The Preventionist - Ep. 3

Speaker 1 Every Vitamix blender has a story.

Speaker 2 I have a friend who's a big cook. Every time I go to her house, she's making something different with her Vitamix, and I was like, I need that.

Speaker 3 To make your perfect smoothie in the morning or to make your base for a minestra verde or potato leek soup.

Speaker 2 I can make things with it that I wouldn't be able to make with a regular blender because it does the job of multiple appliances and it actually has a sleekness to it that I like.

Speaker 1 Essential by design, built to last. Go to Vitamix.com to learn more.
That's Vitamix.com.

Speaker 2 It's been two years since all those people showed up at the Lehigh County Commissioner's meeting to tell their stories. Now, 27 families are suing Lehigh Valley Health Network, Dr.

Speaker 2 Jensen, and members of the child protection team she led. The lawsuits make several claims, including medical malpractice, negligence, and malicious prosecution.

Speaker 2 Again, I wanted to to talk to Dr. Jensen and to decision makers at the hospital where she worked.

Speaker 2 But in an email, a spokesperson for the hospital wrote that while they had a lot to say about the family's allegations, and they very much wanted to speak with us, they couldn't because of the pending litigation.

Speaker 2 Instead, they pointed us to a court filing, a lengthy response to the claims in one of the lawsuits. That filing, they said, was a good representation of their position.

Speaker 2 In that response, the hospital unequivocally defends the reputation and expertise of Dr. Jensen.
They call her dedicated, passionate, and eminently qualified, heroic, even.

Speaker 2 The filing argues that child abuse is actually underreported and that the quote, spurious claims made by the plaintiffs represent a danger to children in the community.

Speaker 2 Unfortunately, they write, child abuse pediatricians are often attacked by parents seeking retribution.

Speaker 2 And quote, parents accused of abuse often have a history of embracing a the best defense is a strong offense mindset, frequently lodging complaints against those who identify mistreatment in an effort to deflect blame, unquote.

Speaker 2 The hospital was implying that these families hadn't really been harmed. Instead, they'd hurt their own children and were only suing to hide that fact as a kind of smokescreen.

Speaker 2 In other words, let these parents complain. That's fine.
We can take it. Because we know what we're doing is right.

Speaker 2 That's pretty much what the Lehigh County executive Phil Armstrong said to me too.

Speaker 2 He's the county's highest elected official.

Speaker 6 I'm very, very confident in our youth program and what they've been doing. I really think all along we've been following the correct steps, the correct procedures, and doing what we think is best.

Speaker 2 Pennsylvania is actually one of a handful of states where child welfare isn't state-run, it's county-run. So Armstrong oversees the system's funding, policymaking, caseworker training, et cetera.

Speaker 2 He wasn't Dr. Jensen's boss.
She worked for the hospital, but he was as close as I could get.

Speaker 2 Armstrong couldn't discuss any specific cases, but he did talk generally about the county's approach to child welfare and to complaints from parents.

Speaker 6 We want to always make sure if there is going to be an error, it's going to be to help the children stay safe. That was our number

Speaker 6 one concern.

Speaker 2 Okay, so what I hear you saying is it's kind of a better safe than sorry approach.

Speaker 6 Oh, absolutely. I mean, the opposite, you know, if you, you look and say, what if the child welfare system didn't act

Speaker 6 and something happened? to that child, then, oh my gosh, you know, that's just one of the worst things. So I think you have to be overprotective for the children.

Speaker 6 If the parent's going to yell at me later,

Speaker 6 as long as I ensured the child's safety, I would make that my number one priority.

Speaker 2 I thought a lot about this phrase, better safe than sorry. Of course, the Phil Armstrongs of the world want to err on the side of caution.

Speaker 2 I understand that kind of conservatism, especially where children are concerned.

Speaker 2 When abuse is obvious, better safe than sorry is a defensible choice, and intervention, even the most serious kind, taking a child away, might make sense.

Speaker 2 But what about when abuse is not obvious?

Speaker 2 What about the cases where doctors and caseworkers are making judgment calls about events obscured by a giant question mark because the only witness is a small child or the injury isn't necessarily caused by abuse, but you also can't rule it out.

Speaker 5 What then?

Speaker 2 What's the harm of better safe than sorry in cases like that?

Speaker 2 My answer to that question is the story of Amanda Saranovsky. She's one of the people now suing.

Speaker 2 Amanda's story goes past the ER and Dr.

Speaker 2 Jensen's office, past the children and youth caseworkers and county prosecutors, and deep into the question of how she's supposed to even be a mother, now that the worst of their ordeal is supposedly over.

Speaker 2 From Serial Productions and the New York Times, this is The Preventionist. I'm Diane Neary.

Speaker 2 And for our final episode, I want to tell you about Amanda, about how her family was taken apart, and then the unvarnished story of how she tried to stitch it back together.

Speaker 8 Luck is just when preparation meets opportunity.

Speaker 2 HBO Max presents a new comedy series, I Love LA.

Speaker 5 Hey, did you guys see Toloula's hopping campaign?

Speaker 2 I made her successful. I can do it for other clients.

Speaker 5 Yeshua Bucker.

Speaker 2 Starring Rachel Sennett.

Speaker 4 Those kind of people that want success and money and all these things.

Speaker 4 I am addicted to deals. It's going to be epic.

Speaker 2 The HBO original series, I Love LA, Sundays at 10.30 p.m. on HBO Max.

Speaker 8 Nothing brings us together like Eglund's best eggs. Always so fresh and delicious.

Speaker 8 Plus superior nutrition, like six times more vitamin D, ten times more vitamin E, and 25% less saturated fat compared to ordinary eggs. For us, it's eggs any style, as long as they're the best.

