Williams Abuse Trial - Hana Alemu/Hannah Williams - Merge

[JesusFightClub]

I was just reading some more of the trial coverage. I didn't think it was possible, but now I'm even more disgusted.

Larry wasn't oblivious. He participated in some of the physical punishments, and the outdoor hosing. He saw the damn Port-a-potty. He was a participant in the abuse. If anything, his testimony shows that he was aware that what they were doing wasn't all magic Christian sunshine and roses. Still, even now he says, "it wasn't working". Not "it's was wrong and immoral to treat any human being, let alone your own children, like that".

He knew it wasn't right, and still let it all go on.

She wasn't that stupid either. Yes, she had a mindset that anything that the kids did wrong, and even perfectly normal human behavior, was all "oppositional" and had to be handled via increasingly harsh methods. What is standing out to me is just how determined she was to see the kids as "oppositional", and how her actions went beyond physical harshness and really demonstrated a total lack of affection or even basic human empathy. Yes, I'm a proponent of Attachment theory, but isn't it just basic common sense that if your child is engaging in some extreme behavior like smearing menstrual blood, your first thought shouldn't be punishment but "what exactly is going on with my child to make her do this?" And that if you adopt a child, particularly at an older age, you do everything in your power to make them feel loved and accepted and like part of the family? And that in an international, interracial adoption of older kids, the very last thing that you would ever want to do is treat them differently from your own children and isolate them? And that making the black kids in the family shower and use the toilet and sleep outside, because you think that they are just so bad and dirty and likely to contaminate your own precious white kids, is about the worst and most racist message that you can send?

One of her sons testified that he thought that Hana was possessed by demons. That's how they thought of someone who was supposed to be their sister.

She's not even trying to deny the food part. They gave the kids disgusting food on purpose, they deprived them of meals, and then the kids are considered "oppositional" if they try to get some food, and sent to sleep in a barn. That's so fucked up and disgusting. Does she even hear herself and realize just how far off from normal this is?

Sure, she's crying now. She's crying because she's on trial and faces the very real possibility of jail and the folks in the court are disgusted by her and saying that she killed her daughter. She thinks that saying that she didn't realize that she was killing Hana somehow excuses what she did. This wasn't just "misguided discipline", this wasn't a "whoops didn't know she was dying", this was a deliberate campaign to treat those kids like they were evil and subhuman.

She couldn't even be bothered to get off her ass as her daughter was dying. It was "too hard to watch", so she goes inside without her. She sends out her sons to hit their sister. When Hana starts undressing, she sends her sons instead because "modesty is important to us" - but apparently basic human decency and regard for human life are not. If someone - especially YOUR OWN CHILD - is lying naked in the mud outside, apparently the decent thing in her mind is to shelter her sons' eyes and have them abandon her there.

QFT. The Williams disgust me beyond measure.

Humans nearly always know if they're killing humans. The handful of cases in my experience where people did not know have been manslaughter - a punch in a drunken fight which knocks someone down, they crack their head off the kerb and die. That wasn't the intent and it usually horrifies the assailant.

Hana was starving, had had her head forcibly shaved, was pitifully trying to assert her own autonomy and died in conditions of absolute terror and despair. Whenever I think of this, I don't care if her torturers can put on pitiful blubbery faces on the stand and say "Oh gosh, we were trying to keep our blessed saved children from contamination".

[chaotic life]

I will be free to speak far more specifically next week, as I am still protecting my own son for one more day.

I will say this. I believe there are online support groups, likely hiding in Above Rubies groups or yahoo groups, where fundamentalist adoptive families are sharing torture techniques with each other. I believe there are far more children like Hana and Immanuel out there in this country. I believe just as there has been an underground movement of unwanted adoptees across placements for years, there is a movement of these families telling each other their tips on how to abuse and torture and not get caught. I think it's more than JUST Michael Pearl and his horrid methods.

I say this because the behaviors exhibited by the Williams match many of the behaviors of the Schatz match many of the details Katherine Joyce details in the Child Catchers, and match the stories my newest son tells me of his first adoptive home--eerily similar details of torture and abuse.

I believe there are more kids suffering.

[jaynie]

Anyone know if "oppositional" is a Pearl term? I've not read the Pearl book and wondered if it comes from there. It's interesting how Larry and Carri both use it -- it sounds coached.

