***

I’ve been advising readers to use KWCH’s chart profiling Adam Herrman’s Family to help keep track of the variety of voices in this story.

By way of a second tool, I’d also like to point readers towards the Wichita Eagle’s A timeline for the Adam Herrman case. It too, is very useful in keeping track of the all the dates in this story.

***

On a personal note, yeah I haven’t been blogging as much as I’d like to over the past week, not for lack of material, but for lack of time.

On Saturday, The Wichita Eagle published the first public comments about the case from from the Butler County Chief Prosecutor, in the comments the boy’s adoptive parents were for the first time (to my knowledge) described as “the suspects.” See Prosecutor: parents are suspects in Adam Herrman case:

Butler County’s chief prosecutor said Friday that the adoptive parents of 11-year-old Adam Herrman are suspects in his 1999 disappearance and that the investigation could result in murder charges.

Referring to Doug and Valerie Herrman, Butler County Attorney Jan Satterfield said, “They are the suspects in this case.”

In her first public comments about the case during an interview with The Eagle, Satterfield said that although searches have not found any human remains, there is potential for charges of first-degree felony murder, with the underlying crime being child abuse.

Despite the wave of publicity, to date there has been “no indication that he exists out there:”

Although investigators have not ruled out the possibility that Adam is alive, detectives have found “no indication that he exists out there,” Satterfield said.

No charges have been filed against the Herrmans. Valerie Herrman’s attorney, Warner Eisenbise of Wichita, has also said that she denies harming Adam.

In another subtle shift in the case, we also see Warner Eisenbise now quoted as Valerie Herman’s attorney. Doug Herrman has retained a separate attorney of his own:

Wichita lawyer Dan Monnat said Friday that his law firm is now representing Doug Herrman. Monnat declined further comment.

As the Herrman’s son, Justin has previous said his mother was the one who abused Irvin / Adam, and his father had stepped in to stop it, I am not altogether surprised to see separate attorneys representing their respecting interests, see Relatives say missing Butler County boy was abused:

Justin Herrman, 29, who is the biological son of Valerie and Doug Herrman, said he never saw his father abuse Adam.

“He’s actually stopped it many times,” said Justin Herrman, who was about 7 years older than Adam.

Over the years, at different homes around the Wichita area, his mother “would start hitting him or beating him with a belt,” Justin said.

His father “would stop her and say, ‘That’s enough, Valerie,’ ” he said.

Clearly though, both adopters failed to report him missing, and assumedly both were part of the financial fraud, claiming the boy time and again after he was long gone. (Which I hope to detail further in a separate post as there’s news on that front as well.)

One of the other major issues with the case has become when various records will come to be released.

As I first reported back on January 15th, (see this article, SRS to review contacts with Adam Herrman, for the quote below) the Wichita Eagle, (potentially among other media sources,) along with Kansas State Senator Jean Schodorf (see Kan. lawmaker seeks audit for case of missing boy) are seeking records of the State’s interaction with the Herrman family.

The Eagle has filed a request with SRS under the state’s open-records law for information about Adam.

Chief Prosecutor Jan Satterfield is urging such be delayed so as not in interfere with the development of building the case:

Satterfield’s comments Friday came during a telephone interview about her attempt to keep the state child-protection agency from releasing to the media any records about Adam. Those records would include any allegations of him being abused.

Satterfield said that public disclosure would reveal witnesses and interfere with the investigation into Adam’s disappearance.

On Thursday, a judge in Butler County granted a temporary order prohibiting the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services from releasing records about Adam that “touch upon alleged acts of neglect or child abuse directed towards Adam Herrman.” A hearing on whether the prohibition will continue has been set for March 1.

Allow me to quote this portion of the Wichita Eagle article at length:

Blocking the records

The Eagle has sought SRS records on Adam under an exception in the law that allows the information to be disclosed when a child dies or nearly dies and it is related to abuse or neglect.

SRS spokeswoman Michelle Ponce said the agency had been prepared to release information about Adam based on the Butler County Sheriff’s Office treating his disappearance as a homicide investigation.

But Satterfield said: “I think it’s prudent for law enforcement and my office to review the records that are proposed to be released and identify potential witnesses and take statements before they’re disseminated to the general public because we are looking at potential child abuse charges” and potential felony murder charges. Such charges can come, she said, when there is evidence of a murder committed in the process of an “inherently dangerous felony” such as child abuse.

Blocking the release of SRS records is “not in an effort for the public not to know,” Satterfield said.

“We just don’t want that investigation compromised in any way.”

In another document filed Thursday in Butler County District Court, the Wichita Clinic objected to any release of Adam’s SRS file, saying it contains records with “personal health information protected by the physician-patient privilege” and federal law.

The clinic said it has “not received proof, notice, or the suggestion of death of Adam Herrman from law enforcement.”

Satterfield said the purpose of the investigation is “to search for Adam and at the same time to determine if Adam is dead, or any facts that might lead us to potential homicide charges.”

Also last Thursday the article continues, an “interesting tip” came in:

Also Friday, Butler County Sheriff Craig Murphy said detectives received an interesting tip Thursday, but he wouldn’t elaborate.

Murphy described it as “an interesting tip that has created some questions for us that have got to be answered.”

He said detectives don’t plan any searches for Adam’s remains in the near future but are continuing to investigate and seek tips.

Finally, I also want to pull several quotes from this KSN piece originally posted Saturday the 17th and then updated on the 18th, DA: Herrmans are suspects in Adam’s disappearance:

Butler County’s top prosecutor says the adoptive parents of an 11 year old boy who vanished ten years ago are suspects in his disappearance and could face murder charges even if police never find his remains.

“There’s been no record of him for ten years,” said District Attorney Jan Satterfield. “That means something in my mind. It’s not as if he’s been a short period.”

No one has seen Adam Herrman alive since 1999.

Also note:

Satterfield said even if no body is ever found it is still possible for the Herrman’s to be prosecuted on murder charges.