Speaker 8 Eglins Best. Better taste, better nutrition, better eggs.
Visit eglundsbest.com to learn more.

Speaker 10 Extra value meals are back. That means 10 tender juicy McNuggets and medium fries and a drink are just $8.

Speaker 7 Only at McDonald's.

Speaker 4 For limited time only, prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California, and for delivery.

Speaker 2 I spent more than a year talking to Amanda as she tried to figure out, in real time, how to repair her family of five young children.

Speaker 2 From our first meeting, I was kind of floored by how torn and vulnerable she was and how little she tried to hide it. She was 31 when all this started.
It was mid-December of 2019.

Speaker 2 Amanda had given all five kids their baths, fed them dinner, and put them to bed. The kids were little.
The oldest was eight, the youngest, just seven weeks. She had her hands full, obviously.

Speaker 2 A note here, we're not naming any of Amanda's children in this story to protect their privacy. So when you hear bleeps in the tape, that's why.

Speaker 2 Amanda's house is small, a mobile home with three bedrooms. One of the bedrooms was being renovated.
So the sleeping arrangements were make do that night.

Speaker 2 Four children were in the biggest bedroom, the newborn was in the living room with her. Amanda on the couch, the baby beside her in a bassinet.

Speaker 2 5.30 a.m., Amanda says she was jolted awake by the sound of a thud. She looked around and immediately saw the baby was not in the bassinet.

Speaker 2 Instead, her two-year-old daughter was sitting inside it, and the baby was on the floor crying.

Speaker 2 His onesie had been unzipped, and his diaper was off, as if her toddler had been trying to change her baby brother.

Speaker 2 Amanda remembers saying, What did you do? Loudly enough that the three older kids heard it from the other room. She took the toddler out of the bassinet, picked the baby up off the floor.

Speaker 2 She was able to soothe him. She grabbed her phone.

Speaker 5 I called my sister. She didn't answer.
Of course, it was early in the morning. I called their father.
He didn't answer. I called the doctor.

Speaker 5 And when they said, you know, if it's an emergency, call 911. That's in me.
I'm like, what am I doing?

Speaker 2 She dialed 911, and within 20 minutes, an EMT was checking out the baby.

Speaker 2 According to the report, the baby was conscious and alert. Pulse was strong.
They strapped him into a baby seat and took him by ambulance to Lehigh Valley Hospital, Cedar Crest.

Speaker 2 Amanda followed, waiting in the hospital for hours as her newborn was assessed.

Speaker 5 They let me feed him.

Speaker 5 Let me hold him.

Speaker 5 The doctor came and told me that

Speaker 5 it was like almost eight hours later

Speaker 5 that he had a brain bleed and I lost it

Speaker 5 and then it went from brain bleeds to fractures

Speaker 5 and then I lost it again

Speaker 2 she was terrified not only about her baby's injury but about what might happen to her and her children she texted relatives She texted friends. She hadn't known her daughter was awake, she wrote.

Speaker 5 Hadn't hurt her at all.

Speaker 2 I was sleeping, she texted. I feel like a piece of shit.
I can't even believe the kids were up at 5.30. They went to bed at 8.
Usually they will sleep until at least 6.37 on the weekend.

Speaker 2 All her fears were spilling out. I feel so sick to my stomach, she wrote.
Am I that bad of a person? I failed my children.

Speaker 2 The people she was texting tried to reassure her. They told her, you're overreacting.
Amanda was not comforted. I feel like I'm going to puke.
I'll die if they take my babies.

Speaker 5 Everybody knows how I am. Like the littlest thing, I'm like, oh my God, oh my God, they're going to do this.
They're going to, like, I immediately panic because I don't want to deal with these people.

Speaker 5 I already, I know how these people are.

Speaker 5 I've watched another one of my friends, a few people I know have lost their kids, a few of them.

Speaker 2 Amanda lives in a rural area north of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Growing up, she saw her own mom scrutinized by child welfare.

Speaker 2 And since she herself had become a mother, children and youth caseworkers had scrutinized Amanda too.

Speaker 2 When her first child, her daughter, was only a month old, she got a head injury. Amanda's boyfriend said she'd fallen out of her car seat, which he'd been swinging to calm her.

Speaker 2 Doctors were suspicious of that story. Eventually, Amanda was too.
Child welfare indicated the father for abuse. Amanda separated from him and kept custody of their daughter.

Speaker 2 Children and youth kept tabs on them for a while.

Speaker 2 Later on, Amanda met Yanio Castillo, who would become her partner. They had three children together, a boy and two more girls, when Yanio was accused of harming their youngest daughter.

Speaker 2 She was also tiny at the time, just two months old.

Speaker 2 Yanio lied at first, but finally admitted that he'd been changing the baby's diaper when her arm got caught behind her as he rolled her from one side to the other.

Speaker 2 An x-ray showed a fracture, which can happen like that by accident. But a child abuse pediatrician believed the injury was indicative of abuse.

Speaker 2 Yanio denied he'd hurt her on purpose, but eventually pled no contest to aggravated assault. During all this, Amanda was pregnant with her fifth child, her fourth with Yanio.

Speaker 2 The two of them didn't live together anymore, and she was working full-time at the Crayola factory and raising her growing family alone.

Speaker 2 Caseworkers from children and youth once again coming around, knocking on her door, which of course was stressful.

Speaker 2 But also, this time around, Amanda thought it was unjust because she absolutely believed Yanio's story. She still does.

Speaker 2 She told me he would never hurt the kids intentionally. Yanio told us the same, that it was an accident.
The pediatrician who made that finding of abuse in Yanio's case, Dr. Deborah Assernio Jensen.

Speaker 2 Amanda didn't trust her.

