The verdict in the Miles Harrison trial has been handed down since this article was originally written. Please see my later post entitled No, no justice for Dmitry for more up to date information concerning the verdict. The article below appears as it was originally posted.

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Перевести на русский

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New readers will want to first look over my earlier writings about Dmitry to familiarize themselves with the background details of the story. (The linked tag will provide my posts in reverse chronological order, begin at the bottom, read up towards the top.)

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I’ve been doing some digging online looking for any further readings about the investigation into Dmitry’s death. I stumbled across this older July 19th Interfax piece, Russian Education, Science Ministry to Look into Death of Boy Adopted to U.S.. There are a few details I hadn’t seen in the American media contained in it:

MOSCOW. July 19 (Interfax) – The Russian Education and Science Ministry is determined to thoroughly look into all circumstances surrounding the death of 1.5-year-old Dima Yakovlev, a Russian boy recently adopted by a U.S. family, Education and Science Minister Dmitry Fursenko told Interfax.

Fursenko called the incident “extraordinary.”

The article goes on to lay out the significance of the incident:

“This is the first time that a tragedy has happened with a child adopted through an organization accredited in Russia,” Fursenko said. All other deaths of Russian children adopted by U.S. families were related “to so-called independent adoption,” he said.

I am wondering how Dmitry can be considered the first, in light of Logan Higgenbotham, who was also adopted through the same agency Dmitry was, European Adoption Consultants (EAC). I wrote briefly about Logan here:

…European Adoption Consultants had previous placed another Russian child, Logan Higgenbotham (in Vermont back in 1998), who had been killed by her adoptive mother, Laura Higgenbotham. (She pled no contest to a charge of involuntary manslaughter and received a 1 year prison sentence after having intentionally slammed 3 year old Logan’s head into a wall.)

You can read more about Logan and Dmitry/Chase in Bastardette‘s online “Memoriam to Russian Adoptees Murdered by their Forever Families,”

NIKTO NE ZABYT — NICHTO NE ZABYTO

(Nobody is forgotten. Nothing is forgotten.)

Returning to the original article, apparently Minister Fursenko has been receiving questions about whether or not the existing structure of the Russian adoption process would be altered in the wake of the investigation:

Fursenko said it was “too early to talk” about any measures the ministry could take in the wake of the incident.

I have not found any articles as of yet directly addressing the cause of death, but the Interfax article includes the following:

It was reported earlier that Dima Yakovlev, who was adopted by the Harrison family in March 2008, died of hyperthermia after spending several hours in a locked car, where his adoptive father had left him while he was at work.

Finally, Bastardette has also found a new source of information on the case from Russia, uploaded news video segments, see her introduction in her blog post here:

RUSSIAN NEWS VIDEOS ON KOLYA EMELYATSEV AND DMITRY YAKOLEV/CHASE HARRISON

As a final note, I continue to search for any updated information about the status of European Adoption Consultants’ current accreditation status. To the best of my knowledge they remain under investigation over their failure to immediately report Dmitry’s death to Russian authorities. (Under Russian law, adoption agencies must keep the the Russian Education and Science Ministry informed on the well-being of adoptees placed through them.)