***

No blogger could begin to keep up with the mess Nebraska legislators have made. Instead, this post will focus on some of the raw sources dealing with the recent dumps. I’ll slide in a little commentary, but mainly I urge readers to go look at the articles and the videos in my links, they spell out a long sad story of failure. But then when it comes to the dump laws there’s rarely any good news, for the kids anyway.

Here is an Omaha World-Herald round up of many of the recent stories they’ve done relating to the dumps and the aftermath. Lots of links, well worth the read.

As but one example, see their Oct 9th story, Grandmother: Help, not haven, sought for boy which details how one of the kids abandoned was supposedly never intended to be such:

An Omaha grandmother says she wanted to hospitalize her suicidal 12-year-old grandson — not use the safe haven law — when she asked the boy’s aunt Sunday to take him to Immanuel Medical Center.

But instead of receiving help, the boy was placed in a foster home. He is scheduled to move to a group home this weekend.

And the grandmother has been ordered to show up in court next Wednesday for reasons she says she doesn’t understand.

That her grandson is considered a safe haven case is a “misunderstanding,” the woman said.

Regardless of the intent behind each and every single dump, one thing remains perfectly clear, Nebraska’s law is for the first time putting America’s catastrophically broken child welfare system on display while simultaneously putting a spotlight on many of the problems inherent to the legalized child abandonment laws. Additionally, due to the age problems unique to Nebraska’s law, this is all playing out upon kids old enough to remember every sorry detail of it.

But EVEN IF THEY COULDN’T, THE DAMAGE ABANDONMENT DOES TO KIDS, THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THEY WERE ABANDONED, AND THAT THE STATE ACTIVELY ENCOURAGED THEIR ABANDONMENT is still a lifelong betrayal. Child abandonment produces scars time doesn’t heal.

The dump laws make a mockery of any notion of child welfare best practices. Nebraska is merely the most visible and extreme example thereof. By creating the non-anonymous and aged-up version of the laws Nebraska put the full ugliness of the dump laws on international display.

Now that we begin to see the full horror of these legal atrocities there’s only one thing left to do, REPEAL them.

One by one, state after state, pull these abominations back out of the code.

Which brings us to the Michigan boy dumped by his mother in Nebraska, make that adoptive mother, because you see, he was an adoptee.

The Michigan to Nebraska dump was not only a ‘teach you a lesson’ dump, it was also a ‘returns department’ dump. An adopted kid, no longer wanted by his adopters.

Teri, left, and Terrence Martin of Southfield, Mich., the adoptive parents of a 13-year-old boy abandoned in Nebraska under that state’s safe haven law.

(AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

I’m not going to get into every twist and turn of the Mess from Michigan, but I’ll provide a few links worth looking through.

October 13th-

Video from CBS 3 in Omaha (see * below)- Michigan Mom Drops off Son Under Safe Haven. While local news stations are calling it “safe haven crisis” Nebraska politicians still aren’t getting the message.

The video piece includes parts of an interview with State Sen. Brad Ashford:

We passed the law to protect Nebraska children. We didn’t pass the law to protect children from other states.

and

I don’t think it’s a crisis. I, again, it’s not a bad thing that children are being protected.

While Sen. Ashford may personally characterize being abandoned in the Nebraska’s ‘returns department’ as “being protected” there are at this point a number of kids who have actually been through the process who may have a bone to pick with him. Kids like this pregnant 14 year-old girl abandoned through the Nebraska system who had this to say about being dumped:

“I don’t want anything to happen to kids like it happened to me, …”

(She has since been returned to her home.)

October 14th-

Let’s start back here with New Details On Safe Haven Child From Michigan. Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine,

… also says the state of Nebraska is not going to take in children from all over the country. He plans to work with child protective services in Michigan to send this kid back, while at the same time making sure the child is in good hands.

(Never mind the fact that the Nebraska law says nothing about ‘no out of state dumps allowed!’ The way the law is written it’s a free for all, anyone with physical custody can dump a kid, be that domestic or even international!)

