Im a rider for the san Antonio Express news and i cant say enough about this book. We were once a family a story of love, death, and child removal in america. It is a difficult book to read and its not the first thing yon should say. Its about books but its difficult because its painful but also essential because it challenges how much we care in this country about the children we say we care about when Something Like this can happen. These are the children who are in an suv when they are adopted mothers drove their suv off a cliff. Nothing is more shocking than mothers committing suicide. Thats the story that roxana right to Roxanna Asgarian is a texasbased journalist who writes about courts and law in dallas. In thek has appeared washington post, new york and Texas Monthly among other publications page receivede at 2022 j. Anthony lukas work in progress award for we were once a family. Ladies and gentlemen Roxanna Asgarian. [applause] theres so many places i want to go in this book but i want to make sure we have time for questions. This is a searing indictment of texas foster care system but theres so much else in their editors want you to lay out the story aboutut what happened in march of 2018. Okay. Can you hear me . When the crash happened it initially looked like an accident access and was on the Pacific Coast highway and was at turnout point. Places like that are known for these types of accidents like losing control of the vehicle or Something Like that. Investigators noticed that there were no break marks on the road and the family was living in Washington State at the time so when they reached out to the local officials in washington they had told them that cbs was trying to reach the family at the current time to initiate interviews and investigations against the mom. At that point it began to look like it wasnt an accident and it was a murder. I was living in houston at the time and i got our breaking news assignment from the Portland Daily news and they asked me to door knock on these families. There were six kids from two siblingth groups so there were o separate families. That is how i initially got involved in this story. That davis family allowed me into their home and they started explaining how they lost their children in the first place and became clear that it was a bigger story than what was being reported. What was that story . One of the things themes of your book is throughout the nation especially in texas its too easy to terminate the rights of parents and it happens more frequently with children and in this case we had a married couple and these two sets of siblings and one of the things that you showing yourou book is that family members both sets of children were there to take them in but they were allowed to. In the case of the davis family the kids, those three kids were raised in houston before they were removed and their birth mother sherri struggled with drug abuse and the kids had both a father figure who was basically they are primary caretaker nathaniel and he wasnt there biological dad so when cbs became involved that yt he lost custody not fr anything that he did. Because his wife sherry had a drug problem. So they were removed from his care and they went into the foster care system and that they ended up withei her aunt. Her name was priscilla and she was really like an upstanding lady and she wanted to adopt the kids. At that time there were four did not getoldest adopted by the harts because he was 10 years old when he was removed and he realized what was happening that he was being removed from the family and started acting out and they put him in a Residential Treatment Center which is basically like an institutional setting. He wasnt able to seize his siblings again so he split from them at the aunt lost custody because she did not have childcare one day. Her normal childcare which was herr grown daughter was unavailable so she asked sherry behrmann to watch the kids and the caseworker stopped by unannounced and saw their birth month there with them and they remove them immediately on this spot and they never had custody of them again. Why does it happen like that . Why is at the norm . In this case sherry had terminated, she had relinquished her parental rights and she did that because her attorney said in order for priscilla to adopt the kids they had to be legally free for adoption. You cant be adopted when you have legal parents so sherri relinquished her rights with the understanding that the kids would be with her aunt who was still in their family and their community but what happens when you terminate your rights which i think a lot of birth mothers dont understand when they choose to give up their rights is that the minute your rights are terminated you no longer have any say in what happens to your kids and you also arent, in this case she wasnt allowed to bee around them so thats why the removal happened, because she was not allowed to be watching the kids. The aunt made this huge mistake and she wanted, she petitioned to adopt and she was trying to get the kids back and while that was happening they went on to texas to adopt adoption resource xchange web site so they became advertised is available for adoption and jennifer and sarah, they were a couple who grew up in south dakota but they were living in minnesota at the time and they have already adopted three kids at that point. Also from texas so they had been through the process once before. So the kids were moved to minnesota at that point even when the aunt she petitioned to adopt and she had appealed that decision and before that appeal was decided they were adopted in minnesota. The texas