Oppositional defiant disorder is a real thing, though I don't suppose they're using the term in the psychiatric sense. The behaviours associated with ODD (excessively angry, deliberately hurtful/spiteful, extremely disobedient, etc) are the things the Pearls see in ALL children, so it wouldn't surprise me if they've appropriated the term. Though it seems like the kind of thing the court should clarify.

[2xx1xy1JD]

There is an actual psychological diagnosis called Oppositional Defiant Disorder. It's appeared in some of my cases. Hana does not fit the profile.

Rather, being "oppositional" or "defiant" is a buzz word that seems to be a key part of the mindset of the Pearls and those who share similar parenting views. When I was on the Babycenter Discipline Choices board, it was common to see some posters say, "we mainly spank for defiance", and there was a really big emphasis on deciding whether a behavior indicated defiance, and on the need to eradicate defiance in kids. With this view, everything starts to be framed as a contest of wills between parent and child, which the parent must win at all costs. Listen to this enough, and you can gradually start to view everything that your child does as something that they are doing specifically to annoy or defy you.

Carri and Larry are monsters, but this mindset didn't pop out of nowhere. They just took it to an extreme.

This mindset is particularly toxic with adopted kids, or any children that are not biologically related. Most people, at some level, have some degree of affection for their own biological children. There's some sort of connection, some pride, some bonding that occurs with new babies, and some relating to a child who may look or act like them. Combine this harsh view of discipline, however, with the feeling that a child isn't really yours and is deeply flawed/evil, and the results of disastrous.

I subscribe to attachment/positive parenting views that pretty much take the opposite view. In a nutshell, if there is a problem, you look for ways to change your child's environment and avoid triggers (eg. make sure your kid is properly fed a healthy diet, is sleeping enough, is not over-stimulated, is not over-exposed to bad media, is getting enough exercise, is in a calm and respectful environment, is part of a positive peer group, etc.), and you work on building your relationship with your child so that they have a rock-solid emotional attachment with you and naturally want to follow your lead and example. You set rules, but you avoid direct confrontations unless there's truly no other way. [This isn't ultra-liberal hippie parenting. In fact, some of my main sources and mentors were Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jews who would be seen as having tons of strict rules by most people. The point is that children can learn to have structure, and to be good people, in a way that doesn't focus on labeling them as bad and punishing them.]

[2xx1xy1JD]

Chaotic: You may be right. There was evidence that Carri told her children what to say, and what not to say, to child protection workers after Hana's death.

[jenny_islander]

In a mothers' group I used to belong to, a woman took a wooden spoon out of her purse and used it on her "oppositional" toddler. The little girl was "not minding" and being "naughty." So her first response was to scold, her second to threaten, and her third to beat. (Chastise, spank, use whatever euphemism you want: she beat her upon the body with a wooden spoon.)

The little girl had a medical checkup the next week, at which the doctor announced that she had a double ear infection and was effectively deaf--which the mother could have figured out for herself if she had thought about checking that the child's recent known ear infection had actually cleared up instead of becoming painless and spreading to the other ear and filling both ear canals with fluid. But, nope, gotta stop that oppositional behavior first, last, and always!

If there is a Hell, I hope it involves twisting upon the sharp point of unavoidable self-awareness unless and until the damned choose to admit that they fucked up and ask for help. And I hope the Pearls and the Tripps and the Ezzos end up there.

[chaotic life]

The undercurrent is the adversarial parenting. Many Protestant Christians go to an extreme regarding what they believe is sin nature. They believe that rather than being born innocent and blameless and the works corrupts, that children come into this world full of evil and sin. All of the normal behaviors of children starting with crying as infants is not perceived as a normal method of communicating and reaching out to the world but rather a deliberate manipulation to make parents succumb to their selfish desires.

Thus highly punitive parenting methods insist that you must train that sin nature out of your child, and since so many of them believe that they are Biblically commanded that they MUST spank, they spank in a belief they will create a happy, selfless nature in their sinful, selfish child.

So, the very perception of children is not that they are learning and growing and their brains are still forming but that the parent can and must read the child's mind and punish severely any thoughts the child has to "defy" the parent. Temper tantrums are considered a cardinal sign of this willful disobedience.

The danger comes both in deciding you are omnipotent and are not merely punishing your child for their observed behavior but for what you believe they were thinking as well. Then, a pp said, when you do not have that attachment that screams MERCY, DANGER, YOU ARE GOING TO FAR AND WILL HURT YOUR CHILD. When you are attached to the child, even when you are cruel and heading to abuse, their hurt and their years will rip your heart out and pull you back.

