Divorced boy finds new parents

[Amelia]

Divorced boy finds new parents

By James Bone

March 26, 2005

timesonline.co.uk

THE American boy who won an historic legal battle to “divorce” his father has now found himself new parents.

Both sets of grandparents sought custody of Patrick Holland after his father murdered his mother when he was aged eight. But Patrick, now 15, has won the right to be adopted by his mother’s friends, Ron and Rita Lazisky.

“It’s good to know you can’t go back,” Patrick said after his adoption became final on Thursday. “I don’t think I’ll ever be over it, but it’s a step forward. It’s about the biggest step you can take at one time.”

Patrick woke up one morning in 1998 to find his mother, Liz, dead in the next room, clutching a pillow in a vain defence against her killer’s bullets.

His estranged father, Daniel, a telephone operator, was convicted of the murder and sentenced to life without parole after a court was told that he had smashed a window with a set of golf clubs, kicked down the bedroom door and pistol-whipped his wife so violently that the wooden handle of his .22 calibre gun splintered before shooting her eight times.

After his mother’s death, Patrick was placed in a “bridge” home as his grandparents on both sides competed with the Laziskys for custody. Patrick wanted to live with the Laziskys, whose house in nearby New Hampshire he used to visit with his mother.

When they qualified as foster parents, Patrick moved in with them. But his jailed father began asking to see his school reports and counselling records, so he sued to terminate his parental rights. Patrick won the case on the eve of the trial last July when his father agreed to sign away his parental rights and declare Patrick sole heir of his mother’s estate.

But the legal wrangling continued until this week when a family court in Canton, Massachusetts, finally approved his adoption by the Laziskys, who have four adult children and two grandchildren from previous marriages.

“I had to hold back tears. It’s been a very uphill battle for us for four years,” Mr Lazisky, a chemical engineer said. His wife declared: “I’m just so happy. I never thought I’d see the day.”

In Massachusetts, a new birth certificate is issued after an adoption, bearing the names of the adoptive parents and, if requested, a new name for the child. The original birth certificate remains under seal and can be opened only by court order.

Patrick said, however, that he would keep the name Holland on his new birth certificate because he shared it with his mother. “It’s the name I’ve known. It would be really hard to change it now,” he said.

The family now plans to campaign for passage of “Patrick’s Law”, before the Massachusetts legislature. The Bill would automatically terminate the killer’s parental rights in cases where one parent murders another, unless the child chooses not to do so or the surviving parent was the victim of domestic abuse.