Teen bride loses lawsuit over items left at home

Bolivia | Sporting a dress shirt and his wedding ring, 40-year-old Brenton Wuchae sat next to his jeans-clad teenage wife in a Brunswick County courtroom. A few rows behind them, her parents sat silently alongside their attorney.

While in the county courthouse, Dennis and Betty Hager did not exchange a word with their daughter, now known as Windy Wuchae. The 16-year-old had filed a claim to get back several items her parents kept when she moved out, including a Beanie Babies collection valued at $300. She failed.

Minutes into the hearing Wednesday morning, Magistrate Deborah Ramphal dismissed the case, telling the Wuchaes they had the right to appeal. The Wuchaes and Hagers, who all live in Oak Island, then left as quietly as they had arrived, refusing to talk to reporters.

"The case was dismissed as a matter of law because all of the items belong to her parents," the Hagers' attorney, Robert Tatum, said after the hearing.

The Wuchaes chose to represent themselves, turning down the magistrate's recommendation that they use an attorney. Wuchae, who went from coaching Windy at South Brunswick High School to becoming her friend and then husband over the course of several months, remained by her side throughout the hearing. He showed the magistrate receipts, along with pictures of her holding a freshly caught fish and the same fish mounted and hung on a wall.

Wuchae said Windy's father had paid $500, and he chipped in $22 to have the fish mounted for her as a birthday present.

"A gift is the intention of the giver at that time," Wuchae said.

Windy wanted the mounted fish back, along with her stuffed animals, a sculpture and a PlayStation game system, a total value of $1,072.50. She had been collecting the Beanie Babies, gifts from her parents and friends, for the past four years, she told the magistrate. She said she tried to get the items from her parents outside of court but couldn't.

Tatum said case law establishes that a minor's property and earnings belong to the minor's parents if obtained before emancipation. That was the case with Windy, since she was given all her gifts before getting married, he said.

And with that, the magistrate dismissed the case.

"They're having a rough time," Tatum said of the Hagers. "They didn't want to be here today, but they were afraid the items wouldn't be available to her later on, that they (the Wuchaes) might sell the items."

Dennis Hager has said Windy is welcome back home - without her husband - and that he hopes she will return.

Tatum said the Hagers have seen their daughter a few times since they signed a consent form allowing her to marry Wuchae two months ago. The Hagers have said they decided to give in only after trying long and hard to keep Windy away from Wuchae and not succeeding, their daughter having come to hate them.

But despite the tension with the Hagers and the massive publicity their marriage has generated, the Wuchaes have remained local. They live less than two miles from the Hager residence in Oak Island.

They also work together now. Chuck Oswalt, assistant manager at Oak Island's Food Lion, confirmed Wednesday that both are employed at the grocery store.

Wuchae resigned from his job as teacher and coach for Brunswick County Schools on June 18, the same day he married Windy. After also dealing with its own share of negative publicity, the county school system revealed it had given Wuchae a choice to resign or be fired after he disobeyed a directive to stay away from Windy.

The Hagers, who once allowed Wuchae to hang out with Windy, had gone to the police and school officials with phone bills showing e-mail and late-night text messages being exchanged by the coach and their daughter.

But school officials had earlier said lack of evidence kept the coach from being fired; instead, he was suspended with pay on May 3, standard procedure for cases under investigation.

"A phone bill - is that not written evidence?" Dennis Hager said in June. "What kind of evidence did they need?"

Like Windy, the Hagers have sought legal action, but against the school system.

They sued the county's Board of Education on July 10, accusing officials of failing to discipline the coach and keep him away from their daughter.

Days later, they filed a similar lawsuit against the coach's previous employer, the Guilford County Board of Education, claiming it knew of the coach's inappropriate conduct with female students and still kept him employed.

The school boards have yet to file responses to the lawsuits, which seek monetary compensation in excess of $10,000 for each count of causing "emotional pain and suffering" and "willful and wanton conduct."

Ana Ribeiro: 343-2327

ana.ribeiro@starnewsonline.com