"Beautiful Black Boys"

Stay tuned for the latest installment of Broken Hearts. Before we begin today's episode, Liz and I feel compelled to address something we think is vitally important to the story. We're white, Loses of Irish Catholic descent. She has freckles, and I. She thinks are green, but I'd say are blue with a swirl of cinnamon. I am of Jewish descent, of blonde hair and hazel eze. We were both raised on the East Coast. We both attended private colleges in

the Northeast. We are both mothers to white children. For many reasons, we are not the ideal people to delve into the tricky and very problematic race issues that this case presents. We'd also be remiss not to talk about these issues, as they're crucial to the larger socio cultural

context of the story. In this episode, you'll hear from Nathaniel Davis, who helped raise three of the Hart kids before they were adopted, and April Dinwoodie, who was a transracial adoption expert here in New York, and more from Shaunda Jones, the lawyer who fought to keep Jeremiah, Davante and Sierra with their biological aunt. Each of these people has a different perspective on how race and bias may have played a role in the deaths of Marcus, Hannah Davante, Abigail, Jeremiah,

and Sierra Hart. From Glamour and How Stuff Works, This is Broken Hearts, I'm Justine Harmon and I'm Liz Egan. Before Jane and Sarah Hart adopted their second set of siblings in two thousand nine, Davante, Jeremiah, and Sierra had been Davanta d E v O n t A Jeremiah j E R m I A h and Sierra c

I E r A Davis. They had lived in Houston, Texas, with their older brother Dante, their mother, Sherry Hurd, and her boyfriend Nathaniel Davis, whose last name the children had taken even before Sherry and Nathaniel got married in two

thousand ten. Here's Nathaniel, Oh, no, tell me that I was They chuckles from me and sell it to my room and he removed them for less to the audio quality here isn't great, but Nathaniel saying that he was the only dad those kids ever had, and that CPS removed the siblings from his and Sherry's care when Sierra was born in two thousand five. The children lived briefly with his brother, he says, before all three entered the

Texas foster care system. Nathaniel remembers the three younger siblings personalities well, even though he hasn't seen them in over a decade. La Sierra all the time, always tried to protective and laugh. Remember, Nathaniel wasn't the only family these kids had. Before jenn and Sarah Hart adopted Davante, Jeremiah, and Sierra in two thousand nine, their aunt Priscilla fought

hard to get them out of foster care. Priscilla hired Houston attorney Shawanda Jones to help her plead her case and was successful in having them returned to her care. She even moved to a new house to accommodate the children, but a decision to let their mom, Sherry, watch the kids while Priscilla went to work, resulted in the kids being removed from the home. Sherry had a well documented

substance abuse problem. According to court records, she was a crack cocaine abuser and was forbidden contact with the kids and CPS exercised a no tolerance policy. The children had only lived with their aunt for five and a half months. Priscilla's decision to let the kids mom babysit was a bad judgment call, yes, but Shaunda says the tenor of the court proceedings stands out in her twenty two years

as an attorney. The father's rights were being terminated because I think she had alcohol problems and the mother had drug problems, and so that's why their rights are terminated, which I don't take issue with that. I think you know in that instant that was the prudent thing to do. But I always have taken issue within this case is the harsh manner the way that they dealt with Miss Celestine. The presiding judge for that court was Patrick Shelton, who

is now retired. In response to questions about how the Hearts were allowed to adopt Davonte, Jeremiah, and Sierra after an allegation of child abuse had already been made against them, he pointed to the lack of criminal charges in the state of Minnesota. Shelton told Criminal Justice site the appeal Unless there's a criminal charge, what can you do, Believe it or not. Kids get bruises that do not get beat. Shelton also denies reports that he or his associate judge

favored non relative adoptions over placement with family members. The agency that facilitated Jen and Sarah's adoption of the Davis siblings closed in two thousand eleven. It was called the

Permanent Family Resource Center. The offices were located on a commercial gride of land in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, which is about a fifteen minute drive from Alexandria, where the women lived until two thousand thirteen, and our chived version of the now defunct website says it was started in two thousand by three families who had adopted eight children out

of the child welfare system. According to a page report filed by the Minnesota Department of Human Services in September two thousand nine, only months after Jen and Sarah officially adopted their second set of siblings through the agency, the Permanent Family Resource Center was placed on conditional status after accruing seventeen licensing violations. The violations ranged from failing to submit paperwork to failure to complete proper background checks on families.

