REMEMBERING MADDOX

 

Maddox A. Williams was three years old.

 

He entered the world fighting.

 

Born prematurely at only 30 weeks, Maddox weighed less than three pounds and spent more than a month in the hospital before he was able to go home.

 

He survived that fragile beginning.

 

As he grew into a toddler, his family remembered a happy and playful little boy.

 

His father later described Maddox as caring, funny and beautiful.

 

Photographs show a blond haired little boy with bright eyes and an enormous smile.

 

In one photograph, Maddox is dressed as a Minion.

 

Those are the images that deserve to remain beside his name.

 

Maddox spent much of his young life moving between adults, homes, custody arrangements and a child protection system that had known about him since the day he was born.

 

But Maddox was never a case file.

 

He was a little boy.

 

And at three years old, he should have had an entire lifetime ahead of him.

 

MADDOX’S STORY

 

Maddox was born on January 9, 2018.

 

Child Protective Services became involved almost immediately.

 

Within months, serious problems in the family resulted in Maddox being placed with his father, Andrew Williams.

 

For much of the next two years, Maddox lived with his father and paternal grandmother.

 

Circumstances eventually changed again.

 

After Andrew was arrested in February 2020, Maddox returned to his mother, Jessica Williams, who later became known as Jessica Trefethen.

 

By late 2020, Jessica and Andrew were sharing custody.

 

Family members began noticing something troubling.

 

When Maddox returned from his mother’s care, he sometimes had bruises on his face and forehead.

 

By March 2021, Andrew was again arrested.

 

Jessica effectively became Maddox’s sole custodial parent.

 

When Maddox was seen by child welfare officials immediately before returning to his mother, he appeared happy and healthy.

 

He had no significant visible bruising.

 

He was not missing any teeth.

 

Over the following three months, that changed dramatically.

 

Maddox began appearing with repeated injuries.

 

Jessica described him as clumsy.

 

During a family trip to New Hampshire, Jessica threw Maddox out of a bathroom and onto a hard floor.

 

He suffered scraped knees and elbows, a facial scratch and bruising to his forehead.

 

Other bruises appeared on his legs, arms and head.

 

Some were concealed beneath makeup and temporary tattoos.

 

Jessica slapped Maddox and struck him in the mouth.

 

She insulted his appearance and told him that looking at him reminded her of his father.

 

Family members noticed that Maddox began losing teeth.

 

Jessica offered explanations involving falls.

 

By June, Maddox had lost multiple teeth that a child his age should not naturally have been losing.

 

On June 20, 2021, Jessica called her mother, Sherry Johnson, and said Maddox was not feeling well and complained of stomach pain.

 

When Sherry arrived, Maddox looked pale and gray.

 

They drove him to Waldo County General Hospital.

 

As they reached the hospital, Maddox lost consciousness.

 

Jessica told medical personnel that Maddox had become tangled in the leash of a 15 pound puppy, been dragged into a boulder and then kicked in the stomach by his eight year old sister.

 

The injuries doctors saw told a very different story.

 

Maddox’s head was misshapen.

 

There was a large bruise and swelling on his forehead.

 

Temporary tattoos covered some of his injuries.

 

Bruises in different stages of healing covered his body.

 

Fluid was coming from his nose and an ear.

 

He appeared pale and thin, with a distended abdomen.

 

His heart stopped.

 

Emergency room personnel spent approximately an hour attempting to resuscitate him.

 

They could not save him.

 

Maddox was pronounced dead.

 

The autopsy revealed the devastating extent of his injuries.

 

There were multiple bruises and abrasions across his head and body.

 

His mouth had injuries caused by blunt force.

 

Three teeth were missing, and one tooth socket was fractured.

 

There was bleeding inside his skull.

 

There were hemorrhages and lacerations throughout his abdomen and internal organs.

 

His pancreas had been completely severed.

 

Two vertebrae in his spine were fractured.

 

The internal injuries were only hours old.

 

Medical evidence showed they were far too severe to have resulted from ordinary childhood play, a small dog pulling him or another child kicking him.

 

The force required was comparable to a major car crash or a fall from a great height.

 

An adult stomping on Maddox’s abdomen could have caused the injuries.

 

The medical examiner determined that Maddox died from battered child syndrome involving both recent and older blunt force trauma.

 

His death was a homicide.

 

CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES INVOLVEMENT

 

Maddox was known to Maine’s child protection system from the beginning of his life.

 

A report was made following his premature birth in January 2018.

 

Another concern was reported the following month.

 

In March 2018, after one of Maddox’s siblings ingested liquid methadone and did not immediately receive medical treatment, Child Protective Services substantiated neglect.

 

The court found that domestic violence and untreated substance use created jeopardy for the children.

 

Maddox was placed with his father.

