No single youngster can be the poster child for America's foster care system, with its mix of happy endings and heartache. Yet Tatiana Fowler's smile, as she embraces the woman who adopted her, gives a hint at the groundswell of change that is altering that mix for the better.
Tatiana, 16, and her 15-year-old sister Brittany were adopted earlier this year by a cousin of their mother after four years in foster care.
They became part of a dramatic trend in New York City, which has reduced its foster care population from nearly 28,000 in 2002 to under 16,000 this spring.
Thanks to sizable reductions in several other states, it's a coast-to-coast phenomenon — the latest federal data, from 2008, recorded 463,000 children in foster care nationally, down more than 11 percent from 523,000 in 2002.
Each jurisdiction is different, but by reducing stays in Foster Care, speeding up adoptions and — perhaps most crucially — expanding preventive support for troubled families so more children avoid being removed in the first place, the numbers are coming down.
Encouragement
Many states still are experiencing stable or rising foster care populations. And child-welfare advocates worry that budget cuts may undermine some of the promising new policies.
Overall, however, there's encouragement that New York City and a few other places — notably California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey and Ohio — have been able to sharply reduce the number of children in foster care.
"We're going to continue to see practices get better," said Anita Light, director of the National Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators. "In many cases, a child can remain at home and be safe with the proper amount of support."
When removal is deemed necessary, and parental rights are terminated, agencies have been working harder to arrange timely adoptions.
That was the case for Tatiana and Brittany Fowler — whose mother, a repeat drug abuser, proved incapable of keeping the family together.
The sisters initially were placed in foster care with another relative, but conflicts arose. Last year, Karen Simmons, a cousin of the mother, said she and her auto-mechanic husband, Dwayne, would be willing to adopt the girls, adding to a household already abuzz with the Simmons' three teenagers.
The Simmonses — devout Jehovah's Witnesses who'd known Tatiana and Brittany since they were little — live in a modest, three-bedroom apartment in the Bronx, on a monthly income of roughly $2,000, including food stamps.
Elation
Tatiana is finishing 10th grade at West Bronx Academy for the Future and aspires to be a child-welfare advocate after college so she can help the next generation of foster children. Her foster care experience helped hone a high degree of self-reliance, but she's elated to be adopted.
"I was fortunate somebody stepped up to the plate," she said. "To be a successful person, you need strong support. Now if I have an issue, a problem, I have someone to talk to."
John Mattingly, commissioner of New York City's Administration for Children's Services, noted that the city's foster care population has been declining gradually since a peak of nearly 50,000 in the early 1990s following the crack cocaine epidemic.
One stubborn problem, in New York City and some other places, is a slow-moving family court system that sometimes prolongs children's stays in foster care. Mattingly is working with judges to impose a timetable that would cut some nine-month delays to 90 days or less.
But even if the court issues are resolved, proposed budget cuts that could cost New York City 3,000 slots in its preventive-services program are a concern. Mattingly hopes the consequences won't include a new surge of foster care entries.
"All of these models that we've seen as successful are in danger — there's a great risk of going back to the old days," said Jane Golden of the Children's Aid Society, which arranged Tatiana's adoption.
Remarkable turnaround
To many experts, Florida's turnaround has been the most remarkable. Its foster care population soared after the high-profile 1998 beating death of a 6-year-old girl by her father, and stayed high through 2006.
Since then, Florida has implemented a wave of policy changes that have reduced its foster care population from about 29,300 in 2006 to 18,700 this year.
The key for Florida, alone among the 50 states, was obtaining a statewide waiver from federal funding rules.
This allows federal foster care money to be used for a variety of child welfare initiatives rather than being limited to out-of-home care — enabling the state to support troubled families with economic aid, parenting classes and substance abuse treatment so a child doesn't need to be removed.
George Sheldon, who heads Florida's Department of Children and Families, said a group of youths who'd spent years in foster care had urged him to pursue the changes.
"Almost to a child, they said, 'I would have rather stayed at home and dealt with issues than go into foster care and get passed from home to home and school to school," Sheldon said. "Even if it's a quality foster home, they feel they don't belong there."
Florida also sped up the average time for foster children to be reunified with their families. And in the remaining cases where parental rights are terminated, Florida has intensified efforts to get the children adopted or placed permanently with other relatives.
Though adoptions from foster care in the state reached all-time highs — more than 7,400 in 2008-09 — Sheldon hopes Floridians can do more.
"After the earthquake in Haiti, everybody wanted to adopt a Haitian child," he said. "We're trying to take that passion to help and say there are children in this country, in Florida, who are in need of adoption."
One leader on the front lines is Jim Adams, CEO of Family Support Services of North Florida. The private nonprofit helped cut the number of children in foster care in Jacksonville by 62 percent between 2006 and the end of 2009 — while spending far less money and achieving better outcomes.
"The way the system had been built, you had to isolate the child from the family," said Adams, a 33-year veteran of the field. "Now we try to have family engagement — working with the moms and dads and relatives.
"A lot of kids got put into foster care not because of physical abuse, but because of poverty — no food on the table, utilities cut off," he said. "With the waiver, we've been able to redirect the dollars that went to warehousing kids into funding families and the long-term challenges they've got."
'We're just kids'
Among the youths aided by Family Support Services is Lauren Lindgren, 18, who's now working for the agency as she prepares for college next fall. She was in foster care from age 2 to 7, when she was adopted, then returned to foster care at 14 after her adoptive parents divorced.
She hopes agencies working with foster children look "to see what's best for the kids, not what's best for everyone else."
"In foster care, it used to be you couldn't even spend the night at your friend's house — they had to get a background check," Lindgren said. "They changed that, so now you can. They're trying to make it seem like we're just kids, rather than foster kids."
In raw numbers, the biggest drop has occurred in California — where the foster care population fell from 90,692 in 2002 to under 65,000 last year, and the average stay in foster care was sharply reduced. Los Angeles County, where a Florida-style funding waiver is in effect, accounts for much of the decrease.
Karen Gunderson, chief of the Child and Youth Permanency Branch at California's Department of Social Services, said the changes reflect a push to get more foster children adopted or placed in the guardianship of relatives.
More recently, there's been an emphasis on so-called "wraparound" services — which develop individualized plans to help families deal with behaviorally troubled children so they don't have to be removed from home.
Abuse and Neglect
Georgia, another success story, had about 14,500 children in foster care in 2004, the result of a surge in investigations of suspected abuse. Now the figure is under 8,000.
B.J. Walker, commissioner of Georgia's Department of Human Services, said the key change was a more thorough, flexible approach at the front end, finding ways to support high-risk families without removing the children.
"We had to get our workers to believe this was safe," Walker said. "If you come into the system now, you're truly a child who's experienced abuse and neglect."
Her department, which had been taken to court by a New York-based advocacy group in 2002, says the recurrence of child maltreatment has dropped well below the national average and its average caseload per caseworker has decreased markedly.
Not all states joined the trend — those with rising foster care numbers in 2002-08 include Arizona, Texas, Indiana and Nevada. Steve Meissner, a spokesman for Arizona's Department of Economic Security, noted that his state's population grew during that period, with the influx including many potentially vulnerable children.
"The sad fact is that though there has been real improvement in some states, in much of the country things are as bad as ever," said Richard Wexler of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, which seeks to reduce the number of children unnecessarily placed in foster care.
"To the extent that there has been a real improvement," Wexler added, "it begs the question: What took so long?"
A fundamental problem, in the view of many child-welfare advocates, is the federal funding system — which in effect is a disincentive for states to reduce their foster care populations.
According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, 90 percent of federal child-welfare funds are reserved for supporting children in foster care, with only 10 percent available for front-end prevention and reunification services that can help keep families together.
Negative trend
The child welfare administrators' association, under Anita Light's direction, is proposing to change the law so all states would have more flexibility in how they spend child-welfare funds. Light believes there's bipartisan support for the change, and hopes for congressional approval sometime this year.
Even among those heartened by the drop in foster care populations, there's concern about one negative trend — the number of foster youths aging out of the system without a permanent family has risen from 19,000 in 1999 to a record high of nearly 30,000 in 2008.
Without the safety net of a family, these young adults often face immense challenges in securing decent jobs and housing.
Tatiana Fowler was relatively lucky in getting adopted at 16 — most foster children that old age out of the system without a permanent family.
Among them is Derrick Riggins, now 25, who had five different foster care placements growing up in Orlando, Fla. He now has a master's degree and is eying law school, aspiring to be a children's rights advocate.
Riggins was among the young people sought out by Florida officials to provide firsthand input on child-welfare reforms — and he stressed the importance of keeping more children of out foster care to begin with.
"The first couple of nights you stayed away from your own family is the toughest time," he said. "These are complete strangers you have to stay with. You ask, 'How did I get here? How long do I have to be here?' Questions you don't get answers to."
Sandra Bullock is finally saying bye-bye to her marriage with Jesse James and embracing a surprise role: Single Mother.
"Yes, I have filed for divorce," the actress, 45, told People magazine, in an interview that will appear on newsstands Friday. "I am sad and I am scared."
The Oscar-winning "Blind Side" actress has been married to motorcycle mogul James, 41, for five years. They separated last month after reports that he cheated on her with multiple women.
Bullock also revealed that she has adopted a son, 3½-month-old Louis, born in New Orleans. She and James began the adoption process four years ago but decided to keep the details under wraps until after the Oscars. Now, she plans to raise him as a single mom.
"It's like he's always been a part of our lives," Bullock told People.
"She has been hiding with the baby since the scandal broke," People magazine senior editor David Caplan said. "She said that when she found out about Jesse's affairs, she grabbed Louis, she grabbed their stuff, and she left."
Jesse James' mistress did a sexy Nazi photo shoot and reportedly has White Power mementos on her skin and in her home. His ex-wife is married to a reported skinhead. How many neo-Nazis can you date without being one?
Michelle 'Bombshell' McGee denies being a white supremacist: Her sexy Nazi photo shoot was for fetishists, she says, and the W P tattooed on the backs of her thighs stands not for "white power" but the revolting-in-a-different-way.
She says, "Jesse and I had a conversation about it and he says a lot of his friends have the tattoo." (Is that an inside joke? That statement could use context, including an updated assessment on McGee's believability.
She has said she's Amish, as well as a third-generation French Canadian.
Is that even possible?) Suing for custody of their children, her ex-husband said she had "child block magnets on the refrigerator that spell out 'White Power'," and that her older son from a different relationship "is Jewish and she think it's funny that she makes the Nazi salute."
Then we have Jesse's ex-wife Janine Lindemulder, porn star and mother of his children. Her new husband is Jeremy Aikman, a multiple-time felon and reportedly "an admitted skinhead." Jesse and Sandra fought to revoke Lindemulder's custody, citing her marriage to Aikman as evidence of a negative environment for children. (Or, um, anyone.) So Jesse James has a degree of separation from these people—but why are there so many of them in the first place? How naive could he have been to his friends' racist and antisemitic ties and leanings?
Finally, Crushable notes concern over Jesse's West Coast Choppers logo resembling Germany's Iron Cross, which appears in Nazi memorabilia. (Albeit elsewhere, too.) Are we whipping ourselves into a paranoid frenzy, or is this guy uncomfortably close to the white supremacy movement? Way to harsh our racially harmonious Blind Side mellow, Jesse.
Russia threatened to suspend all child adoptions by U.S. families Friday after a 7-year-old boy adopted by a woman from Tennessee was sent alone on a one-way flight back to Moscow with a note saying he was violent and had severe psychological problems.
The boy, Artyom Savelyev, was put on a plane by his adopted grandmother, Nancy Hansen of Shelbyville.
"He drew a picture of our house burning down and he'll tell anybody that he's going to burn our house down with us in it," she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "It got to be where you feared for your safety. It was terrible."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called the actions by the grandmother "the last straw" in a string of U.S. adoptions gone wrong, including three in which Russian children had died in the U.S.
'A monstrous deed'
In an exclusive interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, President Dmitry Medvedev said the boy "fell into a very bad family."
"It is a monstrous deed on the part of his adoptive parents, to take the kid and virtually throw him out with the airplane in the opposite direction and to say, 'I'm sorry I could not cope with it, take everything back' is not only immoral but also against the law," Medvedev said.
The cases have prompted outrage in Russia, where foreign adoption failures are reported prominently. Russian main TV networks ran extensive reports on the latest incident in their main evening news shows.
The Russian education ministry immediately suspended the license of the group involved in the adoption — the World Association for Children and Parents, a Renton, Washington-based agency — for the duration of an investigation. In Tennessee, authorities were investigating the adoptive mother, Torry Hansen, 33.