“Yes, it’s rare,” said Satterfield. “Understand he hasn’t been seen in 10 years. It hasn’t been 2 weeks or 2 years.”

While public pressure has been mounting to move the case forward and hold someone accountable, Satterfield said police and prosecutors will take their time building a case. She said if and when charges are brought against the Herrmans her office will present its entire case at once.

Records show Valerie and Doug Herrman continued to collect money from the state for their foster care of Adam for years after he disappeared. Satterfield said her office will hold off on theft or fraud charges until the investigation is complete because of concerns about double jeopardy and constitutional due process laws.

Satterfield said if her office convicts the Herrmans of child abuse it may make it difficult to charge them with murder charges related to the abuse because of double jeopardy.

“We’re not going to respond to the public pressure,” said Satterfield. “We’re going to do the right thing and these things take time.”

***

I’ve been advising readers to use KWCH’s chart profiling Adam Herrman’s Family to help keep track of the variety of voices in this story.

By way of a second tool, I’d also like to begin pointing readers towards the Wichita Eagle’s A timeline for the Adam Herrman case. It too, is a very useful tool in keeping track of the all the dates in this story.

***

So by way of a midweek update, firstly, earlier this week (Kansas) State Senator Jean Schodorf, the Senate assistant majority leader called for an audit of the State’s interactions with the Herrmans. See this January 11th AP story Kan. lawmaker seeks audit for case of missing boy:

State Sen. Jean Schodorf, the Senate assistant majority leader, said Friday she had asked Don Jordan, secretary of the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, to look for any signs that authorities had needed to take Adam out of the home and whether the state played a part in his disappearance by not acting on them.

“We need to … find out if indeed the state or the system lost this child somewhere,” said Schodorf. “It is just a mystery. Maybe everything was done correctly.”

A review was already underway:

Michelle Ponce, spokeswoman for the social services department, said it already was conducting a “very thorough review” and would cooperate with any criminal investigation.

The department and Derby police said they investigated at least two reports of suspected abuse of Adam in 1996 and 1998.

Adam was in protective custody for two days following the 1996 report, but was returned to adoptive parents Valerie and Doug Herrman after authorities determined the report was unsubstantiated, Ponce said.

The article also elaborates on the state’s homeschool requirements, which are at best, pathetic, not even requiring ongoing evidence that the child is being educated let alone ever completed their education:

State law requires operators of home schools to provide a name and address but doesn’t require records of students who are home-schooled, said Ed Libber, general counsel for the Kansas Department of Education. State records listed a Herrman School with a Derby address as a non-accredited private school in January 1998.

Schodorf said she wasn’t pushing for changing the laws to increase scrutiny when children are withdrawn from school.

“I think we’ve got to piece together this boy’s life and then decide if the state needs to change their regulations,” she said. “And it’s probably too hard to tell now.”

As I have said time and again in these homeschool/kid gone missing cases, the lack of follow up means the default assumption is that the kid is still there, but it’s never anyone’s job description to verify that.

If there is any one lesson to be learned from these cases it’s that disappearing a kid off into “homeschooling” and never so much as checking to see if the kid is still there is a recipe for disaster. See my homeschool tag for other examples of cases where such has been a factor.

In any case, for more on the SRS review also see this Wichita Eagle article, SRS to review contacts with Adam Herrman, which while essentially the same as the above, also points out this important detail:

The Eagle has filed a request with SRS under the state’s open-records law for information about Adam.

Then there has been today’s news, the search in the Towanda trailer park. I’ve pulled a bunch of articles and some video about the search, read any one to get the overview I’m going to try to highlight the portions of the different articles that bring forth interesting details.

Start with this, Mobile Home Park Searched for Remains and the related videos in the upper left hand corner box.

Then see The Science Behind the Search and the video the accompanies it.

As both stories point out what prompted the search at the trailer park, unlike the earlier search near the river was a tip:

An out of state tip takes Butler County Sheriff’s investigators back to the shed near the family’s old mobile home Wednesday.

Of the search:

Wednesday Sheriff Craig Murphy would only say they found ‘trash’ that shouldn’t be underneath a shed.

The shed was apparently erected during roughly the same time frame as Irvin/Adam’s disappearance.

Next see this AP piece, Updated: Deputies dig at boy’s former home:

Investigators found no human remains while digging at the mobile home park where a Kansas boy whose disappearance went unreported for a decade once lived, the local sheriff said today.

But Butler County Sheriff Craig Murphy said searchers have found something connected to the investigation, although he wouldn’t elaborate. The dig also brought up trash and other things that investigators were examining, he said.

More about the tip and the shed:

Investigators — acting on an out-of-state tip about some “unusual activity” in the area at the time of Adam’s disappearance — removed a shed and concrete pad today that was installed in the summer of 1999 at the mobile home lot where Adam and his adoptive parents, Doug and Valerie Herrman, lived.

This is the second time the investigation has probed the area:

Authorities searching the lot last month had drilled holes into the concrete slab and probed the ground.

The Herrmans, who managed the park, moved their mobile home from Towanda to Sedgwick County after Adam disappeared.

This article also importantly also contains new details about the Herrmans’ claims that Irvin/Adam was a frequent runaway and their interactions with the local police department:

The family’s attorney, Warner Eisenbise, has said his clients didn’t have anything to do with the boy’s disappearance. He has said Adam ran away frequently, and every other time police were called or the boy wandered back. The last time, the parents c, he said.

But Towanda Police Chief Erik King said today that he has searched police records from September 1998 through January 2000 and has been unable to find any runaway or abuse reports dealing with the Herrmans.

The only contact police had with the Herrmans was in their capacity as managers of the mobile home park, he said.

(emphasis added)

In short, based on the article the notion that the police were called about Irvin/Adam running away has no paper trail to substantiate it.

That said how does this relate to the 1998 timeline entry?

Jan. 14, 1998: Adam runs away, according to Derby police.

He “returned on his own within two hours of the report and no further action was taken,” Brant said.

Also note that his claim that the Herrmans “didn’t try to find him” contradicts the earlier claims of having gone looking for him.

Their lawyer’s claim is pretty remarkable in and of itself, the kid disappears and they “didn’t try to find him”?!?

What parent, adoptive or otherwise, would show such indifference to an eleven year old?

Finally, see the Wichita Eagle’s No human remains found beneath Towanda storage shed:

“We’re done here,” Butler County Sheriff Craig Murphy said shortly after 1:30 p.m. at the Pine Ridge Trailer Park on the south edge of Towanda.

The missing boy lived with his adoptive parents in a home next to the storage shed when he was last seen in 1999. His adoptive mother was manager of the trailer park at the time.

Despite dismissive articles from earlier on in the week such as Monday’s AP piece Search for missing Kansas boy growing cold, according to the Wichita Eagle piece, the investigation is still “very active”:

“From here, we’re going to be moving on, evaluating the case,” Murphy said.

Murphy adamantly denied the case has grown cold.

“It is not cold,” he said. “It’s very active. It’s going to stay active, and it’s going to come to a conclusion sooner or later.”

Murphy said investigators have found “some things” in the course of today’s dig, but he wouldn’t elaborate.

Apparently the two searches of the site have a common thread for investigators:

Today is not the first visit authorities have made to the storage shed site, Murphy said. Investigators had holes drilled into the storage shed pad and probed for evidence on New Year’s Eve.

Murphy has said that investigators found an “answer” during the earlier search, but he still won’t say what that answer was.

Today’s search is connected to that answer, he said.

Perhaps that “answer” is related to the January 5th entry to the timeline:

Jan. 5, 2009: Butler County Sheriff Craig Murphy holds a news conference in El Dorado, telling reporters that detectives are treating Adam’s disappearance as a death, although he could still be alive. Without elaborating, Murphy says investigators are “holding tightly” to something they found and not revealing it. He welcomes national attention to the case, saying it could help locate Adam if he is alive. He asks for the public’s help and releases Adam’s fourth-grade picture.

***

Consider this a Saturday round up of sorts.

Again, I urge readers to use KWCH’s chart profiling Adam Herrman’s Family to help with keeping all the names and relations straight in their own minds as they follow along.

Irvin/Adam’s family, like that of many adoptees is a tangle of both members of his family of origin and his family by adoption. In my writing, I tend to use “mother, father, sister” etc to refer to family of origin and adoptive mother, adoptive father, adoptive sister or similar to help with clarity. Exceptions come up in for example, describing the (biological) daughter of an adoptive parent.

I should also add that while I sometimes use “Adam” as that was his legal name after the adoption, the boy spent the first two years of his life as “Irvin.” I fluctuate between the two names, or sometimes use a “/” between the two. People search on both, and ultimately, he is both. I lean towards use of “Irvin” as original names are important to those of us who have been adopted, among many other reasons.

As I’ve said before, this is a Bastard Blog, and that is my perspective, language is not neutral.

So that out of the way, I’m mainly going to point at a few articles and pull some quotes. I’m not going to do a lot of analysis around these pieces.

Most missing kids reported quickly

The investigation into the 1999 disappearance of 11-year-old Adam Herrman had several law enforcement experts struggling Thursday to think of a more unusual case.

There have been cases where a person has been missing for years before a body is found and a criminal investigation is launched.

There have been plenty of cases where the parents of missing children have failed to file reports in a timely manner. But it’s usually a delay of a few days or weeks.

But the case of Adam, who was reported missing by a relative only seven weeks ago, has drawn widespread attention and speculation from around the country.

“I’ll be honest with you, I can’t think of a single case like this,” former Sedgwick County District Attorney and Sheriff Vern Miller said of the delay in filing Adam’s missing person report. “I’ve known them to wait a week or two — maybe three or four — where they say they think he’s gone off to his dad’s. And usually that’s what happens…. I don’t remember a single case like this.”

and

Brian Withrow, an associate professor of criminal justice at Wichita State University, said the fascination with the case probably stems from the behavior of Adams’ adoptive family.

“These people lied for 10 years; that’s what makes this different,” he said. “They just flat-out lied to everybody who cared to ask. They made up stories for 10 years.

“Normally, when you have a person that’s missing — particularly a child — there’s a report made. Somebody misses that person, and then you go looking for that person. Sometimes you find him and sometimes you don’t. Sometimes it’s months before you find him, and sometimes it’s years.”

It should be noted, they not only lied, they also appear to have to have defrauded the state through the years the Irvin / Adam was missing.

Be sure to see the video connected to this piece for an interview with his mother. Missing for a decade, search only begins now

It’s an issue that has prompted a lot of questions in the state of Kansas. It’s also an issue that is deeply troubling to the boy’s biological mother who lives here in Colorado.

“This is the last picture I have of him since my rights were terminated,” Gerri George said while she showed us a picture of a young boy. He was 6 back then, she says.

George admits she wasn’t the best of mothers. She knows her abusive relationship with her children caused the state of Kansas to take away her children permanently around 15 years ago.

But she says she never expected this to happen.

“I’m very angry and very upset wondering where everybody’s mind was,” she said.

She only found out about her son’s disappearance two weeks ago. The caller told her “to sit down and stay calm, don’t panic. (The caller) said, ‘You’ve got a boy missing,’ and I said, ‘What?’”

Obviously most people assume that if a child is being placed with a foster family and they are eventually allowed to adopt him, then the foster/adoptive family has been vetted by the state (or what in practice often ends up being a state’s contractors or subcontractors.)

The bedrock assumption is that children like Irvin who had been removed from one abusive situation by the state would now be placed somewhere “safe,” not into yet another abusive situation, and such certainly would never be allowed to adopt him… right?

Well, in theory that’s how it’s supposed to work.

In practice? Who knows.

His mother holds out hope he’s still alive out there somewhere.

“I don’t think he’s dead. Until I find out for sure, I will always believe that,” George said.

Also see the video segment connected to this piece Adam’s biological mom: I believe he is still alive.

“If they didn’t have anything to hide, they wouldn’t have done what they did,” George said.

and

George says if she were face-to-face with Valerie Herrman, she would have just one question.

“I would ask her why,” she said. “Why did you do what you did, when the Department of Social Services trusts you to protect the children against me? You did the exact same thing that my own father did to me.”

Just as I pointed out Kim Winslow, (an adopted aunt’s) video interview in yesterday’s blog post, in today’s Wichita Eagle there’s an article giving an adopted Uncle, Sam Bush’s account of claiming to have seen the abuse but failing to report it, Missing boy’s uncle says he witnessed verbal and physical abuse:

Over the years, Sam Bush said, he repeatedly saw his older sister, Valerie Herrman, scream and curse in Adam’s face, slap him, strike him with a belt and throw him down. Sometimes, Bush said, he tried to intervene but backed away because he thought it would bring more abuse to Adam.

I strongly urge readers to follow the link across and read the full article as there are far too many pieces worth quoting to really try to pull quotes for the purposes of this blog post, but I will include a few:

Bush, now 46, said he partly blames the state for the abuse he says Adam suffered.

“They saw the bruises,” but did not permanently remove Adam from his adoptive parents’ home, Bush said.

But Bush said he also blames adults in his family — and “myself because I witnessed so much” and didn’t report it.

“We should have done more. I don’t blame Crystal” or her younger biological brother, Justin. “At the time, they were kids….

We also gain some insight into yet another of what I’ve been calling the “missed opportunities”, Crystal, the Herrman’s daughter, had come up to the edge of contacting authorities, but apparently was talked out of it by her Uncle:

“I was the adult the night I went in there and Crystal was sitting on those stairs, and I talked her out of it.”

Crystal, now 31, said Friday that she remembers being upset and having such a conversation with her uncle.

“I waited up to tell him that I was going to turn her in,” said Crystal, who asked that her last name not be used to protect her children’s privacy.

“Sam’s my favorite uncle,” she said, adding that she doesn’t fault him for persuading her not to report her allegations.

“We kept praying it was going to get better,” she said.

Finally, around this past Thanksgiving, Crystal reported her concerns to the state’s child protection agency, uncovering Adam’s 1999 disappearance and triggering an intense law enforcement investigation into what happened to him.

Not surprisingly the Herrman’s are firing back.

Doug Herrman said Friday that the account given by Bush and his daughter is wrong. He also said Bush didn’t live with them during the period Bush said he did.

“He’d do anything to ruin us,” Doug Herrman said.

“Everybody wants to hear dirt, and I’m sick of it,” Doug Herrman said.

Once again, that 1999 final date for seeing Irvin comes up:

Bush said he last saw Adam around the spring of 1999 — it was just starting to get warm — at a Wichita church.

As I said, the full article with it’s allegations of abuse is important to read and too long to quote, other than perhaps this last important bit:

Bush said he had a message to share: “If you see a family member abusing their children, turn them in. Don’t sit there and be going through what our family is going through.

“I’ve sat here, constantly thinking: ‘Why didn’t I do more? Why didn’t I do more?’ Because I thought it would go away, it would stop. I love my sister. I can’t turn her in.”

This piece gives a little insight into possible timing for any charges going forward Missing Kansas boy once taken into custody, returned

No charges have been filed. Butler County Sheriff Craig Murphy said consideration of any charges would wait while officials concentrate on the search.

The Herrmans did not return a message seeking comment Thursday.

The family’s attorney, Warner Eisenbise, has said Adam had a history of running away and that his clients said he had done so again when he disappeared in 1999 and felt “very guilty” not reporting it at the time. Eisenbise has said the family had nothing to do with his disappearance, but acknowledged other charges may be coming in connection with the case.

The Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services confirmed Thursday the Herrmans continued to receive adoption subsidy payments for Adam after he was missing, but the agency could not immediately determine how much. The department said it was researching the case.

and the reporting obligations related to the adoption subsidies:

“Post-adoption they are a private family like any other,” Ponce said. “That said, if our agency were to receive a report of abuse or neglect, that certainly would be investigated in any other situation.”

Families receiving adoption subsidies are required to file a yearly report to verify ongoing legal and financial responsibility for the child, she said.

“If there were a situation in which an individual would knowingly supply false information to the state in order to receive benefits, that is a crime,” Ponce said. “And that is a crime in which our agency would use all legal remedies at our disposal to rectify.”

Finally, in my last article for this post, today the investigation included a six hour search along the Whitewater River. It was not prompted by any tips or clues, but rather “common sense.” See Search along river turns up no clues in missing boy case.

The video connected to the piece pretty well sums up the attempted search.

***

Obviously, there have been a torrent of articles, media interviews etc about the “Adam Herrman” / Irvin Groeninger III case. I’ve been combing through such trying pull out some of what actually matters. This is my second post about the boy. New readers will want to first read through that initial posting, Adam Herrman- homeschooled and gone missing for years, parents continued to receive subsidies.

***

KWCH has a useful set of profiles to help readers keep all the various personalities in the Adam Herrman story straight:

Adam Herrman’s Family

To that, readers can also add this article, Adam Herrman Missing: Biological Mother Speaks, in which Gerri George is identified as Adam’s mother. She recalls how her parental rights were terminated:

She said, “I didn’t exactly give him up. They kept — the county kept throwing my past of what my parents did to me. And they more or less said that I would repeat history again with my own children. And it seems like they’re the ones who are repeating the history of what my parents did to me. But they’re doing it with my own kids.

Both of his parents Gerri and Irvin were interviewed on Larry King Live, on Jan 7th. Separately, later on in the broadcast the Herrman’s lawyer was on as well.

The boy’s father brings up what should have been obvious:

GROENINGER: Right. Yes. I’ve got all kinds of questions about that, how a doctor whose seen him during his first 11 years didn’t — all of a sudden, you know, he ain’t showing up for doctor visits anymore. He ain’t showing up for dentist visits anymore. They said he was under psychiatric care. He’s not showing up for psychiatric care anymore. Somebody had to miss him.

