Methed Out Mom Thinks Her Son is Ugly. CPS Thought She Was the Perfect Fit
Maddox Williams entered the world fighting for his breath on January 9, 2018, at Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Maine. Arriving prematurely at just 30 weeks and weighing less than three pounds, his earliest weeks were spent confined to the sterile cage of a hospital incubator, wired to monitors that tracked his fragile heartbeat and oxygen levels. Although his parents, Jessica Ann Johnson and Andrew Williams, were already separated, both faithfully visited the neonatal intensive care unit, praying their tiny boy would grow stronger. Against the odds, Maddox blossomed into an adorable toddler with bright blue eyes, a sweet smile, and a mop of blonde hair. He was a typical, joyful little boy who loved eating chicken nuggets, dancing to Cocomelon, Baby Shark, and Paw Patrol, and possessing a great sense of humor. He was even learning to use the potty and loved helping his paternal grandmother, Victoria Voss, dust and vacuum around the house. Yet, long before Maddox drew his first breath, a dark, generational storm of addiction and institutional failure was already gathering to claim him.
The root of the tragedy traced back to the small town of Stockton Springs, Maine, where Jessica grew up. Exposed to drugs during her teenage years while in a family member’s care, Jessica’s life spiraled into a chronic, unbreakable dependency by her twenties. Relatives tried desperately to intervene, but Jessica was on a path of absolute self-destruction. She began dating Jason Trefethen, a local man who shared her severe substance abuse issues, and the couple went on to have two children together. Their highly dysfunctional relationship quickly caught the attention of Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The state first intervened in 2013 when their first child was born drug-exposed, and again in 2015 under identical, horrifying circumstances. Though Jessica was placed on a medically supervised methadone program and both parents were offered state services, they consistently relapsed into the shadows of their old habits.
Following a volatile breakup with Jason, Jessica crossed paths with Andrew Williams in the picturesque coastal town of Belfast. Andrew carried his own heavy burdens, battling a history of drug use and severe post-traumatic stress disorder after witnessing his own father end his life with a firearm. Despite their deeply complicated lives, Jessica and Andrew married in June 2017, and shortly after, Jessica became pregnant with Maddox. However, the stability was an illusion; while still legally married to Andrew, Jessica abandoned him to move back into the Stockton Springs trailer with her former boyfriend, Jason. Almost immediately, DHHS received a frantic report alleging drug abuse and child mistreatment in the home. When caseworkers and local police attempted a home visit, both Jessica and Jason became defensive, hostile, and aggressively uncooperative. Shockingly, the state claimed there was insufficient evidence to remove the children. A month later, in September 2017, a second emergency report warned that Jessica was using drugs and bringing her children to an unsafe house, specifically highlighting the severe danger to her unborn baby. The case was downgraded to an Alternative Response Program (ARP), and after a caseworker made two brief visits to Jessica’s mother’s house, the children were magically deemed “safe.” When that caseworker abruptly resigned from the agency, no one bother to reassign the case. Jessica ignored her parenting classes, stopped following her care plan, and the state quietly closed the file.
As Jessica’s due date neared in late March 2018, her ongoing drug abuse triggered severe pregnancy complications, forcing her hospitalization in December 2017. Doctors explicitly warned her that she would trigger a premature birth if she left, placing her on methadone to manage her cravings. Jessica ignored the medical staff, walked out against medical advice, and gave birth to Maddox 11 weeks early. The day after giving birth to a critically fragile premature infant, Jessica sneaked out to the hospital parking garage to abuse an old prescription of Tramadol. The following month, she abruptly fled a mandatory medical checkup for Maddox before it could even be completed. Alarmed doctors immediately reported her to the state, citing a severe inability to care for the vulnerable infant, but the bureaucratic machine screened the report out. Sensing imminent danger, Andrew’s mother, Victoria, begged social workers not to let Jessica leave the hospital with the baby. Her pleas fell on deaf ears; after two months of specialized medical care, the state officially handed the defenseless newborn over to Jessica.
Maddox was brought to a squalid trailer at 30 Cross Lane in Stockton Springs, where Jessica and Jason lived with their other children. The horror Victoria anticipated took only weeks to manifest. On March 22, 2018, a frantic 911 call reported that Jessica’s two-year-old child had overdosed on methadone from an unlabeled medicine bottle at the home of the maternal grandmother, Sherry Johnson. Stockton Springs Police Officer Michael Larabee arrived to find a scene of pure panic. The toddler survived only because emergency medical staff administered Narcan on the way to the hospital, and investigators later discovered that Jessica and Jason had waited an agonizing 20 to 30 minutes before calling for help. Finally prompted to act, DHHS obtained a preliminary protection order, removing all the children. By July, a court formally stripped Jessica of custody, citing severe family violence and rampant drug use.
