The father of G.W.R. and R.P.R. appeals from the juvenile court’s order terminating his parental rights. Because the record supports this determination, we affirm. On appeal from an order terminating an individual’s parental rights, we do not determine witness credibility or weigh the evidence. We instead “view the evidence in the light most favorable to the juvenile court’s decision and determine whether a rational trier of fact could have found by clear and convincing evidence that the natural parent’s rights should have been terminated.” Citation and punctuation omitted. In the Interest of G.B. , 263 Ga. App. 577 588 SE2d 779 2003. So construed, the evidence presented at the hearing on the petition to terminate the father’s parental rights showed that the mother and father of G.W.R. and R.P.R. were previously married but were separated in July 1999 and divorced in October 2001. The mother filed the termination petition in this case in July 2003, when G.W.R. was seven years old and R.P.R. five years old. During the pendency of the divorce proceedings, the father had supervised visitation with the children. Supervision was required because of domestic violence perpetrated by the father against the mother and because the father had, at least once, removed the children from their home and refused to return them for a short period of time.
For approximately two weeks in December 1999, the father was allowed to exercise unsupervised visitation with the children. On December 26, 1999, however, the father stabbed a male friend of the mother outside the mother’s residence while the children were inside the home. Although the children did not witness the stabbing, they did observe the victim after he came into the house and was bleeding on the kitchen floor. Since that date, the father has not seen or spoken to the children, as a result of a number of court orders forbidding contact with them. The father was convicted of attempted murder, but the conviction was reversed on appeal, after which the father entered a plea of nolo contendere to the crime of aggravated battery. He was incarcerated from March 2001 until March 2002.
