1 Child of Rene Tibucio Valenzuela
A 14-year-old girl was physically and sexually abused by her father, Rene Tibucio Valenzuela, and locked in a small, dark empty bedroom for 15 months. The girl was only let out of the room for brief bathroom and meal breaks, and was occasionally allowed to shower. The girl escaped in 2005 by kicking in the bedroom […]
Two Children of Mother and J.S.
Savannah and Selena, both adopted, were subjected to horrific sexual abuse at the hands of their adult brother, Michael, who was also adopted. The couple, described only as Mother and J.S. in court documents, had three additional young adopted children and four additional older biological children. When Selena told their mother about her abuse at […]
Child of Wilson and Brenda Sullivan
Wilson and Brenda Sullivan’s 17 year old mentally handicapped adopted son was found caged in a crib by investigators responding to an anonymous tip. He was severely malnourished and weighed only 49 pounds, less than what he weighed when the couple had adopted him at age 7 ten years prior. Two other adopted children, aged […]
15 Children of Robert Hale (Papa Pilgrim)
Robert Hale served as midwife at the births of all fifteen of his children. The family homesteaded, homeschooled (although little education took place), and lived in isolation in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of New Mexico until 1998, when Hale, who began calling himself Papa Pilgrim, moved his wife and children to Alaska. In 2002 […]
Ricky Holland
Lisa Holland struck her 7 year old adopted son Ricky in the head with a hammer and didn’t seek medical help while he slowly died. Lisa and her husband Tim dumped Ricky’s body in a swamp and said he had disappeared. Police found the body six months later, and Lisa and Tim were charged in […]
2 Children of David and Glenda Kinghorn
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 […]
5 Children of John and Linda Dollar
John and Linda Dollar are accused of abusing their 5 adopted children, ages 12, 13, 14, 14, and 16, by branding them with a cattle prod, striking their feet with hammers, pulling out their toenails with pliers, and binding them with chains. The Dollars also deprived the children of food to the extent that the […]
11 Children of Michael and Sharon Gravelle
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 […]
Dennis Gene Merryman
Dennis Merryman was 8 years old when he died of starvation. He had been adopted from Russia some years earlier along with four brothers and sisters. His Maryland parents, Samuel and Donna Merryman, devout Christians who served as Sunday school teachers, homeschooled Dennis and his siblings. When Dennis died in January of 2005, he weighed […]
