Nina West says she wants to be a good mother to her three sons

Herald-Journal (Spartanburg, SC)

Author: MONICA MERCER

Nina West hovers at around 5 feet tall. Hints of a sweet, almost naïve demeanor belie the reality of her past three years.

The darker undercurrents of her survival have finally landed her in jail. It includes the painful realization that her personal history and the choices she made as a teenage mother might have led to her children's current condition.

"I've had a lot of time to think in a tiny room with nowhere to go," she said. "I think about how I'll be when I get out. I'm not a perfect person."

Call her an alcoholic, a rebellious, immature girl who never grew up, an incompetent adult. Nina, 24, has called herself all of those things and worse since her children were placed in emergency protective custody on July 13. Investigators said they looked like "skeletons" because of alleged abuse and neglect -- not at the hands of their mother, but those of Nina's aunt, Molly McCurry, 29, and her husband, Scott, 30.

The McCurrys were arrested on three counts each of intent to inflict great bodily injury upon a minor.

The state Department of Social Services had conducted a "positive home study" on Molly and Scott McCurry, said DSS general counsel Virginia Williamson, before the agency placed Nina's boys in the couple's Lyman home in August 2003, after their stay in two foster homes.

Molly McCurry also eventually gained legal and physical custody, and DSS was ordered to close its case in October 2003, according to court documents.

Nina admits that she hasn't seen her children in more than a year, and probably just 15 times altogether since they were taken from her by DSS in early 2003. According to a court document, a judge found that "the children were physically neglected by their mother" and that Nina had failed to complete her treatment plan for alcoholism.

"When they sent me a letter saying the kids had permanent placement [with Molly McCurry], I just quit harassing DSS." Nina said it was a quick descent into obscurity from there -- no connection to family and friends, no caring about her own well-being.

But don't ever say that Nina didn't love her three sons. That's when she nervously begins to shuffle her feet and her dull complexion becomes blood-red.

"How can they give my kids to so many people and hurt them and then judge me?" Nina angrily asked. "I did not neglect those kids and made damn sure I gave them all the love I had.

"The happiest moments ever were with my kids," she continued. "That's when I felt like I had a life. I haven't felt a happy day since. I haven't cared about anything since."

Renewed hope

Nina said she cares now. She is two months pregnant with a fourth child as she sits in the Spartanburg County jail, accused of a crime unrelated to her children. Nina is charged with robbery, assault and battery with intent to kill and contributing to the delinquency of a minor -- her first major offense, although she has been arrested twice before.

Instead of feeling hopeless in the face of overwhelming circumstances, Nina had just removed the cornrows from her hair on Tuesday to reveal a softer face. She constantly rubbed her belly and hoped to get probation so she could concentrate on bringing home her 5-, 7- and 8-year-old sons. She is armed with the news from DSS that she still has parental rights -- something she thought she had lost long ago.

"I can do good. I used to do good, but only because of the kids," Nina said.

There is the reality, though, of all the things that came before her renewed hope. Nina said she had been floating from place to place in Greer's Sunnyside neighborhood when she was arrested on July 31. She called it a place where "bad people live" and where she had to rely on the kindness of strangers, cooking and cleaning for sporadic pay and a place to crash on different beds every night. She did drugs with a boyfriend from Mexico nicknamed "Primo" -- they have since broken up -- who could be the father of her baby, but she didn't know his full name and questioned whether he even knew hers.

"We both have secretive lives and don't talk about the past," Nina said. "I don't even talk to my family anymore. It brings back so many bad memories."

Violent past

Nina said that her first memory was one of violence when, at 3 years old, she tried to stab her father in the back with a screwdriver to protect her mother.

"Fighting has always been a part of my life," she said, even during that relatively happy period on Midnight Road in Boiling Springs. Nina lived with her mother, Juanita, and her father, Freddy Justice, along with her grandparents and great grandparents, the Satterfields.

"He was such a nice man," she said about Luther Satterfield, her great grandfather. Nina described being "spoiled" and how much fun it was to live in the country.

She also grew up with Molly and Holly Johnson, her mother's much younger half sisters. But since they were closer in age to Nina, she said she considered them her own siblings. The woman Nina thought of as a sister now stands accused, along with her husband, Scott, of inflicting the worst child abuse Sgt. Kevin Bobo said he had ever seen in his 19 years with the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office.

"I think I've got a lot of mental blockage from that time," Nina said of the early years on Midnight Road. She could not remember when her parents divorced, but remembers that when her mom remarried, physical abuse crept in.

"He used to wake me in the night and stick my face in a pillow and whip me for no reason," Nina said of her first stepfather.

She speculated that her experiences with such physical abuse -- Nina was subsequently beaten by her husband and various boyfriends -- is why she believes Scott McCurry might be to blame for the abuse of her children. "When you've been beaten in your life, you can look at someone and tell if they have the demon in them."

Her mother's third marriage was better -- Juanita is still married to that husband -- and Nina said she now appreciates what they tried to give her. Yet at 12 years old and without her father, Freddy, Nina said she became uncontrollable and rebellious to the point where she did not want to live in a household with structure.

"My step-dad dropped me off in the drizzling rain one evening," Nina said after insisting she wanted to live with her father right before her 13th birthday. "I wanted to know him, not just do the weekend thing and never know if he'd show up to see me."

But according to Freddy Justice, that was a big mistake. "I think they should have thought twice about letting her come live with me without any notice," Freddy said.