The AP did a piece, the morning of the 14th, (this by way of WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan) Local Mom Abandons Teen in Nebraska. (Also see related video on upper right hand corner.) Once again, we see a kid not in any immediate danger-

There was no sign the boy was in immediate danger before he was abandoned early Monday, but an investigation into the boy’s situation was still continuing, Landry said.

A second piece, also from WXYZ, Michigan Mom Who Abandoned Son Identified.

KETV- Court Docs Reveal Story Behind Latest Safe Haven Case This piece goes into just a bit more detail about the ‘teach ‘em a lesson’ aspect of this dump and makes clear, the adoptive mother never intended to actually lose custody of him:

Martin told workers she would come back to get her son and now her son would know she wasn’t kidding.

As to the Judge’s comments in this piece, I don’t think loss family bonds should ever be the ‘cost’ of gaining access to support systems or mental health care. Everything he discusses in this piece can be done WITHOUT the state legalizing child abandonment.

October 15th-

Omaha World Herald-

Michigan boy left at Omaha hospital to stay in Nebraska – for now

and Michigan mother may have used safe haven law as lesson which includes:

“She told hospital staff that since local police were included she would just come back to get (her son), since now he would realize she wasn’t kidding anymore,” the affidavit says.

Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services officials confirmed that the mother had second thoughts about leaving her son. But once a child is left under the law and the state has taken custody, parents or guardians lose their right to make decisions about what happens to the child.

WXYZ, Michigan Mom who Abandoned Son Identified also see video.

October 16th-

KCBY (Oregon), Parents of Mich. boy left in Neb. lose custody.

Three Faux/Fox Detroit links, the first two are AP stories;

Court: Mom Who Abandoned Boy Can’t See Other Kids,

Official: Mich. Mom Neglected Boy She Left in Neb.,

and Children Taken from Mother Who Abandoned Son.

According to the video segment, on the third piece, the adopters were receiving (federal) adoption subsidies for the two kids to the tune of $900 a month. The adopters had apparently “tried for years” to get rid of their two adopted kids.

Note that once again, the adoption subsidies mess that I’ve already blogged about in relation to the dump laws is right in the middle of all this.

Also see, Michigan Prosecutors Don’t Want Mom to Use Nebraska Safe Haven Again

The grandmother said good-bye to the boy before his mother drove to Omaha. She left him Monday morning at the hospital with a packed suitcase and a ten dollar bill. Grandmother says, “She was taking him to a boys’ home that’s what she said a place to take boys with problems.” the grandmother says the boy’s been trouble and they tried to get help for years.

But the Michigan prosecutor found a report from 1999 accusing the mother of burning the boy with a curling iron. For some unknown reason, the state dropped the investigation.

This last bit is particularly important, it implies Michigan dropped the ball long before the dump in Nebraska. Which is to say, this may very well have been an abandonment that never would have happened had there been intervention back at the point where the adopted kid was accused of being burned by his adoptive mother.

All of which points back at the larger problems involved in follow up post placement for adoptees and how over and over again, these kids are simply left to suffer while the adopters collect the federal checks.

Oct 17th

AP by way of CNN- Parents who left teen under safe haven law lose custody

The report said Terri Martin told Nebraska officials that she took the boy there to “scare him,” yet she denied incidents of aggression.

It also said state records showed evidence that neither parent wanted the 13-year-old, who was adopted along with his 10-year-old brother.

AP by way of Faux/Fox Detroit, Court Grants State Temporary Custody of 4 Children

The report also cited a history of referrals to child-welfare officials because of reports of injuries to the teen. Carley is seeking to eliminate the Martins’ parental rights over the 13-year-old. The next court hearing is Nov. 7.

“We think there are some possibilities they could learn to parent the other three safely,” Carley said.

Nebraska has agreed to drop jurisdiction over the teen and let Michigan help him.

Yeah, that would be the Michigan child-welfare system that has apparently already failed him spectacularly. But right back in he goes, ’cause Nebraska doesn’t want him either. This is a kid who has been abandoned not merely by his adopters, but by every state tasked with helping him.

