GUILTY WI - Dr. Beth Potter and husband murdered at UW Arboretum, Madison, March 2020 *Arrests*

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squareandrabbet said:
Maybe, but I thought another article, which I can't immediately find, said that KS's parents went off to Africa (!) and left him alone, at which point he was sleeping in his car, which is what Dr. P saved him from.

Maybe your kid is a disciplinary problem and you feel the need to exile them from your home; that's one thing. To go several thousands of miles away to another continent (!) on top of the exile, and leave them wholly to fend for themselves? That, to me, is a different order of magnitude. I think the foster parents dropped the ball on this issue big-time in the interim, regardless of how much turmoil and conflict KS might have been to them. They, ahem, certainly didn't seem to mind at minimum, shall we say, that he had aged out of responsibility for foster care.
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It may be that they recognized he was extremely dangerous.
 
Teenager arrested in connection to homicides of Madison doctor, husband


“Last year, Sanford was charged with felony auto theft in Dane County. A criminal complaint states while Sanford's foster parents were away from their Middleton home and in Africa, he stole their car after disabling some of the home's surveillance cameras. Days after the theft, the complaint says police found Sanford sleeping in the car. "He was upset with his foster parents when he took the car," police say in the complaint.”
 
Moonracer said:
It may be that they recognized he was extremely dangerous.
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MimosaMornings said:
Teenager arrested in connection to homicides of Madison doctor, husband


“Last year, Sanford was charged with felony auto theft in Dane County. A criminal complaint states while Sanford's foster parents were away from their Middleton home and in Africa, he stole their car after disabling some of the home's surveillance cameras. Days after the theft, the complaint says police found Sanford sleeping in the car. "He was upset with his foster parents when he took the car," police say in the complaint.”
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OK, I take my kind thoughts back; the kid's got trouble.

However, being de facto abandoned in the middle of a pandemic, which it still seems like he was from the context discussions, has gotta be traumatic for anyone. I've heard stories about college kids in the foster system connected to this current horror, which were triggering my defense mechanisms, begging the administration to let them stay in their dorms as they literally had nowhere to go (OT: on account of liability reasons, I could've saved them some time; it doesn't work. I tried it myself at the end of junior year in a pretty liberal college, when the semester ended Friday and my parents couldn't get down to pick me up until Sunday earliest. I had to pack up my dorm room contents by Saturday morning latest, figure out a way to get it off campus with zero $ for taxis, take it to a friend's offsite apartment, and spend Saturday night there. All the while during my packing/pulling stuff out the door, the security guards kept monitoring to see if I had left; and these were security guards who liked me. I had a work-study job where I helped shut down a campus institution at the end of every night; and as a result, I knew them well. If they had been able to turn a blind eye and let me hang out there, I've no doubt they would have.)
 
The theft occurred in 2019. Not during the pandemic.

“Last year, Sanford was charged with felony auto theft in Dane County.”

I think he wasn't allowed to use the vehicle, and a relative was looking after him - and the relative notified the police when he disabled the home surveillance equipment and took off in the car. Just my opinion.
 
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MimosaMornings said:
Did anyone else look at the photos on the memorial website?
Photo albums were divided up
(I can’t remember all of them)

•Knox
•Family
•Madison

I found it odd that the album with the fewest pictures was family.
JMO
Click to expand...
BBM
I noticed that but assumed the site was put together by friends rather than family. JMO. Speculation only.
 
I’m so glad to see people discussing “why” again. The family dynamics here are so complex. Apologize in advance for the length!

squareandrabbet said:
Whoa, some deeply rooted emotionally fraught complaints here (BBM): . . . snipped . . . I can understand that making Daughter feel bad. Bad enough to hatch a plot to kill someone, because they won't talk to you? That's a huge stretch, IMO.
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I suspect that something had been going on for a long time here. Had the parents cut Daughter a lot of slack because she was adopted and had Daughter learned to tug on this particular heart string in the past?

