Kelsey Briggs

Take a few minutes to watch this video



I can't imagine being Lance Briggs.

In the opening scenes of this video, there's a black and white still shot of Kelsey, thumb in mouth, asleep on her father's shoulder.
As a father of two, I fondly recall those moments of my life, and there are pictures of me with my children in the exact poses, thumb in mouth, on my shoulder, asleep.

Those images sometimes strangely appear in my head when I watch them now....my son getting texts from girls at school....and my daughter doing her cheer routines for The Brandywine Warriors. In those moments, I'm reminded of how much time has passed....time that *seems* like it was the blink of an eye to me now.
And I lament the fact that I won't ever have them fall asleep on my shoulder that way again....but then a smile comes to my face, because I love the individual entities that they have become.

Lance Briggs never gets to see what Kelsey would have become.

Before her eventual death, and before her two broken legs, Kelsey was admitted to the Emergency Room for a broken collar bone, bruises, and abrasions about her body. But as you learned, was eventually placed back in the custody of the people who did this to her.

If you have the ability to do something like that to a defenseless little girl, then it's simply within your core being....you WILL do it again.

I guess that kind of common sense is too much to ask of the court system.

For the record, what the above video doesn't tell you, is that Michael Porter, the piece of garbage that killed Kelsey, was also charged with sexual assault, as well as First Degree Murder, and was allowed to take a plea of "enabling child abuse", to receive a lesser sentence. Kelsey's mother Raye Dawn Smith also pled to "enabling child abuse", but this leaves me asking a question.....if they were both just enabling, who does the court feel actually PERPETRATED the abuse?
I mean, doesn't one of the two have to actually be the killer if the other was just enabling?

I guess that kind of common sense is ALSO too much to ask of the court system.

Lance Briggs served his Country in Iraq, and I'm sure as his time to return home drew closer, thought of picking up his smiling little girl and feeling her squeeze him as hard as she could.
Instead, he came home to put her in the ground, never to feel her squeeze or hear her laughter again.

How does that ever feel right....ever?

Thanks Kristin for bringing this to my attention.

Kelsey's Purpose (A Site Run By Kelsey's Grandmother)