I suspect that gut wrenching stop is why Carri Williams never killed her biological children. Without that attachment, the pain and tears of the child will only anger the abuser and convince them the child is trying to manipulate them to stop, which is more defiance and more reason to torture and abuse.

[FJismyheadship]

I have been reading this thread but I can't do it anymore. If someone would let me know what the verdict is when it has been made, I would appreciate it.

[Inky]

It is a tough read for sure. I've been following it too.

How long is the trial expected to last? And is it a jury trial or judge only?

[Lillybee]

I believe it is jury.

[JesusFightClub]

The "baby being selfish for crying" thing is very confusing. Babies can't talk yet and they certainly can't write, so how are they supposed to indicate unhappiness or shock in a non-sinful manner?

As for being defiant, while I know ODD is a real thing, some level of defiance is how children show they are different entities from their parents. My niece Small is an accomplished practitioner of the art of defiance :twisted: and there are different kinds. There's "being naughty" defiance and "I have my own opinion here, you know" defiance. The second type, we tend to regard as healthy, and not to be punished. (She's her mother's daughter, and her mother used to have an opinion on EVERYTHING. :))

The hitting parents want to beat both kinds out of a child and render the child silent and obedient on all issues. That gets sicker the more you think about it.

[Palimpsest]

I can understand why people find this thread hard/impossible to read. Perhaps we should start a new thread to announce the verdict?

I find this case so upsetting that I'm going to revert to bullet points and write in the bureaucratese of a government employee in Protective Services. That is who I was, although I am now retired.

To address some of the other points that have come up:

1. It is a jury trial. Originally 10 men and 5 women (3 alternates). One man was dismissed from the jury for sleeping during testimony a couple of weeks ago. Yes, really. He dozed off.

2. Carri seems to have been carefully coached in using the word "oppositional" in her testimony, probably in the hopes that the jury will believe Hana had ODD. In earlier reports, she used the word "rebellious." The bio-children's testimony saying that Carri called Hana "wicked", "evil", "filthy and diseased" and "possessed by demons" is probably far more accurate.

3. If anyone wants to read everything about the case a repository of all media coverage can be found here:

http://www.reformtalk.net/2013/07/23/ha ... e-part-ii/ (link not broken, but adoptive parents should be warned that they may find some editorial comments hurtful. It is an adoption reform site.)

4. I repeat what I said earlier: This is not an isolated case although it may be one of the worst. In Washington state alone there was a cluster around 2011 of 15 different cases of starvation and abuse of adopted and fostered children, there were 11 cases in 2011 alone. Not all of these cases get reported to law enforcement. I suspect that many of these abusers are fundamentalist Christians learning from each other and the Pearls, Enzo, etc. but we don't have any evidence of that yet. What causes people to abuse to this extent is unclear, but yes, attachment to biological children may protect them from the worst abuse meted out to a non-related child. Not always.

5. The situation in Washington seemed so bad that the Governor commissioned a Working Group. Quoting from the Working Group's report (it is a PDF and I'm having problems linking it):

"Common elements related to child abuse and neglect noted in several of these cases include:

- Locking the child in a room;

- Withholding food from the child; Disparaging remarks about the child and discrediting the child as being untruthful;

- Exaggerating or misstating the child’s negative behaviors;

- Forcing the child to remain outside the home;

- Denying the child access to toilet facilities; and

- Isolating the child from the community, such as removing the child from public school."

6. The Working Group's Report and recommendations was published in 2012. No action seems to have been taken so far to follow the recommendations for reforming the adoption process. Other states are also reporting similar increases in the abuse of adopted children.

7. "Hana's Law" has not passed and seems to have stalled in the WA Legislature.

Finally, I can only follow and read about cases like Hana's and Immanuel's because I try to channel the outrage and pain into productive actions. This is why I follow these cases, and why I follow legislation, and why I write state legislators letters in support of reforms. It is also why I follow adoption reform in the countries of origin in international/intercountry adoption.

[Palimpsest]

I will be free to speak far more specifically next week, as I am still protecting my own son for one more day.

I will say this. I believe there are online support groups, likely hiding in Above Rubies groups or yahoo groups, where fundamentalist adoptive families are sharing torture techniques with each other. I believe there are far more children like Hana and Immanuel out there in this country. I believe just as there has been an underground movement of unwanted adoptees across placements for years, there is a movement of these families telling each other their tips on how to abuse and torture and not get caught. I think it's more than JUST Michael Pearl and his horrid methods.

