MEET JUSTIN PAYNE
August 12, 2015
BREAKING: Thibodaux police chief stepping down
August 12, 2015
Less than a month ago, Christy and Nicholas Goubert appeared to be just one more struggling young Terrebonne Parish couple, coping with financial challenges and hoping for a better future.
On July 27, all that changed when the pair was booked into the Terrebonne Parish jail on four counts each of cruelty to a juvenile. They face the potential of ten years in prison on each count if convicted. Their four children – girls aged 2 through 8 – are in temporary emergency placement.
“Medical examinations of the children revealed that the children suffered from lice infestation, scabies and dental decay,” said Assistant Chief of Detectives Dawn Foret. “A 5-year-old who weighed only 35 pounds was determined to be extremely malnourished.”
Child welfare workers, police and prosecutors say this case, and others like it, are the publicly visible tip of an iceberg they deal with on a regular basis. Abuse of children, they note, is not always the type that causes bruises or breaks, nor of a sexual nature, but the types of conditions the Goubert children are alleged to have lived in. Causes, they say, can include overall poor parenting skills, substance abuse, or any number of other factors. They say that neighbors or relatives should notify them if abuse or neglect is suspected, and leave the decision up to the experts.
After the Goubert arrests, local Facebook pages were abuzz with postings from people who said they were not surprised official action was taken against the couple. But interviews with law enforcement and child welfare officials indicate that it was one call that drew attention to the problem.
“If you have suspicions, let us make that call, that decision,” said Anthony Ellis, the Louisiana Department of Children and Families executive manager for in-home programs. “If you are a neighbor or a concerned citizen, if you suspect something is happening within a family, let us make the determination about the safety of the child.”
Some of the Goubert’s relatives, however, express a belief that law enforcement officials jumped the gun.
“Those children were not abused,” said Gloria Aycock, their maternal grandmother, who helped care for them. “Christy is not a criminal and, in the jail, she is really hurting in there. She says she wants to get out of there and get a job and get her kids. I worry about her every day.”
Some people, including neighbors, disliked Nicholas Goubert’s comportment, according to Aycock and others who know the family.
“They all him hated Nick,” Aycock said. “I believe somebody called because they hated Nick, and now they have punished the kids at the same time.”
Any suggestion of malnutrition, she insists, is outright false.
“Christy always fed the kids,” she said. “They had food stamps, they got plenty of food for them. She used to cook spaghetti and Hamburger Helper all the time, sometimes meat with brown gravy and rice. I would cook, too.”
“She has always been small always tiny,” Aycock said, referring to the 5-year-old. “If there was malnutrition, why would it be just the one child?”
The oldest child, Aycock said, was doing well at Upper Little Caillou Elementary.
“She is smart, very quiet and keeps to herself and has never been any trouble,” Aycock said.
The 5-year-old was looking forward to starting school this year.
“She was excited about riding the bus just like her big sister,” Aycock said.
Although Christy Goubert mostly stayed home to be with her children, Aycock said, she had recently begun working at a neighbor’s mobile snowball stand for extra money.
“People judge too much,” Aycock said. “She has been trying her best. People shouldn’t say something they don’t know.”
Based on what childcare workers and officers have alleged, some officials question whether Aycock’s defense of her daughter – she is less charitable toward her son-in-law – might be living in denial.
Certainly, for now at least, questions outnumber objective answers as the criminal cases against the couple stagnate in the criminal justice system, in their earliest stages.
The Goubert case arose when someone – authorities will not say whom – reported to the LDCFS that the Goubert children were being mistreated.
Accompanied by Terrebonne Parish deputies, DCFS caseworkers visited the Goubert family’s home on Rouen Street in Chauvin July 24.
The conditions they observed created enough concern for the social workers to remove the children. Four days later, deputies returned to the home and the arrests were made. It is not known whether the criminal charges were made at the request of DCFS.
Not yet assigned legal counsel – which they cannot afford on their own – the Gouberts languish in the Terrebonne Parish jail. No lawyer means there is no opportunity, for now, to apply for the $40,000 bond imposed on each to be lowered. Their cases have not yet been reviewed by the Terrebonne Parish District Attorney’s office, which means an assistant district attorney has not yet ascertained whether the facts match the elements needed for prosecution of the charges.
“We have and are continuing to assess the safety of the children and have ensured that they are safe,” Ellis said. “We are continuing to assess the situation.”
He and other officials confirmed that removal of children from a home on a first visit is uncommon though not unheard of.
Ultimately, two separate components of the Terrebonne Parish District Attorney’s Office will be involved with the cases. A trial level assistant, who would normally work a specific division of court, will eventually handle criminal prosecution. Another division of that office is working on behalf of DCFS, and would present evidence at a separate hearing – most likely before a totally different judge – to determine whether the children should remain under state care in a foster or group home, or be returned to either their parents or a blood relative.
The criminal case against each parent will be governed by relevant aspects of criminal law, meaning that for the charge to stand prosecutors must prove elements of the charge beyond a reasonable doubt.
The civil cases – the matters concerning the children themselves brought by DCFS – will be determined by a judge whose sole task will be to decide what outcome in terms of custody and placement will be in the best interests of each child, and only by that standard.
Friends and relatives are split on the question of whether the Gouberts should be held criminally accountable for what has occurred with the children. Some have said they were not surprised official action of some sort was taken, that they suspected neglect of the children.
But those relatives said they themselves never thought it rose to a level of seriousness that necessitated a call from them.
The children, all girls, are ages 8, 5, 3 and 1.
The two oldest girls slept in the grandmother’s Rouen Street home. The two youngest stayed with their parents in a small camper without running water on the same property.
“They were trying to find a place for them all to live together,” said Aycock, who mentioned that a child welfare worker told her a complaint was received from “nearby” concerning the children’s welfare, but gave no further information. When DCFS came to the home, she said, they told her the children could not stay in her home because each did not have their own bed.
“They brought the two little ones to my house to wash them, and my daughter cooked in my home,” said Aycock, as she cleaned out the fetid trailer last week.
Christy Goubert was aware that the children had a problem with lice, she said.
“A lot of kids have that, she had medicine for it and was trying to take care of it and then boom, this happened,” Aycock said.
She confirmed information on Christy Goubert’s Facebook page that she had a few weeks before brought one of the children to a doctor, for a fever, vomiting and other maladies.
Criticism of the Gouberts centered on their alleged penchant for spending evenings away from home, at video poker parlors and bingo halls.
Nicholas Goubert, his mother-in-law confirmed, devoted a lot of time to his activities with the Selucrey Sophisticats, the men’s Carnival club whose members strut and sway on parade routes in festive outfits in white dinner jackets with bowler hats and parasols.
DCFS workers, she said, remain in touch with her, and she has expressed a desire to work with them so that the children can again be together, and be with her.
A couple since they attended Terrebonne High School together, the Gouberts were married in 2010, and, according to Aycock, never did have financial stability. She blames that on Nicholas, not her daughter.
“It kept getting harder because they kept having kids,” she said. “He thought it was a joke, to brag that he had all these children. I don’t believe he could understand the responsibility of taking care of all of them. If they couldn’t afford the kids, then why have them? But what’s done is done. I love my daughter. And I love them, I love those kids. And I miss them.”
The camper trailer (at center) is where Nicholas and Christy Goubert lived with their two youngest children. The larger house to the left is the home of grandmother Gloria Aycock, where the two older Goubert children stayed. Both children are in the custody of the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services. Their parents are jailed in lieu of $40,000 bonds on charges of cruelty to a juvenile.
