St. Clair Shores Mom Fights For Child Abuse Registry, While ACLU Battles Against It

(WWJ) They're doing it in Indiana -- so should Michigan start a registry for those convicted of child abuse?

Erica Hammel thinks so. WWJ's Sandra McNeill talked to Hammel, a St. Clair Shores mom who will speak before a house committee in Lansing this afternoon to promote the idea of creating the registry. She wants it to operate like the Michigan sex offender registry so parents and caregivers can search for those with past abuse convictions -- and stay away.

Her mission was created through a tragedy that nearly cost Hammel her son's life.

It started when Hammel's husband left, moving in with another woman. She had to trust her son with a stranger, and one she was suspicious about from the start.

"I Googled her name, I searched her on the offender tracking information system so if she served prison time she would be on there. I didn't find anything," Hammel said.

Turns out, the new girlfriend, Rachel Edwards, had served probation for two previous child abuse charges.

On an overnight visit, her son Wyatt, 1, suffered a severe brain injury at Edwards' hands, police and prosecutors say, and is now blind in one eye and has developmental delays. He was shaken to the point it was as if he had been dropped from a three-story building, Hammel said.

Edwards is in jail, but could be released as early as next year.

"It boggles my mind that she got away with it twice with no prison time and then she was able to get her hands on my son and almost kill him," Hammel said.

On the other side, the American Civil Liberties Union is fighting against the registry, saying it's not fair and could also keep child abuse in the dark.

Shelli Weisberg of the ACLU will speak out against the registry that Hammel is fighting for, saying one's past does nothing to predict that someone will commit the act of child abuse.

Weisberg says that, in fact, such registries can often prevent families from reporting abuse, over fears that the family member will carry a stigma for life.

In Wyatt's case, Weisberg says, the failure was with the family courts, which failed to protect the boy.