Moonracer said:
Call me sour, but it will come out, MOO, that M was a LOT of trouble and many inappropriate things had been going on - such as the parents allowing the daughter to have a live-in teen lover who had been doing criminal things - my bet, she was out of control for a long time and the parents, not being trashy, were unable to control it. Not victim blaming them, just feel sorry for them as this must have been miserable to have tried to deal with . JMO based on seeing this too many times with wild teens.
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From what I’ve read Beth does sound miserable and conflicted. Was she trying to finally set some limits? Had she allowed KS in temporarily and was trying to extract her family and daughter from him? Maybe it wasn’t so much “live in lover” but “he can stay in the guest room for a few days” then the “kids” wouldn’t live by these rules and parents said “we will keep a roof over your head and food but you can’t be a member of this family in this house if you don’t follow the rules.” Massive speculation.

MimosaMornings said:
Did anyone else look at the photos on the memorial website?
(Snipped)
I found it odd that the album with the fewest pictures was family.
JMO
Click to expand...

I noticed that because it was the family pics I was looking for! Early on trying to figure things out. Two theories: people suspected that Daughter was at least tangentially involved (i.e. giving an alibi) and couldn’t stand to put in “happy family” pics in light of that or family was too devastated and conflicted to post pic so mostly friends posted.

squareandrabbet said:
Maybe, but I thought another article, which I can't immediately find, said that KS's parents went off to Africa (!) and left him alone, at which point he was sleeping in his car, which is what Dr. P saved him from.

Maybe your kid is a disciplinary problem and you feel the need to exile them from your home; that's one thing. To go several thousands of miles away to another continent (!) on top of the exile, and leave them wholly to fend for themselves? That, to me, is a different order of magnitude. I think the foster parents dropped the ball on this issue big-time in the interim, regardless of how much turmoil and conflict KS might have been to them. They, ahem, certainly didn't seem to mind at minimum, shall we say, that he had aged out of responsibility for foster care.
Click to expand...

And you can’t reasonably go to Africa for less than two weeks minimum because of the travel time. So it was a long time. And those foster parents seemed to not be wholly in support of the deferred prosecution (I’ll add a link). Was KS already a cauldron of rage at this, another desertion? Before he was then asked to move out of Potter Carre house?

Totally MOO but the parents found themselves WAY in over their head w KS living in their house. Maybe he came for “One night” because he has no place to stay and then wouldn’t leave. Or they realized that they had been too lax with Daughter and finally tried to put a foot down. All complicated by Coronavirus. But for KS this turned into another rejection/desertion. The daughter though, I just can’t understand even if she “only” didn’t call police knowing her parents had been shot/provided an alibi.
Dang that is a long post!
 
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squareandrabbet said:
Maybe, but I thought another article, which I can't immediately find, said that KS's parents went off to Africa (!) and left him alone, at which point he was sleeping in his car, which is what Dr. P saved him from.
Click to expand...

i once served as an unofficial foster parent to two siblings. This led to an interest in official fostering (never followed through). I learned the following from conversations with foster parents and social workers in my state:

- Foster parents are encouraged, but not required to take foster parents on trips. Rather, foster parents are directly permitted to schedule "family time" that does not include the foster child. The child is then assigned temporarily to a respite family.

This is in recognition that some foster children can be "problematic" for a variety of reasons and that foster parents may need a break.

- Foster parents can very quickly "un foster" themselves from a particular child with no or very minimal questions. The child's then returned to the state and possibly re-assigned to another foster family (some children are very difficult to place by their own behavior choices).

This policy is to prevent a foster family from being pressured to keep a predatory or dangerous individual in their home. Both this policy and the "family break" policy keep badly needed foster parents participating in the system who would otherwise drop out.

In short, my guess is that KS was not "abandoned" by his foster parents- there is simply no need to. Rather, he was either assigned to a respite family, or he was returned to the state for placement with another family.

As to whether or not KS personally decided to remain with the respite family, the state, a new family, or anybody else is a different matter.... .
 
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momsof3 said:
I’m so glad to see people discussing “why” again. The family dynamics here are so complex. Apologize in advance for the length!



I suspect that something had been going on for a long time here. Had the parents cut Daughter a lot of slack because she was adopted and had Daughter learned to tug on this particular heart string in the past?