I say this because the behaviors exhibited by the Williams match many of the behaviors of the Schatz match many of the details Katherine Joyce details in the Child Catchers, and match the stories my newest son tells me of his first adoptive home--eerily similar details of torture and abuse.

I believe there are more kids suffering.

Yes, the stories match in many details. I can't speak to Chaotic Life's conspiracy theory, but there is no doubt that these abusive methods of child rearing are gaining ground amongst some adoptive evangelical/fundamentalist parents. I can add the Barbours and the Trebilcocks, the Paddocks and the Schatzes, and can list many more cases off the top of my head.

We know fundamentalist Pearl followers use these methods on their own children and don't understand why they should never be used on adopted children who have been abused and neglected. The Evangelical Adoption Movement was a disaster on many levels. " Saving children for Christ" without understanding their back grounds, needs, issues, or having any respect for their culture or heritage was a train wreck from the get go.

In addition, many things were "off" about the adoptions of Hana and Immanuel. The adoption agency was in violation of its own procedures with the Williamses. It is something that adoption reform advocates have been following closely and, frankly, I think the adoption agency should be on trial here too.

It always helps me to remember that there are many, many, good people out there who adopt children internationally and these adoptions succeed. Success stories don't get noticed so much but they are still the vast majority of adoptions.

[Phoebe]

She couldn't even be bothered to get off her ass as her daughter was dying. It was "too hard to watch", so she goes inside without her. She sends out her sons to hit their sister. When Hana starts undressing, she sends her sons instead because "modesty is important to us" - but apparently basic human decency and regard for human life are not. If someone - especially YOUR OWN CHILD - is lying naked in the mud outside, apparently the decent thing in her mind is to shelter her sons' eyes and have them abandon her there.

I am fostering a litter of kittens and their mama for one of the rescues local to me, and I have lost 2 kittens in that litter in the past week (Fading Kitten Syndrome sucks). I took them to the vet, I cried when I got their diagnosis, I held those tiny helpless creatures while they died in my hands, and I wept because there wasn't a damn thing I could do to save those particular little ones.

It is utterly revolting that Carrie had less empathy and love for her very human daughter than I had for those sweet little kittens.

(The rest of the litter is fine, for those who are interested.)

[2xx1xy1JD]

The "baby being selfish for crying" thing is very confusing. Babies can't talk yet and they certainly can't write, so how are they supposed to indicate unhappiness or shock in a non-sinful manner?

As for being defiant, while I know ODD is a real thing, some level of defiance is how children show they are different entities from their parents. My niece Small is an accomplished practitioner of the art of defiance :twisted: and there are different kinds. There's "being naughty" defiance and "I have my own opinion here, you know" defiance. The second type, we tend to regard as healthy, and not to be punished. (She's her mother's daughter, and her mother used to have an opinion on EVERYTHING. :))

The hitting parents want to beat both kinds out of a child and render the child silent and obedient on all issues. That gets sicker the more you think about it.

Exactly, esp. to the bolded part.

Not everything is about deliberate defiance and disrespect.

I had a child who wouldn't go near a vegetable, and wouldn't go to sleep without someone beside her. She wasn't being defiant. I honestly got the sense that she would have wanted to please me and do these things, but had something else that was driving her. The biggest thing with her was not making it into a battle and realizing that it was not a discipline issue.

Middle child had her own opinions, and could be stubborn. She wasn't trying to be disrespectful. She was just a bright, independent child who wanted to be an adult when she was still a tot. Once we realized that and channeled that impulse, she was great.

Youngest child is a total sweetheart - unless he's hungry or tired or overheated. We've learned to spot the triggers. There is no point in pushing him past his limits. If he's tired, his little brain floods with cortisol, and rational behavior goes out the window. No real learning is going to happen at that moment. He needs to sleep. It's my job to make sure that happens, even if he thinks that staying up with his iPad would be more fun.

Children are allowed to be human. They can have preferences. They can have fears. They can have feelings.

