Defiance woman accused of murder will get to visit children

A hearing between lawyers for Dixie Shanahan and the state’s Department of Human Services was canceled Friday. Department of Human Services spokesman Roger Munns says the parties came to an agreement about the woman’s children, who went into state care when Shanahan was jailed on a murder charge. The Shelby County Attorney’s office, Shanahan’s lawyer and the guardian appointed to shepherd the children’s interests all agreed the children will be returned, soon as DHS recommendations have been satisfied. Those recommendations are the process all families go through when children have been removed from a home.All parties also agreed Dixie would have supervised visits right away. Munns says under both longstanding practice and the new guidelines the agency’s drawn up this year, it’s a priority to ensure kids are safe before returning them to a home. Dixie Shanahan’s charged with murder, and investigators found her husband’s body in their home, where it apparently had been for a year. Munns says safety is a mantra repeated for every decision, and is the measure of how the agency does its job. He can’t say for sure how soon the family will be reunited.There isn’t any set standard but they try to get kids back in their home as quickly as possible, and the state does meet a national standard of getting 76-percent kids back home within one year. The children’s father, Scott Shanahan, was convicted twice of domestic abuse, and friends, neighbors and advocates for battered women sent money to help Dixie Shanahan make bail. She’s charged with first-degree murder.