One family’s inspiring journey through trauma, addiction and child welfare
On January 6, 2017, Kelsey Daffron and David Ludeman were arrested in Columbia, MO for endangering the lives of their 2-year-old and 8-month-old children. The story quickly spread in town for the conditions in which Kelsey and David’s infant and toddler were exposed to and for David’s prior popularity. The kids were immediately put in the custody of their grandparents, Jimmy and Christy Ludeman. Kelsey has spent the last 8 years working toward regaining custody of her children.
On September 12, 2024, Kelsey won back sole custody of her daughters, now 9 and 7.
This is her story.
It was 1:15 p.m. on a bitter day in January 2017.
Police responded to a call from Children’s Division about an anonymous tip from the Child Abuse & Neglect Hotline. Upon arriving at the home: 505 W Timothy Court in Columbia, police arrested 21-year-olds Kelsey Daffron and, later, David Ludeman, who had fled the scene, “on suspicion of two counts each of first-degree child endangerment,” says the Columbia Daily Tribune.
According to the reporting from that day, the home was unlivable. The floor was littered with trash and dirty diapers. The refrigerator was unplugged and filled with spoiled food. Living inside were two young girls, 2 years old and 8 months old.
The young children were immediately put into the care of Jimmy and Christy as the closest kin.
“I remember the social worker at the time told me it could be about 18 months for [Kelsey and David] to get the girls back,” Christy said. The girls, Natalie and Taylor have spent 8 years, the vast majority of their lives, in the care of their grandparents.
5 years earlier...
Christy Ludeman has a knack for remembering numbers – dates, receipt totals. She keeps record in her phone book of friends and family’s phone numbers, addresses and favorite foods for birthdays and holidays.
Unsurprisingly, she remembers the day her son, David, met Kelsey. “They met on December 31st when they were 16,” Christy said. “And then [she] came over on the Fourth of July and the rest was history.”
Kelsey fell in love with David hard and fast. In many ways, David’s life represented everything that hers had not up to that point. He had a loving family, lots of friends, and perhaps most importantly, stable parents who were not struggling with addiction.
Audio from Kelsey and her family describing her childhood.
Listener discretion is advised.
Up until this point, David was a very popular kid. He was kind, bright, and funny. He was kind of quiet, if he didn’t know you very well, but he had lots of friends and opened up to people he knew and trusted.
Having gone to school with David, I remember him standing out among the other kids by the time we reached Oakland Junior High (now Oakland Middle School) for his considerable height, blond hair and good looks. Being nearly 6 feet tall by the time he was 14 paired with natural athleticism made him a star athlete in any sport he tried. He played football, basketball, and he ran track. And, he was good at all of them. Needless to say, David was a bit like a celebrity in our school.
He was considered by many coaches and educators to have a very bright future ahead of him. To this day, David has many standing records at Oakland for his records in athletics.
Despite his talent, David’s addiction followed a familiar trajectory – it happened slowly, then all at once.
According to his family, David was smoking weed regularly by junior high; however, it did not appear to affect his academic or athletic performance. It wasn’t until high school that I saw a noticeable change in David; rather, I stopped noticing David. He was no longer the center of attention, no longer in the local spotlight. By the time he was 17 and firmly in a relationship with Kelsey, David stopped playing sports and started dabbling in stronger, often synthetic, drugs like K2, a synthetic form of marijuana.
Upon the death of his grandfather, David didn’t know how to cope, so he turned to the only thing he knew – drugs. He tried Adderall, his first taste of methamphetamine. By the time David and Kelsey’s first daughter, Natalie, was born in 2014, he was likely using meth.
“He would lie about what he was doing or where he was going,” Kelsey said. “I remember one night, I asked him, like, ‘why won’t you come to bed?’ Another time, I found a meth pipe next to him while he was sleeping and when I asked him about it, he said, ‘oh, well, you planted that there.'”
David’s addiction and behavior were beginning to feel increasingly familiar to Kelsey because of her mother’s addiction history. She resented it, but at least it was something she knew and understood. She thought she could manage.
“I loved him; I cared about him. I expected to stay with David my entire life,” Kelsey said.
David was 18 going on 19 and living in his deceased grandparents home at 505 W Timothy Court, just around the corner from his parents, Jimmy and Christy. Here, he could use regularly and avoid getting a job and spending money on anything else besides drugs. Kelsey, unable to live full-time in these conditions with two very young children, traveled between her family in Hermann, Missouri and Columbia to be with David. She worked in order to support herself and her girls, while also paying the past-due bills at Timothy Court to avoid utilities and water being shut off.
