More than five years after a mother of two was brutally murdered by her ex-husband following years of domestic abuse, the father of the convicted killer and the mother of the slain woman remain engaged in a lengthy court battle over custody of their grandson.
Judge Kerri Foley imposed a gag order on those involved in the case during a court hearing Monday in Galveston County Court at Law No. 2. The hearing was closed to the public, and it’s unclear what happened due to the gag order. A jury trial is scheduled for July, although court records show it has been canceled and reset multiple times.
In a phone interview before the hearing, Stephanie Johnson said she wants to become a joint managing conservator for her 11-year-old grandson. The boy’s mother, Anne-Christine Johnson, was killed in 2016 by her ex-husband, Shaun Hardy. Her body was found inside his League City garage after three weeks of searches by police and Texas EquuSearch.
Hardy had been awarded primary custody of his son after the couple’s 2014 divorce. Anne-Christine Johnson, a waitress, had no attorney during those proceedings. Now, the child remains in the care of his paternal grandfather, Barry Hardy, per that agreement, while his convicted father sits in prison for murder.
Stephanie Johnson said she wants to be involved in important decisions about her grandson’s well-being, education and health.
Most importantly, she wants to ensure that her grandson gets help from a therapist who specializes in trauma and children with autism. The boy endures flashbacks, violent meltdowns and digestive problems, she said, and he has bounced from school to school because of behavior issues.
“The bottom line is I’m here to advocate for (my grandson), not to get caught up in legal nonsense,” said Johnson, a Houston-based public relations consultant and cancer survivor. “Somebody has to stand up and make sure his needs are properly addressed.”
An attorney for Barry Hardy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. According to the Texas Observer, he testified in 2017 that he favored limiting visits with the child: “I just feel like I need to keep him close and somewhat controlled at this point until we can understand him and see what his true needs are.”
Barry Hardy, a well-connected businessman, later posted his son’s bond, freeing him prior to his murder trial, the Observer reported.
Johnson continues to fight for more visits. She is permitted to see the boy two weekends per month under the current agreement, she said. The agreement also bars her from talking to him about his late mother.
In 2019, Shaun Hardy pleaded guilty to murdering his ex-wife and tampering with her corpse. The judge sentenced him to 30 years in prison.
Anne-Christine Johnson had long suffered harrowing violence at the hands of her abusive ex-husband and maintained contact with him out of concern for her son, according to family, friends and court records and as previously reported by the Chronicle. In a court filing for a protective order against him, the young mother — who also had a son from a previous marriage — wrote that she was afraid Hardy would kill her.
In 2015, Johnson said Hardy pointed a loaded shotgun at her, choked her, slammed her head into a wall and threatened her with a knife, according to court records. He allegedly threatened to fake her suicide by drugging her and slitting her wrists in the bathtub.
Johnson’s case illustrated how difficult it can be to get separation from an alleged abuser. Her situation was complicated by the facts that Shaun Hardy had won custody of their son, she had a prior drug conviction and authorities never charged Hardy after the alleged abuse in 2015. Shaun Hardy worked for the city of League City and maintained the appearance of a well-liked colleague outside of the home.
Investigators found the 30-year-old woman’s body wrapped in plastic and surrounded by scented candles in Hardy’s home garage. He later confessed to police, telling investigators that as she lay on the floor with a knife pointed toward her as if she intended to harm herself, he kicked the knife and drove it into her chest, then suffocated her.
In the wake of her daughter’s death, Stephanie Johnson devoted herself to helping survivors of domestic violence and quickly learned that women and men face powerful systemic challenges beyond the abuse they endure.
“At every step of the way, an abused woman is reliant upon the police and legal system because there’s nobody else to protect her,” Johnson said.
In these types of cases, courts should focus on a child’s best interest, but too often the family courts system in Texas does not allow for the voices of children to be heard, said Ellen Marrus, a professor at the University of Houston law school and director of the Center for Children, Law and Policy.
“The damage that is done to the child in that situation could be very serious,” she said about the Galveston County case. “He’s never going to understand how his mother came not to be there.”
Survivors face many challenges in the legal system because domestic violence remains misunderstood by law enforcement, judges and juries, Marrus said, citing some cases in which fathers gain custody of children despite a history of abuse.
“We tend to say that fathers rarely get custody, but it’s more that they don’t ask for custody — and when they ask for it, they tend to get it,” she said.
anna.bauman@chron.com
