Voices for Voices®

A Mother Fights A System That Lost Her Child | Episode 413

• Founder of Voices for Voices®, Justin Alan Hayes • Season 5 • Episode 413

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A Mother Fights A System That Lost Her Child | Episode 413

What happens when a mother asks a court, a sheriff, and social services the simplest question—where is my daughter—and no one can answer? We sit down with Sarah Davis of Kentucky for a raw, detailed account of a custody battle that veered into disappearance, intimidation, and a system that lost sight of the child at its center. Her story stretches from childhood lessons in a county’s court culture to frontline experience in a local jail, where she describes drug overdoses, a contraband tunnel, and invitations to off-the-record “parties” that blurred the line between influence and exploitation.

Across nearly an hour, we unpack the mechanics that keep families trapped: perverse incentives, paperwork that outlives truth, and the subtle ways power discourages complaints. Sarah shares the moment she finally hugged her daughter in a courthouse hall and felt how much weight she had lost. She explains how evidence can be sidelined, why parental alienation cuts so deep, and what it’s like to be asked to travel hours for an interview at a half-built police post. If you’ve ever wondered how corruption survives, listen to how fear, rumor, and fatigue are used as tools—and how careful documentation, public meetings, and community support push back.

Still, this isn’t a story of despair. Sarah names hope as a strategy: control what you can, let go of what you can’t, and keep walking with purpose. We talk about building safer routines, protecting your paper trail, and interrupting generational harm by insisting on mental health care, transparency, and independent oversight. For parents, advocates, and anyone who’s been told to be quiet “for your own good,” this conversation offers both a warning and a roadmap. If this moved you, subscribe, share the episode with someone who needs it, and leave a review telling us what accountability should look like in your community. Your voice might be the one that breaks the cycle.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Welcome And Mission Of The Show

2:12 Sarah’s Early Exposure To The System

5:25 Family Entrapment And County Corruption

8:33 The Custody Crisis Begins

10:30 “Where Is My Daughter?”

13:40 A System That Refuses To See

17:20 Holding On To Hope Amid Loss

21:15 Breaking The Cycle For Future Generations

24:45 Inside The Jail: Drugs, Tunnels, Parties

28:50 Social Services And Unanswered Evidence

31:55 Intimidation, Travel Tactics, And Fear

#MotherFightsForJustice #ChildLossAwareness #SystemicInjustice #AdvocacyForChildren #GriefAndHealing #EmpowerParents #JusticeForLostChildren #SupportForMothers #ChangeTheSystem #ChildWelfareReform #justiceforsurvivors #VoicesforVoices #VoicesforVoicesPodcast #JustinAlanHayes #JustinHayes #help3billion #TikTok #Instagram #truth #Jesusaire #VoiceForChange #HealingTogether #VoicesForVoices413

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Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Hi everyone, it's Justin with Voices for Voices. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the show. We're over 410 episodes and really just over two years, so it's pretty remarkable. We're reaching people all across the world, over a hundred countries, over a thousand cities. We're aiming to reach 300 uh countries and 3,000 cities, and uh along the way uh we we come across uh people experiencing life, and that is what uh brings our our guest with us today. Um we are grateful for for her to take time out of out of her day to talk with us and and share uh her experiences uh with us and uh the hopes to inspire people to come out of the shadows and uh feel like they can be empowered uh with uh whatever situation that they're they're going through. So uh our guest today is Sarah Davis. She is a uh resident of Kentucky, used to be resident of Letcher County, Kentucky, uh, used to work at uh the the jail. Uh she's a mother. Uh she is uh just like I think any parent, just wants what's best for uh her her children, and uh and and that's really what brings us together today with this uh this show and this conversation, uh, to have her share uh some of the ups and downs that she's had to experience uh and then we'll we'll get into as as much as uh as much as we can. So uh thank you so much, Sarah, for joining us on the show.

Sarah Davis:

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

You're welcome. Absolutely. Uh maybe you can go back uh to the the the the days of living in Letcher County uh and get into as much of the questionable activity that you feel comfortable uh sharing because that's that's the goal is we want to help people and uh we can't help people if we don't know kind of what what's gone on.

