Hot Cars Kill Unwanted Adopted Children

Mary Parks and her husband, Jeff, had everything they wanted: a comfortable house in Blacksburg, Virginia; well-paying jobs (Parks was an accountant, Jeff a research scientist); and two darling boys adopted as babies from Guatemala. The end of August and start of September 2007 had been stressful, though. Twenty-three-month-old Juan and his 4-year-old brother, Byron, had both been sick on and off. Parks' days had been blurs of work, day care, doctors, business trips, visits with relatives, and anxiety. On September 7, after attending to a feverish Byron the night before, she left him home to recuperate with Jeff. Her plan was to drive Juan to day care on her way to work.
Rarely had Parks taken just one boy to day care. Rarely had she gone to work at all if one boy was sick -- but this time she and Jeff agreed to swap roles. Moments after she started driving, Parks says, she realized Juan had fallen asleep. It was the last time that morning that she would remember he was in the car. "We were no longer taking anything of his to day care -- we were beyond diaper bags," she says. So there was no baby gear in the front seat to remind her. She caught no glimpse of him in the rearview mirror, either; in his car seat, Juan was too short to spot easily. Most important, perhaps, Byron wasn't there, chattering away. "He never fell asleep in the car," Parks explains.

Instead of stopping at the day care center, she drove right to work. Parks grabbed her purse from the front seat, went into her office, and had "a normal day." Talked with her supervisor. Ate lunch at her desk. Called Jeff to see how Byron was doing. She even remembers telling colleagues that -- since Juan had been sick, too -- she might have to leave early if a call came from day care to get him. In her mind, that's exactly where he was.
After work, Parks drove to the supermarket, shopped for dinner, and continued on to the day care center to pick Juan up -- unaware that he was already sitting right behind her. When she arrived, his teacher asked, "Was Juan out sick today?"
"No," said Parks. "I brought him this morning."
"He wasn't here today," the teacher said.
Within moments, Parks recalls, "a light in my head went on. I took off running toward the car. My heart was already in my feet because I knew how hot it had been that day. I got to the car, jerked open the door, and saw him. I reached over to him. I remember screaming at him, 'Juan! Juan! You've got to wake up!'" Cradling her son's body -- stiff and still as a baby doll's -- Parks ran inside the day care office. One staffer tried desperately to revive Juan with CPR; another called 911. "I went in crying for help," Parks says, "but I knew he was dead."

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Moscow has banned three international adoption agencies after a young Russian boy died in the U.S. Two-year-old Dmitry Yakovlev died when his new father left him in a car in hot sun for several hours. The temperature inside the vehicle had reached 50C.
The case has again raised questions in Russia over the already disputed issue of foreign adoption.
On Tuesday, adoptive father Miles Harrison left the child in a car in a car-park while he disappeared for much of the day. With the temperature outside reaching at least 30C, it became stiflingly hot inside the locked car and the boy died.
Harrison was taken to a medical facility in shock and later taken into custody. On Wednesday he was charged with manslaughter and could face up to ten years in prison.
In recent years, there have been more than ten cases of Russian adopted children dying from parental negligence or abuse in the U.S. alone. Following this death three agencies have been banned from operating in Russia.

Mass murder James Holmes is adopted

The Joker isn’t laughing anymore.
Demented “Batman” massacre suspect James Holmes looked scared, bug-eyed, and completely spaced out beneath his bizarre, Joker-inspired mop of red curls at his first court appearance yesterday.
“You’re not such a tough guy now!” seethed Tom Teves, who lost his 24-year-old son, Alex, in last week’s Colorado massacre, allegedly at the hands of Holmes.

The sickened Teves watched Holmes from a front-row seat in the courtroom — furious that he has shown no remorse.
David Sanchez, whose daughter Katie Medely, 21, was in a hospital about to give birth as her wounded husband, Caleb, 23, fought for his life after being shot in the head at the Aurora theater, spat, “He looks demonic. There’s something wrong with that man.”
Holmes, 24, didn’t speak during his 10-minute appearance in the Arapahoe County courthouse.
As prosecutors said they were still determining the charges to bring — in what could be a death-penalty case — he stared either straight ahead or into his lap with a look of apprehension.
But his eyes popped out and he appeared shocked when the judge told him he was facing murder charges.
A father of one of the dead victims told The Post that cops revealed to him that Holmes was adopted. Police said the San Diego-area couple who raised him are not cooperating in the probe.

“They’re not talking to us right now,” Aurora Police Chief Daniel Oates told ABC News of Robert and Arlene Holmes, 61 and 58.
Holmes’ family lawyer, Lisa Damiani, yesterday said the couple’s “hearts go out to the victims and their families.”
She refused to answer questions about Holmes and his relationship with his family. But when asked whether his parents stand by him, Damiani told reporters in San Diego, “Yes, they do. He’s their son.”
Clad in a prison-issued maroon V-neck top over a bulletproof vest, red pants, white socks and sandals, Holmes was shielded from courtroom glares by one of his public defenders, who was assigned from the division that specifically handles capital-punishment cases.

Wounded victim McKayla Hicks, 17, was also in court. She had been sitting in the theater next door to the shootings when she was hit in the chin by a bullet that went through the wall.
“Once he walked into the [court]room, it just made everything a lot harder,” she told CNN. “He just looks like a pathetic freak. I just want him put away forever.”

Teves sneered, “Alex could have wiped the floor with him without breaking a sweat.” He added, as if addressing Holmes, “You shot a 6-year-old. Come on, give me a break. You’re dressed in full combat gear [and] immediately surrender. Come on. Pick on some guys who know how to use guns.”
It’s still unclear why Holmes snapped that night.
He had painted his body and hair red before donning military gear and shooting up the theater, killing 12 and wounding 58, paralyzing some for life.
Before he left his apartment, he booby-trapped it to kill cops when they got there to investigate the loud music he had set to a timer, hoping the diversion would let him escape after he shot up the theater.

The massacre occurred during a midnight premiere of Batman’s “The Dark Knight Rises” — and he told cops he was the “Joker.”
Agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms yesterday were probing how he assembled his fearsome arsenal of guns — including an AR-15 military-style assault rifle.
TMZ.com said the loveless sicko had been spurned by three women on an online sex site since July 5. And he was about to get booted from his campus housing because he had dropped out of the University of Colorado.
A disgusted jail worker who served Holmes breakfast and lunch just hours after the massacre told The Post that the fiend didn’t lose any sleep — or his appetite — over what he’d just allegedly done.
The worker said Holmes wolfed down Frosted Flakes, a carton of milk and a blueberry muffin for breakfast, then slept like a baby.
“I’m thinking this just happened after midnight, and at 11 a.m., he’s taking a nap? I’m thinking, ‘Wake your ass up, dummy,’ ” he said.
Ian Sullivan, father of the youngest victim, 6-year-old Veronica Moser Sullivan, called Holmes a terrorist and said he should be prosecuted by the feds.
“We just enacted a bill that says if someone acts as a terrorist, he will be treated as such . . . Everything the president, the police, the FBI have said describe him as such,” the grieving dad said.
When Holmes opened fire, Allie Young, 19, was shot in the neck and started spurting blood in the theater, but best pal Stephanie Davies, 21, dragged her out of the carnage and applied pressure to the wound until help arrived.
“I saw Allie get hit and wasn’t going to have my best friend bleed to death in my arms,” Davies told The Post yesterday — a day after both met President Obama at Young’s hospital bedside.
Holmes, a brilliant but painfully shy loner, had been pursuing a doctorate in neuroscience at UC’s Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora before suddenly dropping out in June.

He had been given a $26,000 stipend from the National Institutes of Health, and investigators want to know if any of that cash went to purchase guns or explosives.

July 12, child locked in chicken coop

BUTLER, Ga. (AP) - A Georgia girl told investigators she spent days at a time locked inside a small outhouse and a chicken coop, and had to wear a shock collar because she didn't do her school work, authorities said Thursday.
The 15-year-old girl's parents, Samuel and Diana Franklin, were arrested earlier this week on multiple counts of child cruelty and false imprisonment. They were released on bond, and declined to comment as they left the courthouse Thursday for what appeared to be a custody hearing.
"I've never seen anything like this personally," said Special Agent Wayne Smith of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. "If the allegations prove to be true, it's a very severe case."
The girl was adopted around 2007 and home-schooled in a house outside the small town of Butler, about 85 miles south of Atlanta, according to Smith. The Franklins live on a rural stretch of road sprinkled with a few homes and cow pastures.
The house is surrounded by a split-rail fence with prominent "no trespassing" signs at the entrance of the driveway.
The girl told investigators she spent up to six days at a time in the small buildings in the back of the property as punishment for such things as failing to complete her school assignments, Smith said. She said she had been put in the buildings for at least the past two years.
The outhouse was about 4 feet in length and width, and just a few feet high, Smith said.
"It was just big enough to sit in," Smith said.
The red chicken coop was much larger than the outhouse and chickens were being kept there Thursday.
The girl "might come out during the day a little bit, come in and shower," Smith said.
A neighbor refused to speak with an Associated Press reporter and told him to leave the property.
The investigation began May 25, when child welfare agents, acting on a tip, visited the home with the sheriff's department. That same day, Juvenile Court Judge Wayne Jernigan Sr. ordered the teen removed from the home.
Smith said he believed the Franklins were in court Thursday for a custody hearing. He was not aware of the outcome, and court officials refused to answer questions about the hearing.
On Tuesday, when the parents were taken into custody, investigators found a dog collar on a table in the home, Smith said. The girl told investigators its shock function was operated by a radio signal with a device similar to those used to lock and unlock cars remotely. It was being examined at a crime lab.
The girl lived at the home with another sibling, while two other siblings are older and lived away from home. The charges involve only the 15-year-old girl, Smith said, and there are no allegations of abuse involving the other three children.
A spokeswoman for the state Department of Family and Children's Services said state law prevented her from answering questions about the case.
After the girl was removed from the house, Smith said she began to open up to investigators.
"Kind of what has happened is within a few hours of being taken out of that environment, a lot of this began to flow very freely," Smith said. "You almost have to remove the person from the threat of punishment before they begin to open up to you. That's normal, and that's what has happened here."
___
Martin reported from Atlanta

Man arrested for brutally killing father and grandmother

Investigators have discovered that a man arrested for brutally killing his father and grandmother was adopted by his victims.
Dwayne Flourney, 26, allegedly stabbed Sandra Flourney, 76, and his father Brian 52, to death before hiding their bodies in the home and throwing a party on March 10.
Three weeks after the double-murder, it has now been revealed that unbeknown to Flourney he was taken in by Brian and Sandra after being abandoned by his biological mother over 20 years ago.  
According to a court document obtained by The Star-Ledger and a series of interviews with relatives and law enforcement officials, the victims raised Flourney as their own and he always believed Brian was his blood father.
Flourney allegedly stabbed his grandmother Sandra repeatedly before stuffing her body in the trunk of a car parked in the garage at the family's home in Maplewood, New Jersey.
He then waited for his father to return from work, killed him in the same way and put his body in a chair on the back porch covered with pillows, blankets and a plastic bag over the head, according to the police report.
The alleged killer then cleaned up the crime scene before inviting friends around for a party, where he played drinking games just a few feet from his father's body, reports The Star-Ledger.
He pushed a table in front of the door to the sun porch to keep his guests from discovering it, officials told the newspaper.

After the killings, Newark residents Linda Smith, 52, and Cornelius Morton, 58, revealed that they are Flourney's biological parents.
They say he was placed into the custody of Smith’s sister, Jaclyn, as a young child. Jaclyn was Brian’s girlfriend at the time.
It is not yet clear how Flourney ended up to be in Brian and Sandra's care and Jaclyn Smith has refused to comment, reports the Star Ledger.
'My son ain’t had no right to do that to him, or his mother,' said Linda Smith, referring to the two victims.
Flourney’s attorney, Bukie Adetula, confirmed that he had never met his biological mother, but knew that her name was Linda or Lynn. He added that his client always believed that Brian was his father, and knew nothing about Morton

Christian parents spank adopted daughter to death

Kevin and Elizabeth Shatz won’t be winning any Parent of the Year awards anytime soon. These two monsters in sheep’s clothing spanked and beat their adopted 7-year-old daughter Lydia for seven hours, to her death. Lydia’s injuries, a type of tissue damage, were so severe that they appeared consistent with those of victims of earthquakes and bombings.
It all went down for in the family’s Paradise, California home.
The Shatz practiced a barbaric parenting technique on the rise within Christian Fundamentalist families, which teaches that in order to raise happy, well-adjusted children, it’s necessary to beat them. Often. The basic premise,”To spare the rod will spoil your child,” says it all. (And by “all”, we mean that these parents are just awful.)

Galen Stevenson accused of murdering father

George Stevenson grew up in a family that cared for numerous foster children, and after mentoring and coaching boys in youth baseball for years, he decided to adopt a child of his own.

He became the father of an 8-year-old boy and named him Galen, after his brother. As the boy grew older, relatives say, it became apparent that he was troubled, and at one point he had to be sent away to a treatment facility.

Still, they say, none of that could have foretold what happened in late April, when police say Galen stabbed his 43-year-old father repeatedly inside their North Baltimore apartment. George Stevenson died of his injuries, including a punctured lung and severed kidney, this month, and the boy has been charged as an adult in the attack. Galen is 16 now.

George Stevenson's relatives continue to stress, even in the face of his death, that foster care and adoption are important and positive experiences, and they are speaking out to ensure that public perceptions of the institutions aren't tainted by this case. They also still want the best for Galen, calling the killing "an isolated incident."

"We don't want people to think it has anything to do with adoption or kids in the foster care system. That's not the case," said George Stevenson's sister, Rashelle Stevenson-Oliver, who has seven adopted children. "It's an isolated incident, and we hope things work out so that he can get the attention and the help that he needs."

Galen's defense attorney, Elizabeth Lopez, said the allegations were out of character for the teenager. Lopez said one of the boy's teachers told her that he played chess with her every day and was a "great student." Lopez declined to comment further.

Boy 15 admits to killing adopted parents

An adopted teenager was charged with two counts of murder today after police found the bodies of his parents stashed under a blanket inside the family car.
Moses Kamin, 15, appeared in court and was charged as an adult over the deaths of his parents, two highly-educated civil servants, last week.  
Police went to the house twice on Friday to check on Robert Kamin, 55, and Susan Poff, 50, after their employers reported that they didn't show up for work.
After discovering the couple dead, police questioned their son who later confessed to strangling his parents in Oakland, California.

Police have not revealed why Moses allegedly murdered his parents but there have been suggestions the boy was suffering from depression and having problems at a new school.

Colleagues of the couple also told the San Francisco Chronicle that the couple had been having problems with their son, who they believed was spending too much time in the Occupy Oakland camp.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported he was adopted within the last ten years.

NC man faces charges in killing adopted son

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — A Charlotte man has made his first court appearance on a charge that he shot his adopted son to death.
An attorney for 63-year-old Earnest Howard Gurley Jr. said in court Friday that his client was very sorry for the death of Benjamin James Gurley.
Authorities say the 20-year-old was killed late Thursday morning. Police say Earnest Gurley was arrested after he called 911 and told operators he'd shot his son.
Officers say Benjamin Gurley was shot in the chest and staggered into the front yard of the home where he died under a tree. Family members say the men had argued before the shooting.
Earnest Gurley has been charged with murder. He is scheduled to have a bond hearing on June 27.

Charges pending against adopted daughter

An Ann Arbor woman with a history of mental illness is suspected in the stabbing death of her adoptive father, an 87 year-old man who was found dead in his home Saturday on the city’s west side, AnnArbor.com has learned.

Charges are expected to be filed Monday against Susan Ellen Wade, 48, in the death of Ronald Mason, at his home on the 1700 block of Covington Drive. Wade’s biological daughter, Kristine Crossman, of Adrian, confirmed the details.


“My mother pretty much stabbed my dad and I pretty much broke into the house and found my dad lying on the floor dead,” Crossman said.
Crossman said she considers Mason, who adopted her immediately after she was born and raised her with his late wife, to be her father.

Crossman said Wade has a history of drug abuse and gave her up for adoption by the Masons — Wade’s own adoptive parents — at the hospital immediately after she was born.

Adopted son helped murder parents

A man has told a jury how his adoptive father yelled "you bastards" and "put up a decent struggle" as he and his friend allegedly killed him.

David Weightman and Terry Mark Donai have been accused of murdering Bill Weightman, 51, and Pamela Weightman, 50, at their Glen Alpine home in January 2000.

Weightman was giving evidence today at the NSW Supreme Court trial of Donai, who has denied his involvement in the murder.

Prosecutor Margaret Cunneen SC alleged the couple were drugged and suffocated by their adopted son and Donai, before their deaths were made to look like a car accident.

The jury has been told that Weightman, who was 21 at the time, has admitted murdering his parents for his inheritance.

He told the jury he became friends with Donai, who was 10 years older than him, about three to four months before his parents were killed.

Weightman said he would joke with his parents how he would inherit their home and valuable pre-school business and they would tell him not to look at it like that.

"It was very light ... nothing sinister about it," he testified.

Weightman said he had told Donai: "If they are gone. I get everything".

During one conversation, Donai told him he (Donai) would kill them and Weightman could get him a particular motorbike.

"I said I didn't want them to feel any pain and I don't want to be involved, because I didn't want to have nightmares or be haunted by it," Weightman said.

Woman who bought baby pleads guilty

Updated: Friday, 22 Jun 2012, 10:31 AM EDT
Published : Friday, 22 Jun 2012, 10:31 AM EDT

KOKOMO, Ind. (WISH) - A judge has accepted a plea deal for a woman who bought a baby with money and drugs. A tip prompted the investigation last fall, which revealed a faulty adoption application and led to the arrest of Melissa Lynch and three others.
According to Howard County Sheriff Department records, she and her husband, Stephen, took custody of the child in October 2009 and gave the child’s parents, Ann and Brandon Riggs, more than $13,000 cash and drugs in exchange for the child, 24-Hour News 8 news partner the Kokomo Tribune reports.
Wednesday, a Howard County judge accepted Melissa Lynch’s plea bargain, in which she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to deal drugs and profiting from an adoption. She was sentenced to eight years in prison and four years probation.
Her husband made a similar deal last month and was sentenced to seven years in prison, one year of home detention and four years probation.
In a separate hearing Wednesday, the judge rejected a plea deal for Brandon Riggs. A new plea deal is expected to be made that incorporates an unrelated theft charge, the newspaper reports.
Anna Riggs has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess narcotics, conspiracy to commite child selling and welfare fraud. She was sentenced to a year in jail and two and a half years probation. She was also ordered to complete drug and alcohol treatment and pay more than $2,000 restitution to the state Family and Social Services Administration.