Any possible freeze could affect hundreds of American families. Last year, nearly 1,600 Russian children were adopted in the United States, and more than 60,000 Russian orphans have been successfully adopted there, according to the National Council For Adoption, a U.S. adoption advocacy nonprofit group.
"We're obviously very troubled by it," U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington when asked about the boy's case. He told reporters the U.S. and Russia share a responsibility for the child's safety and Washington will work closely with Moscow to make sure adoptions are legal and appropriately monitored.
Asked if he thought a suspension by Russia was warranted, Crowley said, "If Russia does suspend cooperation on the adoption, that is its right. These are Russian citizens."
"Child abandonment of any kind is reprehensible," said Chuck Johnson, acting CEO of the National Council For Adoption. "The actions of this mother are especially troubling because an already vulnerable, innocent child has been further victimized."
Letter details psychological problems
The boy arrived unaccompanied in Moscow on a United Airlines flight on Thursday from Washington. Social workers sent him to a Moscow hospital for a health checkup and criticized his adoptive mother for abandoning him.
The Kremlin children's rights office said the boy was carrying a letter from his adoptive mother saying she was returning him due to severe psychological problems.
"This child is mentally unstable. He is violent and has severe psychopathic issues," the letter said. "I was lied to and misled by the Russian Orphanage workers and director regarding his mental stability and other issues. ...
"After giving my best to this child, I am sorry to say that for the safety of my family, friends, and myself, I no longer wish to parent this child."
The boy was adopted in September from the town of Partizansk in Russia's Far East.
Nancy Hansen, the grandmother, told The Associated Press that she and the boy flew to Washington and she put the child on the plane with the note from her daughter. She vehemently rejected assertions of child abandonment by Russian authorities, saying he was watched over by a United Airlines stewardess and the family paid a man $200 to pick the boy up at the Moscow airport and take him to the Russian Education and Science Ministry.
Nancy Hansen said a social worker checked on the boy in January and reported to Russian authorities that there were no problems. But after that, the grandmother said incidents of hitting, kicking, spitting began to escalate, along with threats.
Grandmother: Mother lied to
She said she and her daughter went to Russia together to adopt the boy, and she believes information about his behavioral problems was withheld from her daughter.
"The Russian orphanage officials completely lied to her because they wanted to get rid of him," Nancy Hansen said.
She said the boy was very skinny when they picked him up, and he told them he had been beaten with a broom handle at the orphanage.
Joseph LaBarbera, a clinical psychologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, said adoptive parents are many times not aware of the psychological state of children put up for adoption.
"Parents enter into it (foreign adoption) with positive motivations but, in a sense, they are a little bit blindsided by their desire to adopt," said LaBarbera, who specializes in the Psychological evaluation of children and has worked with a number of children adopted from Russia and other foreign countries.
"They're not prepared to appreciate, psychologically, the kinds of conditions these kids have been exposed to and the effect it has had on them."
Russian state television showed the child in a yellow jacket holding the hands of two chaperones as he left a police precinct and entered a van bound for a Moscow medical clinic.
The U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Beyrle, said he was "deeply shocked by the news" and "very angry that any family would act so callously toward a child that they had legally adopted."
Anna Orlova, a spokeswoman for Kremlin's Children Rights Commissioner, told The Associated Press that she visited the boy and he told her that his mother was "bad," "did not love him," and used to pull his hair.
Russian officials said he turned up at the door of the Russian Education and Science Ministry on Thursday afternoon accompanied by a Russian man who handed over the boy and his documents, then left, officials said. The child holds a Russian passport.
Rob Johnson, a spokesman for the Tennessee Department of Children's Services, said the agency is looking into Friday's allegations, although it does not handle international adoptions.
Bedford County Sheriff Randall Boyce also said Torry Hansen was under investigation, but he hasn't interviewed the Hansens because their lawyer has advised them not to talk.
Lavrov said his ministry would recommend that the U.S. and Russia hammer out an agreement before any new adoptions are allowed.
"We have taken the decision ... to suggest a freeze on any adoptions to American families until Russia and the U.S.A. sign an international agreement" on the conditions for adoptions, Lavrov said.
He said the U.S. had refused to negotiate such an accord in the past but "the recent event was the last straw."
Pavel Astakhov, the children rights commissioner, said in a televised interview that a treaty is vital to protect Russian citizens in other countries.
"How can we prosecute a person who abused the rights of a Russian child abroad? If there was an adoption treaty in place, we would have legal means to protect Russian children abroad," he said.
Timeline compiled from court and prison records and interviews with family members and police:
NOV. 4, 1993: Tiffany Wright is born in Buffalo, N.Y.
1995-1996: At age 2, Tiffany is put in Foster Care in Buffalo, N.Y., with Alma Wright, who later adopts her.
1999: Royce Mitchell, Wright's grown son, is indicted in Buffalo and later convicted in connection with a drug trafficking operation.
NOV. 2003: Mitchell is indicted in a 1998 murder but acquitted at trial.
2004: Wright and Tiffany move to Kings Mountain.
APRIL 2007: Mitchell is released from federal prison and is under four years' post-release supervision. He moves to Charlotte and gets a job as a city street maintenance worker.
JAN. 25, 2009: Wright dies of natural causes at age 77.
JAN. 30, 2009: Tiffany's adoptive brother, Mitchell, seeks to become her legal guardian.
JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2009: Tiffany gets pregnant.
FEB. 5: N.C. Court appoints Mitchell as temporary guardian.
FEB. 27: A court orders a home study of Mitchell's household. Tiffany is soon placed in foster care again.
JULY 27: Charlotte DSS reports allegation of statutory rape by Mitchell, police say.
AUG. 19: Charlotte Police Detectives interview Tiffany.
AUG. 20: CMPD detective Teresa Johnson leaves message for Mitchell to come talk to police. When he doesn't respond, she phones social workers and a probation officer over the next two weeks to get the message to Mitchell.
FRIDAY, SEPT. 11: Detectives leave a message for Mitchell's wife, asking her to call back to talk about Tiffany.
MONDAY, SEPT. 14: Tiffany is shot and killed at her school bus stop. Her daughter, named Aaliyah, is delivered at Carolinas Medical Center. Mitchell is arrested and charged with statutory rape and taking indecent liberties with a child.
SUNDAY: Baby Aaliyah dies after a week in critical condition.
Tiffany Wright stood alone in the dark, waiting for her school bus.
It was just before 6 a.m., and her foster grandmother had walked back home to get Tiffany's water bottle.
Tiffany, 15, was eight months pregnant but determined to stay on track in school. She wanted to be a lawyer. And after just a few weeks at Hawthorne High, she had impressed teachers as smart and ambitious, despite a difficult childhood.
At 5:51, Tiffany sent a text.
"Wheres the bus?"
One stop away, replied her friend, already on the bus.
At 5:55, as the bus lumbered toward Tiffany's stop, people began calling police to report gunshots.
A school bus dispatcher radioed Tiffany's bus driver: Change course - something's happening ahead.
Tiffany lay dead in the road, shot in the head, that morning, Monday, Sept. 14. Her baby girl was delivered at the hospital and lived a week, but died Sunday.
Nobody's charged in the killings, but police call Tiffany's adoptive brother, Royce Mitchell, a "person of interest."
In the months before she died, local agencies took steps aimed at stabilizing her home life and keeping her safe. But her story exposes failures in Charlotte's DSS System that was supposed to protect her.
Among the missteps:
•In February, a Charlotte-Mecklenburg court clerk appointed Mitchell as Tiffany's temporary guardian - even though he was a felon who served time in federal prison. He was also tried in 2006 for murder, but found not guilty. And last year, he was accused of domestic violence, though the case was dismissed.
•In July, Charlotte DSS Workers told police that Mitchell, 36, might have committed statutory rape with Tiffany, but police didn't question him about it for seven weeks, and didn't charge him with the rape until after Tiffany was killed.
•This month, Mecklenburg social services failed to cut off communication between Tiffany, who was in foster care, and Mitchell, said a source close to the investigation.
On the day of Tiffany's killing, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police jailed Mitchell for statutory rape and indecent liberties with a child, naming Tiffany as the victim.
Police defend their work, saying they followed the industry's best practices - which takes time. Police didn't feel a need to rush, they say, because they believed Tiffany was secure, hidden in a foster home with no threat to her safety.
Police say it's hard to prove statutory rape: Of the 262 reports of statutory rape police received over three years, only 16 percent - 42 cases - were accepted by prosecutors.
Experts say statutory rape cases are complicated because they involve victims ages 13, 14 or 15 who often consider themselves voluntary participants in sex with someone at least six years older. So victims can be reluctant to help police.
But child advocates say in cases like Tiffany's, police should act more aggressively. An immediate arrest sends a signal to a suspect and can persuade them to stay away from victims.
"The cases may be difficult to win, but they're not difficult to charge," says Brett Loftis of Charlotte's Council for Children's Rights.
UNCC criminologist Paul Friday says: "Often, nothing is done in these kinds of cases because they're based on improper assumptions about the rationality of someone that age. But the minors are often unaware of disease, birth control and they can be exploited by someone."
Adopted by Foster Care Mother
Tiffany first entered the child welfare system as a toddler in Buffalo, N.Y., when her mother lost custody.
She was adopted at 4 by her foster mother, Alma Wright, an older woman with eight grown children, who was excited about raising another child.
One of Wright's grown sons was Royce Mitchell, a star quarterback in high school who'd gone on to play for a semi-pro team in Buffalo. But Mitchell also was indicted in 1999 as part of a drug trafficking ring and went to federal prison.
While he was in prison, authorities also charged Mitchell with an earlier murder, but a jury found him not guilty.
In 2004, Alma and Tiffany left Buffalo for North Carolina, settling near Kings Mountain. Tiffany made friends easily at school and church. She ran track at Bessemer City High School.
In 2007, Mitchell was released from prison and followed his mother to North Carolina.
But last fall, Alma Wright got sick. Friends at church helped out with Tiffany, inviting her for dinners and weekends. Tiffany spent time with Mitchell and his wife, too.
Alma Wright died Jan. 25, and Tiffany moved in with the Mitchells in Charlotte.
On Jan. 30, Royce Mitchell asked a Mecklenburg court to appoint him and his wife as Tiffany's guardians.
On his application, he wrote: "We are seeking guardianship because we were requested to do so by Mrs. Alma Wright before she died."
He wanted to transfer Tiffany to West Mecklenburg High School.
The court set a hearing for Feb. 5 and appointed a child advocate to study the situation and look after Tiffany's best interests in court.
There's no transcript of what happened in court, and the clerk who handled Tiffany's case declined to discuss his decision.
Frederick Benson, a Mecklenburg assistant clerk of superior court, appointed Mitchell the temporary guardian of Tiffany's welfare.
It's unclear if Benson, a lawyer, knew about Mitchell's criminal background. Court clerks are not required to perform background checks in guardianship cases, says Clerk of Superior Court Martha Curran. It's up to each clerk to decide what checks are necessary, and they often rely on court-appointed child advocates to advise them in such cases.
Tiffany's advocate, lawyer Martha Efird, declined to discuss her actions in the case.
It was in the weeks surrounding the Feb. 5 court hearing that Tiffany got pregnant, if hospital estimates are accurate.
But friends say Tiffany, who started at West Mecklenburg High in February, wouldn't realize for four or five months that she was pregnant.
On Feb. 27, clerk of court Benson ordered DSS to conduct a "home study" of the Mitchell household. Officials won't release their findings.
But Mitchell didn't keep custody long, according to several of Tiffany's friends in King's Mountain.
In late March, Mitchell left Tiffany at a group home called With Friends in Gastonia, according to Marlene Jefferies and Cruceta Jeffeirs, two adult family friends who watched Tiffany grow up.
The group home wouldn't confirm that. But the friends say the home reported to social services that Tiffany was abandoned. And she was soon back in foster care.
On March 31, Jeffeirs, a Shelby pastor, wrote a letter to Benson seeking custody of Tiffany: "My desire is to see Tiffany accomplish all the goals that she has set for herself and I believe she can do that in a stable environment with lots of guidance and love."
DSS officials in Gaston and Mecklenburg won't discuss Tiffany's case or answer questions about what steps they took to protect her.
But friends and family say Tiffany was eventually placed in the care of foster parent Susan Barber, in a townhome off Mallard Creek Road in Derita.
By July, it was clear Tiffany was pregnant, friends say.
Barber tried to shield Tiffany from talking to those she believed might be bad influences, according to Tiffany's cousin Brittany Page. But a source close to the investigation said Tiffany and Mitchell continued communicating.
Despite repeated attempts, Barber could not be reached.
As the school year approached, Tiffany prepared to change schools again, this time to Hawthorne High in Charlotte, which offers a special program for pregnant students.
Delayed investigation
On July 27, social workers reported to police that Royce Mitchell might have committed statutory rape with Tiffany.
It took eight days for a detective to look at the case, and three days more for it to be officially assigned to Teresa Johnson, a detective with CMPD's youth crime and domestic violence unit.
Another 12 days passed before Johnson interviewed Tiffany.
It's unclear when detective Johnson discovered Mitchell's background, but it wasn't enough to ramp up the investigation. Investigators say they believed Tiffany was safe in a foster home and faced no threats from Mitchell.
Police say their performance in the case followed procedure and met standards.
Police interview alleged victims immediately if the crime has occurred within the previous 72 hours, so they can gather evidence that may remain. But in cases like Tiffany's - where months had elapsed since the alleged offense - police try to arrange just one interview when children and teen victims of abuse are involved.
Police acknowledge that strategy takes time but minimizes trauma and reduces the chances that young victims might be led into inaccurate testimony by repeated questioning.
Police also let such victims decide when they want to be interviewed at the county's child-victim center called Pat's Place. There, specially trained interviewers talk to victims, while social workers, psychologists, police and others watch from another room.
Tiffany chose an Aug. 19 interview. She didn't say much during the formal interview. But later that day, Johnson won her trust and obtained enough information to move forward with the investigation.
No response from Mitchell
The next day, Aug. 20, the detective made her first call to Mitchell to ask him about the charge, she says. Johnson left a message and gave him a few days to call back.
When Mitchell didn't respond, she made calls over the next two weeks to social workers and a federal probation officer to ask Mitchell to come talk to police.
Police say they didn't immediately arrest him because they believed they could get better information if he talked voluntarily.
On Sept. 9, a federal probation official told Johnson that Mitchell was not coming in.
On Sept. 10, a team of social workers, police and other agencies held a standard follow-up meeting to discuss how to proceed in Tiffany's case.
On Friday, Sept. 11, detective Johnson phoned Mitchell's wife and left a message. She asked her to call back to discuss Tiffany, Johnson says, but didn't give details of the rape allegation.
That Monday, Tiffany was shot and killed.
As emergency vehicles rolled to the scene, Tiffany's school bus was diverted from its normal route. But the students could see flashing lights. Tiffany's friends on the bus, Cimone Black and Tamia Corpening, began to worry.
"I kept texting her phone...," Cimone said. Then she started calling, but all she got was voice mail.
The bus continued on to Hawthorne. For Tamia, the hourlong ride was excruciating.
Eight American missionaries arrived in Miami hours after they were freed from a Haitian jail.
Lt. Kenneth Scholz with the U.S. Southern Command said Thursday that a C-130 cargo plane carrying the Americans landed at Miami International Airport. The group still hadn't emerged from customs as of early Thursday.
They were allowed to leave by Haitian judge Wednesday, nearly three weeks after they were jailed for trying to take a group of children out of the earthquake-stricken country.
The eight — looking bedraggled and sweat-soaked — walked out of the Haitian jail escorted by U.S. diplomats just after dusk. They waited until they were safely inside a white van before flashing smiles and giving a thumbs up to reporters.
Hours earlier, judge Bernard Saint-Vil told The Associated Press that eight of the 10 missionaries were free to leave without bail or other conditions after parents testified they voluntarily handed their children over to the missionaries.
"The parents of the kids made statements proving that they can be released," he said, adding that he still wants to question the group's leader and her nanny.
Entitled to Evacuation flights
Kimberly Flowers at the U.S. Embassy would not confirm that the Americans were leaving on a U.S. government chartered plane, citing privacy law. She said that as U.S. citizens, they were entitled to evacuation flights.
The group will be flying out of Haiti Wednesday night, said defense attorney Aviol Fleurant. Their destination was not immediately known. Reporters were denied access to the Port-au-Prince airport tarmac where the released detainees were taken.
The missionaries, most from two Baptist churches in Idaho, are accused of trying to take 33 Haitian children to the Dominican Republic on Jan. 29 without proper documents. Their detentions came just as aid officials were urging a halt to short-cut adoptions in the wake of the earthquake.
The missionaries say they were on a humanitarian mission to rescue child quake victims by taking them to a hastily prepared orphanage in the Dominican Republic and have denied accusations of trafficking.
Group leader Laura Silsby originally said they were taking only orphaned and abandoned children, but reporters found that several of the children were handed over to the group by their parents, who said they hoped the Baptists would give them a better life.
Saint-Vil said he still wants to question Silsby and nanny Charisa Coulter about their visit to Haiti in December before the earthquake, but he asked for Coulter to be hospitalized because of her diabetes.
Earlier Wednesday, Coulter of Boise, Idaho, briefly received treatment but was then taken back to jail.
"We are very pleased that Paul, Silas, Drew, and Steve have been released by the Haitian court," said Caleb Stegall, a Kansas district attorney who has been helping some of the defendants. "Their families are relieved and anxious to have them safely home, and we are turning all of our energies toward bringing them back as safely and quickly as possible,"
Gary Lissade, the attorney for American Jim Allen, said he expected the charges to be dropped against the eight.
It's hard to react
Relatives in the U.S. received the news of the judge's decision cautiously.
"Until I know they're on a plane on their way home, it's hard to react," said Drew Ham, assistant pastor of a Baptist church in Meridian.
Silsby's sister, Kim Barton, said learning that her sister could not leave Haiti was difficult.
"At this point I don't have any comment. I don't know any more than you do," Barton said.
The group early had been embarrassed by revelations that a man who briefly served as their legal adviser and spokesman in the Dominican Republic is wanted on people-smuggling charges in the United States and El Salvador.
U.S. Marshals say they are hunting for Jorge Puello, who was already being pursued by authorities in the Dominican Republic on an Interpol warrant out of El Salvador, where police say he led a ring that lured young women and girls into prostitution. He also had an outstanding warrant for a U.S. parole violation.
Puello said he volunteered to help the missionaries after they were jailed and said he never met any of them before they were detained.
Puello — who surged into the spotlight by providing food, medicine and legal assistance to the jailed Americans — acknowledged in a phone interview with The Associated Press Tuesday that he is named in a 2003 federal indictment out of Vermont that accuses him of smuggling illegal immigrants from Canada into the United States.
He said he is innocent of the accusations.
Puello said he was in Panama and preparing to return to El Salvador to fight the charges against him there. His whereabouts could not be confirmed.
Puello's involvement with the Americans began to unravel when authorities in El Salvador noted his resemblance to the suspect in the sex trafficking case. He acknowledged on Monday that he is in fact the suspect but said he was wrongly accused and will fight the charges.
Ten U.S. Baptist missionaries charged with child kidnapping returned to jail Friday after failing to persuade a judge to grant them provisional release pending the outcome of their case, their lawyer said.
The weary looking Americans were led one by one into the back of a police van after spending half the day at a courthouse in the rubble-strewn capital. A judge scheduled three more days of hearings next week, starting Monday, defense attorney Edwin Coq told reporters.
Haitian officials at the court declined to answer questions from Journalists about the case. The missionaries did not respond to questions and Coq said they had been ordered by the judge not to discuss their case.
The lawyer said that at least nine of the Americans — all but the group's leader, Laura Silsby — clearly did not know they lacked the proper papers to remove 33 children from Haiti following the devastating earthquake and they should be immediately released.
"They came to Haiti to help. They came in solidarity," he said. "It is scandalous that they are being detained."
Prior to the closed hearing, Coq told reporters he would ask the judge to grant the detainees "Provisional Release," a type of bail without money posted. He said they should be allowed to leave Haiti until their trial, a date for which has not been established.
An investigating judge charged the Americans on Thursday with kidnapping for trying to take the 33 children across the border into the Dominican Republic on Jan. 29 without documentation.
Coq says Silsby knew she couldn't take the youngsters without proper paperwork. But he characterized the other nine missionaries as innocents caught up in actions they didn't understand.
The Baptist group, most of whose members are from two Idaho churches, insisted they were rescuing abandoned children and orphans after the Jan. 12 quake.
But at least 22 of the children, ranging in age from 2 to 12, have parents. Some of the parents told The Associated Press they gave them up willingly because the missionaries promised the children a better life.
Each of the missionaries is charged with one count of kidnapping, which carries a sentence of five to 15 years in prison, and one of criminal association, punishable by three to nine years. Coq said the case was assigned a judge and a verdict could take three months.
"Obviously this is a matter for the Haitian judicial system," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday.
Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, now a special U.N. envoy for Haiti relief, met with President Rene Preval in Port-au-Prince on Friday, but said his visit had nothing to do with the detained Americans. He did say Washington was monitoring their welfare.
Three national leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention sent a letter Friday to President Barack Obama urging him to "do everything within the authority of your office to secure a safe return home" for the detainees.
The leaders added that they could not "speak authoritatively about the motives and actions" of those detained, saying they went to Haiti on their own and weren't part of the Southern Baptist Convention's international relief efforts.
Silsby, who wanted to create an orphanage for Haitian children in the neighboring Dominican Republic, and the other nine went to Haiti after the earthquake to gather children for their project.
Most of the children were from the village of Callebas, where people said they handed the kids over because they couldn't feed or clothe them. Their stories contradicted Silsby's account that the children came from collapsed orphanages or were handed over by distant relatives.
Silsby also said she believed she had all the necessary documents to take the children. The Dominican consul in Haiti, however, said he warned Silsby her mission would be considered child trafficking if she lacked adoption papers signed by Haitian officials.
A group of U.S. missionaries in Haiti was charged Thursday with child kidnapping and criminal association for allegedly trying to take children illegally out of the earthquake-hit country.
After announcing the charges, Haitian Deputy Prosecutor Jean Ferge Joseph told the 10 Americans their case was being sent to an investigative judge.
"That judge can free you but he can also continue to hold you for further proceedings," the deputy prosecutor told the five men and five women in a hearing.
The 10 members of an Idaho-based Baptist Church were arrested last week on Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic when they tried to cross with a busload of 33 children they said were orphaned by the devastating Jan. 12 quake.
They deny any wrongdoing.
The group's lawyer, Edwin Coq, said the church members face three to nine years in prison if they are found guilty at trial. If there is a trial, it could be three months away.
"We're not 100 percent sure if they will find them guilty. I don't think they will, I don't think there will be a charge," he said.
Earlier, Coq said that nine of his 10 clients were “completely innocent,” but added that “if the judiciary were to keep one, it could be the leader of the group.” He appeared to be referring to Laura Silsby, who helped organize the mission to Haiti and has spoken for the Americans since they were detained last Friday.
The Idaho-based church group contends it was trying to rescue orphaned and abandoned child victims of the Jan. 12 earthquake. Haitian officials say many of the 33 children found with them at Haiti's border still had parents, though they may have handed over the children willingly.
According to Haitian authorities, the group was trying to cross the border into the Dominican Republic without the required documents.
People in the village of Callebas have contradicted claims that the children, aged between 2 and 12, came from orphanages or were handed over by distant relatives.
They said they had surrendered their children after a local orphanage worker, fluent in English and acting on behalf of the Baptists, convened nearly the entire village of 500 people on a dirt soccer field to present an offer from the Americans.
Isaac Adrien, 20, told his neighbors the missionaries would educate their children in the neighboring Dominican Republic, the villagers said, adding that they were also assured they would be free to visit their children there.
Adrien said he met Silsby in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 26. She told him she was looking for homeless children, he said, and he knew exactly where to find them.
He rushed home to Callebas, where people scrape by growing carrots, peppers and onions. That day, he had a list of 20 children. Many parents said they had jumped at the offer.
"It's only because the bus was full that more children didn't go," said Melanie Augustin, a 58-year-old who gave her 10-year-old daughter, Jovin, to the Americans.
Laurentius Lelly, a 27-year-old computer technician who gave up his two children, ages 4 and 6, said: "I am living in a tent with a friend. My main concern is that if the kids come back I'm not going to be able to feed them."
Lelly said he was worried the Haitian judicial system would not properly investigate the case.
"I would like to find out if these people were really going to help the kids or were trying to steal them," Lelly said.
Representatives of the missionary group said Wednesday from the Dominican Republic that the missionaries "willingly accepted kids they knew were not orphans because the parents said they would starve otherwise."
Prime Minister Max Bellerive has suggested the Americans could be prosecuted in the United States because Haiti's shattered court system may not be able to cope with a trial.
In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the attempt to bring undocumented children out of Haiti was "unfortunate whatever the motivation" and the Americans should have followed proper procedures. She said U.S. officials were in discussions with Haitian authorities about how to resolve the case.