In the past ten years, the Minnesota DHS has only issued three conditional licenses for child placement agencies. Back when the Hearts were clients, the Permanent Family Resource Center ran the Waiting Children Program, a service that provided families in Minnesota and North Dakota with access to foster kids living

in Texas, Washington, Ohio, Idaho, Oregon, California, and Florida. The website reads children in this program are living in foster homes or residential facilities and a termination of parental rights has occurred, they are legally available for adoption. The average weight for a child after approval of the home assessment is between six months and three years. It took Jen and Sarah Heart less than a year to legally adopt Davonte, Jeremiah,

and Sierra. Our Field reporter Laurence Smiley reached out to three former Permanent Family Resource Center employees about how these children were matched with the Hearts as we record this episode, those emails have not yet been returned. Davantae, Jeremiah, and sarah stepdad, Nathaniel Davis, still has a hard time understanding why Jen and Sarah were able to adopt the children while also being under investigation on allegations of child abuse.

He goes on to say, I'm going to tell you why they figured we were poor, didn't have nothing to fight them with. They should have given other people an opportunity to adopt them kids. After DeVante, Jeremiah, and Sierra were removed from Priscilla Celestine's care, Shanda says she barely had a chance to say goodbye to the children she had cared for for the past several months. I think

maybe saw them one last time. Both Nathaniel and Shonda believe the institutionalized bias may have informed the court's decision. You just got the complete feeling that they already had made up their mind. It's almost like you're just wasting their time. You're in the way, and it's like, this is supposed to be a judicial system where you weigh evidence. Why would you be so emotional and so angry over

somebody during their job. Because this lady wanted to make sure that she kept her niece and nephews and not allowed them to go off as she never seen them again in life. Despite trying to find out more details regarding the siblings adoption, Shaunda says she was never given more information about their placement family. I saw some communication with Brian Fisher, who was a children's attorney, and he said he would have to fly to Minneapolis, so they

sent the kids out of state. And that didn't even make sense anyway. I was like, as Hughes, Texas, is you mean to tell me that there's no one? Why is there this effort to harry up and get these kids out of Texas. When Lauren reached Brian Fisher over the phone in August to ask about the case, he said, only no, ma'am, no ma'am, no ma'am. Adoptions are sealed

in Texas. Goodbye. It wasn't until March of this year, when Shanta saw reports of the crash on TV, that she realized what had happened to DeVante, Jeremiah and Sierra and who got custody of them? So many years ago, I was sitting here in my office and I was looking at the news and I heard them say Minneapolis, and then they said Devant, and then that's when I said, oh my god, those are the kids. Shanna called Priscilla

to break the news. When I finally make the connection, I was just horrified, and I had admit, because she's somebody who can't listen to a lot of bad things that happened. But I called her around like eleven o'clock at and I asked her, have you heard about that kids? Where the those kids were driven off the cliff? And she said no, So she said she couldn't hear what I was about to tell her. So I called it back the next day and that's when I revealed to

her they were driven off the cliff. And you know, she she she says, she just can't. She didn't want to accept that. She always thought that the kids were in a better place. But she was, you know, she was devastated. She was devastated, like so many people who learned the fate of Marcus. Hannah Tavante, Abigail Jeremiah, and Sierra Hart. Shanda takes issue with the disconnect between the facts and emerged on paper and the fiction Jen Hart

presented on Facebook. She recalls reading about a particular post in which jen called out the racism her children experienced on a regular or basis. These kids are being used as a prop I read this article where I think one of the adopted monks has said she was in a store. She was checking out in an older white gentleman and this patch here who was also Caucasian. We're having this discussion about Davonte asking him something about whether he was going to play sports. And I won't believe

