All 18 of the children living with Tom and Debra Schmitz, some adopted and some biological, were removed from their home after a nurse in their employ reported abuse and neglect. Many of the children had been placed with them illegally, but the Schmitzes insisted that they felt called by God to care for needy children and were loving parents… Read more »
David and Glenda Kinghorn had 2 biological children and four adopted children, and took in as many as 8 additional children from disrupted adoptions. David was charged and convicted of raping one of these children, a girl aged 13. There were also allegations that the Kinghorns punched a 10 year old boy, Sasha Bignell (one of the children obtained from… Read more »
In 2000, Edward and Linda Bryant adopted two foster children, Austin and Edward Bryant. Both children were classified as special needs and the Bryants received government subsidies for their care. Over the years, the Bryants took additional foster children and adopted seven other children. In 2011, a young man who had know the Bryant children as neighbors as a kid… Read more »
Officials responding to a child neglect tip found a 5 year old adopted girl weighing only 21 pounds. Her body showed signs of having been restrained for long periods of time. She and her three siblings, all of whom were adopted and had special needs, were removed from their adoptive parents home and placed in protective custody. The girl in… Read more »
A 14 year old Colorado boy was kept padlocked in a small room with no light and boarded up windows by his mother, Amanda Joliff, for all but a few hours a day. The teen was allowed one meal a day, if that, which came to a total of about four meals a week. The family’s house was filthy, smelled… Read more »
Michael and Sharon Gravelle forced their eleven adopted special needs children to sleep in stacked cages rigged with alarms. At night, the children were so afraid of setting off the alarms that they would urinate in their clothes rather than leave their cages to go to the bathroom. The children were also emotionally abused, spanked with boards, and sometimes had… Read more »
