Demetra Hardesty, of Tucson, Arizona, is the widow of local hero, Patrick Kent Hardesty, a fallen Tucson Police officer. She seems to be a pillar of the community and model citizen; however, one of her children claims that Demetra is harboring a horrible and unforgivable secret. She is a perpetuator of the continued, aggravated sexual assault of a minor.
Demetria Naomi Hardesty is the 27 year old, adopted daughter, who asserts that from the ages 6 years to 15 years old, her mother, Demetra, continually sexually assaulted her with her fingers and foreign objects.
“She would always do this during bath/shower time. She would make me wait for her to come into the bathroom so she could clean me”, she told her family and our reporters. “She said that I was dirty and evil and I needed to be cleaned inside and out. She would mostly use her fingers, and sometimes she used the handle of the loofah brush”. When asked if she could be more explicit, she said “She forcefully inserted them into my vagina.”
Demetria (the daughter) claims that it only stopped at 15 because she became strong enough to prevent her from entering the bathroom. She also ran away from home several times; and even attempted to be emancipated.
“I would have definitely been emancipated, except that I could not afford the $150 filing fee that was required” she told the Telegraph. “However, at MIDNIGHT on my 18th birthday, I moved out of her house!”.
Child Protective Services were called on, at least, a couple of occasions during Demetria’s childhood. On one occasion by the nanny, who had noticed that Demetria was regularly sleeping on the floor in the laundry room; and another time, a claim was made by Patrick Hardesty’s brother (and fellow police officer) because he noticed nickel-sized clumps of hair that had been pulled out of Demetria’s head. The cases were dismissed on both occasions.
“The Tucson police force and justice system is very corrupt. You find this out quickly when you attempt to bring one of their own to justice. They consider (my mother) to be one of their own and continue to protect her to this very day,” Demetria explains. “There is NO statute of limitations in Arizona for sexual assault on a minor, yet the police will tell you otherwise and refuse to file a report”.
(In August 2021, she was also informed by a local law enforcement officer in El Paso that there was a statue of limitations for sexual assault of a minor in the state of Texas. Our investigators did research and found out that there is, in fact, NO statute of limitations on sexual assault of a minor in either Arizona, or Texas.)
Now, the grandmother is seeking full-custody of Demetria’s 7-year old daughter, who currently is in the care of her birth mother, Doris Peterson Morris. Doris obtained custody as a result of an emergency order to remove custody from the child’s father, Scott Leyda, on grounds of mental illness, as a result of armed service related PTSD.
“My mother (Demetra) and Scott (the child’s father) began sleeping together about 5 years ago. They colluded in court to remove custody from me, and he moved in with her to raise my daughter as a family…a family that didn’t include me!” is what Demetria told our reporters when asked about her current status as a non-custodial parent. “The court forced me to submit to a hair follicle test that I failed on account of my use of marijuana”, she confessed. “I was painted as an individual with a drug problem, and the negative reactions to my mother’s inappropriate relationship with my child’s father was used as proof that I was emotionally unstable”, she concluded with seeming remorse.
Demetria testified in court that she has warned Scott several times about Demetra’s sexual abuse. “Scott attempted to escape her recently, after revealing to me that he thought she was ‘dangerous’. However, when she caught wind of his plans to leave her and relocate to North Carolina, she conspired with my birth mother (Doris) to say he was the one who was dangerous and an unfit parent; and had my daughter removed from his care with an emergency court order. That is how Doris ended up with her,” Demetria shared when asked to expound on current events surrounding the custody battle. She went on to inform us that, “Now, she (Demetra) has issued an emergency order against my birth mother as well, in an attempt to ultimately obtain sole, full custody of my daughter.”
When the question “You didn’t believe me?” was posed by Demetria to Scott in court, his reply was merely “I guess not…” (after a long pause).
In an ironic twist to all of this, part of the grounds that Demetra is using in her argument to have full custody of the child is that there is evidence of sexual abuse that is occurring at Doris’ home. Where/when is this abuse occurring (according to Demetra)? Bath Time!
“I find it frightening that she made these accusations against my birth mother, when they mirror EXACTLY the experiences that I had with her (Demetra) growing up. I was not raised by my birth mother. I did not establish any relationship with her until I was basically an adult. I didn’t even know who she was until I went on a mission to find her identity and locate her.”
Arizona Superior Court of Pima County court transcript records do indicate that Demetria did, in fact, inform the same court that is ruling over the custody case that she was abused (as a child) by Demetra, in the same manner that Demetra is now accusing Doris. When asked if she believes that Demetra is abusing her daughter in a similar manner that she claims she was abused, she replied, “She is sick and she is evil and she thinks she can get away with whatever she wants. I KNOW she is abusing my daughter! She wants full custody so that she can continue to get away with it unchecked! I am not fighting for custody of my daughter. I just want her to be safe and protected from my mother. I do not want her to end up with the same mental and emotional scars that I have had to carry my entire life.”
According to Demetria, there were other forms of abuse that was prevalent in the Hardesty household. These acts include being denied food, forced to sleep on cement floor with no bedding, and verbal humiliation.
The next hearing of this case is on September 21, 2021 at 10:00AM MST.
(Featured Image: Child abuse by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Pix4free)