Speaker 2 And so now, here Amanda was back in the Lehigh Valley hospital with another injured newborn, about to be assessed by the child protection team.

Speaker 2 It didn't look good, and Amanda knew it.

Speaker 2 Amanda says she asked for a different doctor, anyone but Dr. Jensen.
So another member of Dr. Jensen's team took the case, Dr.
Rashida Doshi.

Speaker 5 Doshi came in.

Speaker 5 She, I explained to her, you know, what happened, and she said that there's no way it could have happened the way I'm saying that

Speaker 5 the child could have only gotten these types of injuries from a car accident or from a slam and not from a short fall from the bassinet to the floor.

Speaker 2 Dr. Doshi was a close colleague of Dr.
Jensen. They'd eventually co-author a series of textbooks called Child Maltreatment Assessment.
Dr.

Speaker 2 Doshi found that the injuries to Amanda's baby were caused by, quote, violent shaking with impact, something an adult could inflict, not a two-year-old.

Speaker 2 I explained the MRI results to the mother, her report says, including the fractures, hematomas, and injury to the bridging veins.

Speaker 2 I explained to the mother that these injuries occur with tremendous force, and a simple fall would not explain the significant injury, end quote.

Speaker 2 Dr. Doshi's conclusion, seconded by Dr.
Jensen, who did a follow-up exam of Amanda's baby, was that he'd suffered, quote, abusive head trauma, near fatality.

Speaker 5 So I was asked to leave the hospital.

Speaker 5 And then we went

Speaker 5 to court then Monday and they removed the children.

Speaker 2 When you got home from the hospital, when none of the kids were there, I can imagine. You didn't go home.

Speaker 5 Oh, where'd you go? I stayed at friends' houses.

Speaker 5 I couldn't go home.

Speaker 5 I was all over the place.

Speaker 5 I couldn't be alone.

Speaker 5 The caseworker called the suicide people on me.

Speaker 2 Amanda read that move as a tactic. They'll say I'm unstable, that I have postpartum depression.
They'll call the cops on me. Somehow, they'll use it against me.
So she dodged their calls and visits.

Speaker 2 When they finally did make contact, she told them she was fine.

Speaker 2 All five of Amanda's children were sent to live elsewhere while the county investigated the suspected child abuse.

Speaker 2 Amanda's youngest, the newborn with the brain bleed and fractures, ended up being fostered by a young couple with no other kids.

Speaker 2 Her oldest child, a daughter, ended up staying with Amanda's sister for the duration.

Speaker 2 The middle three bounced around more, sometimes with family, sometimes with strangers.

Speaker 2 Amanda's contact with her children was restricted, so she couldn't, and still can't, know exactly what happened to them in foster care.

Speaker 2 Her information is based on what the kids and caseworkers told her and what she observed while she was able to visit with them.

Speaker 2 We also have caseworker notes regarding the two younger girls, though not for their brother, who was with them for a time. And those notes do track with Amanda's chronology.

Speaker 2 And that chronology, it's pretty grim. If it were a movie plot, I might even think it was histrionic, a cliched portrait of every imaginable danger of foster care.
But it really happened.

Speaker 2 In one placement, they witnessed domestic violence. I've read the police report and it sounds pretty dramatic.
Amanda says the kids still talk about it. One parent punching the other.
Blood.

Speaker 2 An ambulance showing up.

Speaker 2 Another placement, apparently the house was never clean. In yet another placement, placement, Amanda's daughters landed in the ER with pelvic pain and visible vaginal irritation and inflammation.

Speaker 2 Doctors found no signs of sexual abuse, but Amanda was frantic. She was sure her daughters had been molested.

Speaker 2 As for Amanda's youngest daughter, the toddler, she was struggling so much, was so hard to handle, she was moved something like 10 times, at least. Amanda started to lose count.

Speaker 2 This first stretch of separation, Amanda said it was agonizing. For most of it, she couldn't see her children in person, initially because of COVID, then for legal reasons.

Speaker 2 So months passed before she was finally allowed to visit them in September of 2020.

Speaker 2 Amanda showed me a video of it. They're in the lobby of a county building.
Not the warmest of places. So Amanda dressed up as a unicorn to make them laugh.

Speaker 5 I was trying to make it as

Speaker 5 easy for them as possible, you know,

Speaker 5 and have that sense of relief that doesn't matter what we're going through,

Speaker 5 mommy's not going to change.

Speaker 2 In her darkest moments, Amanda would watch videos of the good times with her kids over and over again.

Speaker 2 Videos she pulls up on her phone to show me.

Speaker 2 In one of them, the kids cover the floor with sprinkles and sugar.

Speaker 2 In another, they make snow angels in uncooked spaghetti noodles they'd spilled across the kitchen floor.

Speaker 2 There are water bucket pranks and marshmallow fights.

Speaker 2 As she plays the videos, Amanda is not just smiling. She laughs with her whole body, throws her head back, holds her stomach.

Speaker 2 It's notable because it's the first time I've seen her laugh like this, both in the video and next to me in real life. She's cracking up.

Speaker 2 Month after month, Amanda visited her kids in a county facility, often in costume. One time, she and Yanyo brought a bag of marshmallows to recreate the battles from home.

Speaker 2 She showed me that video too.

Speaker 2 At every visit, she'd listen to her kids ask the same question, unable to give them an answer.

Speaker 5 When are we coming home? I want to come home.

Speaker 5 When are we coming home?

Speaker 2 While all this was happening, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania criminally charged Amanda with aggravated assault for the injuries to her newborn son.

Speaker 2 She was facing a total of five felonies and two misdemeanors.

Speaker 5 I remember hearing

Speaker 5 how long I could get in jail.

Speaker 2 How long did they say?