adoption resource xchange. It sounds like commodity. It doesnt sound like you are dealing with children. E. You know in the case of sibling groups they are more difficult to be adopted as its more than one kid celeb so loud people who want to adopt are looking for young kids who are babies and sibling group of three and in the case of the hart women they were taking on sibling groups kind of allowed, i feel their adoption was fasttracked for them because texas officials knew so they had this willing party and when texas took the kids away they paid monthly stipend for the rest of the kids lives but they never checked up on what was happening because by the time the second set of kids were adopted there had been an allegation of abuse. And going to the other allegations how soon with the second set of children . The kids were in a Public School in minnesota all six of them in the teachers were calling home to report that the kids were really hungry, that they didnt seem like they were getting enough to eat. The women would say the kids had issues which is common c for kis who have experienced repeated placement disruption. One of the moms told the teacher she so just give her water when the child was saying that she was really hungry. The teacher started realizing when they called home it didnt seem like the kids were getting in trouble so they stopped calling it a certain point. But the teachers basically started the first c. P. S. Investigation were one of the moms pled guilty to what was the motivation because one of the things that is clear is they were presenting this. Progressive couple creating this ideal multiracial family and actually using these children as props. E so Something Interesting aboutt this case is that jennifr hart was on social media particularly facebook and she was a photographer as a hobby. She would take well lit shots of the kids with smiles on their face and riding all about their adoption journey which is pretty common. Theres a social network of people and its usually the adoptive moms who are riding about their journey. But the problem with that was the things that she was talking about were hiding an alternative reality where the kids worked 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 by jennifer that was put out to the world. They were adopted between 2,002,008 and they were with the harts for . 10 to 12 years. 10 to 12 w years. Jennifer and you talk about the food issues she explained they were vegetarian and after the suicide what was found in their house as far as food . There is a lot of meat in the house. I didnt put this in the book because i spoke to jennifer siblings and one of them said well that wasec just for her. I was like that doesnt make it any better. When they searched the house they found there werent enough for the children so there were several indicators inside the home that the kids were being properly cared for. When the washington officials were initiating the investigation that was the third investigation againstt the famiy said there had been repeated moments in various places because when the investigation was closed they would move if they move from minnesota to oregon and from oregon to washington. And in each place they were investigated and found alarming stuff. The oregon investigation found five of six of the kids were so small that they worked on the growth chart for their ages which was really alarming and the doctor said well we dont know their biological family so they might just be small but the issue with that would be that they came from two different biological family so this chances of five of the six kids not even being on the growth chart, those are in contrast that with what c was happening with the birth family which was abuse but wasn of sort of there was neglect. So poverty, drug use mental illness. Those were the things that the birth families were dealing with and they were treated super punitively and the adoptive families said the warning signs were actual abuse and deprivation and those things were basically not found to be a reason to remove kids. How much do you blame the system . I know know but a half to ask. I think texas has an outside role in what happened because the kids are texans. They were born here in texas was initially responsible for them so they not only remove them from their birth family and extended family members that they sent them across state lines and 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 which was 12 and 10 years and they never, they never realized sarah hart have pled guilty to Domestic Abuse of the children and there had been see gf investigation so you think a lot of the blame does lie with texas although i would say there were multiple agencies and thats more indicative of a systemic issue rather than one specific worker. What is a systemic issue . Their severity and the treatment of families. The birth families are treated really punitively and i think almost all of them are struggling with poverty. Virtually all of them so instead of providing support we give Foster Parents a monthly stipend. In texas we give statements to family members. Less than half of whatos we give Foster Parents and they are more likely to be living in poverty because everyone in c. P. S. Is living in poverty. They are things like that where it sets up aup preference for ot of family care even though we have all this research overlong period of time that kids do best in their family homes. The judge in houston is Patrick Shelton. Hes indicative of maybe an extremeat way. In favor of removing children and giving them to families. Hes the one that gave the Davis Children hes the one that terminated the parental rights of the davis kids and Patrick Shelton was a character but it was indicative of how things are run soso harrs county, they are only three judges responsible for all of the c. P. S. So thats texas largest county. You see a lot of kids and there is a lot of really good reporting from the chronicle and the Houston Press in the 90s and the 2002 thatth talks abouta lot of issues. He got caught charging parents when they were which is against the law. He had been at was that he would keep on the bench and he would ask families who were in front of him where they came from and look at it on the map. Lso just like everyone who knew him recognize that. He really wanted the cases to be fast like he wanted the cases out of the docket and. Ultimately, what that ends up looking like is parental rights, termination. Its sometimes in cases. So like in dantes case, hes the older brother. He wasnt adopted, but his parent, his rights to he was not adopted. But his rights as parents or terminated. He was a legal orphan. His awful position to be in when they grew from home they remember their family he wanders back there with his family present i do not want to be adopted because i want to go home. Ultimately when he was 16 he ended up back home because he was thinking in a foster home at the time and recognizing neighborhood. He walked 6 miles to his old apartments. And nathaniel that whole time had held out hope he would come back. And they gave him custody. It begs the question why it was he a fit parent at age 16 after he spent six years being traumatized in an institution . What he was not a fit parent when he was 10 through all that trauma and abuse. Cracks went her mind in the book dante tells his caseworker every time i see you you take me away. And dante is a survivor. You became involved in the story more than most journalists do in a story that they are reporting on. But in aay way that is not heavyhanded. It is beautifully written and reported book. But you found information that law enforcement, Child Welfare did notid find. You go into that and talk a little bit about your personal involvement in the story. Thats about six months after the crash. Investigators did not know who the second family was. I have found remains of who they might see hannah they actually needed appearance dna to confirm that because her siblings were half siblings. They needed to findd these peope but did not who they were. I found a family name that were released by the sheriff in washington where they lived. So that was the family name. I searched on facebook and from the people i thought might be the family members. When i reach out to them they were their family. So i got the grandma they did not know their kids had been murdered. That was six months later. So i ended up telling them what happened. And through that it became clear to me as i was reporting theres a lot of stuff about the way the media was focusing on the white lady that was essentially a version of the thing same thing Jennifer Hart was doing by acting like she saved these kids and they came from these abuse situations that was fiction. But none of the reporters were doing thatt work trying to figue out actually what happened. Consult once i told that family i had sort of entered the story. Because i had. So at that point i realized i needed to be transparent about my role. Tammy is the birth mom of marcus, abigail and hannah. She immediately called the investigators and submitted her dna because she wanted to do the right thing. They got the result was a confirmation that it was hannah, the remains they had found for the put out a press release it has a big national story. They put out a press release for. Dante the older brother you drive a few months after the murder talk about that experience. Its an in july. He did not know . No. He did not know so dante had held out hope he was going to reunite his siblings when his siblings reached the age where they could. This happens a lot adopted kids when theyei reach out team will try to seek out their family. Dante had held out hope this would happen. He is incarcerated when i first met him. There is a pipeline between institutional place for kids and a pathway to incarceration. When he was about to get out in october nathaniel, his parents did not to jeopardize his want s ability to get out of prison by they telling him news they knew would crush them. So they didnt. They decided to wait until he got out in october. So i drove them up there. He has a son who was a few months older than my son. I drove him up to and he got to spend time with his family. He told them he was sitting there with him that when he got out he was going to find his siblings. As so of course when he found out we got out of prison he was just incredibly devastated. Will open up a question in a couple of minutes. What is your recommendation . I think its the verywe least we have to remove a lot fewer kids from their homes. When we are talking about 75 of places talk about neglect and not abusive. In those cases support for parents are the best course of action. We have a punitive attitude towards parents who are poor and parents who are struggling. The ends up being where punishing parents and also punishing the kids. Foster care is a very dangerous place for children. They are at increased risk of harm when they enter the system. We need to do everything we possibly canha do that will be focusing less on punishing parents and honestly. First prevents the service. [inaudible] the Trump Administration policy 2018 throws towards this . They do a couple of things that were reallyey good. Because for a long time you could