'm like, 'even if you can't talk, like, I need to know the kids are safe,'" she said.

Nielsen posted on Facebook, asking if anyone had seen Price and the kids.

Meanwhile, police went to the house twice for welfare checks but say they had no cause to force their way in.

"I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach," Nielsen said.

Nielsen's friend offered to go over to the home. She said the friend found the door unlocked, and inside, the bodies of Emily and Teddy.

"I had to pull over, I was bawling," Nielsen said.

Price was gone. Authorities arrested him hours later in California.

Nielsen calls her past relationship with him abusive and said her children were the only reason she survived.

"I mean, I was very suicidal for a very long time during the relationship. Abusive relationships, like destroy you," she said.

Nielsen said she moved back in with her parents in Illinois to finish school and spend more time with her beloved kids. Now, as she mourns her beautiful, cheerful children, Nielsen wishes more would have been done to protect them.

"If someone had just listened to me when I said he was an unfit parent, they'd still be here, and it's still really hard," she said, "I just, the only thing that makes me feel like a tiny bit better is they don't ever have to see him again, but at the same time I'm missing them so so much."

Price is charged with two felony counts of child abuse resulting in death. His next court appearance is scheduled for June 15.