[Nothing2CHere]

I've been reading this thread because yes, I'm another one horrified by the callousness shown to these adopted children. This especially hits for me because even though I'm not an adopted mother, I'm an aunt to two wonderful, adorable girls who were born in Ethiopia (the girls have no blood relation to each other; O was adopted first and then when they felt the family was ready to expand, E was adopted). I know how hard the adoption process was for their mother, the hoops it felt like she had to jump through (she adopted as a single mom), the checks she went through, the long, drawn-out court process, the heartache of waiting and waiting and waiting for updates on their cases. My friend* was going through E's adoption process while I was pregnant with LittleBabyNothing, and I remember her telling me at one point that at least I knew, one way or another, I would have my baby by June, whereas for her there was no end in sight.

And I guess that's what I just don't understand. With everything my friend went through for her daughters' adoptions, it breaks my heart that a family like THIS was able to adopt. If you need a happy story to lift your spirits, my nieces are an example of adoptions gone right. Their mother realizes the importance of keeping their own cultures in their lives; they often meet up with other families with adopted children from Ethiopia. Although they were both adopted young (O was about 3 or 4 when her adoption was finalized; E, about 18 months) they still have some problems that their mother patiently works through with them, not seeing them as acts of defiance. When they both first came home, the home was closed to outside visitors for at least a month while the family bonded; they were not expected, even at their young ages, to act like they've been raised in America by my friend their entire lives. My friend realized there would be lots of adjusting for them, having left everything and every one they had ever known before. But oh, those girls are loved. They have the brightest smiles. They have a family that works with them as individuals, that sees all their promise and potential, not seeing them as "possessed by demons" *shudder*

*My friend is an only child, hence why I am an adopted aunt for her girls. I consider them just as much my nieces as my blood-related nephews are my nephews.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Cross-examination of Carri finally got around to asking about To Train Up a Child, with Carri saying that it gave her the idea for the plumbing line.

X-ray evidence of Hana's bones indicate that she would have likely been around 15, not 16.

Carri managed to omit any mention of spanking on her adoption application. More evidence that she knew full well that she was doing something wrong, and deliberately hid it.

http://lightofdaystories.wordpress.com/ ... -williams/

[Palimpsest]

The link to news coverage of Carri on the stand yesterday. She is as cold as ice.

http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/mother- ... ead/nZg2C/

The prosecutor began asking about TTUAC and also nailed her on wanting to claim Hana was older than the age stated on her adoption forms so that she "could get rid of her sooner." Carri denied it, but I'm sure the jury took note.

Carri is back testifying today.

ETA: Oops. The state has called its first rebuttal witness, another forensic expert. Now I'm confused. I thought the defense had to finish and rest its case before the rebuttal started. Perhaps that happened this morning.

Editing again: Now the forensic anthropologist is done and Carri is back on the stand. So the defense hasn't finished. I'm still confused but probably the news tonight will clarify for me.

[RachelB]

Finally, I can only follow and read about cases like Hana's and Immanuel's because I try to channel the outrage and pain into productive actions. This is why I follow these cases, and why I follow legislation, and why I write state legislators letters in support of reforms. It is also why I follow adoption reform in the countries of origin in international/intercountry adoption.

Thank you for the work you do, Palimpsest.

[chaotic life]

Okay, the gavel has come down and I am NOW free to speak without risking the safety of my own son.

I follow these cases for several reasons. I'm passionate about children and ethical adoptions. I have spent a decade trying to provide peer support to at-risk adoptive families, and trying to guide parents to correct resources and proper ways of handling hurting children to prevent cases like Hana and Immanuel.

I am the "Jo" from Katherine Joyce's Child Catchers. I was her FIRST contact into fundamentalist adoption practices and we were both surprised when she came back several years later to verify information and one of these children had been DUMPED on my doorstep.

It is because I follow these cases that I knew when the bitch who called herself my son's "mother" informed me that either we took him or they were shipping him back to his birthcountry, I knew she was serious. I offered peer support. I offered her resources (locally and nationally) when she threatened she was shipping him back to Africa, I offered a summer of respite, to do therapy for him AND his family and allow professionals to reintegrate him.

I don't think the abuse is a deliberate conspiracy per se. I think these people are finding each other and teaching each other torture techniques AND how to conceal it from the authorities.

I had a child this broken. I did originally homeschool him. When he was diagnosed with Autism, the first thing I did was put him back into public school. I realized he was NEVER going to unlearn the survival skills that got him to me, and I needed support and breaks to handling being his mother.

I took in a teen left on my doorstep because he needed someone to be in his corner and fight for him. Maybe he won't make it through all of his pain. Maybe he'll walk away and go back to his abusers when he's 18. I don't know those answers. I've drilled in his head that NO MATTER what happens in his life, he can ALWAYS COME HOME.

