Teen scarred by adoption seeks his mother

Teen scarred by adoption seeks his mother

Jul 8, 1988

JANICE MARTIN

St. Petersburg Times

The words in the court record on the boy, 9 years old in 1978, ring cold:

". . . That it is manifestly in the best interest of the child to permanently commit him to the State of Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, or any licensed, child-placing agency willing to receive him, for subsequent adoption."

Thus was Michael Lindsey Turner legally severed from his parents.

The state had had an interest in Michael for years because his mother, diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, kept trying to have Michael treated for illnesses he clearly did not have. His father, gone for years, signed away his parental rights to Michael without another look.

Michael's mother fought the decision to the state Supreme Court, but didn't win. "I never saw her again," says the young man, now 19.

Michael stayed in foster care until he was about 11. One day a social worker came. "They said I was going for a long ride. They said I wouldn't be coming back. I was terrified."

Michael's ride was to the Children's Home Society in Miami. "I wanted to be with my mother so bad I couldn't stand it. But they said she was sick and someone else would love me and adopt me."

Someone else did adopt him - a man, a bachelor, named David Allen Lindsey. Lindsey adopted a number of boys like Michael from 1973 to last year, when Lindsey was charged with sexual battery and lewd assault on his boys. He goes to trial Sept. 6 in West Palm Beach.

"After I was adopted, he wanted to change my name so my mother couldn't find me. He gave me his name; I was the only one who wanted it." Michael became - and still is - David Allen Lindsey III.

"Six months after he gave me his name, he got mad at me for something and called me `Mr. Turner' and said my mother was schizo and crazy, and that I was the same way, just trash and no good."

Michael, now Dave, says life with his adoptive father was a roller coaster. He got expensive gifts, but no praise when he did well on the swim team. Dave flunked 11th grade. He got kicked out of the house six times before he left for good.

After that, he bummed around the state, staying with friends, getting drunk, trying to work, attempting suicide, being hospitalized. "I have real emotional problems," Dave says.

Dave will be a primary witness at his adoptive father's trial. He has filed a damage suit against Lindsey, the state and the Children's Home Society.

But what he wants right now is to find his family. The last he knew, his mother and grandmother both lived in this area. "My mother went to such extremes to try to keep me, I know she loved me."

Because Dave was so young, he doesn't know a lot: His mother's age or birth date. Whether he's an only child. His grandmother's name or why she didn't come forward when his mother was found unfit.

But he does know his grandmother was a widow. She lived in a white house on a corner in St. Petersburg, perhaps near water. She had a fondness for Siamese cats - both live and porcelain ones.

His mother's married name is Mary Johanna Turner. She also may be known as Ann Turner, Mary Ann Turner or Mary Jo Turner.

She is tallish, 5 feet 8 to 5 feet 10, big-boned, 160 to 170 pounds, with dark brown hair she wore shoulder-length. Dark eyes. Descriptions put her at about 40 a decade ago, and people describe her as intelligent, poised, a conservative dresser. Not emotional. It is conceivable she is in a hospital.

One other thing. People who know Dave - his former foster family, a prosecutor on the criminal case, his former boss, his attorney - share this thought: Dave is a basically good kid who's had some tough breaks. Maybe the toughest.

"Somebody needs to help him," said Wanda Schotts, his former foster mother. "He's always been a good kid, but he won't stay one if he don't get some help."