To sano antonio expressed ns and i cant say enough about this book, once thehe family. It is a difficult book to read, not the first things to say but it is difficult but essential because it challenges how much we really care about the children we say we care about when Something Like this can happen. Erotic, jeremiah, marcus, hannah. These are the children in 2018 went off the, suicide and murder. Nothing is more shocking than mothers committing suicide murder but almost as sharp they can get these children, that is the story she writes. Regular courts in the law it appeared in the washington post, received 2022 working progress toward. Ladies and gentlemen, roxana. [applause] there are many places in this book that i want to make sure we have time for questions and this is an indictment and i want you to lay this out. When the crash happened, it initially looked like an accident because it is on the Pacific Coast highway and places likee that are known for losing control but investigators noticed there were no marks on the road and the family was living in Washington State at the time so when they reach out to localin officials in washington, they told him they are trying to reach the family at the current time to initiate this investigation so it began to look like it wasnt an accident so i was living in houston at the time and i got a breaking news assignment, the Portland Daily news program and they asked me to door knock of their kids from two sibling groups and that was how i initially got involved. The family allowed me into the home and they started to explain how they lost their children and it became it was a bigger story. What was that story . Throughout the nation especially in texas, its too easy for the parents right and it happens more frequently or one of the things that you show in the book is family members of both sets of children there but they wont allow. Those three kids were removed and there birthmother struggled with drug abuse and both a father figure who was there primary caretaker and was the biological dad so when cbs became involved, that relationship confuse them and lost custody for not anything he did but whitehead drug problem so they were removed from his care. Because he was ten years old when he was removed and he realized that what was happening, that he was being removed from his family and he started acting out, and they put him in a Residential Treatment Center which is basically like an institutional setting, and he wasnt able to see his siblings again so he was split from vampiric but when the aunt basically lost custody because she did not have child care one day, her normal childcare which was her grown daughter was unavailable and so she asked their mom to watch the kids here for caseworker stop by unannounced and saw the birth mom there with them and they removed them immediately e spot and he never had custody of them again. Why does it happen like that . Lies at the norm . In this case, like sherry had terminated, she relinquished her parental rights and she did that because her attorney said in order for priscilla who is the aunt to adopt the kids they had to be legally free for adoption here you can get adopted when you have legal parents, so sherry relinquished her rights with the understanding that the kids would be with their aunt, which was still interfamily and still in their community. But what happens when you terminate your rights that i think a lot of birthmothers dont understand when they choose to give up the right is that that made it your rights are terminated you no longer have any say in what happens to your kids, andds you also, in ts case wasnt allowed to be around and so thats why removal happened was because she was not allowed to be watching the kids. How do jennifer and sarah hart play into this . T so, so the aunt made this huge mistake, right . And she wanted, she petition to adopt. She was trying to get the kids back. While that was happening they went on the Texas Adoption Resource Exchange website, so they became sort of advertised as available for adoption. And jennifer and sarah, they were a couple who both grew up in south dakota but they were living in minnesota at the time and day had already adopted three kids at that point. Spirit also from texas. Yeah, so they had done the process once before. And so the kids were moved to minnesota at that point, even when the i aunt had, so e petition to adopt was denied and that she had appealed that decision, and before that appeal was decided they were already adopted away in minnesota. I was going to ask about that name, Texas Adoption Resource Exchange. It sounds like commodities. Yeah. It doesnt sound like you are dealing with children. Yeah appear well, you know, indicates that sibling groups they are like considered more difficult to get adopted because its more than one kid. A lot of people who want to adopt from the foster care system are lookings for like young kids or babies, and so sibling groups, a sibling group of three staff i think in the case of the heart women that they were taken on sibling groups kind of allowed, i feel that there adoption was fasttrack for that reason because texas officials knew that it sort of harder to play sibling groups, and so they had this willing party. In texas, since the kids wake up they paid monthly stipends for the rest of the kids lives, but they never checked up on what wasco happening. Because by the time the second set of kids were adopted there had already been an allegation of abuse against the parents. And going to the other allegations of abuse that would come up also with the second set of children. Yeah. So the kids were at a Public School in minnesota, all six of them, and the teachers were calling home to report that the kids are really hungry, that they didnt seem like theyre getting enough to eat. The women would say that the kids had food issues, it is actually pretty common for kids who have experienced like repeated placement disruptions. One of the moms told the teacher oh, shes just playing the food card, so just give her water when the child was say that she was really hungry. The teachers started realizing that when they called home it seemed like the kids were getting in trouble, and so they stopped calling at a certain point. But the teachers noticed bruises on one of the kids and that basically started the first cps investigation were one of the moms pled guilty to Domestic Abuse. What was the motivation of jennifer and sarah . Because one ofca the things thas clear is that, especially jennifer, they were presenting his side of i dont know, is a verye progressive couple creatig this idea or motivational family, and they are actually using these childrenye as props. Yeah. So Something Interesting about this case is that Jennifer Hart was really vocal on social media, particularly on facebook, and she was a photographer as a hobby, and so she would be taking is really like well shots of the kids with these big cheesy smiles on their face and writing all about their adoption maturity, which is like a pretty common thing. Theres a social network of people who come edit usually the adoptive moms are writing about their journey. But the problem with that was the things that shes talking about writing like a really alternate reality where the kids were not being fed and they were being harmed. But also it was only her voice. We never heard from the kids basically again, except through this distorted lens that jennifer put out to the world. And she would say that these two sets of siblings they were adopted between 2006 i for 2008, they were with the heart for what, ten, 12 years, gasper ten, 12 years. Jennifer, you talk about the food issues, she claimed that they were living this Healthy Lifestyle and were vegetarians. After the suicide, murders, what was found in their house, what kind ofea food . There was a w lot of meat in the house which was weird because, i didnt becausein in e book but, because i spoke to jennifers siblings and one of them was like that was just for her because she has anemia. On like that doesnt make it any better. When they searched the house they found their work enough beds for the children. So that was like several indicators inside the home that the kids were not being properly cared for. When the washington officials were initiating the investigation, that was of the third cps investigation against the family, and so there have been repeated moments in various places because when the investigation would close, they would move so they moved from minnesota to oregon and then from oregon to washington. And in each place they were investigated and found really stuff. G like the oregon investigation found that five of the six of the kids were so small that they wont even on the growth chart for the ages, which was really alarming and the doctor said welcome we dont know the biological family so they might justt be small. But the issue with that would be that they came from two different biological families so the chances of five of the six kids not even be on the growth charts, it really, you know, and contrast that with what was happening with at birth families which is not the situation of abuse but was, you know, these sort of more, they were sort of neglect issues so poverty, trauma, drug use, mental illness, like those of the things that the birth families were dealing with, and they were treated super putatively prevent the adoptive families, the warning signs were like of actual abuse and starvation and those things basically not been found to be a reason to remove the kids spirit how much do you blame the state of texas . I know but i have to ask. You know, i think texas has cycle and what happened because the kids were texans. They were born here, and texas was initially responsible for them. And so they not only removed them from their birth families and from theirir extended family members, but they sent them across state lines and then they never checked on them. So the fact that they were paying 400 a month per child for the entirety of the time they were adopted, so that was 12 and ten years, and they never come they never realized that sarah had pled guilty to Domestic Abuse of children, that there had been three cps investigations. I think that there is, i think that a lot of the blame does lie with texas although i would say that there were multiple agencies and that kind of is more indicative of like a systemic issue rather than just one specific bad caseworker. What is a systemic issue . I think theres a real disparity in treatment of cps and both families. I think the birth families are treated really putatively, and i think almost all of them are struggling with poverty, virtually all of them appear and so instead of providing some support and meaningful support, we give Foster Parents a monthly stipend, right . And texas complete give to family members less than half of what we give Foster Parents. But they are more likely to be living in poverty because everyone involved in cps is living in poverty. So theres things like that with us just, its essentially sets up a preference for out of family care, even though we know and have all this research over a long period of time the kids do best intrafamily homes and if that with the birth parent then with her family members spirit the particulars, the judge in houston, Patrick Shelton, the one, hes kind of come hes indicative of may be an extreme way but hes kind of indicative of this bias in favor of removing children, giving them to families. Talk a little bit abouta hes e that gave the Davis Children to the hes one who terminated the parental rights to the davis kids, and Patrick Shelton was sort of a unique character but was really indicative of how things are run. So in Harris County which is in houston, theres only three judges that are responsible for all the cps cases, thats texas largest county, so you getting a lot of kids. Theres a lot of really good reporting from Houston Chronicle and the Houston Press in the 90s and 2000 that really talks about a lot of issues in sheltons court. You got caught charging parents for attorneys when they were indigent, which is against the law. He had an atlas that he would keep at the bench and he would ask latino families latinx families where they came from im and look on a map and say that looks like a great place to buy dont you go back there . So there was like overt racism in thehe court. It was also just like everyone who knew him recognized that he really wanted the cases to be fast, like he wanted the cases off the docket. And ultimately what that ended up looking like is parental rights termination sometimes encases, so like in dantes case, hes the older brother, he wasnt adopted but his rights to his parents were committed so this basically made it illegal orphan, which is like an awful position to be in for someone who was ten when they were removed from holter so they remember their family he wanted to be back there with his family for he said i dont want to be adopted because i want to go home. Ultimately when he was 16 he ended up back home with stayingl because he was in a foster home at the time i do recognize the neighborhood and he you walk six miles tos old apartment. Still that whole time, like held out hope that he would come back. And so and they gave him custody. So its like it the question that why was he a fit parent at age 16 after he spent six years being traumatized in an institution but he wasnt a fit parent when he was ten before he went through all of that trauma and abuse and one of the lines in the early in the book is when dante tells his cps caseworker, every time i see you, you take me away, and dante is is is dante survive . But there was a a you became involved in this story more than most journalists in a story that the reporting on but in a way that is not heavy handed or or deceiving i mean this is a its a beautifully written and reported book but you found that Law Enforcement and Child Welfare authorities didnt find about offenses the second family go into that and just talk a little about your personal involvement in in this story. Sure. So so this was about six months after the crash they that investigators did not who the second birth family was. So thats marcus and hannah and abigails family and it was particularly an issue because they had some remains of of one of who they thought might be hannah but they they actually needed her like a parents dna to actually confirm that because her siblings were half siblings. So so they really needed to find these people. But they hadnt they didnt who they were. So i, i found a name, a name in some investigative files that were released. The sheriff in washington, where they lived. So that was the family name. And and i search on facebook and i found some people that i thought might be their family. And when i reached out to them, they were their family so i got the grandma and and they did not know that kids had been murdered. So so that six months later so like, you know, in that so i ended up telling them what happened and through that it clear to me as i was reporting that, there was a lot of stuff about the way that the media was focusing on the white ladys that was essentially she kind of a version of the same thing that Jennifer Hart was doing right by acting like she saved these kids and that they came from these harrowing, abusive situations, which was a fiction, but none of the reporters were doing work of like trying to figure out actually what happened. And so. Once i had told that family, i felt that i had i had sort of entered the story. Because i had i mean, i affected the sort of way it. So at that point, i realized like i needed to be transparent about my role because. You know, when tami tammys the birth mom of marcus and and abigail and when she found out she immediately called the investigators and submitted her dna because she wanted to, you know, the right thing. And they the results and it was a confirmation that it hannah the remains they had found and they put a press release and it was Big National Story so they put out a public press release before talking. Tammy donte again, the older brother, you actually, you know, you drive with daniel, the family to to visit him when hes in prison. And this is a where a few months after after the murders and. Talk about that experience, its what this was like the summer after murder. A few months. Yeah. It was like in july. We went out. He didnt know donte . No, he didnt know. So donte had held out hope that he was going to reunite with his siblings when his siblings reached the age where they could because, you know, this happens a lot where adopt kids, when they reach 18, they will try to out their family. And so donte had held out hope that this would happen. So he was actually incarcerated. When i first met him, he he which is like theres a pipeline basically between these institutions or placements for kids and a pathway incarceration. So when he he was about to get out in october, the his like nathaniel his parents they didnt want a they dont want to jeopardize his ability to get out of prison by telling him this news they knew was going to crush him. So they didnt they decided to wait until he got out in october. And so i drove them up there and he had a he has a son. Yeah. Who was like a few months older than my son. So i drove him up to and he got to spend time, his family and he told them like while he was sitting there with them that when he got out he was going to find his siblings. And so, of course when he found out when he got out of jail, i mean, when he got out of prison he was just incredible. He devastated. Im going to open up two questions in a couple of minutes, but whats your recommended ation for changing the system . I think that i think at the very we have to remove a lot fewer kids from their homes. I think when were talking. 75 of cases involving neglect and not abuse in those cases supports for parents are the best course of action. I think that we have a really punitive attitude towards. Parents who are poor, parents who are struggling and it up being that were punishing parents also punishing the kids because foster care is a really dangerous place for children and at a really increased risk of harm when they enter the system. And so i think we need to everything that we can possibly do to keep kids out of that system and that looks like maybe focusing on punishing parents and more on supporting them and honestly, financially is in the what the Families First prevent of service. And i mean, i mean, you know from Trump Administration policy 2018 actually goes towards that it does you know they do a couple of things that that were really good they opened up because for a long time you couldnt use funding like the federal funding for preventive services. And so that basically set up an incentive to put kids into foster care in order them to get services which is obviously not a smart plan because what happens is when you get ensnared in the system, its very hard to get out of it. Once youre once youre in it, you know, youre on a path. And like in the case of sheltons court room, right, like theres a timeline, theres a federal federally mandated timeline of that you must seek termination of parental rights. A kids in foster care for 15 of the last 22 months. And so when parents are dealing with issues that arent easily solvable, like drug use instance, we dont have we have long wait lists for where they could get drug treatment. Right. But we have this timeline that says if you dont, you know, those two things are not really compatible. And there was also some progress made. The last texas legislative session with regards to the texas family code. The they made it make it make it harder terminate. Yeah made it harder to remove children their homes for neglect which is which you know people have known long known thats an issue because neglect can often look like poverty and. They made it harder to remove kids for those of reasons, unless theyre in immediate danger, which i think is a really good first step. I think actually a lot of republican in members of, the legislature that are like pretty in to this. Its an interesting sort of bedfellows situation because its of like almost the most progressive and then like very republic people and theyre agreeing that the Child Welfare system is place that we should basically like like limiting the front, like whos coming in the front door because all the problems that are so hard to solve that weve been trying like have been trying to solve these problems for decades and even before, like you know these problems have basically foundational to how the system was set up, you know, do we have any questions i read your. I cant remember one of the pieces that i was. Oh yeah. One of the pieces that i was struck with with the Davis Children was the availability of of at least one caring and concerned adult who didnt have familial or wasnt a biological parent. And i cannot remember name of the man and a parent. Daniel and you, you portrayed it really beautifully because i think he had his own story. You had some adult children. And so the Davis Children were his role with them was even more meaningful in terms of his ability to make an impact. So see a little bit more about that. I mean, that was just one of the tragedy upon tragedy upon of the story. Yeah. Nathaniel he passed away last fall, but. You know, he was a very steady and he was like one of my main. He like my contact point in much of this because he he knew that his family been wronged and he never gave up on i mean, when when they when i initially met nathaniel and they had just learned that the kids had been murdered, it was like the the grief was so immense and it was like twofold was like the grief of this extreme, like the worst thing that you could ever imagine happening. Right. And then like the the re trauma of their removal, which was so traumatic for that entire family, it really like it really caused like Health Issues for nathaniel and for aunt priscilla, who felt so and so frustrated how they were treated. You know, i i you know, the fact that dont return to nathaniel and that nathaniel was waiting for him and that dante had a has a lot of problems now and from his childhood and hes incarcerated again right now but nathaniel never gave up on dante and there were ways that like nathaniel knew how how damaged that dante had become because of what happened to him. But he never closed the door like, you know, until his i mean, he died with with that his main goal of making sure dante would be okay. Hi. Thank so much for writing about this. I was a Foster Parent of five siblings nine years ago and terribly for all parties. And i am so passionate about what youre speaking to about, not breaking up families and instead addressing the oppressive policies we have that keep families in. So thank you. When i talk about this with people, sometimes we wonder what about kids who actually dont have any loving family members and is there a better option . The Current System is just traumatic. Have you seen for kids, you know, their actually do pass away and theres not any relatives. Have you seen anything positive to look to . Yeah, thats a good question. I think that in i think that most kids actually do people who love them whether or not theyre related but that that know them like really know them already there is an Organization Called family finders and what and basically what they do they find that they take the kids that have been in Long Term Care that arent really up for adoption, kids like donte and they really put a lot of effort into researching family members far and wide. So not just the cursory like, okay, mom passed, dad passed. You know, youre youre looking at their teachers and are people in their lives that had special with them and essentially like when a is removed into foster care, theyre removed not just from their their parents but from their families and from their communities and from their schools. And so were basically taking kids, kids ability to be resilient away from them by isolating them from all of these people who care about them. Because you know, being removed, your parent, whether or not there was abuse, its traumatic and being removed from everybody the kids internalize is that theres something wrong with them instead of it being like we are failing them, making them feel like theyre alone when. Theyre not alone. Theres a theres a pitch. And i wish we didnt think of of getting it. Theres a photograph which didnt make the connection with but its a devonte wood 2014. And when you go home you can go with devonte and in the Police Officer hugging that is a viral photo vivo autograph went after the after the ferguson after acquittal of the officer in the Michael Brown as this photo of this 12 year old black boy hugging a white officer and thats devonte one of the six children and its that you know theres just talk about that photo and the symbolism of it. But it also speaks a lot to to jennifer. Yeah. And using children well and i think it speaks to this exact thing right where. Were like the media in the media has had a role in this story because of the way that we chose to report it. So in 2014, devonte at a protest he he would wear this free hug and he would help people and that something that jennifer his mom a lot of pictures of and they were sort of well known in portland for that reason so he was hugging this cop theres a theres a photo it devonte is crying theres tears streaming down his face and it it went all over it was on cnn that cnn called the hug heard around world and it was a story of race racial reconciliation thats the theme that but for but for many people who looked at photo it looked troubling because hes not smiling. Hes hes crying and the idea that we took that image and we made it viral to Say Something that, im not sure it was ever actually saying, yeah. You know, it its indicative of the same stuff that jennifer was doing, which was, you know, she was saying black lives and my black children experience racism and but she was doing the same thing, saying their birth families were you know, he was he was shooting guns when he was four years old. She said about and that he only knew cuss and just lies like things that that racist but the idea that like shes a good person shes person saving the kids if you google the photo your many of you will remember seeing it you it had that on me is in my god so you didnt you didnt speak necessarily you kind of of course it involves but the adoption. Also. This emotional for me because im im recently coming to terms with my own adoption and abandonment. I was abandoned to the state of texas and i when i got that paperwork, it was pretty hard to read. Oh, thats a really sad im thing and i come to discover that also an interracial adopt and ive asked myself how a system you know i look white right so how could a system place me my mother my biological so the story goes ran away new york and thats where she met father who was apparently contacted about me right. But how could a system place me in a white southern racist family for adoption . And thats the question asking myself a lot. And hard, because even my family who are mostly dead at this point, but i mean, the way that my brother and i also found out that information was withheld from us. And its just so much trauma around it, ongoing. And im wondering if you have any that you would like to respond to about that. Yeah, i think thats a very