Unprepared to parent

Freddy admits he had just come off of living in the woods for 10 years and was constantly drunk and high on paint fumes. To this day, Freddy calls himself the "Otis Campbell" of Spartanburg, with perhaps the only difference being that he doesn't have a set of keys to the jail like the fictional character on the Andy Griffith Show did.

Freddy, 44, suggested that the darker aspects of her childhood, which started when Nina went to live with him, might have prompted her to get pregnant at 15 and marry Harley West at such a young age.

"If I was given a chance to get prepared and raise Nina, I could have done better," Freddy said.

Nina met her husband Harley at 12 years old, and began a relationship while in Freddy's care. Freddy said he desperately wanted to keep Harley away and would even sleep next to the front door to keep him from sneaking in to be with Nina. Yet because of Freddy's own parental incompetence -- he fathered a child with Harley's sister at the same time Nina had her first child with Harley -- Freddy said he just gave up.

"My family gave up on me, so I gave up on them," Nina said.

As a child who couldn't stand authority, Nina said that it never occurred to her that if she were to get married, she would essentially miss out on her childhood. Freddy believes, though, that she might have seen it as way out of her unhappy circumstances.

"She would always say that she was gonna get pregnant and have a family of her own and no one was gonna tear them apart because she was deprived of a happy family herself," Freddy said.

"How do you deal with so much tragedy?" he asked while trying to grasp the situation his daughter is in now.

Nina's motherhood

By her own account, Nina was a good mother as she started a new chapter with Harley and her first-born son. Two more sons would follow.

"The DSS really didn't investigate. They look at what they want to see," she said. Her children were taken away from her in front of her face, Nina said, "for lies my family members told."

If they had investigated, Nina insisted, they would have found three brothers who were always fed, always had haircuts, always had new clothes.

"Christmases were always good. We always ended up with so much stuff, it was pathetic," Nina said.

Although she and her husband brought in less than $800 a week between them -- Harley worked as a roofer and put siding on houses, and Nina worked odd jobs like waiting tables at the Waffle House while pregnant with her youngest child -- she said they got by.

"If something was needed, it was gotten."

Nina described her children as "brilliant little wizards" -- all intelligent, all eager to help their mom in any way they could, like cooking and cleaning.

The young family often played baseball, soccer and football together at Cleveland Park and went to McDonald's just to have fun on the playground. There were road trips to Myrtle Beach, daylong fishing trips and dinner at Burger King at least three times a week.

But Nina and Harley's marriage, like her own family, was hardly a portrait of constantly smiling faces.

"There's a tendency for a person to only remember the good parts of a past life," said Calvin Vinson, director of the Miracle Hill Rescue Mission in Spartanburg. During 2002, Nina had separated from her husband and had begun living with relatives, but also stayed at the mission for two weeks that October with two of the boys.

Becky Castro, the women's shelter supervisor, said that when Nina checked in, she mentioned having an alcohol problem and mental problems, as well. The shelter had recommended parenting classes to Nina because she lacked basic skills, like knowing how to dispose of dirty diapers. According to the file, Nina left before anything could get started.

"Her life was not rosy," Castro said.

Family divisions

One of Nina's most devastating periods was when her husband, Harley, died after a bicycle accident on July 24, 2004. She said the West family did not want her at the funeral because of their volatile marriage, going so far as to cut her image out of the only family portrait she had ever had taken with Harley and the kids.

Nina and Harley had been separated for two years at the time of his death. A week before Harley died, authorities arrested Nina on charges of domestic violence. In 2002, authorities had arrested Harley for the same.

Nina admitted to having an alcohol problem when she still had custody of her kids, and she said that Harley had been addicted to crack cocaine for years. She said her own reason for smoking crack was her insecurity about her weight. "I saw other people losing weight and having so much energy from doing crack, and I thought I needed to lose weight, too."

Myra Willis, a long-time Justice family friend, said, "When Molly and Scott first got [Nina's kids], I thought they were better off than they had been in their lives."

At least, she said, it appeared to be a stable home. Myra said that throughout Nina's marriage to Harley, the couple never had a home of their own and did have substance abuse problems.

It was Nina's cousin, Jamie Reed, 22, who said she had a large part in DSS eventually assuming care of the boys in February 2003.

"Nina was separated from Harley, and I was living with her and the kids and a bunch of guys in a trailer with no running water or electricity. We had to go next door and take showers," Reed said. "The kids were eating out of a trash can, and I didn't feel like the kids needed to be there."

Nina vigorously denied that those circumstances ever existed.

Family pulling together

Nina's father said he feels deep regret for his past mistakes and for not helping to raise Nina in a more responsible manner.

If one good thing has come from the horrifying situation, it is that the family is now working toward a common goal.

"Right now it seems like the whole family is pulling together, whereas before, no one cared," Freddy said of efforts to work with DSS to restore Nina's children to the family. "It took a huge tragedy to get everyone to cooperate."

Nina's children are under the care of DSS now, and a judge will soon decide where they should live. DSS has told Nina that they are considering sending her three sons to stay with her mother, Juanita Fisher. Nina could eventually regain custody if she completes parenting classes and goes to drug and alcohol rehab at the Spartanburg Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission.

She's almost euphoric now with thoughts of the possibility.

"I just started bawling," she said when she found out that her kids might get to know her again. "I was just like, if, if, if…if only I had done this."

Nina said it doesn't matter what she did, but what she's going to do.

"All I wanna do is curl up on a couch with my kids, watch some TV, and fall asleep."

Monica Mercer can be reached at 562-7215 or monica.mercer@shj.com.