In Re: Adoption of T.A.M.

This appeal involves the termination of the parental rights of an incarcerated biological father of a five-year-old child. The child’s mother and her new husband filed a petition in the Chancery Court for Lincoln County seeking to terminate the biological father’s parental rights and to approve the new husband’s adoption of the child. Following a bench trial, the trial court entered an order on August 29, 2003 granting the petition to terminate the biological father’s parental rights on the ground of abandonment. The biological father appealed. We concur with the trial court’s conclusion that the father abandoned his child by willfully failing to support and visit the child and that terminating the biological father’s parental rights is in the child’s best interests. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment.