By Garrett Cabeza

A couple is accused of traveling with the body of the woman’s 8-year-old adopted daughter, who had reportedly been dead for at least a month and a half, from Airway Heights to South Dakota.

Aleksander Kurmoyarov, 28, and his girlfriend, Mandie Miller, 33, were each charged with failure to notify law enforcement of the death of a child, according to a Facebook post from the Mitchell Police Department in South Dakota.

The Davison County Coroner told Mitchell police Wednesday that people contacted the coroner stating they were traveling from Washington state to Pine Ridge, South Dakota, with their dead daughter, the post stated. It was unclear who reported the incident . Police identified Kurmoyarov and Miller as the couple who allegedly transported the body.

Mitchell police told Airway Heights police detectives Wednesday that a “Major Crime” occurred in the 13900 block of West Redding Drive, according to an Airway Heights police Facebook post. Police obtained a search warrant.

Police said on Friday that Aleksander Kurmoyarov and Mandie Miller were arrested on a no-bond arrest warrant for homicide by abuse outside of Spokane.

By Jordy Blaine

AIRWAY HEIGHTS, Wash. — An Airway Heights couple was arrested and charged with failure to notify after police found the body of an eight-year-old girl in a U-haul trailer being pulled by the couple. The girl was later identified as the girlfriend's adopted daughter.

Police said on Thursday that the couple was arrested on a no-bond arrest warrant for homicide by abuse outside of Spokane.

28-year-old Aleksander Kurmoyarov and 33-year-old Mandie Miller were charged with one count of failure to notify law enforcement of the death of a child. The couple reportedly told police the child had been dead since September, but they kept he body because they "wanted to spend more time with her."

by: Scott Yoshonis, Britt Lofaso

A Eunice husband and wife are accused of abusing and molesting their adopted daughter and foster son.

Eunice police arrested Robert Leason, 41, and charged him with molestation and indecent behavior with juveniles. His wife, Sheri Leason, 46, was also arrested and charged with second degree cruelty to juveniles.

The couple had two children in their custody; a 12-year-old girl the couple adopted in 2019 and a 7-year-old boy they had been fostering since 2021.

“Normal people I would say, if I had to pass by. No confusion, no disturbances, nothing out of the ordinary,” Provisional Sergeant Jessica Tezeno, a detective with the Eunice Police Department, said, while describing the couple.

Over six decades, a million ‘orphans’ were shipped to the West from around the world. Now many are finding their past was a fabrication

By Nicola Smith ; Khatia Shamanauri ; Harriet Barber and Simon Townsley

Anja Pedersen-Scholl, 47, has always known she was adopted. Her East Asian heritage stood out in Copenhagen where she arrived as a baby. What she didn't know is that she was smuggled out of South Korea on a dead child’s papers shortly after her birth. 

Her natural father would spend much of the rest of his life uncertain of her fate.

“While we were looking into your file, we learned that your adoption paper was written quite differently from the true story”, admitted the Korean Social Service (KSS) in a letter sent to Pedersen-Scholl in 2009, shortly after she began investigating her heritage.

The details were released before a San Diego Superior Court judge denied bail for two defendants in the case: Aarabella McCromack’s mother and grandmother

BY DAVID HERNANDEZ

EL CAJON — 

At 11 years old, Aarabella McCormack weighed just 48 pounds — less than what she weighed when she was 5, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

The girl was so emaciated “her bones protruded from her skin,” Deputy District Attorney Meredith Pro revealed in El Cajon Superior Court.

Russia has been jailed for 21 years by a former Orthodox priest

by Ann Chime

It was reported that the 01A court in Russia has been jailed for 21 years by a former Orthodox priest, who adopted 70 children and committed a series of rape and abuse against them.

Priest Nikolai Stremsky, well known as the man with Russia’s ‘largest family’ and was decorated with a national Order of Parental Glory, has been convicted of raping several children and other violent acts in his parish in the Urals in south-west Russia.

The investigation confirms, that As an abbot in the town of Saraktash, Stremsky and his wife ran a foster home from the early 1990s, adopting children from orphanages in the region. Most of the 70 children they adopted are now adults.

By Chris Six

DENT COUNTY, Mo. (KY3) - A Dent County man has been sentenced to life in prison for the starving death of his adopted daughter in October 2020.

Randall Abney was found guilty in August of second-degree murder and neglect of a child and was sentenced to life in prison on both counts. His wife, Susan Abney, was also sentenced to life in prison last month.

In October 2020, Dent County sheriff’s deputies responded to the Abney house for a report of a girl unconscious. Deputies noticed Josie Ann Abney was very thin. Susan Abney told them the child hadn’t been eating much. Josie Ann later died at the Salem Memorial District Hospital.

Investigators say the girl, ten years old, weighed about 39 pounds. A typical child at this age weighs around 70 pounds.

The Clinton-era Adoption and Safe Families Act passed 25 years ago. It’s time to reexamine its origins.

by Mical Raz

Twenty-five years ago, President Bill Clinton signed the Adoption and Safe Families Act. Passed in 1997, with broad bipartisan support, ASFA reflected a genuine commitment to the well-being of children and concern over them spending long months and even years in different foster care homes. Adoption was positioned as a positive and permanent solution for children in temporary care placements.

Today, adoption is in the news again, especially with the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which ended the legal right to an abortion. Indeed, the debate about adoption has long been intertwined with debates on abortion. Conservatives have positioned adoption as a bipartisan common ground priority. Democrats also embraced adoption, eager to support children who needed homes — but also keen to promote a noncontroversial “answer” to the problem of abortion.

Yet this focus on adoption has put parental rights at risk. With the passage of ASFA and a renewed focus on child welfare, more children were removed from their homes of origin and permanently placed in new homes. ASFA, as many legal scholars and activists have argued, has destabilized families and communities, often with the greatest harm done to poor families and families of color. Adapting key views of antiabortion pro-adoption activists, and circumventing unpopular discussions over how to effectively address poverty and addiction, a broad coalition of policymakers and child advocates have shaped a system that devalues families.

by: Isaac Cruz

TAOS, N.M. (KRQE) – Corey Valdez, a former Taos teacher, has taken a plea deal in a child abuse case involving his adopted children. Corey and his wife were accused by two of their adopted children of physical and sexual abuse starting right after they were brought into the home.

The then 12-year-old boy ran to a neighbors home on Christmas Day in 2020. He told them he was tired of standing in the cold wearing nothing but a trash bag. The boy was hospitalized and diagnosed with malnutrition. During an interview with investigators, he shared numerous accounts of physical abuse. The boy said he was forced to use the bathroom in a pickle jar, had to drink water out of the toilet, and was placed in a trashcan filled with snow.

His 13-year-old sister told investigators she was also abused. The girl said Stephanie Valdez kicked her, tackled her, and sat on her when the girl would ask for more food. The girl also said Cory sexually abused her.

Under the plea deal, he will serve 20 years in prison and will have to register as a sex offender. Stephanie’s trial is scheduled for January.

By Yaron Steinbuch

An ordained elder at a San Diego megachurch and her parents have been arrested on allegations of child abuse and torture in the death of the woman’s adopted 11-year-old daughter.

Leticia McCormack, 49, was charged Monday with murder, three counts of torture and three counts of willful cruelty to a child in the death of Arabella McCormack, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department said.

McCormack’s father, Stanley Tom, 75, was arrested on the same charges, while her mother, Adella Tom, 70, was slapped with the torture and cruelty charges.

The three suspects allegedly abused and tortured McCormack’s three daughters for about five and a half years, leading up to Arabella’s death in late August, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported, citing a criminal complaint.