If there was an ongoing history of injuries to the kid, I ask again, what was the deal on his placement? If the adopters were receiving subsidies that would usually mean they took in an older child or sibling group or ’special needs’ kid out of the foster care system. If he was interacting with the system repeatedly due to injuries and burns, who was the person or agency responsible for keeping him with this set of adopters?

Just dumping the kid back into the broken Michigan system ‘disapears’ him right back in.

If Nebraska was at all serious about ’saving’ kids, they might not be so quick to hand over jurisdiction.

But that’s not what Nebraska’s dump law is about. Clearly.

Getting him and his siblings away from the adopters is one thing, getting him away from the system that sent him right back to those adopters after injuries and burns is apparently quite another.

Be sure to see the video piece related to this link, as there are many new details in it, including allegations of the boy having endured sexual abuse.

More video, (again see below *) New Details in Michigan Safe Haven Case, The piece details the adopters charged in Michigan with abuse and neglect.

They claim the boy was abandoned in Nebraska after being advised to do so by a therapist and that his adopters…

…tried to find him a new home again and again.

So once again we have a ‘therapist’ whatever that might mean and whatever qualifications that might entail, telling the guardians to use the dump law.

State Sen. Stuthman (the longtime supporter and sponsor of the Nebraska dump law) wants her prosecuted in Michigan to send a message to the rest of the country.

The ‘message’ of course being that no matter how broadly the Nebraska law was written, everyone involved is now shitting bricks at the prospect of hoards of dumpers crossing state lines to bring their potential dumplings to Nebraska. Gee, usually that’s the kind of thing one might want to think about BEFORE such gets signed into law.

So now we’ve got legalized child abandonment/ ’safe haven’ advocates like State Senator Stuthman trying to close the barn door long after the fact.

It’s important to keep in mind that Sen. Stuthman and other such advocates are precisely who and what got Nebraska into this mess in the first place, all based upon their blind insistence that Nebraska ‘needed’ such a law.

Hint, no kid ever NEEDS to be abandoned.

Also note,

… the court papers outline how the family tried to give back the troubled boy since he was four even going to the birthmother.

This is interesting as it means the adopters had some form of access to the original mother.

(Nebraska) DHHS News Release Safe Haven Youth Returns to Michigan

Also importantly, NPR has a five minute All Things Considered piece, Neb. Safe Haven Law Draws More Than Infants, along with links to past stories about the Nebraska disaster.

It goes into detail about some of the kids themselves reactions to being dumped, describing the extreme duress this law is putting some of the kids through.

October 18th-

Omaha World-Herald, Teen to go home, but state will have custody

Oakland County, Mich., prosecutors are seeking temporary custody of four of the 13-year-old’s siblings still living at home. Deb Carley, the county prosecutor, said an investigation found that the parents had neglected all their children.

Well, mission accomplished, eh?

Right back into the system that didn’t think his adopters were bad enough to warrant losing him prior to the dump.

But Nebraska understands the precedent that would be set by accepting even one out of state dump, so ‘what best for the kid’ be damned. Quick! Get ‘em on a plane!

I can’t wait to see what his next digs are going to be like, foster care? Group home? Think the siblings will get to stay together?

Yeah, well, somehow I doubt wherever Michigan decides to park him until he ages out will be making CNN anytime soon.

This boy is dumped alright.

Nebraska’s washed its hands of him and the odds of him finding ‘a loving adoptive home’ back in Michigan aren’t looking so hot.

* FINALLY-

I’m having some difficulty linking the individual videos, but you can use the search feature on the homepage of CBS 3 news in Omaha to pull up the video links, just search by the video segment names:

Michigan Mom Drops off Son Under Safe Haven 10/13/08 6:44pm

Michigan Boy Latest Safe Haven Drop-Off 10/13/08 11:48pm

Safe Haven Case in Michigan Reveals Child in Trouble 10/14/08 11:44pm

New Details in Michigan Safe Haven Case 10/17/08 6:55pm

***

I suppose the next question should be how many more kids, unwanted, adopted, or otherwise are going to be taken on 12 hour or more car rides to be dumped by those who have physical custody of them?