Adam had originally been named Irvin Groeninger III. According to his mother, he apparently entered state custody around age 2.

“I had been a little bit not exactly a good parent,” she said, adding she had left a bruise on an older child.

Still, she said, she did her best to give her children a good home. She last saw her son when he was about 4.

Adam’s older biological sister, Tiffany Broadfoot, now 22 and living in Wichita, lived for a time with Adam’s adoptive family before being adopted by someone else.

Broadfoot remembers Adam having dark, almost curly hair and “this cute, really round face.” She last saw him at a birthday party when he was 5 or 6.

Over the years, she said, she called the adoptive mother to ask how he was doing.

At first, Broadfoot said, the adoptive mother said Adam was OK. But about three years ago, she said, the woman asked her not to call again because she didn’t want Adam and two younger siblings to know they were adopted.

Broadfoot tried again, without success, to contact Adam last year, she said.

Then last month, she said, her biological father called and said, “Are you sitting down? Because I need to talk to you.”

He said a detective told him that Adam had been missing since 1999.

“He (the detective) said he’s been missing nine years, and that just blew my mind,” Groeninger said.

(Emphasis added)

I detailed Tiffany’s brief stay with the Herrmans in my first post about Irvin/Adam. As I pointed out there, it appears to have been the Herrman’s biological daughter’s tip that kicked off the investigation, see Missing boy’s sister was one who called officials.

So according to Broadfoot, Valerie Herrman was at least saying she wanted to keep the fact of the kids’ adoptions from them, and utilized such as an excuse to try to make his sister stop attempting contact him. She was saying this three years ago, or approximately 6 years after his “disappearance.” Adoption secrecy makes a great excuse to never have to put the kid on the phone.

While his sister was being stonewalled later on, his adopted aunt, Kim Winslow saw him at least a few times over the years while the boy was still with the Herrmans. Her recounting of the final time she saw him, locked in chains in the bathroom, no one bringing him food or water over the course of hours really makes one wonder how the hell she never one contacted the authorities in light of what she and other family members were seeing.

I STRONGLY urge readers to watch the full video interview with Winslow on the video link here, Missing Boy’s Aunt Regrets Not Reporting Abuse.

There can be no excuse for not reporting, when you see a kid locked up like that you don’t sit back and watch the game and socialize. You don’t pretend everything ok, or that a child chained up like that could ever be any semblance of “normal”.

I don’t particularly care what quack pseudo-diagnosis (see For the Last Time, “Attachment Disorder” DOES NOT EXIST!) a kid has been labeled with,

Psychiatrists said Adam was either bipolar or schizophrenic or suffering from attachment disorder, they said.

Nor do I care that the Herrmans’ claim they kept him locked in the bathroom on the “advice of a psychiatrist.” There can simply be no excuse for pretending the kid locked away like that does not warrant at minimum a phone call to the local police.

But despite article after article now discussing “regrets” and discomfort, etc, that call that would have led to his rescue never came.

As to who precisely is to blame here, I don’t think we have a firm enough grasp on what happened to pinpoint responsibility just yet, but I do think someone should be looking at not only the relatives some of whom were aware of the boy’s plight and yet did nothing, but also whether or not “attachment” quackery played a role in his suffering, as it has in a number of adoptees’ deaths to date.

Herrman later explained Adam’s disappearance away as him having gone back into the child welfare system, and thus family members such as Winslow made the erroneous assumption that he was “safe.” While this was perhaps an excuse in line with the Herrman’s previous history with Irvin/Adam’s biological sister having been removed from the Herrman home, (see Adoptive mother denies she abused missing boy.)

At one point when Adam was younger, around 1990 or 1991, the Herrmans said they lost their foster care license after an investigation, which they declined to discuss in detail. They said authorities removed one of Adam’s younger sisters, then about 2, but said she was not removed because of child abuse.

It is still yet another of those adoption related excuses/lies that made it easier for friends and family to excuse the boy’s absence.

Herrman’s former sister in law, Linda Bush described the excuse thusly:

Bush said the Herrmans told other family members that they had turned Adam back to the Department of Social and Rehabilitative Services. She said she had no reason to believe otherwise because the couple had other foster children who went back to state custody.

“They had turned other children back, whether voluntary or mandated,” Bush said. “Nobody had any reason to disbelieve. Who would think of something so heinous happening? Nobody did.”

Irvin/Adam’s adoption saga is very much in line with what many foster/adoption kids experience.

Born in born in Wichita in June 1987, he was removed from his parents’ custody after his mother bruised an older child, his parents were divorced. At about age 2, Irvin came to live with the Herrmans first as a foster child, then later her was adopted and renamed Adam.

His father, tried to regain custody, but despite being cleared of any wrongdoing, his parental rights were terminated (see this good AP story from 2 days ago, Boy’s 1999 disappearance raises questions, regrets.)

The boy’s biological father, Irvin Groeninger II, also expressed regret. The Indiana trucker was divorced when authorities took Adam and his siblings from their mother’s home after alleged abuse. He says he was cleared of any wrongdoing and tried to get custody of his children, but child welfare officials terminated his parental rights.

“Basically, I have lost him twice,” Groeninger said.

The boy — whom he knows only by his birth name of Irvin Groeninger III — was 18 months old when Groeninger last saw him. He had hoped his son would try to contact him when he was old enough to search for his biological family.

He says he wishes he could tell his son: “I love him and I wish I had fought harder back then to get him and keep him in my custody.”

While Adam and two younger siblings were adopted by the Herrmans, Adam’s older biological sister, Tiffany Broadfoot, was adopted by another Wichita family. Broadfoot has not seen her brother since a birthday party when he was 7 or 8 years old.

Broadfoot said the first time she called Adam’s adoptive mother she was told everything was fine and Adam was doing well. Other times she was told not to call again because Adam and his siblings did not know they were adopted.