for one moment that that conversation took place. That never happened. We scoured Jen Hart's Facebook feed, and sure enough, a post from November two thousand fourteen refers to this interaction. The post reads, quote, we were standing in the grocery checkoutline. An elderly man was standing at the end of the bagging area, conversing with the woman checking us out. He spots our son looks him up and down. Man Colon, I can tell you were going to be a baseball

player when you grow up. Son pauses, tilts his head and gives a closed mouth grin. Actually, no, baseball isn't really my thing. The post was on like this a little bit, with the woman bagging groceries in what Jen describes as a befuddled, nearly astonished voice, saying, quote, what I have never met a kaid that looks like you that doesn't play sports, and the man agreeing with a chuckle, Right, never they all do. Gentleman's having to watch her child

be subjected to ongoing racial stereotyping, but doesn't step in. Instead, she says, her son responds, well, of course you've never met a kid like me. I'm one of a kind. I'm going to be myself no matter how much people try to make me something I am not. She adds at the end, I think this kid will be all right no matter what is tossed at him. This kind of storytelling from Jen may seem benign at first, but when it factors into an ongoing pattern of isolation and

chronic abuse, the narrative takes on a sinister undertone. Jen and Sarah Hart had taken six black kids from Houston, one of the most diverse cities in America and moved them from one rural town to the next. For context, a two thousand seventeen census report found that Woodland, Washington, the last place the Hearts lived, is at least ninety two percent white. Only point three percent of Woodland's population

is black. Friends of the Hearts often recount the stories Jan and Sarah told about how unwelcoming their neighbors were, how much abuse this unconventional family faced, and how I'm safe it was for them at times. Bill Groner lived next door to them in West Lynn, Oregon, where the population is white. Bill believes that maintaining a sense of fear might have helped Jen and Sarah keep the ongoing abuse under wraps. He spent the past four years playing

keyboard at Mount Olive Baptist Church in Portland. The website from Mount all of It claims the church was built in seven from lumber provided by the Ku Klux Klan to keep the African American organization on what they deemed the proper side of town. For the record, Bill is white. I've always played music in church. I play at an African American church, so I'm aware about, you know, racism.

It maybe covert rather than over, even if it's kind of almost subliminal, I could see parents wanting to protect their kids always. Maybe that's part of why they told the kids to kind of not be overly conversational or friendly with neighbors because people could secretly harbor prejudice against you. But when you read more about what's what actually happened, I don't think they want the kids to tell what

was going on. I think that's really part of the deal, because all would have taken as one kid to come over and say, you know, I'm hungry, could have some food for me to call Children's Services. Groner isn't the only one who noted the way the Heart women, especially Jen, would cut their family off from outsiders, but their festival friend Ian Spurling only came to that realization after they died. It's like, okay, so we have some dates set up they canceled, like, hey, let's plan a play date at

the park list Tuesday. Oh yeah, that'd be great. And then the day comes, Hey, we're not going to be around. You know, a few little things here and there that you know, we never found anything more about. Now looking back, it's like she was shielding them from being close to people. I felt like we were really close with them. But at the same time, are they like our family that just stops by all the time? You know, not at all?

Now looking back, there were some dumb moments there. In particular, like Marcus, Marcus and Jeremiah, they were very reserved and almost stoic in nature. And then when you talk to him, boom, snap into a smile, snap into some personality, and and boom, right when you stopped talking, go right back to a stoic face. And Ian got closer than most. Back in June two, eighteen, our Field reporter Lauren talked to Ken Noatake,

an activist who started the Free Hugs project. Ken first reached out to the family when he saw that viral image of Davante hugging a police officer at the Black Lives Matter rally. He thought perhaps he could mentor the boy. Here's Lauren. Ken first held a free Hug sign at the Boston Marathon in He soon extended his campaign for peace and racial understanding to Black Lives Matter rallies in college campuses across the country. When Davante's photo went viral

six months later, Ken social media lit up. Ken read about how Davante had white moms. He also noticed the boy's curious outfit fedora hat, leather, pea coat, and why is looking face, the age of which was hard to peg. He sent a direct message to Jen's acco out on Facebook when his photo of him holding that free Hug sign and crying in front of the officer. When that went viral, my social media went crazy because it was the second time an African American was shown like that

in regards to law enforcement. And that's what my work of the Free Hugs project really begin as. And so shortly after DeVante hearts photo comes out with him holding that free Hug sign in front of a police officer, I'm getting all of these emails from people saying, Ken, your work is spreading and look at the impact that

you're having, even on young people. And so right away I felt like I need to meet this kid, and so I started searching online and then made contact with their family the Facebook thought might benefit from having a blackmail figure in his life. In fact, it was something he himself had craved growing up. I was raised by a single mother, and I appreciate my mother and all of the strength that she had to raise four boys and my sister, but my entire life I longed for

a father. Originally Ken thought he was messaging with Davante, but then it became clear he was chatting with an adult Jen over Facebook. She said she preferred her children lived what she called a private lifestyle. Understandable really, how many parents out there willingly connect their young children with strangers over the internet. And after the amount of attention that photos list died, all the more reason to be protective. Still, the two remained friends on Facebook, a choice Ken now

believes was intentional on Jen's part. She kind of intercepted that potential friendship or connection that we could have had. It wasn't until after that I was like, oh, now it all makes sense. You wanted them to live a private lifestyle because if he would have started sharing with me that food was being with Hell. She kept a very close circle of people that she can kind of play this role with that everything is okay, and so then the truth wouldn't get out or they wouldn't believe it.

Back when we started looking into this story, we wanted to better understand what it takes to make a blended family like the hearts work in the real world. Lauren spoke with April Dinwoody, a transracial adoption expert and the former executive director of the Donaldson Adoption Institute. April Dinwoody's expertise and transracial adoption starts close to home. She was adopted out of foster care as a toddler by a

white family and Rhode Island. The way her family dealt with their racial differences was to not talk about race at all. As an adult, hungry to connect with black culture, April moved to Harlem. She became CEO of the Donaldson Adoption Institute and mentors kids of color who are adopted by white families. She used to host a workshop called what my White parents did it Know? And Why I turned out Okay Anyway. April is vocal about the flaws

and the adoption system. More often than not, professionals are underpaid, Black children are overrepresented. Not enough attention is paid to bias training. Sometimes adoptions are rushed if you look at what tends to happen when it comes to data. States can have a sense of not leaving young people in foster care for a long time, so things get rushed. So sometimes the termination of prontal rights happens too quickly. Sometimes an adoption happens too quickly. She also believes that

the American perception of adoption is binary. Adopted parents are good parents who can't take care of their children bad. She says, not enough attention is paid to the gray areas that exist. What kind of words come up when you think of parents who have their rights terminated? Poor, drug abusers, addicts, You know, all these really loaded terms, and then you say, what comes up for you with

parents who adopt? Family? Love, safety? You so, and then even when you look at, you know, families and parents who relinquished voluntarily, there is a much warmer feeling about that versus parents who have their rights terminated. It's just something that we have embedded in our perceptions. Like Shanda Jones, April believes that the system may have favored the hearts and the family. Like the hearts, I could see how they would be very appealing within the foscare system, very appealing.

She says, there is no way to discuss this case without taking a hard look at what she calls the deep layers of racism within the child welfare system. There's so many issues of just racism and raising class differences. It's just hard not to have that just be so

front and center. You know, you have an aunt who is ready willing and able, and you've got families that are struggling for whatever reason and doing what they can to rehabilitate, and there are people of color, and then you've got white family resources available Bowle, and you can see it coming so clearly. You know that that this is how this would play out. Institutional racism within chow

Wilfare is this there. There's no question. As a woman of color who was taken in by white parents, April is uniquely aware of the challenges of transracial adoption, how important questions about identity can get glossed over, or how a child may grow to feel ambivalent towards their birth culture, or as if they're stuck between two worlds. First and foremost, they should be living in diverse areas with examples and teachers and community members and friends close friends of the

family that are people of color. Like you just can't raise a brown or black kid in a situation where they're one of a few people of color. Is just not safe anymore. It's not emotionally safe. It's not physically safe. Um So I think first and foremost they should be living in diverse areas and parents need to be uncomfortable, right Like white parents need to make it their business to go and be in places where they're in a minority so they can get a little bit of a

sense of what their kid feels. Ultimately, she believes that multiple pleas for racial understanding and tolerance on Facebook not to mention the family's presence at protests was self congratulatory. I just remember looking at Davante's face, went back into the two thousand and fourteen right, it was like it just struck me. I mean I had no idea honestly, and no idea that he was a young person that

was involved in the foster system. But but something didn't sit right, and just so much pain in that and it just felt like it felt uncomfortable to me, honestly,

It just it just did. And and then to find out his backstory and this tragic end to his life, it's just sort of reinforces this idea that some parents do operate this way, which is, you know, look what we did, we're symbols of you know, racial harmony, and our kids are evidence of that, and it's just really really uncomfortable and exploitive and um, it's sort of heartbreaking, and it's really calculated. Right Was it calculated or was

it ignorant? If you reads heartfelt words on the topic of systemic racism, you might find yourself impressed by her conviction. On July seven, two thousand sixteen, she took to Facebook to air her frustrations. My beautiful black boys, she wrote, alongside a picture of Jeremiah and Davante smiling in hoodies and beanies. We talk endlessly about the realities of this world.

So much beauty, so much pain and suffering. These boys live and lead with love, but I will never deny them their human right to be frustrated, sad, and angry about the perpetual violence and murder of people of color. My feed is filled with people white and POC that want to help make a difference but are completely at a loss of what to do. Opening up and breaking the silence is a start, because white silence is black death. If that statement makes you uncomfortable, I'm not sorry. Black

pain matters, Black anger matters, Black lives matter. Back in two thousand seven, after jan and Sarah adopted Marcus, Hannah, and Abigail. A case worker visited the women's home in Minnesota. Her findings were positive. She recommended that Jan and Sarah be allowed to adopt a sibling group of up to five more children. Her report, filed on July eleven, two thousand seven, read the Hearts are open to any race and gender, although they would prefer to have at least

one boy in the sibling group. Jen and Sarah have adopted by racial children, and they have the tools and knowledge to adopt more children from the African American heritage. They are prepared to advocate for their children and to secure the necessary services to support their family. Over the course of our reporting, Lauren has reviewed over eight hundred pages of material from the Clark County Sheriff's Office in Washington.

Among the documents are official caseworker reports and personal emails from the Heart women, and it appears they did try, at least at first, to create a nurturing and culturally aware home for their children before they even received the first set of kids. Gen wrote an email in January two thousand and six to her adoption agency caseworker talking about having set up an appointment with a child psychologist

who she calls simply the best of the best. Gen wrote, we registered him a SAP because there's a waiting list. About three or four months out, they talked about enrolling Marcus in special education. Jen calls the school the most diverse in the district. A case worker wrote up a conversation she had with Jen reflecting on the transracial adoption homework Jen had completed about places and people African American kids could identify with. It said that Jen had identified

the Black student Union at a local university. The case worker writes about Jen just purchase a couple more children's books about African American heritage. One book is called Martin's Big Words about Martin Luther King. In pictures that were released of the inside of the Heart's home in Washington, their home library showed what looked like African masks hung on the wall. The book collection included books like Mandela

and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Another thing that really stood out was back in March two thousand nine email to some friends. This is after the adoption of the second set of kids. Jen says how well the kids are doing and mentions the maternal aunt trying to get the kids back. Gen wrote, the kids are all doing swell. I don't know why they insist on growing up on me. Sierra will be four next month. Abby and Jeremia are five now, Davante six, Hannah's Evan and

Marcus ten. Davante, Jeremiah, and Sierra are doing incredibly well. You wouldn't know they are the same kids that came to our home nine months ago. I'm so proud of them for all they have accomplished in such a short time. We finalize their adoption last month, Thank goodness. I have been a ball of anxiety just waiting for that day to come. Until a couple of months ago, a maternal aunt was still trying to get them back. Long story,

happy ending or beginning. A two fifteen evaluation of data on six children adopted in Minnesota examine whether being raised by someone of a different race is inherently damaging, and the conclusion was no. Emma Hamilton's, the lead author and a doctoral candidate in counseling psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, put it this way, beings by someone of a different race is not inherently damaging to the

development of the adoptees. But much depends on how white parents talk about race with their children of color and help them identify with people of their own race. This mirrors what April Dinwoody has found in her personal and professional life. You almost have to become an activist, and I think a true activists one that goes into the school and says black and brown kids are disciplined and higher rates, and you've got to make yourself known to say, hey,

not my kid. You've really got to become, you know, a champion of your child safety physically and emotionally. I think the Hearts tried to sort of like put that idea out there of like racial kind of coming together, but it was like very very superficial and uncomfortable quite frankly, and how they sort of paraded the children around it.