Interstate adoption

The issue of interstate adoption arose last year in Florida in the case of 10-year-old Nubia Barahona. She was adopted in 2009 by her foster parents, Jorge and Carmen Barahona of Miami, and they have been charged with killing her in February 2011.
The adoption by the Barahonas was approved despite strenuous objections from Nubia's aunt and uncle in Texas, Isidro and Ana Reyes, who tried for years to adopt Nubia and her brother themselves - saying the children would be better off with blood relatives who loved them.
The case fueled criticism that interstate adoptions are often needlessly hampered by bureaucratic hurdles

Snohomish man pleads guilty to sexual abuse

Snohomish man pleads guilty to sexual abuse of adopted teen

EVERETT -- A Snohomish man on Friday admitted sexually assaulting the daughter he and his wife adopted after she was removed from what prosecutors described as a "polygamous clan" in Utah.

The man, 42, pleaded guilty in Snohomish County Superior Court to rape, incest and child molestation. Sentencing was set for Aug. 28. He remains in custody at the Snohomish County Jail.

A therapist recommended that the man and his wife allow the girl, then 15, to sleep in their bed. A month after the family took the therapist's advice, the man allegedly began sexually assaulting the girl, Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Adam Cornell wrote in charging papers.

The Herald is not naming the defendant in order to protect the young woman's identity.

The man faces up to 8 1/2 years in prison. He's seeking a sentencing alternative that would emphasize sex offender treatment over prison.

The criminal investigation also resulted in a complaint to the state Department of Health against a therapist, who reportedly recommended that the family share a bed as means to bond.

The case came to the attention of authorities in July 2011. A few months earlier, the now 21-year-old woman disclosed to a mental health professional that her father started sexually assaulting her in 2006, shortly after she was adopted.

Court papers say she was placed in foster care after spending most of her childhood in a polygamous group, where she suffered physical and mental abuse and was later diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder.

When the defendant moved from Utah to Snohomish, he and his wife began visitations with the girl, intending to adopt her.

They were aware that "she was an emotionally fragile and vulnerable child," Cornell wrote in court papers.

Babies adopted in international scam

Babies adopted in international scam involving Irish couples returned to their Mexican parents

Mexican authorities have reunited all but one baby to their biological mothers who were allegedly ensnared in an illegal adoption ring which involved Irish couples, the women's lawyer said.

According to attorney Yuri Marquez Jalisco, state authorities returned 10 of the 11 babies to their families last week. Prosecutors are running DNA tests on the remaining baby to confirm the identity of her mother.

The infants were taken into custody by the state’s protective services in January after an investigation was launched when a 21-year-old woman was accused of ‘renting’ one of her children.

According to WTXL NEWS, the mothers involved were tricked by allowing their babies to be photographed for what they thought was an anti-abortion ad campaign. However, it later emerged that the pictures were shown to Irish couples who were trying to adopt.

Then Irish couples apparently paid lawyers to search for a baby, gain custody, and pay for the biological mother's prenatal care.

The Mexican mothers say that they signed contracts with a law firm allowing their babies to be photographed in different places in Jalisco state for an ad campaign.

They told investigators that the infants were taken for up to 15-days at a time and that they received 500 pesos ($36) a day as payment.

"The judge was able to see that far from being members of organized crime they are victims, they were tricked," Marquez said.

Federal prosecutors have not commented on the status of the charges but Marquez said seven people are still in Federal custody.

According to the mothers who were targeted, two of the women arrested searched a poor neighborhood in the outskirts of Guadalajara city in Western Mexico in search of babies.

Both the 21-year-old woman who was first detained and the grandmother of another baby were accused of knowingly taking part in the scheme, but they were released from prison six weeks ago due to a lack of evidence, Marquez said.

Cruz Guadalupe Gutierrez Moreno, (20), says she agreed to have her daughter photographed to pay for the child’s medical expenses after the baby girl was born with weak lungs.

"I was filled with joy when they told us our nightmare was over," Gutierrez  told WTXL. "She knows me and seems happy. The only problem now is that I don't have money for her medicine."