If Nebraska legislators think this is “not a crisis” perhaps that has more to do with it not being a crisis for them.

For the kids, they can’t wait until January for the Nebraska legislature to step up and begin to tackle (or perhaps if they have the courage, ‘undo’ to the extent they can going forward) the crisis they created.

They can’t wait while legislators hem and haw and contemplate the possibilities.

They need an end to legalized abandonments.

And they need it now.

To date 21 kids have undergone some form of abandonment in Nebraska, even if NE DHHS only formally counts 18 of them (link opens a PDF), (see my earlier blogging on the numbers game being played here.) That’s 21 kids who would not have had to endure the turmoil of being abandoned but for the short sighted and ill-advised actions of the Nebraska legislature.

At what point do they finally recognize their little social experiment is causing harm to the kids?

What will it take before legislators finally show some spine and put an end to the mess they’ve created?

Legalized child abandonment laws need to be REPEALED. Period. No state should ever be in the business of actively encouraging child abandonment.

The kids can’t wait another day, …another hour, …another minute.

Only Nebraska legislators hold the power to put a stop to this, it’s long past time they realized their mistake and worked to prevent further damage.

As for the 21 kids already enduring the effects of this legislation, they’ll be living with it the rest of their lives.

For each and every one of them, trust me on this, I think they’d be the first to tell you, it was absolutely a point of crisis.

A crisis they will be enduring the consequences of from now on.

I’m doing two posts tonight, so please also be sure to read Adoption subsidies for frozen corpses, more on the Maryland nightmare for part II of my coverage. (This third post is coming almost immediately on the heels of my second post following the developing Maryland story. I cut this writing about today’s Washington Post piece off the bottom of my last post to cut down the length and try to maintain the continuity.)

For new readers, also be sure to go back to part I, Maryland- 3 adopted daughters; 1 beaten, 2 dead, frozen in freezer for 7 months to get up to speed

***

Wednesday’s Washington Post reveals more details in its most recent article, Girls May Have Been Dead More Than a Year, Police Say. This latest piece says Bowman may have moved to Prince George’s OR Charles County:

Renee D. Bowman, 43, who arrived in Calvert in February, “indicated” in an interview that the bodies were in the freezer when she moved out of her former residence in the Rockville area, investigators have said. Yesterday, authorities revealed that she left that area last October or November and then stayed briefly in Prince George’s or Charles County before moving to Calvert.

So we may still only be dealing with three counties.

The new article also reveals that Bowman on top of the misdemeanor conviction, Bowman had filed for bankruptcy and that the information may not have been included in the outsourced background check:

The case continued to raise questions about D.C. child welfare services yesterday, three days after the bodies were found. The D.C. Child and Family Services Agency recommended Bowman as a suitable adoptive parent even though she filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001, the year she adopted one foster child, and had just emerged from it in 2004, when she adopted two others. In between, she lost her Landover house to foreclosure.

Bowman, now jailed on child abuse charges, had also been convicted in 1999 of a misdemeanor charge of “threatening bodily harm” to a 72-year-old man.

“We want to know how did this person . . . qualify to become an adoptive parent?” said D.C. Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), chairman of the Committee on Human Services and a former social worker. “Is there anything we don’t know or should have known that would have prevented the adoption?”

Acting Attorney General Peter Nickles said he was not aware of the bankruptcy filings or the misdemeanor conviction and does not believe that the information was included in a home visit report generated by a private contractor.

“That was not revealed. At least, I don’t think it was revealed,” he said. “I’m not saying . . . that I’ve seen everything.”

Then again, as the contractor, Board of Child Care of the United Methodist Church, (yes, folks more faith based adoption entanglement) isn’t saying anything either, we may just be looking at finger pointing and ass-covering in all directions at this point.

According to the Post:

Thomas Curcio, president of the nonprofit Board of Child Care, the private agency hired by the city to evaluate Bowman, has not responded to phone messages seeking a comment on the case.

As details of the adoption process are kept secret by law, determining misconduct in the process becomes an incredibly complicated endevour.

