Justice 4 Isabella

Help us get justice for our daughter Isabella!

We are the Kuykendall family and we are asking for your support to fund our fight for justice on behalf of our amazing one year old daughter, Isabella. Isabella is a young gentle soul, who loves everyone she’s ever met and is never shy to show it. Tragically, during Isabella’s first week of daycare in late August 2022, she was abused and physically assaulted by caretakers on numerous occasions. She was targeted for unknown reasons and left that week with her spirit battered, her body damaged and her trust for others shattered. Since then we have seen 75 hours of footage covering her time of abuse, and witnessed the physical evidence of her injuries.

We are asking for your help because we are dealing with a broken criminal investigation system in Hawaii, that did not investigate these assaults properly or file charges against the suspects. The acts are apparent, injuries correspond with the acts and time logs confirm what the suspects did. They are provable assault cases. Without prosecution, we are telling these suspects that their abuse is an acceptable form of child care, since the criminal justice system will not intervene. We did not make this public before, trying to get the system to make the right call, but now we're left exhausted and frustrated.

Since the attacks happened in a federally associated facility, we had to use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process to gain access to the footage of the assault. We have seen some of this footage, and are continuing to review it, but do not own it and cannot use it to publicly advocate for our daughter to initiate criminal and civil proceedings against these suspects. To secure the evidence, we must pay for extensive editing of the footage to protect the privacy of others filmed. Additionally, due to the nature of this odd legal situation, we need additional funding for a law firm to help advocate for justice and guide us through the bureaucratic and frustrating criminal justice environment here in Hawaii.

We are asking now for help because we only started viewing the footage in mid-December and were previously unaware of how extensive the abuse and damage was against Isabella (as the criminal investigative bodies took no action and downplayed any possibility of making a case). Since viewing, we realize her physical damage was more extensive, with pinching and hitting all over the body, violent shaking and acts of temporary suffocation. She was pinned down and isolated for sustained periods during these acts. Because so little was highlighted at the initial discovery of abuse that week, we have scrambled months after the fact to seek more medical clarity. Isabella's doctors were not provided any film evidence of attacks nor were given an accurate assessment of the injuries incurred (until we were aware of the extent of the damage and relayed the information to them).

How we will use your support:

Legal advocacy: we discovered quickly that few legal firms were designed or equipped to advocate for the same processes and mechanisms normally reserved for the District Attorney and other government-sanctioned prosecution teams, and cannot get adequate legal advice in support of other causes (such as a civil lawsuit against the suspects or government). This funding will help us navigate criminal and civil justice.

FOIA editing costs: We reviewed over 70 hours of footage, submitted our exact footage, and the stated cost to edit the footage is $200.00 per editing hour. They will not give us an exact time, but due to the scale of the footage (and the abuse throughout), we are looking at potentially thousands of dollars for this evidence alone.

Medical service and travel: As we now watch footage of acts that could have led to permanent damage for her, we have been navigating a medical field of support. Here in Hawaii, we've quickly realized that wait lists for specialists are in the hundreds, and have taken trips to the mainland since as a result.

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YOU can help deliver justice for Isabella and protect other children from abuse

1) GIVE whatever you can. No donation is too small (tax-deductible)

2) SHARE on social media (#justice4isabella)

3) EMAIL this page - gofundme.com/justice-4-isabella - to your family + friends. 

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If you knew Isabella before this abuse, you would have known the easiest-going and happiest toddler in the world. It is impossible for us to imagine why someone would so clearly and deliberately torture her, nor is it easy to understand how a criminal justice system would so readily disregard these crimes and take action against provable assaults. Please help us get justice for Isabella, support our fight to bring criminal charges against these people and ensure that they will not be in a position to abuse any other child in a care facility again.

With Gratitude,

The Kuykendalls