Hopefully the flair is correct.
Location: South Dakota.
I plan to change my 4 year old sons last name. I should have gave him mine from the beginning, considering the circumstances, but here we here. Anyway, some back story, his biological father hasn’t been involved for majority of my son’s life. Last time he saw him, was when he almost killed me running from the police in my car (Son was 2½ months old – was was okay, I was the only one that got hurt). I ended the relationship, went through the whole CPS case (the officer called. The case was closed after the first visit), all of that, but I left the door open for him. Even after I got with someone else when my son was almost 6 months old. Bio father was in prison, but he knew he could message me. After he got out, he wanted to video call to “see and talk to son”, had 2 video calls, but he only said hi to my son maybe twice and kept asking me about my life and stuff. This was when my boy was a little over a year old. When my son was 2, he called once saying he was going to be in town and wanted to see son. I told him give me 5 minutes, call me back, and I’ll give him an answer (I was at my grandmother’s. She doesn’t like him at all, so I wanted to check with her first. I was going to give him the chance to see him, I just needed to figure out location). He never called back. He messaged me a couple times when he was in jail after that, but never about our son. Now, I haven’t heard a single word from him in 2+ years. I’ve never gotten a “Happy birthday” call/text for son’s birthday, never a holiday call/text, nothing in his 4 years of life.
Now onto the legal aspect. From what I’ve found, I’d need his consent to change sons last name, unless I can prove lack of involvement and it being in the best interest of the child. How do I prove this? Lack of messages/calls = lack of evidence/proof, no? My fiance has been raising my son for the last 4 years, and literally anyone can verify this, as well as lack of communication on bio fathers part. Bio father also is not on the birth certificate, but I highly doubt hed submit to a paternity test because that’ll put him on the hook for child support.
So how do I go about this?