big part of this story is sort of the adoptee perspective that i think has been silenced in favor of the adoption narrative that. Everything is a happy ending and. Its usually almost always told from the viewpoint of the adoptive parent. So you everything from the laws like im glad that you got your documents it sounds like you got your documents yeah but its hard for adoptees to get their birth records. Theres laws in lots of states where. Theyre not entitled to their own birth certificate. And the state i had to go to a judge. Well, and its really. We tell ourselves this fiction that were doing doing this wonderful thing for kids who need to be saved. And i think its more often and we can see this in our laws because our laws really, you know, give preference to feelings of the adoptive parent. Right. They choose whether their birth family can be involved in their life. For instance, adoptees who want to know what their birth certificate says have to go through this whole torturous process. Like thats not and it shows that its set up, that the system is set up benefit certain people and weirdly, the kids arent the primary primary group that that is being benefited. So i think that this this story really showcases the sort transracial aspect of it and. The i think it showcases the racism that the birth families experience. I think really clear when you see the disparate treatment, you know, like its hard to draw any other conclusion then you know, active racism not just passive systemic racism. This is somebody that one. Thank you so much. This really important book and the way you wrote about it. And i just really appreciated the book about your connection with families and how you really like had a long term connection with them and advocacy even for them in situations like they were disempowered. And when you got into situation where you had to like go and try to get the remains back for the family, i just felt that how difficult that was and your interaction with the other side of the adoptive parents family who were demanding who were trying to keep their remains and their things. And i am interested in hearing you talk about that. Yeah. So i a the birth both birth moms in our first conversation both with both and sheri they said they they asked about the remains of the kids and if they could come back home to them but because they dont have legal rights they didnt the next of kin actually the parents of jennifer and sarah who had been estranged them since they had got together. They didnt know the children, but they were responsible for their remains. And i think so i, i, i started talking to doug whos the dad of jennifer and he wanted the birth families to have the remains and. So we i went up there to south dakota. I got some of the remains, the kids, and brought them back to their families, which was another, i think thing that you were referring to is sort of a beyond the normal of journalism. In that case, it felt really like morally important to do because i had witnessed firsthand way that the birth families were sidelined, just made it invisible in the whole, in their grief, which felt so wrong to. Me and. None of these families were in touch with each other. So i was sort the one link between these people that was talking to everyone. And so i figured if i didnt do it, then it probably happen. And so yeah, i mean, it really challenging emotionally and also i felt, i felt the weight of it as i was working on this book that i felt, you know, i had the kids with me for a couple of months, so and davonte, his body was never found was and the fontes body was never found. No. He wase the one cup copy wae child that was never recovered, part of that is because they crashed into thehe ocean and the ocean has tides and all these things happened, so yeah. So he was never found. The other siblings, there was a little bit, hannah, like that on partial remains of hannah. This is one of the most great books publishes you. Thank you so much for your work. Thank you. [applause] this year booktv celebrate 25 years of presenting nonfiction books and authors. For the 22nd year in a booktv is live with the library of Congress National book festival spirit and since 2001 booktv in partnership with the library of congress as provider signature indepth uninterrupted coverage of the National Book festival featuring hundreds of nonfiction authors and just watch saturday as booktv once again brings you live all day coverage of the National Book festival death and authors conclude carla hayden, Chasten Buttigieg on his book ive something to tell you for young adults, and former nfl player r. K. Russell off of the yards between us. See our complete schedule online at booktv. Org. The library of Congress National book festival Live Saturday beginning at 90 in eastern on cspan2. Sunday night on cspan2 wednesday newsmax chief White House Correspondent james rosen author of scalia rise to greatness 1936 site in 1986 talks about the first of this twopart biography of the Late Supreme Court associate justice antonin scalia. Scalia i think recalled from the excesses of the student Antiwar Movement of the late 60s the unrest, the taking of all into the home times, signs of debate and all that shaped him in ways that make it a better judge and a better justice so you really cant understand how we got to be Justice Scalia without understanding the elements that his academic career. James rosen with his book scalia sunday night at eight eastern on cspan2 q a prick you can listen to