A 13 year old ethnic Roma boy adopted from Russia was confined to in his room and deprived of food and schooling by Paul and Debbie Salvetti, his adoptive father and stepmother, during a 3 month period in 2007. Earlier Debbie was alleged to have hit the boy with a frying pan and baseball bat. Debbie Sue Salvetti was charged with two counts of felony child abuse inflicting serious injury. Paul Joseph Salvetti faced one charge. In 2009, Paul and Debbie took a joint Alford plea and were sentenced to 20 to 33 months in jail. Paul filed several appeals requesting to withdraw his Alford plea The boy is referred to as Pesha or TS in the pleadings.
There were 3 or 4 other children in the home, including the boy's sister, possibly adopted in Peru.
The boy was adopted as an infant or toddler by Paul Salvetti and the now deceased Leslie Salvetti, who passed away in 1998.

Girl whose mother died of cancer was adopted by relatives James and Delois Spellman. James raped her for 3 years starting at age 10 before she was removed from the home due to physical abuse scars. He had previously raped his 3 step-daughters who are now adults. Delois Spellman is alleged to have physically abused all 4 girls with items such as electric cords and metal rulers.

Four boys and two girls, between the ages of 7 and 16 were being locked up in the basement of their house.

8-year-old twin girls adopted by Tamika Shuntell Williams, were being beaten, tied to a bedroom door, tied down to a bed, bathed in bleach, burned with cigarettes (AND the lighter), struck with a belt, bitten on the head, and threatened with decapitation if they told anybody about these crimes. they were adopted from foster care Spring 2005.

     

4-year-old boy, in foster to adoption placement with Larry and Hannah Overton, was forced to drink a mixture of water and Cajun spices as punishment. The Overtons waited nearly three hours before taking the boy to an urgent care clinic as he vomited and drifted in and out of consciousness. When they arrived, Andrew was no longer breathing. A day later he died -- 4 months after his placement with the Overtons. Andrew Axel Burd died of hypernatremia or salt poisoning. Andrew consumed the equivalent of 23 teaspoons of Zatarain's Creole Seasoning or 6 teaspoons of pure salt. He also had head trauma as well as bruises and scratches.

Hannah Overton (nee Saenz) was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life; Larry Overton pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide and is on 5 years probation.

Mrs Overton and her church, Calvary Chapel of the Coastlands, continue to appeal her conviction in various ways. She maintains that Andrew ate the salt himself, however Andrew's former foster mother, who attended the same church testified she had not seen any pica or eating issues with Andrew during the 18 months he was in her home. (In an unusual coincidence, Hannah's father Bennie Saenz, a former Calvary Chapel pastor, was convicted of murder in 1985.) Overtons homeschooled their school age children. They had 4 bio children and Hannah was 6 months pregnant when Andrew died.

Hannah Overton was released from prison in December 2014. The case was dismissed in April 2015.

A 12-year-old girl who weighed 40 pounds and her 10-year-old brother, who weighed 45 pounds, were found unattended near a church playground in Union County, South Carolina. Both children were adopted from Estonia eight years before.

Siblings Keyana and Jasmine were abused by foster mother Dunia Soledad Moreno. When Keyana entered the hospital, large clumps of hair were missing and bruises covered her body. She had five cigar-sized burns. Three months after entering the home, Keyana died of blows to her stomach which ruptured her bowel. Jasmine was placed in a new home.
Dunia and foster father Armando Moreno-Garcia parents were convicted of neglect for not seeking medical care over the painful days it took for Keyana to die. Armando was an uncle of Jasmine and the girls were to be adopted.

A girl, adopted from Romania, by a woman from Ontario, Canada, was sexually abused by convicted pedophile Randolph “Randie” Bartley. The adoptive mother enabled the abuse.

Three boys and two girls were beaten with sticks, belts, shoes, fists and hammers; burned with a clothes iron, the stove, and a curling iron; bitten; kicked; stabbed with knives, forks and sticks; urinated on; forced to eat their own excrement; forced to drink urine; fed rotting food as well as cat food; forced into the clothes dryer and the dryer turned on; beaten while naked; duct taped to a chair or their beds for days; strangled with a belt; held under water; held over a banister by their feet and dropped; made to drink hot sauce with red hot peppers; made to drink from the toilet; forced to go without food for days; forced to wear urine soaked clothing on their heads; and body slammed, along with other abuses.At least two of the victims also detailed sexual abuses and assaults using a toilet plunger.
James was a former lay minister and church trustee