Speaker 5 Long time, like 30 plus years.

Speaker 5 And then they

Speaker 5 put me in jail. And I've never been in trouble before.

Speaker 5 That was the worst

Speaker 5 14 hours of my life.

Speaker 2 She got out on bond and waited. She refused to take a plea.
She was adamant she hadn't hurt her son.

Speaker 2 And anyway, if she pled to anything, even a misdemeanor, that involved hurting a child, she'd damage her chances of getting her kids back. She wanted a trial.
So she waited.

Speaker 2 COVID slowed down the court system, and there were also the usual delays. Two years passed.
Amanda's case got reassigned to a different public defender.

Speaker 2 Another year passed. And then, late summer of 2023, Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley released his report.

Speaker 2 Dozens of families claim they have been the victims of child abuse reports at the hands of Dr. Jensen.

Speaker 2 And suddenly, the local news was alight with stories about Dr. Jensen.
These families claim Dr. Deborah Assernio Jensen would falsely accuse them.

Speaker 2 People were protesting in front of the hospital, demanding Dr. Jensen's resignation.

Speaker 2 Now, the DA's office seemed only too eager to get rid of Amanda's case. They gave her a remarkable offer.

Speaker 2 If she'd agree to plead no contest to reckless endangerment of a person, not of a child, but of a person, her sentence would be nothing.

Speaker 2 No probation, not even court fees. A trial is always risky.
So Amanda pled no contests, and it was over.

Speaker 2 But it wasn't vindication. And it wasn't like she and her children could suddenly go back to normal, she said.

Speaker 2 Just breezily pick up where they left off. None of this was normal.
This whole thing had strangled her life, nearly obliterated her family for almost four years,

Speaker 5 and then just fizzled.

Speaker 2 Nothing she'd said, or her defenders had said, or her children had said had made a difference. Instead, the only thing that seemed to matter was what the doctors said.

Speaker 2 And this is where Amanda's case gets perplexing.

Speaker 2 Because we showed the baby's anonymized medical records to three other child abuse experts, including two child abuse pediatricians, and asked them what they made of the case.

Speaker 2 None of them agreed with Dr. Doshi and Dr.
Jensen's assessment that the baby's injury could only have been caused by an adult. They did not agree with that level of certainty.

Speaker 2 The two caps said they could see cause for concern, but judging from the scans and the medical narrative, in their view, this case did not bear the classic signs of abusive head trauma.

Speaker 2 No hallmarks of rotational injury, no severe retinal hemorrhages, no injury to the neck. And all three doctors independently puzzled over the fact that Dr.
Doshi and Dr.

Speaker 2 Jensen had certified the case as a, quote, near fatality, meaning the baby was in serious or critical condition.

Speaker 2 They pointed out that, according to the records, Amanda's son never lost consciousness, was alert, and was discharged without needing any life-saving medical interventions.

Speaker 2 Perhaps most striking, none of them would have recommended that the baby, let alone any of the other children, be separated from Amanda.

Speaker 2 Instead, it would have been, let's monitor the family and offer resources that might be helpful. Have a caseworker investigate further and see how it goes.

Speaker 2 The third expert, a pediatrician who specialized in child abuse medicine, went even further.

Speaker 2 She didn't have concerns about abuse at all and said if she'd been the doctor on this case, she would have called child services and told them, quote, this was an accident and that's it.

Speaker 2 Based on what these doctors said, you can almost imagine on that awful December morning in 2019, maybe things could have gone differently.

Speaker 2 And Amanda's life and her kids' lives could have gone back to normal.

Speaker 2 Instead, she was stealing herself for a whole new struggle to get her children back home. All five of them.
That's after the break.

Speaker 7 Welcome back to Listen to Your Heart.

Speaker 11 I'm Jerry, and I'm Jerry's Heart.

Speaker 4 Today's topic, Repatha, Eveloki

Speaker 4 Heart, why'd you pick this one?

Speaker 11 Well, Jerry, for people who have had a heart attack, like us, diet and exercise might not be enough to lower the risk of another one.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 11 To help know if we're at risk, we should be getting our LDLC, our bad cholesterol, checked and talking to our doctor.

Speaker 7 I'm listening.

Speaker 11 And if it's still too high, Repatha can be added to a statin to lower our LDLC and our heart attack risk.

Speaker 5 Hmm.

Speaker 7 Guess it's time to ask about Repatha.

Speaker 12 Do not take Repatha if you're allergic to it. Serious allergic reactions can occur.
Get medical help right away if you have trouble breathing or swallowing.

Speaker 12 Swelling of the face, lips, tongue, throat, or arms.

Speaker 12 Common side effects include runny nose, sore throat, common cold symptoms, flu or flu-like symptoms, back pain, high blood sugar, and redness, pain, or bruising at the injection site.

Speaker 7 Listen to your heart.

Speaker 4 Ask your doctor about Rapatha. Learn more at Rapatha.com or call 1-844-RAPATHA.

Speaker 13 Hi there, my name is Annie Elise, aka your true crime BFF and host of the podcast Serialously.

Speaker 13 I have been a true crime enthusiast forever, but I wished somebody would break down the cases for me like a friend, giving all the details and discussing every twist and turn.

Speaker 13 So I decided to create a podcast that does just that.

Speaker 13 I do the deep dives in these cases, so you don't have to, diving into all the raw details, saying what we're all thinking, and in a conversational way. So join me and let's talk all things true crime.

Speaker 13 Serialistly with Annie Elise. New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 When I first met Amanda, mid-October of 2023, she was just a couple weeks out from her plea and the end of her criminal case. She wasn't wasting any time.

Speaker 2 Her first order of business, asking for her kids back.

Speaker 2 The ones living with Amanda's relatives, they'd be the first to come home.