Bowman’s adoptions were approved by a D.C. Superior Court judge after a background investigation by a private agency under contract with the child services agency. Records of the adoptions remain confidential under D.C. law.

Meanwhile baby-step reforms, as opposed to comprehensive systemic overhauls (which I spoke to in my last post) are already being contemplated:

The case is prompting discussion among child-welfare advocates in the region about developing a standardized protocol to ensure thorough examinations of prospective adoptive parents and increasing post-adoption monitoring. Most states and the District have no post-adoption monitoring systems, experts said.

We also get a glimpse of the DC scope of the federal adoption subsidies:

As of last month, 2,295 people who adopted from the District were receiving the tax-free federal subsidy of $800 a month per child, said Mafara Hobson, spokeswoman for Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D).

And a snapshot if you will of Bowman’s recent work history:

A spokeswoman for Suburban Hospital in Bethesda said Bowman did secretarial work there from September 2004 to June 2006. She worked as a patient appointment scheduler at the Center for Ambulatory Surgery in the District from May 1989 to June 1993, then again from May 1998 to December 2000, according to a spokeswoman for the facility, which recently changed its name to MedStar Surgery Center.

Most importantly, the Post has dug out the details of the the incident that led to the misdemeanor conviction:

In 1999, according to D.C. Superior Court records, Bowman, in a vehicle, pulled alongside a 72-year-old man’s car and angrily demanded that he pay her for damages to her car caused during an earlier accident. The man, who was with a woman, quoted Bowman as yelling: “I want my $900. . . . If that [expletive] wasn’t sitting next to you, I’d whup your [expletive] right now.”

He said Bowman continued to follow him and threaten him that day, at one point saying she would “get the drug boys around the corner” to break into his house and beat him. Bowman received a 6-month suspended sentenced and was put on probation for a year.

The Post article also contains new details about Bowman’s boyfriend who has been questioned by the Police:

When the 7-year-old spoke with Calvert authorities Friday, she said her mother had beaten her, but she spoke kindly about a man she considered to be her father. He is not her biological father, authorities said, but her mother’s boyfriend.

The girl “thought the world of him,” Detective Sergeant Moore said.

Officials identified him as Joe C. Dickerson and said he was cooperative during an interview. They would not say what he had told them when asked about the bodies in the freezer. They said he visited Bowman at her home frequently but did not live there.

At yesterday’s custody hearing:

The 7-year-old was placed in the custody of the Maryland Department of Human Resources after a court hearing that was closed to the public. The girl remained in the hospital late yesterday afternoon, and she was scheduled to be placed with a Calvert foster family, officials said.

The Department of Human Resources said it had found no records of any child abuse or neglect complaints about this family.

***

Today more details are emerging. The Washington Post article, Md. Mother Jailed After Bodies Of 2 Children Found in Freezer, for example, contains a wealth of sad new details.

With Bowman in jail, charged with child abuse, and investigators working to piece together what happened, the case again shined a spotlight on the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency, which recommended Bowman to a D.C. Superior Court judge as a suitable adoptive parent in 2001 and 2004. The girls had been wards of the D.C. government.

Secrecy in adoption is leaving many questions unanswered:

Yesterday, myriad questions about Bowman’s adoptions went unanswered as city and court officials in the District, citing confidentiality laws, declined to reveal details of a background check of Bowman that was performed by a private contractor. They said they were unaware of her 1999 misdemeanor conviction in the District for threatening to hurt someone.

We learn two of the girls, the surviving 7 year old and the 9 year old were biological sisters as well:

The missing children would be 9 and 11, officials said. They said the 7-year-old girl is a biological sister of the 9-year-old. All three were foster children of Bowman’s before she adopted the oldest child in 2001 and the other two in 2004, officials said.

There are no records of the three girls having been enrolled in public school in three Maryland Counties Bowman has lived in:

Many neighbors near Bowman’s beige ranch-style home in Lusby and at her former residence in Rockville said they had never seen children at her home and were unaware that she had any. Authorities in Calvert and Montgomery County — and in Prince George’s County, where she lived for a time — said they could find no record of the children being enrolled in public schools.