In August or September, she called Valerie Herrman again. “The last time I talked to her she was very in my face and very adamant: `You have no business calling here. You have no right. That is not your family. Don’t call here. Don’t talk to us. Don’t do anything. That is not your concern. Back off,’” Broadfoot said.

Naturally, as the boy had been missing for the past 9 years, Broadfoot’s call last August or September apparently unleashed quite a reaction.

The same article contains yet another account, this time from Linda Bush, of how Valerie Herrman mistreated Irvin:

Linda Bush, a former sister-in-law of Valerie Herrman, remembered Adam as a timid little boy. She has not seen him since he was at least 6 years old.

“He wasn’t boisterous, running around making a lot of noise like other children. And he stared a lot. That was strange,” Bush said. “He gave me the creeps sometimes because he would stare. But it was nothing to hate him for.”

Bush said she remembered Valerie Herrman telling the boy he was stupid.

“It was the tone. It was constant. She constantly berated him and put him down, a hateful tone,” Bush said. “It was constant and we couldn’t figure out what that boy had ever done to make her hate him like that.”

The Herrmans did not treat Adam’s two younger siblings the same way, she said.

In my initial post, I brought up the repeated accounts of “missed opportunities.” While we have multiple perspectives/police statement from relatives admitting they failed to report what the boy was enduring:

Winslow, now living outside the Wichita area, and some of Herrman’s other close relatives said they saw Herrman abuse Adam other times over the years but for the most part didn’t report it and now feel terrible that he is missing.

There were also instances where clearly there was some interaction with external authorities, only one of which seems to have resulted in the Herrman’s losing the boy, and in that case, he was removed for a mere two days:

• “In at least one instance, a relative reported alleged abuse to authorities.” from Relatives say missing Butler County boy was abused
• “Justin Herrman said he called to report it and Derby police officers came to the home. But he said his mother persuaded him to tell the police that he lied. He said the officers lectured him about lying and left.” also from Relatives say missing Butler County boy was abused
• “In the Christmas Eve conversation, Valerie Herrman told her former sister-in-law “that she beat Adam once with a belt” and that Valerie had gone into her room and cried about it, remorseful. … Bush said Valerie Herrman told her that that after she used the belt, someone at Adam’s school saw bruises, and authorities were called to investigate.” also from Relatives say missing Butler County boy was abused
• “At one point when Adam was younger, around 1990 or 1991, the Herrmans said they lost their foster care license after an investigation, which they declined to discuss in detail.” from Adoptive mother denies she abused missing boy
• “Around 1996, she said, she spanked Adam with a belt, and his psychological counselor saw bruises and called police. … Adam went to the Wichita Children’s Home for two days, then came home, she said. … Doug Herrman said: “I don’t think they felt he was in any danger. They just told us we couldn’t discipline him with a belt.” also from Adoptive mother denies she abused missing boy

Within the past 24 hours, articles such as these have come out, I’d advise readers go through all three:

• Police & SRS Investigations Cleared Herrmans Of Abuse
• Investigators Found No Abuse at Missing Boy’s Home
• Missing Kan. boy was once briefly in state custody

The first article includes:

Since the news of Adam’s disappearance several weeks ago, Ponce says the agency is now involved in a full-scale review and investigation of both Adam’s and the Herrman’s history with SRS. Ponce says that includes a review of how the Herrman’s were able to continue receiving state subsidies for Adam’s adoption years after he vanished.

The third article, we also find details of the state subsidies:

The Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services confirmed Thursday that the Herrmans continued to receive adoption subsidy payments for Adam after he was missing, but the agency could not immediately determine how much. The department said it was researching the case.

Such subsidies generally are given in situations where the children are difficult to place or in cases in which several siblings are adopted by the same family, she said.

The Herrmans adopted Adam and two of his younger siblings, family members have said.

Families receiving adoption subsidies are required to file a yearly report to verify ongoing legal and financial responsibility for the child, she said.

“If there were a situation in which an individual would knowingly supply false information to the state in order to receive benefits, that is a crime,” Ponce said.

***

We’re back here again.

Yet another adopted kid who was home-schooled who simply disappears and no one bothers to notice, but naturally, the state issued checks kept rolling in.

I’ve been writing for some time now about adopted kids who have dropped out of public view, who no one checks up on, and how subsidies of various forms continue to be issued for these disappeared kids.

For an overview on some of the forms of financial support adopters and the states themselves can receive see my post, Implications of the abandonment laws, adoption financial incentives, and language tangles. As for the other similar cases themselves, (I’ll bring up two from the last year off the top of my head that I’ve blogged about,) go glance over my posts about:

Renee Bowman, (particularly my post Adoption subsidies for frozen corpses, more on the Maryland nightmare.)

This is a summary paragraph I wrote about the case in this blog post:

(Recently, I blogged about the Renee Bowman case in Maryland and the $800 per child per month subsidy Bowman had been receiving, even as two of her three adopted children were dead, frozen in a block of ice. The third was being abused. None were apparently ever enrolled in Maryland public schools and to date, there has been no evidence the kids received any education at all. None the less, the checks kept coming as they were apparently not tied to actually proving the adoptees they were intended for the support of were still even alive.)

Or Judith Leekin, (see my post The horror that is Judith Leekin & the NY child welfare adoption subsidies disaster)

And the NY investigation that began last July that came out of the Leekin mess, Officials Accused of Taking Agency Money in Fake Adoptions:

Two officials of New York City’s child-welfare agency and the fiscal director of a Brooklyn foster care agency have been charged with creating phantom adoptions in a scheme to pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars intended for the care of children with disabilities or special needs, federal authorities said on Wednesday.

Now we learn about Adam Herman,

The Kansas parents who failed to report their 11-year-old adopted son missing nearly a decade ago are “people of interest” as authorities search for him nationwide, a sheriff said Monday.

Investigators only recently learned Adam Herrman was missing and are focused on finding him, Butler County Sheriff Craig Murphy said. Adam was 11 when he disappeared in 1999 from a mobile home park in Towanda where he lived.