From what I’ve read Beth does sound miserable and conflicted. Was she trying to finally set some limits? Had she allowed KS in temporarily and was trying to extract her family and daughter from him? Maybe it wasn’t so much “live in lover” but “he can stay in the guest room for a few days” then the “kids” wouldn’t live by these rules and parents said “we will keep a roof over your head and food but you can’t be a member of this family in this house if you don’t follow the rules.” Massive speculation.



I noticed that because it was the family pics I was looking for! Early on trying to figure things out. Two theories: people suspected that Daughter was at least tangentially involved (i.e. giving an alibi) and couldn’t stand to put in “happy family” pics in light of that or family was too devastated and conflicted to post pic so mostly friends posted.



And you can’t reasonably go to Africa for less than two weeks minimum because of the travel time. So it was a long time. And those foster parents seemed to not be wholly in support of the deferred prosecution (I’ll add a link). Was KS already a cauldron of rage at this, another desertion? Before he was then asked to move out of Potter Carre house?

Totally MOO but the parents found themselves WAY in over their head w KS living in their house. Maybe he came for “One night” because he has no place to stay and then wouldn’t leave. Or they realized that they had been too lax with Daughter and finally tried to put a foot down. All complicated by Coronavirus. But for KS this turned into another rejection/desertion. The daughter though, I just can’t understand even if she “only” didn’t call police knowing her parents had been shot/provided an alibi.
Dang that is a long post!
Click to expand...

Thank you so much...very insightful post!!!
 
stmarysmead said:
I think that might translate to “first love is my Mother.
Click to expand...
Yes, that is the translation. I think two things are important:

- It is in spanish. Spanish is probably not his language. Rather, it is the birth language and possible present language of the girl friend.

- The Spanish is not bad at all. 'Amor' is recognized as a femine noun. Though there are two minor grammar errors (the writer mixed English sentence structure with Spanish language), the totality is very clear and readable.

Both of the above could indicate some strong emotional ties between KS and his girlfriend to the extent that he was incorporating her language into his vocabulary- and doing it rather well.

Likewise, the girl friend used "bands of cash" to describe her parent's relative affluence. I doubt her parents used street slang. Rather, she could well have been incorporating his vocabulary into her own- thus demonstrating a strong tie.
 
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Thanks for this post. It’s made me wonder if KS was angry that he was taken from his Mother and put in foster care. I wonder how old he was when this happened.

And I wonder if he and M bonded over not living with their “real” families. In the teenage years, teens can be easily convinced that everything that does not go their way...or even simple rules... are evidence that they are not loved. “You don’t care about me” M was said to shout at her adopted Mother!

M supposedly desperately wanted to find her birth family...was this recent...after this relationship began? Did a relationship with a very troubled young man fuel some fantasy that she would be better off with her “real” family?

Did KS see his foster family and Miriam’s family as “oppressors” who were part of a system that separated them from the REAL families where they would be loved?

If so, how heartbreaking this would have been for the victims! They might have seen the influence KS had over her...but any attempt to deal with it,..just drove her farther away.
 
This case is heartbreaking on several levels.

For Potter to have been shot in the head, and remained alive for hours, only to die shortly after being discovered, is horrendous.

One of the couple watched the other be shot, as it sounds like only one gun is involved. Horrific.

For them to know they were being shot by someone they had befriended, who had lived in their home, eaten at their table, etc., is sickening to realize.

It is almost unbelievable that, for very good reasons, the couple rented a place for their daughter and KS, gave them a car to drive, bought them food, fully provided their daily needs, and it just wasn’t enough for the daughter and KS. Truly disgusting.

I haven’t heard whether the couple let KS in the house that night, or if he perhaps still had a key. Why wouldn’t they open the door? Maybe they thought something was wrong with their daughter for KS to be there at that time of night.

They were kind and trusting, and those qualities were used against them. How could they have thought they would be killed? They probably thought they should go along with being kidnapped, and KS would let them go at some point.

I wish all of us without murderous tendencies could somehow realize and recognize evil when it shows up in our midst.
 
Prayers for the orphaned brothers.

Their immediate future, dealing with their parent's estate and a criminal trial.

Their future children will not know their grandparents.

Their future children likely will not know their aunt.

Their childhood memories of their little sister are now viewed through a different lens.

Hang on, you two. Things will be better -- but things will never be the same.
 
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