Jesse Markin was separated from his child for more than a year.
Jesse Markin has openly talked about his fight with the authorities in public. Henri Kärkkäinen
Musician Jesse Markin tells Hanna Tikander podcast about his more than a year-long fight against the authorities. Markin and his wife were suspected of abusing their two-month-old baby. The charges were dismissed in November 2025.
The child was placed and Markin was separated from his child for a total of 412 days. Markin tells what being apart did to parenting and to the connection with the child that was being built.
– Practically everything was taken away from me. It only leaves a void, which it tries to fill with everything else. This in itself is a more difficult thing, because you are not completely tearing him (the child) from you, but you are reminded that he is going away, but you can see two hours a week. It’s a bit like a humiliation ritual for a year, Markin states in the podcast.
Markin states that the supervisors who participated in the meetings wrote down even the smallest things. In meetings, Markin’s focus was on his family.
– I had no interest in talking about the weather or anything. These issues were also translated into parents not wanting to discuss, says Markin.
According to Markin, there were also errors in the records. According to them, Mark had never held the child. According to him, this was not the case.
– We had a video of these situations where I slept, fed and changed diapers. Why was there a need to express that I hadn’t done things, Markin ponders.
Markin dealt with the series of events that lasted over a year, including his and Elina Westinen writing Snakes and Butterflies in the book. The book said that finally several foreign expert doctors came to the conclusion that the baby has BESS.
The italicized part is an excerpt from the book.
We squeal with happiness. We finally have proof of what we have known all along to be true: our child has not been abused. This is an incredible breakthrough.
BESS causes rapid growth of babies’ head circumference. More cerebrospinal fluid than normal can accumulate in the space between the brain and the skull. It can also cause bleeding in the brain. It is a condition that goes away on its own.
