A Fort Smith man who says he has been denied visitation rights with his daughter despite the fact he, until just recently, paid child support for almost a decade is seeking to gain custody of the little girl he has never really known.
David Joseph Ross says the mother of his child,nine-year-old Se'lah Ball, initially lied to him about the paternity of the child in August of 2013, Months later he got a letter from the ArkansasOffice of Child Support Enforcement Services demanding he take a DNA test to determine paternity and the outcome confirmed him as the father of the child.
Now, he is seeking the whereabouts of Dilecta Marshay Williams and Se'lah, who he says has moved several times and used a number of aliases since the birth of he child. Ross was just recently released from his child support obligations because Williams has not responded to any efforts by the court to contact her.
"I want my daughter," Ross said. "She (Williams ) lied to me from the beginning. We were living together up in northwest Arkansas and she never even told me she was pregnant. When it became obvious, she told Williams she had an affair with another guy and the baby was his."
The "other guy's" name would end up on Se'lah's birth certificate. It's not clear what caused DHS to reach out to Ross months later but once paternity was confirmed, he was obligated to pay child support. Those obligations, which he assumed came with court order visitation rights, according to Ross, and Williams refused to honor them.
"I couldn't afford to even get a lawyer back then," said Ross. "She told me from the outset she didn't want me to have anything to do with my daughter's upbringing and she has done everything in her power to keep me away from her."
"When I got my first lawyer, he really didn't do anything," said Ross. "My new lawyer
got the courts to dismiss the matter until she can be located."
That essentially freed Ross from he state-ordered child support. Ross said William also currently has a warrant out of Franklin County
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A background check on Williams, who is originally from Winnsboro, Louisiana, shows she has lived in Rogers, Bentonville, and Sherwood in Arkansas as well as Elkhart, Ind., Goodman, Mo., and Baton Rouge, West Monroe, and Portage la. and Dallas, Tx.
She has averaged just under a year in most of her residences.
"I noticed you occasionally post deadbeat dads from different places, and I just wanted to make it clear it's not always the dad that's the bad person in these situations," said Ross. "All I wanted from the beginning was to have visitation and a relationship with my daughter. "
Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Dilecta Williams can contact us at 479-461-0126. We will pass the information on to the proper authorities.
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