not use funding like the federal funding for preventive services. That basically set up an incentive to put kids in foster care to get services. The smart plan. What happens when you get ensnared in the system it is very hard to get out of it. Once you are in it you are on a path. And in the case of the courtroom there is a federally mandated timeline you must seek determination with the kids in fosteror care for 15 of last 22 months. When parents are doing with issues that are not going to be solvable like drug use for instance w we have a long wait lists for places where they can get drug treatment. Those two things are not really compatible. Theres some progress made in the last session they made it harder to terminate. Yes they made it harder to remove children from their homes from neglect too. Which people have long known that is an issue. Because it can often look like poverty. They made it harder to remove kids for those kind of reasons unless they are in immediate danger. Which i think is a really good first step. That are pretty keyed into this. It is an interesting bedfellow situation. Its almost like the most progressive and then make rick very Republican People they are green the Child Welfare system is a place we should basically be limiting who is coming in the front door. Because of all the problems that are hard to solve we have been trying people but below and trying to solve these problems for decades. Aim before these problems have been foundational to how the system was set up. We have any questions . [inaudible] is on the pieces i was struck with was the name of the children was the availability of at least one caring and concerned adult was not a biological parent. Cannot remember the name of the man, nathaniel. He had his own story on the Davis Children his role with him was more meaningful say a little bit more about that thats one of the tragedies upon tragedy orupon tragedy. Click nathaniel passed away last fall. He was a very steady person he was like make contact point and so much of this. He knew his family had been wronged. And he never gave up. When i initially met nathaniel they had just learned the kids had beenn murdered. The grief was so immense. It was like to fold. Like the worst thing you can ever imagine happening, right . And then the re trauma of their removal which was so traumatic for the entire family. It really caused Health Issues for nathaniel who felt so guilty and frustrated with how they uwere treated. The fact that dante returned to nathaniel in the van it was waiting for him. Dante has a lot of problems now from his childhood. He is incarcerated again right now. But nathaniel has never given up on dante. There were ways nathaniel knew how damaged dante had become because of what happened to him. But he never close the door. He died with that being his main goal of making sure dante would be okay. Hi, thank youou so much for writing about this. I was a Foster Parent of five siblings nine years ago. It ended terribly for all parties i am so passionate about what youre speaking to about not breaking up families when i talk about this with people sometimes we wonder what about those who do not have big family members are better option. The Current System is just so traumatic. Have you seen anything for families who actually pass away having seen anything positive to look to . Quickset is a good question. I think most kids have people who love them. Whether or not they are biologically related. But already know them already. There is an Organization Called family finders. Basically what they do is they take the kids that have been in longterm care, that are up for adoption. They put a lot of effort into researching family members far and wide. Not just the cursory mom passed, dad passed, you know you are looking at their teachers and people in their lives that had special connections with l them. When a kid is removed into foster care they removed not just from their parents but from their families, their communities, and from their schools. Weli are basically taking kids ability to be resilient away from them isolating them from all these people care about them. Being a remove from your parents, whether or not there was abuse is traumatic. Being removed from everybody makes kids internalize that like theres something wrong with them and set about being we are failing them by making them feel like they are alone and n they e not alone. There is a photograph which i did not make the connection of 2014. When you go home you can google devote to it and the police officer. A viral photo progressive ftviral photograph and ferguson, after the acquittal of the officers the Michael Brown case. This is a photo of a 12yearold black boy hugging a white policeman. That is divine to one of the six children. Just talk about that photo buried the symbolism but it also speaks a lot to jennifer. What you think it speaks to this exact thing. That media has had a role in the story because of the way we chose to report it. In 2014 devonte taft would wear a free hug to sign. And that its in the jennifer calm his mom took a lot of pictures of. They were sort of wellknown important for that reason. He was hugging this cop. There is a photo of it. Devaunte is crying. There tears streaming down his face. It went all over it was on cnn cnn calls at the hug heard round the world. It was a story of racial reconciliation. That is the theme. But for many people who looked at the photo at look troubling hes not smiling. He is crying. And the idea that we took that image and made it viral to Say Something that im not sure it was actually ever saying. Fitness indicative of the same stuff