Speaker 5 I'm hoping by the end of the week. Wow.

Speaker 2 Okay, that's really soon.

Speaker 2 So two of them will be home. Hopefully.

Speaker 5 Hopefully. Within the next two weeks, hopefully.
Hopefully three of them will be home in the next two weeks.

Speaker 2 She's got to paint their bedrooms, put together the new beds she got them. They're all so much bigger now than when they last lived with her.

Speaker 5 So I'm trying,

Speaker 5 but it's mentally like exhausting because I have to install cameras on the inside of my house.

Speaker 5 I have to, because children and youth has to do a walkthrough.

Speaker 2 So I have. Children and youth.
does not require that Amanda have cameras inside her house. The cameras are for Amanda.

Speaker 2 She wants them as an insurance policy because God forbid one of the kids gets hurt again.

Speaker 2 She thinks about this, she says, how if she'd had cameras back when her newborn got hurt, none of this would have happened.

Speaker 2 All those years, Amanda waited for her criminal case to play out. She was on high alert.
She figured she needed a perfect pretrial record if she was going to regain custody.

Speaker 2 Every single condition of her pretrial supervision, she obeyed, to excess.

Speaker 2 She called in a fender bender she'd had, since it might count as contact with law enforcement. It does not.

Speaker 2 She misunderstood the conditions of her release and thought she wasn't allowed to be near children. She was.

Speaker 2 So for two years, she avoided going anywhere children might be present. Birthday parties, her best friend's wedding, even the supermarket.
She wouldn't go.

Speaker 2 In the eyes of the law, her hypervigilance was a plus, but psychologically, exhausting.

Speaker 5 Because I'm afraid they're they're just gonna all come back. Like when I have my kids, if an accident happens,

Speaker 5 they're gonna take them again. So it's not easy at all.

Speaker 5 I'm scared. I'm scared.
I'm not doing anything wrong, but I'm scared. And I see how twisted this system is, and

Speaker 5 it sucks.

Speaker 2 And then, within weeks,

Speaker 2 they start to come home.

Speaker 2 All the kids, except for the baby. Getting him back would be a whole lot more complicated.

Speaker 2 Before I get to the family reunion, I want to talk for a minute about the family separation, because the effects of that don't just disappear. They can linger.
sometimes for a lifetime.

Speaker 2 Removing a child from their parents is the most drastic intervention the system can invoke. So there's a lot of data about the consequences of doing so.
How traumatic it can be, every which way.

Speaker 2 How foster and group homes themselves can be sources of fresh abuse to the children they take in.

Speaker 2 How outcomes for children in foster care are often dismal for their physical health, brain development, mental health, emotional health.

Speaker 2 Every bad thing we try to protect children from, if they're separated from their families, they're susceptible.

Speaker 2 But there's this one law review paper that brought home to me the feeling of removal from the child's point of view. The paper is from 2019 out of the University of Michigan.

Speaker 2 The lead author is director of the Child Advocacy Law Clinic there.

Speaker 2 When a child is removed and placed in foster care, it says, familiarity is replaced by a pervasive sense of ambiguity. an inherent confusion about what is happening and why and when it will end.

Speaker 2 The paper defines six different kinds of ambiguity. Basically a set of frightening unanswered questions about what connects you to the world around you.

Speaker 2 But in this situation, you're not the you listening to this. You're little, maybe really little.

Speaker 2 Two or five or ten. Asking, why am I here in this strange house? Is this my bed? Are these my toys?

Speaker 2 How long do I stay here? And who makes that decision? Who are these people? Who are they to me? Who am I to them?

Speaker 2 If I'm their child now, am I still someone else's daughter? Someone else's sister?

Speaker 2 Where are my friends and my teachers and my siblings?

Speaker 2 Where is my mother?

Speaker 2 Why can I not talk to my mother?

Speaker 2 The paper calls this ambiguous loss, a lack of clarity about where your real family is.

Speaker 2 Quote, ambiguous loss can traumatize children because they are grieving the loss of a family member who is not dead, but is out there somewhere.

Speaker 2 Parents too experience ambiguous loss of their children. They might feel grief, confusion, despair.
From what she's told me, Amanda certainly did, and still does.

Speaker 2 All five of Amanda's children went through this system.

Speaker 2 Statistically speaking, the ones who stayed with relatives or were moved the least or were placed with siblings, they're likely to fare the best.

Speaker 2 The ones who weren't as lucky, one of her kids, remember, was moved at least 10 times. They'll likely have it harder.

Speaker 2 Now, all five of Amanda's children are about to bring their piled-up trauma home, where it'll be Amanda's job to figure out how to help them.

Speaker 2 The next time I see Amanda, her house has transformed. Three months have passed.
Her children are back home, all except the baby. Their stuff is arranged neatly around the living room and bedrooms.

Speaker 2 There's a tall plastic shelving unit in the kitchen with drawers full of their favorite snacks.

Speaker 2 Amanda's a little on edge. A children and youth caseworker, a young woman named Jonique, is coming over today for what Amanda hopes will be a final visit.

Speaker 2 Her three oldest children are clear of social services, but her youngest daughter still has an open case with Children and Youth, and they need to sign off on her return home.

Speaker 2 Amanda's concerns for the day are twofold. First, the kids' sleeping arrangements.

Speaker 2 Amanda says, according to Children and Youth, her son isn't technically supposed to be sleeping in the same room as his sisters, but the three like to sleep together.

Speaker 2 especially after being separated for so long. So Amanda allows it.
She's hoping her kids won't rat her out. And second, she doesn't want Jonique talking to her other kids.

Speaker 2 She can talk to Amanda's youngest daughter. That's her job.
But the other kids, no.