Its no secret Haiti's Cruel Gov't has a notorious history of Corruption.
This Corruption includes stealing Foreign Aid to live like Royalty, keeping Haitian Citizens in extreme Poverty (Children too) and allowing Child Trafficking/ Sex Slavery to occur.
The Haitian Gov't than keeps those Children in its Orphanages as a means of bringing in even more International/ Foreign Aid and for Human Trafficking/ Sex Slavery purposes.
Why don't Haitian citizens use Birth Control or practice Safe Sex you ask?
If the Haitian Gov't doesn't allow Birth Control to be distributed or Sex Education to be taught, how do you expect its citizens to practice Safe Sex?
If you do your research many of Haiti's Orphanages even those run by U.S. Citizens, are nothing more than Money Laundering Schemes which use Poor, Black Children to procure millions of dollars.
However that money is NOT used to care for the Children.
Sort of like how many State Governors in the U.S. use Black Foster Care Children to obtain Federal dollars (North Carolina) of which is mostly wasted versus being spent on the Children.
If you think I'm lying take a visit to Haiti to see with your own eyes or better yet since most of Haiti's structures were recently destroyed in the Earthquake, just do your own research.
You'll see.
Why do you think Haiti's Gov't Leaders consistently hinders the Adoption Process?
Now do you understand why the Haitian Gov't and many U.S. Citizens who operate Orphanages are fighting so hard to keep those Children in Haiti?
The Haitian Gov't plans to continue this Child/Human Trafficking Money Laundering Scheme by falsely accusing innocent U.S. Missionaries or other Americans with sincere motives, of stealing children for illegal purposes.
I along with millions of other Americans don't believe the 10 U.S. citizens from an Idaho Church and currently jailed in Haiti are guilty of Child/ Human Trafficking.
These false accusations are nothing more than a ploy to divert the U.S. State Dept from discovering Haiti's illegal activities as it relates to Child/ Human Trafficking and Misuse of International Aid (Corruption).
Every Haitian Orphanage run by Haitian Gov't Officials or Americans isn't a Child Trafficking Scheme, however most of them are.
Instead continue to allow Haitian Orphans to be legally adopted by U.S. Citizens.
I also suggest concerned citizens who love Children discontinue their Financial Support of Haitian Orphanages even those owned by Americans, until they find out how their money is really being used.
That may be the only way to rescue thousands of Haitian Children from Child Slavery and lifelong Poverty.
Please contact the White House, Congressional Members and U.S. State Dept officials to protest or express your concerns about this Corruption as it relates to Haiti's Forgotten Children and............
to demand release of the 10 U.S. Missionaries falsely accused by Haitian Gov't leaders of Human Trafficking.
Jesus loves the little Children, all the children of the world.
Red, Yellow, Black & White they are precious in his sight.
Ten Americans jailed amid allegations they were trafficking Haitian children are expected to meet a judge here again on Tuesday, a day after Haiti's prime minister said the missionaries knew that "what they were doing was wrong."
Prime Minister Max Bellerive also told The Associated Press that his country is open to having the Americans face prosecution in the United States, since most government buildings — including Haiti's courts — were crippled by the monster earthquake.
"It is clear now that they were trying to cross the border without papers. It is clear now that some of the children have live parents," Bellerive said. "And it is clear now that they knew what they were doing was wrong."
If they were acting in good faith — as the Americans claim — "perhaps the courts will try to be more lenient with them," he said.
U.S. Embassy officials would not say whether Washington would accept hosting judicial proceedings for the Americans, who are mostly from Idaho. For now, the case remains firmly in Haitian hands, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington.
"Once we know all the facts, we will determine what the appropriate course is, but the judgment is really up to the Haitian government," he said.
Haitian officials insist some prosecution is needed to help deter child trafficking, which many fear will flourish in the chaos caused by the devastating Jan. 12 quake. The government and aid groups are still struggling to get food, water, shelter and basic health care to hundreds of thousands of survivors, and many parents are desperate to get help for their children.
U.S. diplomats have had "unlimited" access to the 10 detainees, and will monitor any court proceedings, Crowley said. They have not yet been charged.
Nine of the 10 Americans met with a Haitian judge on Monday but because of uncertainty in the quality of translation, another interpreter "more acceptable to both sides" was being sought for a meeting on Tuesday.
Humanitarian Aim?
Members of the church group insisted they were only trying to save abandoned children — but few appear to have had any significant experience with Haiti, international charity work or international adoption regulations.
Pastor Clint Henry told the TODAY show on Tuesday that the church members were doing what they thought was right and what "they thought they had permission for."
Since their arrest Friday near the border, the church group has been held inside two small concrete rooms in the same judicial police headquarters building where ministers have makeshift offices and give disaster response briefings.
"There is no air conditioning, no electricity. It is very disturbing," Attorney Jorge Puello told the AP by phone from the Dominican Republic, where the Baptists hoped to shelter the children in a rented beach hotel.
One of the Americans, Charisa Coulter of Boise, Idaho, was treated Monday at a field hospital for either dehydration or the flu. Looking pale as she lay on a green Army cot, the 24-year-old Coulter, was being guarded by two Haitian police officers.
"They're treating me pretty good," she said. "I'm not concerned. I'm pretty confident that it will all work out."
Investigators have been trying to determine how the Americans got the children, and whether any of the traffickers that have plagued the impoverished country were involved. Their detained spokeswoman, Laura Silsby, said they were "just trying to do the right thing," but she conceded she had not obtained the required passports, birth certificates and adoption certificates for them — a near impossible challenge in the post-quake mayhem.
The 33 kids, ranging in age from 2 months to 12 years, arrived with their names written in tape on their shirts at a children's home where some told aid workers they have surviving parents. Haitian officials said they were trying to reunite them.
"One (9-year-old) girl was crying, and saying, 'I am not an orphan. I still have my parents.' And she thought she was going on a summer camp or a boarding school or something like that," said George Willeit, a spokesman for the SOS Children's Village.
The prime minister said some of those parents may have knowingly given their kids to the Americans in hopes they would reach the United States — a not uncommon wish for poor families in a country that already had an estimated 380,000 orphans before the quake.
Haiti's overwhelmed government has halted all adoptions unless they were in motion before the earthquake amid fears that parentless or lost children are more vulnerable than ever to being seized and sold. Sex trafficking has been rampant in Haiti. Bellerive's personal authorization is now required for the departure of any child.
