Adoption questioned

Washington (AP) - The local U.S attorney's office is trying to learn why an agency permitted Litllie Mae Caldwell Gasaway

to adopt a fourth child while she was awaiting trial on charges of murdering

one adopted child and abusing two others.

Assistant U.S. attorney Richard L. Kaplan is questioning adoption agency policy towards Ms. Gasaway, 39, who was convicted Friday of second degree murder in the death of Hildred Thomas Gasaway, a 9-month-old boy who died in September 1979,

She also was found guilty of two counts of child abuse involving two other adopted children.

Kaplan said Ms. Gasaway applied to adopt a fourth child three years before she was charged with the murder. But he said the adoption was after the charges were brought. All three surviving children have been taken from the defendant.