Speaker 5 I'll just wait and tell her when she gets here. I already spoke to my attorney about it.
My attorney said, no.

Speaker 5 You are not allowed to talk to them unless there is an adult or somebody present. They are no longer involved with children and youth, and they have enough traumas from you.
No.

Speaker 5 Hi. Hi.

Speaker 2 Jonique arrives. And Amanda, she's solicitous.

Speaker 5 Do you want a drink or anything, Jonique? I'm sorry. No, you're fine.
Are you sure you don't want water? No, thank you.

Speaker 2 The kids come home from school, and pretty quickly it's mayhem. Happy mayhem.
Yes, they need it.

Speaker 2 They've located some bubble wrap. It's doomed.
And this is from the moment they get home. Amanda had just bought a behavior chart.

Speaker 2 Her youngest daughter, the one Jonique is here to observe and talk to, sidles up to the kitchen table where they're talking.

Speaker 2 Amanda explains the chart to her.

Speaker 5 This is all your tasks you're going to have.

Speaker 3 Make your bed, brush your tea.

Speaker 13 I'm going to make my bed Rina.

Speaker 5 Your beds are made. Your bed is pushed under.

Speaker 14 We will start this tomorrow.

Speaker 5 Yes, today.

Speaker 5 Tomorrow, not today.

Speaker 2 Her youngest daughter is now six, and she's having behavioral problems. This is the daughter who was moved around in foster care more times than any of Amanda's children.

Speaker 2 And Amanda's aware that her youngest daughter blames herself for what happened to them. That it's her fault they all got separated for such a long time.

Speaker 2 So, not at all surprising that she'd be having behavioral problems.

Speaker 2 But I am surprised by how open Amanda is with Jonique about it. How it's difficult to get her daughter to focus, to listen.
Almost like she's asking Jonique for advice.

Speaker 14 Especially if she's not listening the first, second, third time.

Speaker 5 She just does it. 15.

Speaker 5 And I don't know, like, what do I

Speaker 5 could put her in timeout? She's going to scream and carry on.

Speaker 13 It's like, she's loud.

Speaker 2 And she's a loud screamer, Amanda says. So I don't want people calling the cops on me.
Yeah, says Jonique. Like, that's not far-fetched.

Speaker 2 Jonique announces she needs to talk to the other kids. Should she start with the oldest? Is that okay?

Speaker 2 This is Amanda's red line. No talking to the other kids.
Her lawyer, Ali, had backed her up on this.

Speaker 14 Or do you want to start with us?

Speaker 5 Kristen said since they all live, you are not out to check in with everyone.

Speaker 5 Is that okay?

Speaker 2 Amanda folds immediately. Later, she tells me she doesn't dislike this caseworker.
She's more observant than most.

Speaker 2 And Amanda doesn't want her thinking she's putting on a show for children and youth because she's not, she says. She's got nothing to hide.

Speaker 2 Though on some level, anytime Amanda's had to put her home and her parenting on display, I imagine it feels like a kind of performance.

Speaker 2 Like the contrived nonchalance of driving by a cop, even when you're not speeding.

Speaker 5 All right.

Speaker 5 Well, I hope you get home safe.

Speaker 2 Stay warm.

Speaker 2 Jonique leaves. Everyone relaxes.
Amanda goes to the kids' bedroom.

Speaker 5 You snitched on me.

Speaker 2 You said you's all sleep in the same room.

Speaker 5 Take us away.

Speaker 2 Jonique can't take us away, her youngest daughter says.

Speaker 5 They can.

Speaker 5 I won't let them.

Speaker 5 You have to behave, okay?

Speaker 2 And then her middle daughter voices the question that hangs over Amanda and all of her children.

Speaker 2 When is their little brother coming home?

Speaker 2 I'm trying, honey.

Speaker 5 And Allie's trying. We have to take one step at a time, okay?

Speaker 13 One step? This is one step.

Speaker 13 Baby steps.

Speaker 5 Yes, baby steps. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Their baby brother, Amanda's youngest, youngest, is not a baby anymore. He's four years old, and he's been living with the same foster family all that time.

Speaker 2 Because it took so long for Amanda's criminal case to resolve, he got placed in a special program called SPLIC, Subsidized Permanent Legal Custodianship.

Speaker 2 Under the rules of this program, the parents' rights aren't entirely terminated, but there's no expectation that the child will ever return to the biological parents. It's just short of adoption.

Speaker 2 To get her son back, Amanda will have to file for custody in civil court and win, which won't be easy. The other family wants to keep her son, and Amanda believes they'll fight her for him.

Speaker 2 The simple fact that she's his biological mother doesn't rule the day in a case like this. Ultimately, a judge will have to decide what's, quote, in the best interest of the child.

Speaker 2 So there's no way around it. Amanda's home, her parenting, her history will be pitted against that of the foster family.

Speaker 2 Her lawyer, Allie Crothamel, who's also become a close friend, believes if Amanda can show the judge that she's been interested in her son this whole time, asked about him, sent him birthday cards, tried to see him, she has a good chance of eventually winning some measure of custody.

Speaker 2 Allie also gave Amanda a deadline, she says. Allie told her, take a beat to get the other kids settled, but don't wait too long to file.
Do it within a year.

Speaker 2 If you wait longer than that, it's not going to look good in court.

Speaker 2 A couple weeks later, I get a call.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 Amanda. Yes, case is closed.

Speaker 15 Case is closed. Case is closed.

Speaker 2 After that final visit, the caseworker signed off on her youngest daughter's return home and closed her file.

Speaker 2 Oh my goodness, how do you feel?

Speaker 15 Happy.

Speaker 15 Well, I want to take the kids out tonight and go have fun.