 

Over the following years, the family remained involved with Child Protective Services and the courts.

 

When concerns later arose about Andrew, Child Protective Services also substantiated neglect against him.

 

Custody arrangements continued changing.

 

In March 2021, Andrew was arrested after law enforcement found him impaired while Maddox and another child were with him.

 

Child Protective Services substantiated additional neglect.

 

On March 7, a caseworker saw Maddox at a relative’s home.

 

He appeared happy and healthy.

 

He was active and playing.

 

There were no significant visible bruises.

 

Jessica was contacted that same day.

 

She refused to allow a caseworker into her home or participate fully in another safety assessment.

 

She maintained that she had recently been investigated and that a judge had already determined her children were safe in her care.

 

Over the following months, the Department continued involvement surrounding the family.

 

But the escalating physical abuse of Maddox was not discovered before his death.

 

After Maddox was killed, his paternal family publicly questioned why repeated concerns and years of child welfare involvement had not resulted in stronger protection.

 

Maine’s Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability later conducted an extensive independent review.

 

Investigators examined thousands of pages of child welfare, medical, court and background records.

 

The review did not conclude that Child Protective Services’ safety decisions regarding Maddox had been unsound under the laws, policies and information available to workers at the time.

 

It did, however, identify legal, practice, resource and public policy issues that could improve child protection.

 

Among the concerns was a failure to explore the custodial arrangements of all children in the home during one investigation, a departure from agency policy.

 

Maddox’s case illustrates one of the most difficult realities of child protection.

 

A child can be surrounded by investigations, custody proceedings, safety assessments and professional involvement and still remain in danger.

 

Maddox had been seen healthy in March.

 

Three months later, he was dead.

 

WARNING SIGNS

 

The abuse Maddox suffered left warning signs.

 

Bruises repeatedly appeared after time in his mother’s care.

 

His mother began describing a child who had not previously been unusually clumsy as repeatedly injuring himself.

 

Bruises were hidden with makeup and temporary tattoos.

 

Maddox lost teeth years before children normally begin losing their baby teeth.

 

Explanations were given for each new injury.

 

He was slapped and hit.

 

He was verbally degraded.

 

His mother threw him onto a hard floor.

 

And during the final months of his life, the people who loved Maddox did not have enough access to see the full pattern developing inside his home.

 

The medical evidence ultimately showed injuries from different points in time.

 

Maddox had not suffered one terrible accident.

 

His body showed a history of violence.

 

JUSTICE FOR MADDOX

 

Jessica Williams, also known as Jessica Trefethen, was arrested three days after Maddox’s death.

 

She was charged with depraved indifference murder.

 

At trial, prosecutors presented evidence of the repeated abuse Maddox had suffered and the catastrophic injuries that killed him.

 

The medical examiner rejected Jessica’s explanations that a puppy, a trampoline accident or another child could have caused Maddox’s injuries.

 

On October 18, 2022, a jury found Jessica guilty of depraved indifference murder.

 

The jury deliberated for approximately one hour.

 

On December 20, 2022, Jessica was sentenced to 47 years in prison.

 

She appealed her conviction.

 

On May 16, 2024, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court rejected her arguments and affirmed the judgment against her.

 

Jessica A. Williams, also known as Jessica Trefethen

 

Relationship to Maddox: Mother

 

Conviction: Depraved indifference murder

 

Outcome: Guilty at trial

 

Sentence: 47 years in prison

 

Appeal: Conviction affirmed by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court in 2024

 

FOREVER REMEMBERED

 

Maddox Williams lived for three and a half years.

 

He began life weighing less than three pounds.

 

He survived a premature birth.

 

He spent more than a month in the hospital.

 

And he grew into the happy, playful little boy his family remembers.

 

There are thousands of pages documenting what happened around Maddox.

 

Child protection records.

 

Medical records.

 

Court documents.

 

Police reports.

 

A murder trial.

 

An independent government review.

 

An appeal before Maine’s highest court.

 

Those records matter because they establish the truth of what happened to him.

 

But they are not Maddox.

 

Maddox was the little blond haired boy in the photographs.

 

The child dressed like a Minion.

 

The little boy his father remembered as caring, funny and beautiful.

 

He deserved to grow up surrounded by people who made him feel those things about himself.

 

He deserved adults who protected his smile instead of hiding his bruises.

 

He deserved explanations for childhood injuries that were true because those injuries really were innocent childhood accidents.

 

He deserved to lose his baby teeth because he was growing older.

 

He deserved a fourth birthday.

 

And many more after that.

 

Maddox survived the difficult beginning of his life.

 

He should have been allowed to survive his childhood too.

 

Abuse Angels remembers Maddox A. Williams.

 

Remembered. Honored. Never Forgotten.