jennifer was doing. She was saying black lives matter. My black children with racism. She sang the same thing. Birth family he was shooting guns in his four years old she said about devout take on the only new cuss words. And just lie. Things that are racist. But with the idea that she is a good person. She is perfect for the kids. If you google the photo many of you will remember seeing it. Had that impact on me. He did not speak necessarily on the adoption system. Also this is emotional for me because i am recently coming to terms with my own adoption and abandonment. I was a bandit in the state of texas. When i got that paperwork i was pretty hard to read. Its a sad thing. I am sorry. I have come to discover im also in interracial adoptee. I have asked myself recently how a system, i look awaits, right . How could a system placed me. My biological mother said the story was ran away to newark and thats where she met my father who was apparently never contacted about me. But how could a system place me in a southern white racist family for adoption . And that is the question im asking myself a lot it is hard. Because even my family who are weremostly dead at this point, e way my brother and i also found out that information was withheld from us. There is just so much trauma around it. Im wondering if you have any thoughts you like to respond to about that . A very big part of the story is from the adoptee perspective that has been silent in favor of the adoption narrative everything has a happy ending. Its usually almost always told from the viewpoint of the adoptive parents. So everything from the law im glad you got your documents it sounds like you got your documents that is really hard for people to the birth records are sought laws in states where people arean not entitled to the birth certificate. [inaudible] we tell ourselves that we are doing this wonderful thing for kids who need to be safe. I think more often we can see this in our laws because the laws really give preference to the feeling of the adoptive parent they can choose whether birth family can be involved in their life for instance. Adoptees who want to know what the birth certificate says has to go through this whole torturous project and if that is not okay. It shows the system set up to benefit certain people. And weirdly the kids are not the primary group that is being benefited. This story showcases the transracial aspect of it and i think it showcases the racism that the birth familys experience. I truly clearly see the treatment its hard to draw any other conclusion than active racism not just passive systemic racism. Thank you so muchan for this really important book in the way you wrote about it. I just really appreciated when the book about your connection with the families and how you had a longterm connection with them and your advocacy for them in situations where they were disempowered. When you got into the situation where you had to let go and try to get the remains back for the family, i felt how difficult that was in her interaction with the other side of the adoptive parents family who were trying to get the remains and i think im interested in hearing you talk about that. Yes. Both birth moms in our first conversation with both tammy and sherry they asked about the remains of the kids and if they could come back home to them. But because they do not have legal rights the next of kin was the parents of jennifer and sarah who had been estranged from them since that got together so they did not know the children but they were responsible legally for the remains. And so i started talking to doug who is the data jennifer he wanted the birth family to have the remains. So i went up to south dakota and got some of the remains of the kids and brought them back to their families. Which was another thing you were referring to which is beyond the normal scope of journalism. In thatt case it felt morally important to do. I had witnessed firsthand they way the birth families were sidelined automated invisible in their grief which felt so wrong to me. None of these schemas are in touch with each other. I was sort of the one link between these people that was talking to, everyone. I feared if i didnt do it probably wouldnt happen. It was really challenging. Emotionally and also i felt the weight of it as i was working on this book. I had the kids with me for a forcouple of months. Talked about his body was never found was it . No. He was the one child that was never recovered part of that is because it crashed into the ocean the ocean had tides and all these things happened. So devaunte was never found. The other siblings there is a little bit of hannah they had found partials remains of hann. The one of the most essential books tomu be published this yer thank you so much roxanne. Thank you. This yearbook tv celebrates 25 years of presenting nonfiction books and authors. For the 22nd year in a row book tv is alive with the library of Congress National book festival. And since 2001 book tv in partnership with a library of congress has provided signature indepth on interrupted coverage of the National Book festival featuring hundreds of nonfiction authors and guests to watch saturday as book tv once again been shoot live all day coverage of the National Book festival. Gas and authors include librarian of congress and booted orge on his book i have something t tl you for young adults. Former nfl player russell author of the yards between us but see our complete National Book festival schedule online apple tv. Org library of Congress National book festival Live Saturday at 9 00 a. M. 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