Authorities would not say whether they believed Adam, who would now be 21, is alive. “We are working it as if it is a death — but we are not leaning one way or the other,” Murphy said.

Like several other adopted kids who have simply disappeared from view, Adam was being home-schooled at the time:

Adam was homeschooled when he disappeared, Eisenbise said.

Down in this article, Adoptive mother denies she abused missing boy, we learn he had once been in public school for a time. Once he left, no one appears to have followed up to see whether or not he was still being educated, let alone whether or not he was still alive:

Because Adam had problems at school, she homeschooled him after they had moved from Derby to Towanda, she said. He attended public school in Towanda for a short time, she said.

“He hated school” but was a “very smart kid,” she said.

“He liked being home with me, and he got a lot of one-on- one attention.”

She said his younger siblings attended public school in Towanda.

Jeff Tuttle/The Wichita Eagle

Once again, we see that the search for Adam was not sparked by any form of adoption related follow up, nor by any form of checking in on him as a condition of his adopters receiving subsidies for him. The investigation was not begun as a result of him clearly no longer receiving any form of education. Nope. The Wichita Eagle is reporting the investigation into Adam’s whereabouts may have been sparked by a tip from his sister, Sister says her tip led to investigation into Adam Herrman’s disappearance.

The adopter’s excuse for not reporting his “disappearance” is equally pathetic:

Valerie Herrman, Adam’s adoptive mother, said Adam ran away in 1999 and never returned.

She and her husband, Doug, say they didn’t report Adam missing because they feared it would lead to him and his younger siblings being taken from them.

See an article and video related to such here, Biological daughter of Adam Herrman’s adoptive parents contacts KSN. Note particularly,

Meanwhile, a former relative, who says she remains close to one of Valerie Herrman’s sisters, says the sister told her that Valerie recently commented, “They can dig up the whole state of Kansas, they’ll never find a body.”

In the midst of all this are claims by relatives that Adam had been abused by his adopters, none-the-less, no investigation was sparked before last November. (see Relatives say missing Butler County boy was abused, and Adoptive mother denies she abused missing boy)

Adam Herrman’s adoptive mother Tuesday denied allegations by relatives who say they saw her abuse the boy over the years before he disappeared.

“They make it sound like I tortured him, but I loved him,” Valerie Herrman said in an interview with The Eagle.

She said Adam ran away from their Towanda home nearly 10 years ago when he was 11, after she spanked him with a belt. She was upset but can’t remember why, she said.

Clearly Valerie Herrman understood that hitting Adam with a belt was not ok, as they feared such “spankings” would lead to the removal of the kids:

Herrman said she and her husband, Doug, never reported Adam missing because they feared the spanking would lead authorities to take Adam and his two younger siblings away. They told relatives that Adam, whom the couple had adopted when he was a little over 2, had gone back to state custody.

But such unease clearly never once stood in their way of cashing the checks they were receiving for Adam’s support:

In court documents, they continued to list Adam as a son in 2003, more than four years after he disappeared. If they had not, it would have drawn scrutiny that also could have led to their children being taken away, Doug Herrman said in the interview.

For the same reason, they continued to accept state adoption subsidy payments for Adam until his 18th birthday, Valerie Herrman said. She said she sent back a check she received after his 18th birthday.

“I feel very guilty about stealing that money,” she said tearfully.

“It was $700 a month. I kept hoping he was going to come back, though.”

With special thanks to AdoptedJane for bringing this article to my attention, we learn of other instances where Adam was claimed by the Herrmans:

The adoptive parents, Doug and Valerie Herrman of Derby, could face charges, according to Murphy. He said The Eagle reported that the couple continued to claim the child years after he disappeared, first in bankruptcy proceedings filed in 2002, and later in a divorce case filed in 2003. The divorce case was later dropped.

And once again, AdoptedJane finds another gem of an article, Case Raises Questions About Adoption Procedures:

We learned adoptive parents go through an extensive background check. However, once an adoption is finalized, the state is out of the picture.

That all changes if money is involved. Many adoptive families in Kansas receive Medicaid to help them raise a special needs child. Those children with significant medical, emotional or developmental needs.

The state and parents come to an agreement prior to the adoption.

The assistance can be a one-time payment or reoccuring. If it’s the latter, Medicaid requires the parents submit an annual written report to verify the money is still needed.

Their word is Medicaid’s only source. They never go in person to check.

So how does this apply to Adam Herrman? According to family, his adoptive parents received state assistance, possibly thousands of dollars. Right now we don’t know why.

(Emphasis added)

(Back to this article, Adoptive mother denies she abused missing boy) The Herrmans have admitted to keeping Adam locked in a bathroom, notably on the “advice of a psychiatrist”:

She denied allegations, from her sister and two biological children that she punched and kicked Adam over the years, beat him with a belt buckle and kept him chained to the bathtub faucet in the home.

She also denied that she withheld food from Adam. Sometimes, she said, he would overeat to the point of getting sick.

She said that at times she kept Adam locked in the bathroom at night under the advice of a psychiatrist after they found two knives under Adam’s pillow when he was about 8, when they lived in Derby.

“He said he was going to kill us,” she said.

They turned around the bathroom doorknob so it could be locked from the outside, she said.

“He slept in the bathtub,” she said, with a sleeping bag, sheet, pillow and blanket. He was locked in only at night, and it was for his and their protection, she said.

“There was no chains, no handcuffs.”

At another point, she said, “The ones who are saying he was mistreated, they weren’t there.”

Asked how long he was kept in the bathroom at night, she said it occurred possibly over a two- to three-month period, although she couldn’t remember exactly how long.

The psuedo-diagnosis comes out, as it does in so many disobedient adoptees cases to a hodgepodge of possibilities and the usual medically unrecognized catch all old standby, so called “attachment disorder”

Psychiatrists said Adam was either bipolar or schizophrenic or suffering from attachment disorder, they said.