Just that's not what that looks like. What it really looks like when you embrace bringing a child of color to your family and you're a white family, there better be people that look like your kid in that community. And the better, you know, really be authentic. And the

way it becomes authentic is learning about birth family. Like you know, there are a lot of ethnicities and cultures within black and white people and brown people, So it's kind of like you gotta have some information so that you actually know what your kid may have been experiencing in their birth family. In so many ways, the mythologies Jen and Sarah Hart told about their children had their intended effect. They told people the kids were crack babies

in eighties term now widely debunked. People believed them for April Dinwoodie. These stories are evidence of white saviorism, the idea that white people can swoop in and fix non white people. It's one of those things that really just makes me so angry because at the end of the day, it may well be true that these young people come with those traumatic experiences that manifest and behavior and health issues.

That just means that family needs more support, and those those parents who are going to parents as children need not use that as any form of excuse or even be talking about private things about their children unless it's with a licensed therapist. That dressed so much suspicion and so much just emotion around the fact that that would be utilized as a way to mask some of the

abuse and neglect that was happening within the home. It's just just disturbing the and Sparreling now sees how the use of loaded terms like crack babies may have helped reinforce a certain narrative. Everyone was very envious of them because of how they could pull this off, how they can raise the six quote unquote developmentally the late children. Good for you, nice work, you saved him. You know, that was the narrative always. You know, we talked extensively

about it. So it was just like, you know, she had a very detailed story about how they were adopted and what they went through prior. There's a lot of white saviorism symbolic in this right now that I never understood or knew about, trying to build this portrait of a you know, idealistic situation or these white ladies came in and saved these six black children. Um, which just man, it's tough. We loved those kids so much. Okay, so sorry, okay.

Jen and Sarah's artfully spun stories were alarmingly effective. They neatly explained away some of the kid's strange behavior while also reinforcing a cocoon of silence around what happened behind closed doors. They kept the kids from being able to connect with people who had similar backgrounds. They kept the neighbors from interfering. These stories even prevented the children from

being in touch with their own flesh and blood. And most importantly, these stories ensured that the voices of the hard children were never ever heard. If you suspect a child as being abused, call one eight hundred for a child that's one eight hundred numeral four a C H I l D. Or visit child help dot org to find out how to report your concerns next time on Broken Hearts, when I realized that she was on school, mama, like,

there's no way in hell those kids are learning. I mean, really, those third parties came here and scoured the bluffs with fancy helicopters and airplanes and boats. I can't even imagine how many miles he walked on those beaches and bluffs and drove around and sat on the cliff with his binoculars day after day after day after day. I remember making this comment, like you're like an abused wife, and she just kind of gave me this look like no kidding.

For access to exclusive photos and videos and documents about the case. Visit Glamour dot com slash Broken Hearts. Have questions for us about this podcast, reach us on Twitter at Glamour mag or at Broken Hearts Pod. If you like what you heard, leave us a review. Broken Hearts is a joint production between Glamour and How Stuff Works, with new episodes dropping every Tuesday. Broken Hearts is co hosted and co written by Justine Harman and Elizabeth Egan

and edited by Wendy Nogal. Lauren Smiley is our field reporter. Samantha Barry is Glamour's editor in chief. Julie Sheen and Diana Buckman head up the business side of this partnership. Joyce Pandola, Pat Singer and Luke Zeleski are our research team. Jason Hope is executive for Doucer On behalf of How Stuff Works, along with producers Julian Weller, ben Kie Brick and Josh Thaine. Special thanks to Jen Lance h