Kelsey and the girls had been staying at the crumbling house on Timothy Court with David for a few weeks when an anonymous Child Abuse and Neglect Hotline call was made. When police and protective services arrived, Jimmy and Christy immediately took custody of the girls to avoid them going into foster care or being separated.
“They said we had to get them out of foster care because someone could come in and say they wanted a little blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl, and there was nothing we could do about it,” Christy said.
Jimmy chimed in next: “And also, they said ‘there’s no guarantee we could even keep them together.”
Within a day of her arrest, Kelsey’s mother bailed her out of jail and took her back to Hermann, Missouri (away from her daughters), where Kelsey’s mother, grandmother and the rest of her family are from.
While in Hermann, Kelsey immediately began taking steps to get her daughters back from state custody. She had a job in Hermann, stable living conditions, and secure daycare. She set up bedrooms for her daughters and completed all of the steps to get them back but one: Counseling.
Because she did not complete counseling, Kelsey was forced to waive her parental rights to Jimmy and Christy. This is when Kelsey began using drugs to numb the loss. “They told me I wasn’t trying,” Kelsey said. “And, I thought, if I’m not trying then [explitive] it.”
Listen to Kelsey and her family describe almost getting the girls back in 2017.
For more than two years, Kelsey was lost.
While David continued to use drugs and move between prison and the streets, Kelsey entered an abusive relationship. Her new boyfriend introduced her to Adderall and began to coerce her with the promise of drugs for money or other favors. When he locked her in a bathroom and sexually assaulted her, she fled.
For the next 1-2 years, Kelsey alternated between transience and sleeping at her place of employment. She had no car, no apartment, and no one to help her. Any help she needed came with a cost.
Kelsey described hallucinating her daughters playing when she was using meth and not sleeping. She called them her “shadow people.” She would see them at the edge of her vision during these deliriums. She knew she needed to get her girls back.
Listen to Kelsey describe her first 2.5 years after losing her daughters. Listener discretion is advised.
Finally, after 2 and a half years, Kelsey made it home.
When Kelsey had no one left to turn to, she finally called Jimmy and Christy and asked them to come get her. She was in St. Louis and was overwhelmed by all she would need to accomplish before she could get her daughters back.
“Just come home,” Christy said. “Come home, and we’ll figure out the rest later. The first step is to come home.”
On August 8, 2019, they brought Kelsey home where she stayed for five years. Jimmy and Christy retained guardianship of the girls while Kelsey learned how to take care of them and herself.
“We were letting her go at her own pace,” Jimmy said. “We weren’t pushing her.”
During her time staying with Jimmy and Christy, Kelsey stayed employed, bought and paid off a car with Jimmy and Christy’s help, and slowly learned the life skills needed to raise her daughters, all the way from learning how to do laundry and cook, to filing her taxes, to throwing birthday parties for her daughters. Most importantly, she stayed clean and learned in Jimmy and Christy that she had family she could trust.
Listen to Kelsey and her family describe her gradual transformation.
Once she was ready, Kelsey got an apartment with her boyfriend of 5 years and slowly began having the girls in her care more frequently. She set up their bedrooms, picked them up from school or waited for them at the bus stop.
Although an important step toward Kelsey’s goal of sole custody, it was extremely difficult on the entire family.
Listen to Kelsey and her family describe the hardship of Kelsey moving out.
Eventually, the girls began spending the night and slowly spent more and more time at their mom’s house instead of their grandparents.
Having their mom back was a dream come true for Natalie (9) and Taylor (7) who had not lived in their mom’s custody since they were 2 years old and 8 months old. All they’ve ever wanted is to be with their mother.
Now, as of September 12, 2024, their mom is home for good.
Natalie
Natalie was born to Kelsey and David in 2014.
Much like her father from his past life, Natalie is kind, bright, athletic and full of energy. She is a goof-ball who loves telling her family about her day, her friends and her interests. Natalie enjoys soliciting people for their cell phones so that her and Taylor can take selfies together on Snapchat.
She is fiercely loyal to her sister and vice versa.
Taylor
Taylor was born to Kelsey and David in 2016.
Taylor is the yin to her sister’s yang: She is quiet, thoughtful and extremely inquisitive. She may not say much, but there is so much going on beneath the surface. She’ll often whisper something for her sister to then translate to the rest of the family or group. Taylor loves art and reading, and she is exceptionally good at math.
As of the publishing of this story, David remains in and out of jail and prison for drug-related offenses and altercations. Although he is mostly able to stay clean while behind bars, he is seeking his next high immediately upon release.
He is currently detained at the Boone County Jail for possession of a controlled substance except 35 grams or less and FTA damage to jail property/trespass in the 1st degree.
His family remains hopeful that he will one day win his battle against his addiction.
