#StandWithSophie: Texas girl's mother pitted 9-year-old against father, made her 'say sorry for loving him'
Just hours after the father of the 9-year-old Texas girl, Sophie Long, won full custody of his daughter, more details of the little girl's ordeal with her birth mother has emerged. The girl reportedly wrote in her journal that her mother, Kelly Marie Mitton, would often pit her against her father, and "made me say sorry for loving him." The developments come days after the girl's allegations of sexual abuse against her mother's boyfriend sparked an online campaign. A video shared by the child's stepmother launched the campaign last week called #StandWithSophie to help the little girl find justice.
"My mom said that my dad only loves himself and doesn’t love me and made me say sorry for loving him," the girl wrote in her private journal, entries of which were shared by Sophie's family with YouTuber Annie Elise.
Sophie is the child of divorced parents. The girl's father, 41-year-old Michael of Seguin, Texas, and her mother Kelly Marie Mitton, 34, of Frisco, divorced in July 2015. However, a long and bitter custody battle for their three children, Sophie, and two boys, ensued since then. The custody of the three children was initially evenly split between the parents, however, as the relationship between Michael and Kelly worsened, a judge gave Kelly sole custody of the children. Recently, a video shared by Sophie's stepmother Kourtney Chalmers showed the child pleading for help as she told her grandmother she had been sexually abused by Kelly's boyfriend.
Elise, in her podcast on Wednesday, September 9, shared multiple journal entries she claimed were written by Sophie, including one where the girl apparently found marijuana in a drawer, and talked of her mother getting drunk and fighting with her boyfriend, Jake Bellington.
"I was snooping through my mom and Mr Jake’s closer and guess what I found, greenish brownish flakes in a container with a lighter next to it. What a liar," one entry stated. While the other added: "My mom is crying and screaming in the room, I went in and she screamed on the top of lungs and straight up rolled off the bed. I think she was drunk, they went out that night, so maybe she was trying to wake up Mr. Jake but she punched him in the face.”
Mentioning another fight between her mother and Bellington, the girl allegedly wrote: "Here we go another fight. Mr. Jake was screaming telling me my mom is a terrible person, it was a whole crazy deal. I was so scared so I brought Mowgli to my room, the police got called ad honestly tired of this. Mr Jake snatched Mowgli out of my hand, the baby almost fell, he almost killed his baby for no reason. By the end of this I knew all the curse words. Mr. Jake took Mowgli and was driving like he was drunk and my mom took us and it was like a car chase running red lights swirling around calling police all forts of stuff we almost crashed. That was a crazy day."
The YouTuber, who calls herself a true crime enthusiast and trend forecaster, in an earlier podcast had claimed that Sophie was allegedly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and that she often goes into a state of catatonia for several minutes on end because of her alleged prolonged abuse.
A GoFundMe page, set up by Chalmers, claimed that Sophie has stated numerous times that she has been a victim of molestation, grooming, and domestic violence at her mother's home. "Sophie, 9 years old, has disclosed she has been continuously subjected to domestic violence, sexual grooming, and most recently molestation/rape in her primary residence. Her father is fighting for her life while her abusers pull every resource to get their hands back on her. The biological mother, according to Sophie, is a part of the sexual abuse and is encouraging it," the fundraiser stated. Chalmers said that she and the girl's father had already spent thousands of dollars since June fighting for Sophie, but the ordeal has continued.