See my earlier post, here, for one of the places I’ve written about such quackery:

“Attachment theory/disorder” or “Attachment therapy” is not an official term used in the DSM IV. It is at best a piece of ambiguous language or “unvalidated diagnosis”. From the theory article (see footnote ^[128] for citation):

Attachment disorder is an ambiguous term. It may be used to refer to reactive attachment disorder, the only ‘official’ clinical diagnosis, or the more problematical attachment styles (although none of these are clinical disorders), or within the alternative medicine field, the pseudoscience of attachment therapy as a form of unvalidated diagnosis.

Also see this Wikipedia page for:

The definition of Attachment Therapy is disputed and there is no generally recognized definition. For example, it is not a term found in the American Medical Association’s Physician’s Current Procedural Manual, 2006. It is also not found in Bergin and Garfield’s Handbook of Psychotherapy and Behavior Change, fifth edition, edited by Michal J. Lambert, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 2004.

Quack “therapies” based on the notion of “attachment disorder” have a body count. Be sure to see this brief wikipedia entry on Candace Newmaker and Colorado’s and North Carolina’s “Candace’s law” enacted in her memory.

Or more importantly, see A SEARCH FOR SURVIVORS which contains plenty of information and a first-hand account of what the “attachment therapy” craze can mean in practice to adopted minors. Eventually I’ll get around to writing the “attachment quackery” post, for now, just understand that I view “attachment” psuedoscience as being to Bastards what “ex-gay therapy” is to Queers, (which as Wayward Radish has pointed out in comment thread on the above post is no coincidence, as “attachment” gurus have been direct inspiration to at least one of those behind the “gay to straight” movement.)

The relatives however have a different take on the bathroom lock ins:

On Super Bowl Sunday in 1999, the year Adam Herrman went missing but no one reported it, one of his aunts says she saw the 11-year-old chained to a bathtub faucet at his Towanda mobile home.

It looked like he had handcuffs on, said his aunt, Kim Winslow. Winslow, now 48, said it was the last time she saw Adam.

Other close relatives of Adam’s adoptive mother, Valerie Herrman of Derby, say they saw her abuse him over the years and that he was forced to sleep in a bathtub. In at least one instance, a relative reported alleged abuse to authorities.

(Emphasis added)

This final sentence is key. If the abuse was reported, why was there no investigation at the time?

Then you have other missed opportunities for Adam to have gotten help, such as this (from the same article):

Justin Herrman, 29, who is the biological son of Valerie and Doug Herrman, said he never saw his father abuse Adam.

“He’s actually stopped it many times,” said Justin Herrman, who was about 7 years older than Adam.

Over the years, at different homes around the Wichita area, his mother “would start hitting him or beating him with a belt,” Justin said.

His father “would stop her and say, ‘That’s enough, Valerie,’ ” he said.

One time, Justin Herrman said, his mother threw Adam, then around 4 or 5, against a wall and pulled his hair, and Justin stepped in to stop it.

Justin Herrman said he called to report it and Derby police officers came to the home. But he said his mother persuaded him to tell the police that he lied. He said the officers lectured him about lying and left.

His mother started locking Adam in the bathroom, and the boy slept in the bathtub, Justin Herrman said.

“She would just tell us he was threatening us,” and that he had mental problems and couldn’t be trusted, Justin Herrman said of his mother.

and this:

In the Christmas Eve conversation, Valerie Herrman told her former sister-in-law “that she beat Adam once with a belt” and that Valerie had gone into her room and cried about it, remorseful.

Bush said Valerie Herrman told her that that after she used the belt, someone at Adam’s school saw bruises, and authorities were called to investigate.

So, what came of that “investigation”?

Oh silly me, he disappeared off into homeschooling and no one bothered to check up on him again.

Clearly there were warning signs and opportunities to get him out of that house, but time and again, the ball was apparently dropped.

Sure, it makes national headlines now, years later when it may well be far too late, but the real question remains why did no one deal with such at the time?

The Adoptive mother denies she abused missing boy article contains a basic profile of Adam and his adopters, and makes mention of them having adopted two of his younger siblings. There is also this little detail:

At one point when Adam was younger, around 1990 or 1991, the Herrmans said they lost their foster care license after an investigation, which they declined to discuss in detail. They said authorities removed one of Adam’s younger sisters, then about 2, but said she was not removed because of child abuse.

Then we find more of the belt story, and yet another missed opportunity in the form of yet another entanglement with authorities, one that led to Adam being removed from the Herrmans… for all of TWO DAYS:

Around 1996, she said, she spanked Adam with a belt, and his psychological counselor saw bruises and called police. “That’s her job. I don’t hold that against anybody,” she said.

“I hated myself for it,” she said of the spanking. She said she had been spanked with a belt as a child and vowed she would not do that to her children.

Adam went to the Wichita Children’s Home for two days, then came home, she said.

Doug Herrman said: “I don’t think they felt he was in any danger. They just told us we couldn’t discipline him with a belt.”

Valerie Herrman said: “After that, I was too scared to spank him. He hardly ever got a spanking after that.

Despite her “hardly ever,” she admits to having hit him with a belt AGAIN the day he supposedly “ran away”:

During the first week of May 1999, possibly on the weekend, she said, she spanked Adam with a belt one afternoon.

“He got mad, and he said he’s going to run away,” Doug Herrman said. “He ran out the front door.”

Apparently such physical abuse never got in the way of the Herrman’s alleged spiritual concern for Adam:

“We never stopped praying for him.

But their supposed concern for him never extended far enough into the real world as to so much as report him missing.

Meanwhile, states fail to investigate, and continue to issue checks to adopters without ever so much as checking to see that the kids they money is supposedly for are even still processing oxygen much less present.

***

Video from an interview with Adam’s biological father can be found here.

***

Anyone with information about Adam Herrman is asked to call the Butler County Sheriff’s Office at 316-322-4398. Callers should select option 8 on the recording, then ask to speak with the investigator on duty.

See a full gallery of pictures on the Wichita Eagle site.

***

UPDATE, January 9th

***

Be sure to see my second post Irvin Groeninger III / Adam Herrman- in previous investigations, the State had cleared the Herrmans