by Shaun Asseal

About the author: Shaun Asseal is a father as well as an investigative reporter who covers law and crime.

[The year is 1995.] Stephanie Timm, a 3-year-old with curly brown hair that ripples luxuriantly down her back, opens her mouth to talk, but the words don’t come. Instead, she makes a sound like a billy goat, ebullient but shrill.

Just two years [prior], Stephanie was starting to speak when she and her two brothers were summarily removed from their family home. The reason: an accusation of child abuse brought against the children’s mother, Teresa Timm, by a former friend with an ax to grind.

A Cloudy Issue

The clash that followed between the Timm family and the child-welfare officials of Cass County, Nebraska, has brought attention to a family-justice system where definitions...