Sarah Davis:

I get that. Um well uh born and raised in Letcher County, um my well, my kind of learnings of what goes on in the county and what happens and what we all experience started at a very young age. So when I was eight years old, my brother had gotten put in drug court, and that's where the beginnings of everything just kind of fell through. Um, once your family goes into the court system, it's almost impossible to get out, especially with how Letcher County's um workings and dealings and systems are. If they keep you in it, they they get more profit. So my brother went from 13, I think he was 13, all the way into adulthood in the legal system. And uh me and my other brother, my middle brother, we kind of learnt from him. I mean, my middle brother, he got in a little bit of trouble go growing up, but we we tried kind of tried to learn. And some of the people that was in our lives, like Taya Adams and you know, the people that came through, they all tried to teach me how not to go in the system, not what what not to do wrong and not to follow the same paths that they did, because Ty from even her early age was taken into the system, and then her children was put into the system also. So Lecture County has a way of using and abusing their people for their profit. Um, I understood from a young age how corrupt our county was just from being in the middle of it, from where my family, my brother was in drugs. So obviously that put us around a lot of people, especially with the court system. And uh I I knew it from a young age, but I just didn't know how bad it was until I worked in it. And then even afterwards, seeing all that I've witnessed while working at the jail, um, even seeing how they have tried to retaliate against me and slander my name, even with uh Miss Uh H C. Um, I can't, I don't want to uh how they've kind of backstabbed us and how they've done us. It's it's it's cruel. Um, especially seeing that I'm in a custody battle. My ex-husband had decided in uh May of 2024, I think yeah, 2024 to run off with my daughter after three years of hardly having any involvement. And we've been stuck in the legal system since, even with showing abuse videos. We have pictures, we have all the proof that you can ask for. And um they've just kind of they've drug us out to the point where it's going almost on two years. This happened in 2024, and they've had my children in danger for two almost two years now. And it's when is it gonna stop? When are they actually gonna when are they gonna stop saying that they are the voices for our children and they want the best for our children, but then they put our children in abusive situations. They take them from good homes and good mothers and good places, and they don't even know they don't even know where my daughter is. The court system don't know where my daughter is, I don't know where my daughter is, social services don't know where my daughter is. Where is my daughter?

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Oh my gosh, that is oh I can't believe it. I mean, from yeah, all the way around from you know social services to law enforcement they don't know where she's at.

Sarah Davis:

Um they're not not even caring that they don't know where she's at. So they're just like, okay, like oh, they're she's with her dad, she's fine, even though I've been able to show in every aspect he she's not fine, she's not safe from him. When he first took her, for the first year and a half of this, she resided at his mother's house. She he was taking her from me for his mom. And then he got with a new girlfriend and wanted to play dad of the year and took her from his mother now. So from her being with his mom to being with him, the one time I got to see her, he brought her to court because he ripped her out of school. Uh, he ripped her out of school and he brought her to court and uh he wouldn't let her see me. He kept shoving her in his in his armpit and everything. And as we were leaving for court that time, last time I said, Can I at least hug her? You've not let me see her in months. At least let me hug her. And I got to hug her, and his mom had gone to walk up to us, and he had a, and this was while we were still in the courtroom, not outside the courtroom. The judge had already moved on to the next case. Had a absolute tantrum screaming, yelling, coming at us. The bailiff had to come and drag us out and everything, with my daughter screaming and crying in terror. When I got to hug her, you could feel that she had lost weight. I could feel that she was scared. The way that she clung on to me, we didn't want to let go. But I I still have hope, even with the legal system in Letcher County doing us how they've already done us. I have faith that now they're starting to open their eyes. Because the court session that we had after that one, they finally started listening. After almost two years, they finally plus a new judge, two years, and gone through two judges, are finally starting to listen. So I have hope, but it's hard to have hope in a hopeless county. Yeah, it oh I can't even imagine what it what what that that's like, and then to have that moment to be alienated from your children for no legal reason, no no reasons at all. It's as if I'm having to grieve my children who are alive. I'm having to grieve my babies as if they were gone. And how is that fair to me or them? They're having to grieve their mother and their other family as if we're no longer existent, and it just hurts them more.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Oh, it does. It's uh it's not good for anyone, but yeah, I mean, especially the children, uh to you know, you you kind of wonder what's going through their you know her her mind, and with you showing kind of the the proof, um and still nobody will listen.

Sarah Davis:

Nobody will listen, and you have to wonder if your daughter obviously she's probably being fed, you know, brainwashing type of things, like oh it's hard to imagine is what is she eating, what is she listening to, what is she having to witness, what is what is being done around her. I mean, that is heartbreaking as a parent to have to sit and just wonder and never getting an answer to. And and just the way things go, like you know, the the the last thing anybody wants is for somebody to to disappear, whether it's an adult, whether it's a child, and I I I just I how how do you uh how do you get through uh those days, like like mental health-wise, just in emotional wise, like I I won't lie, my mental health going through all this and being away from my babies, especially from where the holidays just passed, it's been hard. It's been really hard. But I know that one day it's gonna stop, and I won't have to miss another one with them.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Yeah. And that's what that's one of the things we're we're hoping with uh having you and you're you're brave and courageous and inspiring to you know this to step forward and and to talk about this, and that's that's one of the reasons we wanted to have you on the show is uh because we want to continue to spread that awareness of what's gone on in the past, but still what's going on in the present and we yeah, and and in the future, we want that obvious we want the current to change, but definitely the future.