This child tells me horror stories about his four years in the first so-called family where he was abused and tortured by stories identical to what was done to Hana and Immanuel. He doesn't watch the news. He's never heard their names before. He's only NOW starting to grasp the horror that he was the third thrown away and that he nor we have ANY idea what happened to the girl who was thrown away. I pray every night that reporting those people to the state required them to at least prove that child was safe to the authorities but no one EVER told me what happened to her.

My son had a family who started beating him before he ever hit the US soil, that deliberately withheld citizenship and came damn close to dumping him back on the streets of Africa, who to this day refused to ever turn over his passport (and don't think the judge wasn't horrified by that action cause WE were).

I have heard Hana and Immanuel's story too many times to COUNT. I used to tell myself that families that disrupted were at the ends of their ropes and needed compassion. Now I realize that it takes a special kind of monster to disrupt, but they are the same kind that kill these kids because they are those who NEVER SHOULD HAVE ADOPTED IN THE FIRST PLACE.

I've held my tongue for a long time because I needed to keep MY child safe first. I've done that and now I'm done holding it. I DESPISE being painted with the same brush as people who would abuse, abandon and kill a child. However, I will GLADLY open my door for oversight if it means that someone like these people is CAUGHT before a child is tortured or killed like this. I would accept an annual home inspection by the state to check on all of my adoptees if it means that they can FIND children like my son and like Hana and Immanuel before it's too late. I hate having people in my house. I really do. But, it would be worth the inconvenience to protect children that are hiding in these families who keep them out of the eyesight of the authorities, who are going to grow up and have to TRY to find a way to function after being abused like this, or worse yet who might not get to grow up like Sean, Lydia and Hana simply because there was no one to see what happened to them.

[RachelB]

And thank you for the work you do, too, Chaotic life.

[Palimpsest]

Wow, Chaotic Life!

First off all congratulations on the gavel coming down. It must be an incredible relief for you and your son.

Second, thank you, "Jo" from the Child Catchers from the bottom of my heart for everything you have done for the children in your care and for your activism for ethical adoption. You are a true hero. I could say more, but I'm comparatively speechless right now. Thanks.

My true admiration is reserved for the people in the trenches picking up the pieces when adoptions go horribly wrong. The people like Chaotic Life (and Immanuel's present foster mother) who take in these abused and tortured children and try to help heal them. The damage is enormous.

What I do is from behind a computer is nothing. I have a talent for drafting letters to legislators and reviewing language in legislative amendments, that's all. In some ways, it is an attempt at prevention but the road blocks are enormous.

To give an example: the recommendations in the Washington State report on Severely Abused Children have not gone anywhere yet. Why? Because every single one of those recommendations needs funding. Also, any attempts at changing adoption laws to increase oversight of the screening of adopting parents, the adoption process, and the follow up will be met with extreme resistance from people new to adopting, people like the Williamses, and even the general public. The general public assumes that all people wanting to adopt from overseas are wonderful people. No, some are like the Williamses.

As Chaotic Life said: an ethical adopter would put up with, if not welcome, additional safeguards. However, the Evangelical Adoption Movement, Fundie Child Collectors, and the people who want to adopt only to abuse, and those who haven't thought it through, will fight those measures tooth and nail.

If you live in WA please write letters to your state reps and congressmen pushing for more oversight. If you don't live in Washington, write to your reps and congressmen too. If you don't live in the US, look to your own countries. Off the top of my head, I can think of a case in the UK and one in the Netherlands.

I don't want to stop international adoptions. As I said above, the majority are successful if the adoptive parents understand the issues and are willing to work at making it successful. I do want adoption reform. Even though it will frustrate many people trying to adopt.

[J'ean Skirt]

Chaotic life: thank you so much for sharing your passion, your knowledge and your protectiveness of your kids with us. You are one of the good ones, and your presence here enriches the rest of us.

Thank you. You make the world a better place.

[splork]

Testimony from witnesses is over. They're talking about jury instructions now.

From a reporter's (Gina Cole with the local paper) twitter on today's testimony:

Carri, on Hana: "I believe that she unintentionally killed herself."

[WonderingInWA]

Testimony from witnesses is over. They're talking about jury instructions now.

From a reporter's (Gina Cole with the local paper) twitter on today's testimony:

Carri, on Hana: "I believe that she unintentionally killed herself."[/quote]

OMG.