The arrested Americans' churches are part of the Southern Baptist Convention, America's largest Protestant denomination, which has extensive humanitarian programs worldwide, but they decided to mount their own "rescue mission" following the earthquake.
Lely Laurentus thought he was doing the right thing when he handed his two young children over to an American woman who promised to take them to a better place.
Laura Silsby, a member of Idaho-based New Life Children's Refuge, had given him a flyer from her charity saying that it wanted to help "children who have lost their mother and father in the earthquake or have no one to love and care for them."
She promised schooling, soccer fields and even a swimming pool. She told Laurentus that she had government permission to carry out her plan, he said.
Laurentus loved his girls. They were everything to him, he said. But he also thought of his own life -- he dropped out of school at 15 and worked two jobs to put food on the table.
In the devastating January 12 earthquake, he lost the meager home he had sitting on a hillside in Calebasse.
"I can't stand that they were suffering here," Laurentus said. "I had confidence in the Americans. I trusted them."
So Thursday night, when Silsby came with a bus, he placed his girls, Soraya, 4, and Leila, 5, on two seats towards the front. He didn't pack any of their things, he said. Not even their teddy bear. The American woman had bags filled with clothes, toys and snacks.
"Will you remember me?" he asked the young girls, who could not, by his own admission, comprehend what was happening. Then he watched them drive off, with 18 other children from the village.
But the girls never made it out of Haiti.
Silsby and nine other American Baptist missionaries from Idaho, Kansas and Texas were arrested at the border with the Dominican Republic on Friday. They were detained on charges of illegally trying to take 33 children -- the 20 from Calebasse and 13 others -- out of the country.
They are being held in a jail in Port-au-Prince. Members of the group described conditions to CNN as sparse, but they said they are getting sufficient amounts of food and water.
P.J. Crowley, a spokesman for the State Department, said Monday that U.S. officials have been given unlimited consular access to the Americans and that U.S. and Haitian authorities are "working to try to ascertain what happened (and) the motive behind these people.
"Clearly there are questions about procedure as to whether they had the appropriate paperwork to move the children," he said.
Crowley said the group was scheduled to appear before a Haitian judge Monday afternoon, but that hearing apparently didn't happen.
A hearing for the group will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday, according to Haitian Information Minister Marie Laurence Lassegue, who said the group will be provided with a professional interpreter.
The missionaries say they were just trying to help the children leave tragedy behind and start life anew.
"We believe we've been charged very falsely with trafficking, which is the furthest possible extreme," said Silsby, whose group describes itself as a Christian ministry dedicated to rescuing orphaned, abandoned or impoverished Haitian and Dominican children. "We literally gave up everything and used up our own income to help these children and by no means (are we) part of that horrendous practice."
Clint Henry is senior pastor at Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, a church attended by many of the group's members. He remade that point, saying the group's intentions were "upright and pure."
"The intention was simply to go down and try to be an aid in ministering to children that had been orphaned in the quake," Henry said. "It was our intention to be part of a new orphanage. The decision was made that we could house those children in the temporary sites."
But the incident has focused the spotlight on the issue of orphans in Haiti, where aid groups say the quake left tens of thousands of children without anyone to care for them.
The government has accused the American missionaries of kidnapping and is investigating the incident before releasing the children back to their families.
"The children certainly were not fully willing to go, because in some cases, from what I heard, they were asking for their parents, they wanted to return to their parents," Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told CNN.
Haiti's government requires documentation stating approval for children to exit the country. Silsby acknowledged she had none.
"They really didn't have any paperwork and this is probably a misunderstanding on my part, but I did not really know they would be required," she said.
Church pastor Drew Ham said "our understanding is, they were given some directives, some instructions on the paperwork they needed, and they did exactly what they were told to do. So upon the arrival at the border, 'Sorry, you're missing a piece,' OK, let's go fix that problem' ... We don't know of any mistakes that were made."
On Monday, Information Minister Lassegue appealed to Haitians to not give up their children to strangers.
"We're talking about people who are coming to countries in distress, after a hurricane, after a tsunami, after an earthquake," she said. "You will never see the children again."
The United States has already expressed concern over the fate of vulnerable orphans and the potential for child trafficking.
Laurentus said he first heard of Silsby through another Calebasse resident, Isaac Adrien, who was trying to get a job at a Port-au-Prince Christian school.
Adrien said he met Silsby at the school. She asked him whether he knew of people who had suffered in the quake and needed help. Adrien thought of his own community.
On Thursday, Adrien took her up on an hour-plus drive up to Calebasse, where clouds touch land and people live a simple farming life.
"All the schools are closed here," Adrien said. "I thought it would be a good idea to send the children away."
Silsby assured the residents of Calebasse that she would stay in touch with them, Laurentus said. And that they would be able to see the children whenever they wanted.
Silsby's group told CNN they were going to house the children in a converted hotel in the Dominican Republic.
But without proper documentation, Silsby and the other missionaries were turned away by Haitian police at the border.
"They wouldn't listen to her," Adrien said about Silsby. "She was crying."
Adrien said the 33 children were forced to sleep outside the police station Friday night before Haitian authorities placed them in the care of SOS Children's Villages in Port-au-Prince.
Laurentus said he bore no ill-will toward the Americans; that he still trusted them. But he wants his girls back home.
As did Adrienne Paulime, who put her 10-year-old daughter, Benatide, on the bus Thursday.
"We gave her to the Americans so she could have a better life," said Paulime, wiping her eyes dry.
Benatide's brother, Alain Paulime, said he received a phone call Friday from a woman at SOS orphanage. She said his kid sister was crying.
"Can you come pick me up?" Benatide asked Alain.
Paulime said he was anxious to let the orphanage know that Benatide did not belong there. She had a family.
Monday, Alain Paulime and his sister Carline Paulime joined Laurentus in the long trek down the mountain into the crowded capital.
"I want them back home," Laurentus said.
But in the end, they were forced to leave empty-handed, without even seeing them. The children were traumatized, said Georg Willeit, head of SOS Children's Villages.
"The emotional security of the kids is very unstable at the moment," he said.
Willeit told "Anderson Cooper 360" that at least 20 children are not orphaned. They are receiving "care and attention" at his facility, he said.
Many of them did not think they would ever see their parents again. He said he would not allow a visit now for fear of raising the children's expectations.
They would have to wait to go home, until the investigation is over.
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