Sarah Davis:

I want a better future for my children because if the if the judicial system and the corrupt in our county is handling things how they are, who's to say that if we ignore what's happening, if we stay silent and we don't speak out about what they're doing to us and our children, it's just going to continue. They're gonna do this to my children's children, they're gonna do this to my great-great-grandchildren because the cycles will never end because they just put more corrupt in line in place of them who learn from them beforehand. Look at look at all the judges before. They kind of just get special picked and and placed in. So it's I want better for my kids. I don't want my kids to have to worry on if they do something minimal, they're step, they're stuck in the court system for the rest of their lives. If this here having to fight with their father to get them home doesn't continuously keep them in the system. Once it don't matter what age they grab you from, once they place you in the system in Letcher County, you are forever in the system in Letcher County.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Oh man. And and and I'm and I'm sure there's so many different ways that they can they can do that that may seem innocent, like, oh, we're trying to help. But in the end, as you know, they're they're not. They're they're literally like, yeah, they're in the system where it's like, okay, we we have new recruits and in in a sick way.

Sarah Davis:

Um in the ages that this is uh this is starting out, you know, talking with Taya and and others of you know being 14 or I mean I was very young watching them go through this in their young teenage years, and it it's time for it to end. It's time. I mean, if you are willing to be silent, if you're willing to let it continue to go on, you're a part of it. Yeah, you're just as liable for every damage that is done to these children as anybody, even to the adults. They they turned them into drug addicts. What uh just because of how the systems are in Lecher County and how things are, with the mental damage that has been done to my children and the resources, the little resources they have for mental health. Statistically speaking, because of them, my children are likely to become drug addicts. It's in their blood, it's in their DNA, and now they've got the mental health issues to put them in the crisis. So you're telling me you'd rather damage these children and create future drug addicts than to create stable adults and stable children so that way we can have a better county community future. I mean, the more we tear down these people, the more that we tear down these kids and communities, there is no community.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

That's right. Yeah, and so it your time working at the the jail. Um did you uh experience any um uh I say any communication, but working with any of the the judges like Judge Mullins or any of the others?

Sarah Davis:

Uh Judge Mullins one at one point had asked me to go to one of his parties and I declined. Um there's a lot that goes on down there. And the biggest funny part about it, and because the people that worked at the jail, they retaliated by saying, I slept with the inmate, I did this and that. I was with an inmate. I was dating an inmate from another county. I worked in Lecher County and he was an inmate in Pike County, a totally different jail. And when he was being transferred to our jail, I resigned from my position. So I did not sleep with an inmate. All of all of my inmates from that current time that are out of jail can even tell you I did not sleep with an inmate. I don't float that way. Pretty much everybody in that jail and the time of me working was my brother or sister or uncle, anyways. I was grown up with all of them. So it's outrageous.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Yeah. Can you talk a little a little bit about what we we learned uh with the I'm trying to think if it was uh Gemma or Brandy that brought up uh the Purdue pharma uh with the opioids, uh kind of you know, clinics being set up like just about anywhere and kind of to your point, you know, we get pe get people in the system and um just just totally, you know, people overdose and then they pass away, and uh it it it sounds like that no matter what route is looked at, whether it's children or whether it's the opioids or uh the parties that people felt like I have to go to and and you said no, I'm not not gonna do that. Uh can you speak to any uh any of that?

Sarah Davis:

Um with me saying no, I'm lucky that I was raised better and I wasn't in any legal trouble at that time. I had worked there before my ex-husband had run off with my daughter.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Okay.

Sarah Davis:

But I guarantee the way that the strings would have been pulled, they probably would have tried something with them then. But they do use the drug crisis in Lecher County against people or to take them out. Um a lot of the girls were going to the judges' parties just for the drugs. A lot of them weren't being forced, a lot of them wasn't, it wasn't a oh, you come and do this and I'll take your charges. A lot of cases it was, but there's they like to use the drug crisis in the best of their abilities. Um, even down to with the inmates, um, with how they like do with the drug crisis in the jail. Um there is a tunnel from the girls' cell to the male cell that I tried the entire time that I worked there for them to let me block it so that way the cells would stop passing drugs and the girls would stop overdosing and all of it, and they refused. It's one of those things. Why would you get rid of something that's producing you money?

