Turning to local news, Samuel and Donna Merryman are finally off to jail for starving the son they adopted from Russia to death. Clearly, their “deep faith” was no obstacle to torturing and starving Dennis (born Dennis Uritsky):

(Quoting from this Baltimore Sun article, Prison for Child’s Death)

“Dennis died in January 2005. Photos taken the day he died showed an emaciated 37-pound body.

Two older siblings described how Dennis spent nights in an unheated room, strapped to a crib without a mattress to cushion him. His hands were tied behind his back with an elastic band, and bells were attached to his body so his parents could hear him when he moved, the siblings testified.

They said Dennis was fed a puree of yogurt and asparagus as punishment for misbehaving.”

Dennis was one of four siblings the Merrymans had adopted from Russia. Currently the four, in addition to the Merryman’s two biological children and a third from Donna’s previous marriage are living in foster care. Prior to the sentencing, there appear to have been a series of supervised visits with the children.

Dennis’ death appears to have triggered the series of events that got the other children out:

“The heinousness goes further,” Adkins-Tobin said. “They involved other children in it. Not only did they require them to take part in the abuse [by tying up their brother], but they made them play a role in the cover-up. Dennis, by dying, saved the rest of the children.”

One wonders what forms of support the remaining children are receiving in relation to their roles in the death of their brother. To date I’ve seen no mention of emotional support or counseling relating to their particular circumstances, no grief counseling or mechanisms to help them perhaps work through their own potential feelings of guilt. As far as I can tell, they’ve just been passed along into the foster system.

Now that the Merrymans (’cause I’m certainly not about to label them ‘parents’) are off to prison, will the kids just become available for adoption, or in the case of the Russian adoptees, re-adoption? What will become of the kids who lived through all this?

Beyond the sentencing a questions still linger; who was the agency that did the placement, and who the fuck did the homestudy? I suppose those culpable just get to whistle a little tune, look side to side and quietly make for the nearest EXIT, certainly no consequences to them. But I still want to know:

Who gave these monsters not one, but FOUR kids?

What precisely did those homestudies look like?

It’s long past time societally we came to the realization that “deep faith,” being a Sunday school teacher, claiming a “born again” experience, homeschooling etc are not some magic bullet qualifications to be an adoptive parent.

Seeing for example, a cross around a neck of a prospective adoptive parent, or perhaps getting a signed pastor’s statement saying a couple is in good standing with their local church doesn’t preclude them from going on to starve a child to death. ‘Proper’ tithing behaviour does not equate to proper parenting skills.

(Yet for many agencies, the statement of faith is the key qualification/deciding factor.)

When it comes to whether or not a couple will murder a child, a statement of faith means diddly.

Doubly so when you have the couple’s former pastor, Rev. John A. Dekker, (who performed their wedding) running around AFTER the sentencing claiming the couple are “not criminals:”

Their former pastor, the Rev. John A. Dekker, said, “They’re not criminals. They tried to do certain things for Dennis and it backfired. The judge had no sympathy.”

Pathetic. Inexcusably pathetic.

If anything, it raises the question of whether the couple were acting on someone’s advice, theological or otherwise.

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Naturally, Bastardette, who has long been on the story of Russian kids killed by their adopters (see her important series “Forever Family–Forever Dead: a Memoriam for Russian Adoptees“) has already got a piece up on the sentencing, Forever Family, Forever Dead Update: Merrymans Sentenced in Death of Dennis. Once again, I can but tip my hat to her tenacity and intestinal fortitude.