While Maddox’s half-siblings were sent to foster care, a few-months-old Maddox was placed with his father Andrew, who was living with Victoria. The family had absolutely nothing for a newborn and scrambled to buy supplies, welcoming the little boy with open arms and raising him with deep love for the next two years. During this period of peace, Jessica and Andrew divorced, and Jessica took Jason’s surname, Trefethen. Over those two years, Jessica bothered to visit Maddox exactly once, refusing to attend supervised visits simply because Andrew requested she not bring Jason along. Victoria regularly filled her Facebook page with pictures of a thriving, smiling Maddox. Meanwhile, Jessica’s downward spiral continued unabated; she gave birth to another child in June 2019 who was also born drug-exposed and required intensive care before being placed in foster care. Despite her life being in shambles, Jessica used the court system to relentlessly fight for custody of Maddox. Though a judge initially dismissed her efforts in January 2020, fate took a devastating turn just a week later. Andrew succumbed to his demons and was arrested for a drug-fueled burglary in Rockland. When police caught him, he was holding stolen goods in one hand and a freezing, improperly dressed Maddox in the other.
The child was immediately given to his grandmother Victoria, but the state’s reunion-at-all-costs ideology overrode common sense. On February 12, 2020—just two weeks later—DHHS reviewed Jessica’s case, decided she had made “satisfactory progress,” and ripped Maddox away from the only stable family he knew. Victoria was forced to hand the terrified toddler over to a woman who was a complete stranger to him. For the next several months, Jessica isolated Maddox completely, refusing to let Victoria or Andrew see him. Andrew begged the Waldo County Sheriff’s Office to perform periodic welfare checks, but by April 2020, the state had fully returned all of Jessica’s other children to her care. By September, Andrew had resolved his immediate legal threats, and a custody agreement was drawn up for shared custody. Yet, the warning signs kept screaming. In December 2020, law enforcement alerted DHHS to suspected drug activity and a violent physical altercation between Jessica and Jason. During the investigation, Jessica tested positive for marijuana and methadone, and both she and Jason aggressively stonewalled caseworkers, refusing to sign documents or let the children be interviewed. Citing a lack of definitive evidence, DHHS left the children in the home.
The situation imploded further in March 2021 when Andrew was arrested for driving under the influence with his children in the vehicle while severely impaired by Suboxone and Xanax. DHHS deemed Andrew an immediate threat, and Maddox was placed briefly with paternal relatives. On March 7, caseworkers noted Maddox seemed fine, dismissing a light scratch as a cat scratch. However, Victoria and Andrew vehemently disputed this. During a brief exchange, Andrew had noticed deep bruises on Maddox’s back and a severe cut over his eye, taking photos to prove he wasn’t the abuser. When confronted, Jessica claimed her four-year-old had thrown a toy. When DHHS tried to follow up, Jessica flatly refused to let caseworkers enter her home, hiding behind a prior judge’s safety ruling. By March 8, Jessica dragged Maddox back into her trailer. Ten days later, Andrew was jailed again on firearms and illegal hunting charges, leaving Victoria entirely cut off from her grandson as Jessica spun endless excuses about being too busy to allow phone calls or visits.
The final, terrifying descent began on Thursday, April 8, 2021, when Stockton Springs police responded to a domestic violence call at the trailer. A bruised Jessica claimed Jason had violently assaulted her, thrown her down, and threatened to kill her while abusing heroin. Officer Jonathan Shaw found all four children trapped inside the squalid trailer, crying, terrified, and clinging to one another. Recognizing the deeply dangerous environment, Officer Shaw immediately filed an emergency referral to DHHS. The very next day, a caseworker came to the home, but because Maddox was asleep, the worker simply looked at him from a distance, saw no outward signs of abuse, and left. It would be the state’s final missed opportunity. In June, Victoria managed to speak to Maddox on the phone for the last time. Jessica told her they were going camping for two weeks and that she could see him when they returned. It was a fatal lie.
On June 20, 2021, Jessica and her mother, Sherry, pulled into the parking lot of Waldo County General Hospital in Belfast with an unresponsive, blue-lipped three-year-old boy. Maddox had stopped breathing. Jessica spun a web of lies to the ER staff, claiming Maddox had been kicked by a sibling and dragged by a dog, and had merely complained of a stomach ache and thirst before passing out. Medical staff knew instantly they were looking at a horrific crime. Maddox was cold, pale, his pupils were completely fixed, and his tiny body was covered in a mosaic of catastrophic bruises, a swollen head, and severe abdominal trauma. He was in full cardiac arrest, and after an hour of desperate resuscitation attempts, he was pronounced dead. Learning her son was gone, Jessica fled the hospital within minutes, leaving the medical staff to call the police. Victoria had to call the state police herself to discover the nightmare, eventually breaking the news to Andrew in his jail cell; the state had completely failed to notify the biological father.