Speaker 2 For the first time in many years, children and youth is out of their lives. It also means the decks are cleared for Amanda to file for custody of her younger son.

Speaker 2 Allie's you have a year clock is now ticking.

Speaker 2 Amanda tells me they might be filing right away on Monday.

Speaker 2 That call was February 2nd. The next time we spoke was more than four months later, in June.
We had a lot to catch up on. Amanda wasn't doing great.

Speaker 2 She'd been so anxious about her child care situation while the kids were on summer break that she'd quit her job. Now she was feeling down, not wanting to see certain people she knew.

Speaker 2 She kept thinking about how some of them would probably always suspect she'd hurt her infant son.

Speaker 2 Her youngest daughter, who had started therapy by now, wasn't doing well either. She was having uncontrollable outbursts both at home and in school.

Speaker 2 It got especially bad right after a recent visit they'd had with her little brother.

Speaker 2 This thing had happened at Amanda's oldest daughter's softball game. She'd taken all the kids who played in the park while Amanda talked to the other parents.

Speaker 2 And then this one kid came over saying Amanda's youngest daughter had pulled his hair, which Amanda didn't doubt.

Speaker 15 Because she has a thing with her hands and

Speaker 15 pulling people's hair and stuff.

Speaker 15 Maybe it was too strong of me to say. But I said, I've told you several times now, keep your hands to yourself.
I said, I'm going to call the cops. If you don't, like, it's serious.

Speaker 15 You could hurt somebody.

Speaker 15 I tell her how serious it is all the time. All the time.
Like, you could really hurt somebody. You will end up in jail.
Like, you're little now. And I get that.

Speaker 15 But you need to understand just because you're little now doesn't mean you're going to be little forever. And you could seriously hurt somebody.

Speaker 2 The point of this story, Amanda said, was that she felt judged by the other mother for what she said, like this lady was looking down on her.

Speaker 2 But the real point was something else, something that's been in her head all this time.

Speaker 2 Amanda's afraid that if her son does come home, her daughter could accidentally hurt him. She had always been obsessed with her little brother from the moment he was born, always trying to hold him.

Speaker 2 Amanda had told this to her pediatrician, even before the incident. Even then, she worried her daughter might hurt him.
Again, not on purpose. She was just so full of energy, so full of feelings.

Speaker 2 What if her son came home now and her daughter roughhoused with him in a way he didn't understand, or in a way that scared him, because he's not used to it? And then

Speaker 2 her scenario always came to rest at the worst possible outcome. All the kids get taken again.

Speaker 2 The upshot. Amanda no longer had a job.
She didn't have her own car. She was using her landlord's truck to get around.

Speaker 2 She was worried about how these kinds of deficits can come into play in family court, abuse allegations aside.

Speaker 2 So, while it's not a crime to be unemployed or without a car, several attorneys have told me they've seen these things work against parents in custody cases.

Speaker 2 Amanda was also worried about her youngest daughter's mental health and her middle daughter's too, if we want to add that to the list. So, no, she hadn't filed for custody of her son yet.

Speaker 15 Maybe, like, I'm trying to look at it from like

Speaker 15 I don't know, I don't even know how to explain that. Like, I feel like a piece of shit because I haven't filed for him, but I also want to make sure my ducks are in a row and

Speaker 15 my kids, especially,

Speaker 15 are okay.

Speaker 2 End of summer, August 2024.

Speaker 2 Not much had changed, except that Amanda's back had given out, a flare-up from an old injury.

Speaker 2 She was imagining how she'd look to a judge if she filed for custody right now.

Speaker 15 They're gonna say, Well, how what if something happens if there's an emergency here, or you're not working, and you know, you've got problems

Speaker 15 with your back? Like, how are you gonna take care of your kid? Like, all that. Like, I just don't

Speaker 15 i don't want to have to answer those questions

Speaker 2 sometimes it seems like amanda's reaching for reasons to delay

Speaker 2 allie the lawyer is pregnant i don't want to stress her out later it'd be allie has a newborn she should enjoy that time i don't want to rush her later still allie's assistant's going on vacation i'll wait till she's back like that

Speaker 2 but then amanda says something undeniably real about her son's foster parents.

Speaker 15 I know how I felt when I had my children ripped away from me.

Speaker 15 I worry about

Speaker 15 how it's going to make the foster mom and dad feel.

Speaker 15 It's so hard because I don't want

Speaker 15 I don't want them to feel like I felt.

Speaker 15 I don't want to put that on them, but at the same time, like, that's my son.

Speaker 15 and it's hard like when these kids see him it's rough for them you know after the fact and it's all the kids are pulling up oh okay you have to go um yeah that's I gotta get them situated

Speaker 2 I wasn't the only one asking Amanda when she was going to file for custody Allie was too

Speaker 15 Yeah, well, she told me we need to file. She said, you know, she can explain a year, you know, why I didn't file.

Speaker 15 and it's, you know, bringing the kids home and readjusting and getting all of them back into therapy and getting a routine, you know, that can all be explained.

Speaker 15 But she said, beyond a year, Mabel, like, you're kind of pushing it.

Speaker 2 Amanda knows she's pushing it. November is mostly gone.
She's maybe two and a half months from her year deadline. She's going to file, she says.

Speaker 2 She worries that the moment she does, the foster family will stop facilitating visits. So that's another risk of filing.

Speaker 2 Losing what minimal minimal access she and her other kids currently have to her youngest son.

Speaker 2 Still, maybe she's almost ready.

Speaker 2 Every week that passes, Amanda's gathering more data about how it might be if they were all together again and how it might be if they weren't.

Speaker 2 They just had a really good visit with him. Everyone got along well.
He's playing soccer now.

Speaker 15 He said, can you play soccer with me? He said, I'll try. I don't know if I'm nil out on the field.

