Transplant Mothers Meet For The First Time

Shannon Hori

Marbella Frances remembers just where she was when she got the phone call no mother ever wants to receive. "I was working," she tearfully recalls.

Frances learned that her 6-year-old daughter, Katherine, was dead, allegedly at the hands of a 14-year-old boy who was the biological son of the foster parents who were caring for Katherine and her two siblings. Police reports allege the boy repeatedly body-slammed the small girl, causing severe injuries that resulted in Katherine's death.

Even in her deep sorrow, Frances wanted part of Katherine to live on, so when she was approached about donating her daughter's organs, she didn't hesitate. In fact, she says she was already thinking about donating the organs to help other children live. She also says that knowing Katherine's heart, liver and kidneys are helping three other children recover their health and live normal lives helps her deal with her grief. "It was good because I think that she's living in somebody else," Frances says.

Thursday, Frances met with Sarah Fowler, the mother of the little girl who received Katherine's heart, for the first time. Now, doctors say that 5-year-old Claire's future looks bright, and Fowler wants to make sure Frances meets her daughter. "I hope in a setting a little more private where she can really talk to Claire and get to know her a little bit, that that would be a good thing for everybody," Fowler says.

Fowler is grateful that her daughter has a second chance at a healthy life and admires Frances' strength. "And I would like to think that if I were her that I could do half of what she's done for her little girl," Fowler says.

Frances is also working for change. She wants foster care put back under the oversight of the state and taken away from private firms. She says the firms don't care about the welfare of children and are only out to make money on the foster care system.

Frances wants some good to come out of her tragedy. She has filed a $15 million lawsuit against the agency that placed Katherine in the foster home where she was fatally injured. "What I'm trying is to (make sure) what happened to Kathy doesn't happen to anybody else," she says.