More details are emerging of the abuse the 7 year old adopted girl endured:

Bowman was being held yesterday on charges of child abuse in connection with injuries to the 7-year-old. The girl escaped from her locked bedroom Thursday by jumping out a window, police said.

Bowman admitted beating the girl with a “hard-heeled shoe,” the sheriff’s office said. The girl told police her mother beat her with a white shoe to the point that it was covered in blood, officials said.

The child had “extensive open infected sores and open lesions,” several injuries to her feet and knees, and ligature marks and extensive scarring on her neck, according to charging documents filed in court.

Clearly if there was “extensive scarring on her neck” her abuse and neglect had been ongoing.

A second Post article details the search for evidence at the former residence in Montgomery County, see Detectives Scour for Evidence in Case of Dead Girls. It also reveals even further insanity, the freezer with the dead girls may have been moved not once, but twice:

Starks said Bowman left Rockville in October or November of last year. She lived in Charles County briefly before moving to Calvert, officials said.

The chronology, which differs from information made public yesterday, raises the startling possibility that the bodies of the children might have been moved not once but twice.

All of which sits firmly in the context of D.C.’s Banita Jacks case from earlier this year and the aftermath. (A snapshot of the Jacks catastrophic failure can be found in articles such as this CBS news piece from last January, D.C. Woman: “Demons” Possessed Slain Girls, it also dealt with issues of kids being in and out of school and lack of follow up to determine the children’s welfare. But then she’s a research topic unto herself.) The disastrous outcome led to ongoing work trying to clean up the mess that is DC Child and Family Services Agency (see articles such as this, Court Orders CFSA To Do Obvious: Get A Plan, from the Washington City Paper for example.)

The case has again shined a spotlight on the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency, which recommended Bowman to a D.C. Superior Court judge as a suitable adoptive parent in 2001 and 2004. The girls had been wards of the D.C. government.

The child welfare agency came under fire in January after social workers failed to investigate reports of alleged child neglect by Banita Jacks, a Southeast Washington woman now charged with killing her four daughters in their home.

The Bowman mess also brings to the fore the issue of background checks being outsourced to private contractors:

…myriad questions about Bowman’s adoptions went unanswered as city and court officials in the District, citing confidentiality laws, declined to reveal details of a background check of Bowman that was performed by a private contractor. They said they were unaware of her 1999 misdemeanor conviction in the District for threatening to hurt someone.

In the midst of these remarkable circumstances, (DC) Mayor Fenty had this to say:

“It would be too premature, too irresponsible, to say someone along the chain messed up,” Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) said at a news conference.

(Fenty has been busy covering his own ass in all this, pointing out repeatedly that the adoptions took place before he came to office.)

Again, rather than blaming individuals and saying any one given person let these girls slide, I think we have to look systemically. After the adoption, were there follow up visits? Were there supposed to be any? (Further down in this post I’ve come across a quote which seems to imply that once a child is placed, the job is in all meaningful ways ‘done’.)

Was it ANYONE’S job to ensure these girls were getting any kind of education? Were they ever enrolled in any school anywhere? Do kids who are not enrolled just fall through the cracks? Is anyone tasked with making sure they are in some form of schooling if they are not in public schools, or do parents just get to opt out completely and no one cares? (Further does that mean federal adoption subsidies can be given to parents who opt their kids out of education?) Apparently it’s no one’s job to make sure these girls were getting education of some kind, they’re not in county schools, but no one checks to see if they’ve moved to private, or homeschool? Do they just fall off the edge? If it’s not already, then it’s long past time for it be added to someone’s job description.

The article continues:

Authorities in Calvert and County – and in Prince George’s County, where she lived for a time — said they could find no record of the children being enrolled in public schools.

(I’m still trying to determine when were the Bowmans living in Prince George’s? Before or after their time in Montogomery? How many of Maryland’s twenty-three counties were touched by this case?)

Through all of this the moves, the lack of any evidence of these girls being given any kind of education, heck the lack of evidence that these girls were even still alive, the checks kept rolling in. Federal “special needs” adoption subsidies to the tune of $2, 400 a month. Yes, thousands of dollars without so much as ever asking, oh by the way, the girls are still alive, right?

