NEWS

Father of dead toddler pleads with legislators to update Iowa custody laws

Brianne Pfannenstiel
bpfannenst@dmreg.com

The father of a Grimes toddler who died while in his mother's care pleaded with Iowa lawmakers Friday to make changes to the state's child custody laws.

"I did everything in my power to save my son’s life. It was not me that let Mason down that morning, but rather the very system put in place to protect him from this exact outcome," Dillon Wyckoff said at a family law summit held at the Iowa Capitol.

Iowa news

Law enforcement officers discovered Wyckoff's two-year-old son, Mason, dead in his Grimes home July 22. Mason's mother, Stephenie Erickson, was unresponsive at the time and later died after being taken to a hospital.

An autopsy showed both Erickson and Mason died from an overdose of the painkiller oxycodone. Authorities are now investigating it as a murder-suicide.

More Coverage of Mason Wyckoff's death:

On Friday, Wyckoff blamed a system that disregarded his pleas to remove his son from the care of his mother.

"Mason is dead," he said. "He is dead because of outdated, biased and harmful language in the Iowa Code that perpetuates a longstanding cycle of unfair treatment towards fathers and a total disregard for the safety of the children and adults involved in the cases where a parent’s mental health is placing a child at risk."

Wyckoff said he was worried about Erickson's mental health and alerted various authorities to the problems to no avail. Wyckoff, who was not married to Erickson, said he wanted to seek custody of his son but worried Erickson might react violently.

Wyckoff and others called on lawmakers Friday to pass shared parenting laws. Those would require courts to grant equal parenting time to parents involved in divorce proceedings unless evidence showed it wouldn't be in the child's best interest.

"Restore my faith in the system," Wyckoff said Friday. "Pass legislation on 50-50 shared custody parenting. Don’t let Iowa fall behind."

Gov. Terry Branstad previously said he hopes state lawmakers take a look at the code, and fathers' rights activists have said they plan to continue pushing for change when the Iowa Legislature returns in January.

Advocacy group IowaFathers has pushed for the change over the last 10 years without success. They're opposed by the Iowa State Bar Association, which contends the changes would do more harm than good for families seeking resolution through divorce proceedings.

Toya Johnson, of Iowa Citizens for Justice, advocated for a move away from a law that focuses singularly on the best interest of the child and instead focuses on what's in the best interest of the family as a whole.

“The family is the foundation of this country," she said.

Sen. Jason Schultz, R-Schleswig, helped organize the event. He said the goal was to get people in a room discussing issues related to family law and to hopefully prompt change.

He said he's "absolutely" hopeful the Legislature will address shared parenting issues next session, as well as other issues brought up at the summit involving the way the state's Department of Human Services removes children from homes.

"There are so many other issues that are related," he said. "And they’re being experienced by the same people that are having trouble with the shared parenting issue, or the lack of shared parenting."

The 911 Call: Dillon Wyckoff tells dispatch he fears for his son's life