LONE TREE, Colo. – The audio recordings tell the real story of the abuse: A controlling ex-husband who brainwashed his son and refused to let his mom pick him up for her court-ordered parenting time.
"She's not your mother, Ty," Anthony Tesoriero told his son, according to the audio. "She's a piece of crap. Remember how she cheated on Papa and how she lied. Yeah, remember that forever."
Last weekend, Anthony killed his 10-year-old son and himself at his home in Lone Tree , Colorado, police said. The murder-suicide came less than 24 hours after the two were in court for a custody hearing, where a judge planned to award Jing Tesoriero full custody of her son.
But Jing and her attorney had tried for more than a year to alert authorities that her husband was violating court orders over the custody of their son, according to new emails obtained by KMGH on Thursday.
In May 2018, Jing’s attorney, Caroline Cooley, alerted police and the court system that "Anthony has been wrongfully keeping the minor child for the last 56 days."
Cooley demanded a criminal investigation for Anthony violating his protection order, noting, "There has been an ongoing pattern of mental abuse by the father with the minor child."
"I requested Department of Human Services multiple times to re-open the case," Cooley said. "To assume jurisdiction, my requests were rejected."
The State Department of Human Services this week said it is investigating Ty's death, in accordance with state law that requires a review of a child fatality. A spokesman for Gov. Jared Polis said Thursday that his office "will do everything in our power to make sure the process [of the investigation] is as robust as possible."
"The Governor is keeping close contact with CDHS about this tragedy and we are monitoring this situation," the spokesman said.
MORE | 'Nobody did anything': Colo. mother says system failed to protect her murdered son
The requests for authorities to investigate Anthony continued throughout last year.
In August 2018, Cooley reached out to Douglas County Human Services directly, writing, "We have at least 3 police reports and now a DHS call in the last 75 days," and noting that the mother had not had any parenting time with her son since May of that year.
Anthony, Cooley wrote to the county agency, would record his ex-wife on his cell phone during custody exchanges, causing Ty to not want to go with his mother. If Jing would leave, her ex-husband would say she was "refusing" parenting time. If she tried to get Ty to go with her, then Anthony would accuse her of punching and dragging their son.
Cooley had tried to get the court to enforce the rule that the parents needed to arrive one hour apart during custody exchanges, but no action was taken.
And despite the mandatory protection order she had against her ex-husband – an order that should have prevented the harassment and kept Anthony from having a gun – Jing said the emotional and psychological abuse never ended.
Anthony took his threats online where he used open sites, such as Cheaterreport.com, to destroy Jing and her new husband's reputation.
"I think he violated the protection order on a regular basis by the [online] postings," Cooley said. "He was supposed to have monitored internet. I alerted law enforcement that we believed through purchases that were made on PayPal that he was purchasing computers. Don't know where that investigation went. We alerted them that he was purchasing knifes."
"Nobody wanted to investigate," Jing said. "We talked to the police, we tried to file police reports, but we couldn't prove that was him."
It would take 15 months before Jing would finally get her day in court, a day when she said the judge finally saw her ex-husband for who he really was. It was the last day Jing would see her son alive.
The judge had planned to give Jing custody of her son, but she took the weekend to write her order, allowing Ty to go home with his dad. Less than 24 hours after the custody hearing, Anthony shot his son and turned the gun on himself.
"Ty should have been moved from father's custody and put into mother's custody 15 months ago," Cooley said. "We requested it. Our request was denied. We filed another request [and] the request was denied."
Jing said, "I don't want this to ever happen again. I don't want another kid hurt because of manipulating parents. That kid went through so much and he tried so hard just to not make things worse for me."
This story was originally published by KMGH’s Jennifer Kovaleski and Ryan Osborne.