Adoption subsidies for frozen corpses.

Keep up the ‘good work’ money, no evidence of post placement children required.

In Montgomery and Calvery Counties, just as I suspected, some neighbors were unaware Bowman even had kids:

Many neighbors near Bowman’s beige ranch-style home in Lusby and at the Rockville residence said they had never seen children at her home and were unaware that she had any.

Moving from Rockville/Aspen Hill in Montgomery Co. to Lusby in Calvert Co. Bowman claiming to be in failing health, apparently left a mess in her wake:

A few months before moving out, Bowman complained of back pain and said she had cancer, according to neighbor Shirley Knapp.

After Bowman moved to Calvert, the landlord complained to Howard Knapp, Shirley’s husband, about the mess that had been left behind. “They were pigs,” he recalled the landlord saying. “They trashed the house, and there was at least one dead cat in there.”

So again, I ask, in the wake of the adoptions, where were the follow up visits? Was the house in similar condition through the time the Bowmans lived there?

Today, (Tuesday), the autopsy for the dead sisters was scheduled. Details are likely to be forthcoming soon. In light of this paragraph from early on in the article:

The Calvert sheriff’s office said in a statement that Bowman told investigators the remains in the freezer were those of her older two adopted daughters. She told them she wrapped one of the children in a plastic garbage bag and the other in a rug, officials said.

I am GUESSING that the two girls may have died in perhaps separate incidents. Had they died at once, Bowman would have been more likely to treat the two bodies similarly. As one was in a garbage bad and the other in a rug, there’s the possibility that we could be looking at two separate events.

As for the final surviving daughter, forced to save herself, she’s apparently going into the Maryland system:

The Maryland Department of Human Resources will file a petition in court today to gain custody of the 7-year-old.

A third article in today’s Post, Woman Met Adoption Requirements, D.C. Officials Say details the adoptions of the girls and the “special needs” adoption subsidies Bowman was receiving:

D.C. officials said yesterday that Renee D. Bowman followed the proper procedures for adopting three children and passed the background check and home study required for adoptive parents.

“Based on my review of the evidence today, all that happened,” said Peter Nickles, the city’s acting attorney general. He said that as part of a federal program for parents who take in “special needs” children, Bowman received a total of $2,400 a month for the three girls.

The special-needs designation can mean that children are part of a sibling set or a racial minority group, have a learning disability or were relinquished to the state by their biological parents, among other things.

Despite a previous conviction a misdemeanor that was clearly pertinent, Bowman sailed on through the process:

The city’s adoption process involves an investigation into the prospective parent’s background and home life, a child-rearing class, interviews and other evaluations. The final approval comes from a judge in the Superior Court’s family division.

Bowman cleared the hurdles despite a 1999 conviction on one misdemeanor count of “threats to do bodily harm.” She was given a six-month suspended sentence and put on supervised probation for a year, according to Superior Court records.

D.C. officials said at a news conference that they were unaware of the case and did not know whether a misdemeanor conviction would prevent an adoption .

As the District had outsourced the background check, they are now claiming ignorance of the misdemeanor conviction. This brings us to our next question, how many other people were allowed to adopt with prior convictions and what are the implications for the children they adopted?

Worse, they admit, they don’t even know whether or not the conviction would have disqualified her, or whether the adoptions would have gone forward anyway had they known!

As I continue to say, SYSTEMIC problems.

Fortunately, we do at least get the name of the private contractor:

The private agency that did the background check, the Baltimore-based Board of Child Care, did not respond to a request for comment yesterday.

Which is to say they’re ducking this one and hoping attention goes elsewhere. That would be the Board of Child Care of the United Methodist Church. (Get yer ‘faith-based’ homestudies here!) The BOCC tries to be one stop shopping, providing everything from home studies to “all of the required post-placement services.”