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Right.

Sarah Davis:

It's it's bringing them back into the jail once they leave. It's it's shoved down your throat.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Wow. Yeah, it and that that's just one another way to keep people in the system because if they know who's going through the tunnel and who's sharing, and and people are overdosing and diding and doesn't seem like there's a lot of attention being paid to helping people, which is what a person would think from a judge and a system and uh you know child services that they would they would actually uh do their job.

Sarah Davis:

Well, even with child services, when I showed them so whenever we were they started my uh supervised visitation with my daughter, I had even showed so social services the the all the evidence that I had, I had even explained to them how he had obtained her. And they even said, How did how does he even still have how does he have her? How did this happen? You have no reports on you, you've never had any allegations of abuse. Like, how is this happening? And I was like, How you guys tell me like you guys are a part of this and you guys are supporting him in court, so you tell me.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Wow. It's just uh Man. It's so I mean it's you know, when I'm out to twenty twenty six, but it it it's just uh crazy to think that this much. corruption, whatever the term to to use, uh is going on in all facets of of of life.

Sarah Davis:

Uh uh I think yeah we've talked we've talked to several several of the the the the girls and the ladies that uh have gone through and uh oh nicole Nicole Hidalgo she was saying uh about you know being followed uh oh we did at the bottom of the hook we've been ha we've been harassed there was one point a few months ago that a uh state policeman from Hazzard my my grandfather lives in Somerset Kentucky so they drove all the way from Hazzard Kentucky they drove an hour and a half two hours to come to my grandfather's house to ask me to come to the London which is 30 minutes from my grandfather's to come to the London State Police Post to come and conduct an interview with one of the hazard troopers I asked them I was like why are you guys coming two hours away when you guys could have sent one of the state policemen from the post in in London to come speak to me and why are you guys not doing the interview in my home and I told them that I wasn't comfortable with doing it without a lawyer and they spent like 15 minutes trying to convince me oh you don't have to have a lawyer you're not in trouble you you don't have to worry about it we're just wanting to ask a few questions and I was like exactly I might not be in trouble walking in but it takes one wrong word one just one and you guys are gonna have me and I'll never be seen again oh my gosh oh not even to mention that the state police post they wanted to come and do the interview instead of doing the interview at my house like they did with everybody else they wanted me to come to a police post that was under construction full construction so what was their plan that is just incredible yeah well what's what's the deal there they they they they couldn't even say we'll we'll take you we'll go to a different police station it's like no come to where literally can't you know there's the thing that had scared me the most was from where they were doing the interviews with everybody at their homes or meeting them in a public space but you're wanting me to come to your all's territory and then what's gonna happen during the time of them wanting me to do that interview is when that lady had just dis disappeared over in Pike County after they went in on her and abused her so I'm I'm I was terrified.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

I'm still terrified they could still retaliate against me oh absolutely that that yeah and it's it and it's scary to think I mean it's just scary to think that that's even possible like like you said you you walk in and it's like you don't know if like you're you're gonna be able to walk out on your your own recognition in our group of people we have found um GPS trackers attached to our vehicles people have tampered with our vehicles we have been followed I mean the list goes on and it's it's scary.

Sarah Davis:

I my mom uh Taya uh her husband dusto just bought mom a uh taser and all kinds of self-defense things and I'm like good because when I'm not there you need to be able to defend yourself it's it's a scary time because if you're one of the people willing to step up and go against them and tell their wrongdoings and trying to put a stop to it, they want to put a stop to you. They'll even send people to come to date you to talk or be your friend and they'll st slowly start bit by bit well why don't you stop doing YouTube? Why don't you stop doing these interviews? Why don't you stop with this corruption stuff? It's just making you look silly and it's it's like okay which one sent you like which one of them sent you yeah and and we were talking uh Nicole and she she mentioned uh she showed up uh some scenario at I I can't think of the the the name of the restaurant where uh the the the judge and the sheriff were ate at um but she was she was meeting somebody there and she there she was just hanging out and uh and they tried to like roofie her basically of you know put something in her drink and and it was just like oh my gosh she they will drug you they will overdose you they will hotshot you they will make you disappear from where my biggest like scare with it is if they pull you over and per se you're by yourself you're you're gone and little Nicole look how small she is oh yeah I mean it it's it's a scary time to live in it's I whenever I'm referring or somebody's asking me about where I live at I tell them that it's the wild wild west because anything can happen oh yeah what what would you tell what would you tell people that are going through a similar situation and it's it's awful to even think uh but it there I'm unfortunately there there may be other areas or people there's a lot of people that go through the same scenarios even in different ways I would say to stay strong and keep up hope even whenever they make and take and abuse and they do all these things to you yes it hurts in the moment yes it's hard in the moment but what they're wanting to do is to push you to fail. They're wanting to push you to give up they're wanting to push you to take your life or give your life to drugs they're wanting you to do those things so that way they've got you they they want you to fail. So just keep up the hope and keep up your strength and think about your kids think about your family think about the future of our community or your community whoever's community wherever you are just keep up keep up hope and strength wow I mean you have you have incredible strength I mean I I I don't even know what I would do if I was in in in your shoes I'm welcome uh of having that that that positive outlook like it it's easy to say it's easy to you know tell people oh well just be positive just go for a walk or just do this or that's hard to but it's hard yeah when you're actually going through it yourself as like alright I'm trying these things I have a lot of friends or family that ask me like what can I do for you what can I do or how how can I make it better and the only answer is there is no making it better there is nothing you can do but fight it's the same thing as fighting cancer. If you get a cancer diagnosis are you going to buckle under and give up and let it win no I I I know I didn't my mama didn't my papa didn't anybody that I know you don't give up you fight God gives you that strength to lead you through every battle that you're supposed to go through and those battles that you're going through you're going through for a a reason a purpose to make you the person that you're supposed to be for the future I'm so happy you just said that like that that uh I don't want to bring it up because some when you talk about faith and everybody's got you know their either higher power yeah uh my higher higher power is God.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Yeah same here uh and and that's that that's that's kind of the way I look at it too that like there's got to be a reason like and I'm still here.

Sarah Davis:

Everything that I have in put through my entire life even through childhood has made me the woman that I am supposed to be for my children for myself to provide for myself and the woman that I'm supposed to be. It takes me down the path I'm supposed to go. And the way that I always looked at it the the path that God sets for us is kind of like the tree of life. It's got many little branches and paths and ways and little forks and it's up to us he dire he he gives us the path it's whether are we going to walk walk it the way that he wants us to so we we have our times of veering off and going off on a little branch and but he sets the path for us it's up to us to listen and obey yeah and it's so hard uh to to do that uh oh it is even yeah sometimes the question you know what am I doing here and what the why am I here? Why is that yeah so many other people have been taken and then not well that too uh the trafficking but it wasn't God that took my kids it wasn't god that put the power in them to take them it was the devil it was it was the other forces God wouldn't put forth that he is here for us and he sets our paths and he does m mighty miracles in our lives but he's not gonna interfere with our choices and things like that.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Yeah and I even think just this interview and us talking that this is happening for a reason to to get out to help at least one I mean it even if it helps just one single person. Yeah then that's one less person that has to fill a line through yeah and I think of you know if there's a there's a person that is on the ledge or thinking about like what am I here for the you know that there's a there's a reason.

Sarah Davis:

There's a reason. You're here for a reason. What you just went through and that pain you just went through is meant to put a fire under your hunt and to get you in gear to do what you're supposed to be doing. There's time when you're going through something hard especially like I've had to take time and make myself realize I have to take time for myself and breathe and allow what's happening to unoverwhelm me because it becomes overwhelming. You have to realize and steady yourself and go, okay, let's control what we can control for the moment and we'll come back to this so don't take everything head on one thing everything at one time control what you can and let go of what you can't because God's going to lead you to get through it.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Oh my gosh yeah that that is so um uh prophetic and uh yeah because that there is there's so many so many things come at us and and get in our head and we think about it for a minute or two or a few seconds and then the next thing comes and and and then it's yeah it's trying to take care of the things that you can control and that the ones that you can't that maybe someday you'll be able to or somebody'll come along or it'll just go by the wayside and be like oh but I really hate to have to jump off here but I gotta take my little girl to go meet her friend. No no that's perfect we're good with timing uh I just wanted to say thank you Sarah for joining us on the on the show is thank you for having me you're welcome is there any like parting thought you want to share just to keep hope and keep strength whenever they're trying to silence you they're trying to silence you for a reason keep your voice up and keep doing what God is meaning for you to do excellent thanks Sarah we'll get you uh the links when it's the show as we get it all put together and thank you it'll be going up on socials and uh thank you for uh coming on the show and being so strong and and and so courageous uh for for others so uh we'll see you yeah we'll see you it's not to talk to you thank you absolutely take care you too bye bye bye bye

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Justin Alan Hayes

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