Witnesses defend parents guilty of abusing son

He was the youngest of four Russian siblings adopted by the Merrymans in 2000.

Assumedly from the same agency at the same time (?)

The closest I’ve found so far are these two pieces:

Harford couple sentenced to 22 years in starvation death of son

The Merrymans adopted four siblings from Russia and brought them to their Harford County farm. The children, along with the Merrymans’ three biological children, are now in foster care.

and Merryman kids’ fate uncertain after their parents’ conviction

The Merryman children — three biological and three adopted from Russia with Dennis — have been in foster care since their parents were indicted in 2005.

So yes, it does appear all four kids came across at once.

I’ll let readers know if I find anything more.

The story centers around the ways in which the Merrymans’ homeschooling helped hide the abuse, which has been much of the focus locally.

Just for clarification’s sake, I don’t know whether the 4 kids were placed all at once, or over a period of time. I’ll try to dedicate some time to finding out an answer on that, though if any of my dear readers gets there first and has a link that could be used as citation, feel free to post it here.

Thanks!

When (and if) I locate the name of the agency, I’m running with it.

They never, EVER should have placed FOUR children at one time, from a foreign country, post-institutionalized, with one family. VERY BAD IDEA.

Oh, but wait – the agency got their cut of the profit, so who cares if one of the kids ends up murdered? Not the agency’s problem, is it?

I think it is.