The subsequent autopsy unraveled a level of unimaginable cruelty. Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Lisa Funt revealed that Maddox had died from “battered child syndrome.” His body was a map of torture: extensive, deep-tissue bruising covered his face, torso, head, and limbs. Some of the older facial injuries were partially healed, and investigators discovered Jessica had tried to camouflage the bruises using temporary children’s tattoos. The internal injuries were consistent with a high-impact car crash, a severe beating, or a brutal stomping—Maddox suffered a fractured lower spine, a completely ruptured bowel, a split pancreas, deep internal bleeding in his abdomen, and a hemorrhaged brain. He was also missing several teeth. When Maine State Police executed a search warrant at the 30 Cross Lane trailer, they found Maddox’s blood splattered across the living room, smeared on a recliner, soaked into washcloths, and clinging to damp towels piled in front of the washing machine.
Jessica was hunted down and arrested on June 23, 2021, charged with depraved indifference murder and held on a $150,000 bond. Her mother, Sherry Johnson, was later arrested for actively hindering the apprehension of her daughter and lying to the police, eventually pleading guilty to a probation violation after failing to complete community service. In October 2022, Jessica went to trial, maintaining a chillingly stoic, unbothered demeanor. The most damning testimony came from her own mother and one of Maddox’s half-siblings. Sherry confessed to the jury that she had watched Jessica physically abuse Maddox repeatedly while completely sparing her other children. Jessica openly loathed the little boy, screaming at him that she “didn’t want to look at his ugly face” because he looked exactly like his father, Andrew. On the morning of his death, Sherry found Maddox lying Gray and lifeless on the couch while Jessica watched. Maddox’s sibling testified to watching Jessica slap the toddler repeatedly and violently throw him out of a hotel bathroom onto a hard, uncarpeted floor. The defense desperately tried to blame the fatal injuries on an accidental fall or a sibling’s rough play, but the jury saw through the deception, convicting Jessica of depraved indifference murder. In December 2022, she was sentenced to 47 years in prison, showing absolutely zero remorse or emotion. She attempted to appeal her conviction in May 2024, but the Maine Supreme Court fiercely upheld the sentence, keeping her locked away inside the Maine Correctional Center in Windham.
Maddox was one of four young children who were brutally beaten to death by their parents in Maine during a single, bloody month in the spring of 2021. The systemic slaughter forced an intense public spotlight onto the rampant failures of Maine’s DHHS. Victoria Voss took her grief to the state legislature’s Government Oversight Committee, demanding accountability for a department with “blood on its hands.” A subsequent investigation by the Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability (OPEGA) in April 2023 exposed critical failures, admitting that caseworkers had completely missed vital windows to terminate Jessica’s parental rights long before the murder. However, the report heavily cited structural issues: child protective services were severely understaffed, overworked, and bound by rigid legal mandates that forced them to prioritize family reunification at all costs, regardless of the danger. The state lacked the resources for proper risk evaluations, possessing only three evaluators for the entire state. In response, Maine lawmakers passed emergency legislation in 2022 to force courts to prioritize child homicide cases, trying to patch a broken system that had left Maddox completely unprotected.
In the wake of the tragedy, Maddox’s paternal family launched a GoFundMe campaign, raising over $9,000 to cover the funeral costs and working to establish a scholarship fund for future social workers to ensure no other child faces such systemic neglect. On June 22, 2024, the third anniversary of his death, hundreds of bikers joined a massive memorial ride sponsored by the United Bikers of Maine and the nonprofit Walk a Mile in Their Shoes, raising funds to fight child abuse and ensure Maddox’s name is never forgotten. Today, Maddox’s name is carved into the black and red granite of the Maine Murder Victims Memorial Monument at Holy Family Cemetery in Augusta. Andrew Williams was denied bail to attend his son’s final farewell, and the family laid the three-year-old to rest privately in Warren, Maine. His grave was adorned with yellow and white flowers, a small stuffed Elmo, and a toy tractor. On his headstone, a tender poem stands as a permanent indictment of a system that failed him, and a promise of eternal remembrance: “There is a star in heaven. It comes out every night. I know that star is you, Maddox, who has come to say goodnight.”