Which brings us around to Adoptions Together, (yet another topic unto itself) from two directions, both the Post article with the quote below indicating that those with a misdemeanor conviction have gotten children in the past:

“Whenever there’s any kind of a criminal history, it’s always carefully evaluated,” said Janice Goldwater, executive director of the nonprofit Adoptions Together, which works with government agencies in the Washington region. “But there are people that adopt children that have misdemeanors.”

and by way of the Board of Child Care adoption page, which makes it clear Adoptions Together isn’t merely familiar with the broader DC adoption milieu, the Board of Child Care is in “partnership” with Adoptions Together:

The Board of Child Care is licensed as a child placement agency in Maryland and the District of Columbia. Through an established partnership with Adoptions Together, a comprehensive array of adoption services are available, including adoption counseling, home studies, assistance in the waiting period, full placement services, reunion services, and all of the required post-placement services.

The real bottom line is that ‘the buck’ appears to have stopped nowhere.

After placement, apparently the job is done:

“Once the court decides a family is fit, once it takes place, that ends the jurisdiction of the state or D.C,” said Mayor Fenty.

In other words, a clusterfuck of no one stepping up to the plate to say ‘damnit, someone somewhere in one of these systems needed to step forward to say it WAS their responsibility or their departments’ responsibility to ensure kids are still alive post placement’.

***

Lots of other factors played into this mess, communication between DC and MD, outsourcing of background checks leading to deniability, lack of follow up once a kid is placed, homeschool laws that place less scrutiny on families when a child is no longer in public schools (based on assumptions that the kids must be getting something somewhere else), adoption subsidies that go out whether the kids is provably alive or not, and as always, the lack of budget, time, personel, etc to do what really should have been done every step of the way.

To do what kids need to ensure their very lives.

The SYSTEM failed these adopted girls. It’s past time to start re-evaluating from the ground up.

Judith Leekin, photo by Port St. Lucie (FL) Police Department

*

I’ve tried to write this. All week I’ve tried to write this.

Leekin has been the monster under the bed rattling around all week, and while I’ve somehow found the words to go ahead and write about Dmitry, when it comes to Leekin, I’m just off the edge of language.

I’ve gone through several drafts of trying to write about Leekin’s sentencing in New York. I can’t find the words to begin to express my two sided coin of despair and fury.

For now, I’ll just pass along several days worth of a few links, please, take the time to read at least some of them (I’d recommend the three NYT pieces for those of you who don’t have the time to delve deeper.)

I will be following her sentencing in FL closely as well.

I’ve only pulled to bits out of the one NYT article below, pertaining to the current status of Leekin’s one time adopted children.

Lawyers: Severely punish NY woman who abused kids, AP, July 14th, ‘08

Judge Hints at Harsh Sentence in Adoption Fraud Case, New York Times, July 15th, ‘08

Adoptive mom gets 11 years for fraud, awaits abuse hearing, Palm Beach Post, July 15th, ‘08

Woman gets nearly 11 years for NY adoption fraud, AP July 15th, ‘08

10-Year Sentence in Scheme to Bilk Adoption System, New York Times, July 16th, 08

A severely handicapped boy disappeared from Ms. Leekin’s home in 2000, prosecutors have written to the judge, and the authorities have not been able to determine where he was taken, or find “any other clues about whether he is still alive.”

After court, Ms. Leekin’s lawyer, Diamond R. Litty, declined to comment when asked about the missing child.

and

As for the children, most of whom are now young adults, their futures are uncertain, Howard M. Talenfeld, a lawyer for the children, said in an interview after the hearing.

Some have shown a remarkable resilience, he said. “You’d be amazed,” he said, adding, “They still have an uphill battle.”

But for the ones who are highly disabled, he said: “Unfortunately, they’re in custodial care, in group homes. One is blind. And it’s one of the saddest, most pathetic things I’ve ever seen.”

Judith Leekin gets almost 11 years on New York child neglect charges TC Palm, July 16th, 08

All of which has led to a much broader investigation of adoption subsidies being misused as Leekin’s case was far from the only adoption related money grab scam taking place. Leekin is but one particular node of a broader system of adoption fraud;

Officials Accused of Taking Agency Money in Fake Adoptions New York Times, July 17th, 08

Undoubtedly, there will be more details forthcoming.