Speaker 2 Do you know how to play soccer?

Speaker 15 I don't know how to play soccer. I just mess around with the kids.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 15 So.

Speaker 2 He just wants time with his mom. I don't think he expects you to be good.

Speaker 15 I don't even, like, I don't think he knows I'm his mom. Like, I don't, I really don't think he knows that.

Speaker 2 Oh, what does he call you?

Speaker 15 He doesn't call me anything. Like, sometimes, like, when we did

Speaker 15 Urban Air a few times, the other kids were calling me mom. And I think when he did do that, it was kind of like, like, I don't think he meant to do it.

Speaker 15 So it was kind of like because he heard the other kids doing it.

Speaker 15 You know, I just think it was a slip.

Speaker 15 And that's kind of how I have it in my head.

Speaker 15 He doesn't know.

Speaker 15 I don't think he knows. So I don't want to like,

Speaker 15 you know, give myself that false hope.

Speaker 2 Amanda stepped outside for a cigarette.

Speaker 15 My heart is full when I'm with him. Like, he's

Speaker 15 like the missing piece.

Speaker 15 And I've always felt like that. Like, there's just something about him

Speaker 15 since the day he was born that

Speaker 15 completed me. And, you know,

Speaker 15 it's like a high.

Speaker 15 And then I got home and I was good for a little bit. And then I just got extremely emotional.

Speaker 2 Of course she wants her son back. Viscerally, emotionally, physically, she wants him home.

Speaker 2 But more and more she's realizing there's no way to reunite her family that won't cause terrible pain, including to the baby himself, who turned five last month.

Speaker 2 Another turn of this impossible screw, those foster parents. They have another son now, born after they took in Amanda's son.

Speaker 2 In other words, Amanda's son has a little brother, and that little brother has an older brother he's never not known.

Speaker 2 The longer this goes on, the wider the damage ripples.

Speaker 2 Out of nowhere, kind of casually, Amanda says something I never imagined she'd consider.

Speaker 15 I love my kids, and I just want my kids. Like, I want the best for them.

Speaker 15 And parts of me thinks, you know, is it

Speaker 15 best? Do I leave where he's at?

Speaker 15 Or do I bring them home?

Speaker 15 So, like, I struggle with that a lot.

Speaker 2 How is Amanda supposed to correctly calculate how much pain to cause? And to whom?

Speaker 2 It's the same question the child welfare system is asking in every case, or at least the question it's supposed to be asking.

Speaker 2 The difference is Amanda has no protective bureaucracy or legal code to back her up, no PR department or team of lawyers to defend her decisions, privately or publicly.

Speaker 2 It's just her sitting on the steps of her house in the chilly mid-November air, thinking and smoking and then snapping too, so she can turn back to the million practical things that any mother of four or five has to stay on top of.

Speaker 15 But I'm going to get this couch moved in here. Okay.

Speaker 2 I should tell you, I don't know exactly how all of this is going to end. Amanda eventually decided she didn't want to keep going with this story.
She didn't want to be interviewed anymore.

Speaker 2 She'd had enough of our questions.

Speaker 2 She also didn't want to risk that something we said, or the quotes we chose, could somehow end up harming her in court. But she agreed we could use whatever we'd recorded up to that point.

Speaker 2 So the last recording I have with Amanda is from early February, 2025. Pretty much a year to the day of Allie's deadline.
We went to visit in person.

Speaker 2 The past year had clarified some things for Amanda.

Speaker 2 She said she didn't regret waiting to file for custody of her youngest.

Speaker 2 She felt sure her priority had to be the children in front of her, the four who knew her as their mother, who needed help feeling safe again in their own house.

Speaker 2 If that counted against her in court, so be it.

Speaker 2 But that clarity didn't make anything easier. She was still profoundly worried about her youngest daughter.

Speaker 5 The one one night she did, uh

Speaker 5 fuck

Speaker 5 a couple weeks ago. We took the kids just for like um a staycation and

Speaker 5 brought up the situation

Speaker 5 and how it is all her fault.

Speaker 2 I'm so sorry, Amanda.

Speaker 5 And I

Speaker 5 told Hertz it's not her fault. Accidents happen,

Speaker 5 and that all that matters is they're home now

Speaker 5 and they're getting help.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 1 that we are going to fight for their brother.

Speaker 5 But that I needed to make sure that their traumas and everything they've been through were dealt with first.

Speaker 2 She grieves her youngest son. That's the word she used.
She said, Every day I grieve him not being here.

Speaker 2 She grieves the bonds that didn't get to grow between them. And she'd come to a decision of sorts.

Speaker 5 As much as I would have loved for him to be home with the others,

Speaker 5 with how severe

Speaker 5 the trauma was

Speaker 5 for the other four children,

Speaker 5 traumatizing him and taking him away from everything he knows.

Speaker 5 I don't want that for him.

Speaker 5 I want him to be brought home slowly.

Speaker 5 Because that's in his best interest. I don't want to rip him away

Speaker 5 from all he's known.

Speaker 5 It's just to me, it's wrong.

Speaker 2 The next week, Amanda filed for custody. Her demands were measured.
Like she said, she didn't want to rip him away.

Speaker 2 She asked for shared legal custody of her son, therapy to help them bond after such a long separation, and partial physical custody on a gradual schedule.

Speaker 2 Amanda wrote to the court, I just want to build a relationship with my son. My older four children have also stated they miss their brother and want to see him.

Speaker 2 As Amanda predicted, her son's foster parents are fighting her hard to keep him, attacking her fitness as a mother in all the ways she feared. The case is scheduled for trial this fall.

Speaker 2 The first time Amanda spoke publicly about what happened to her and her family was at that Lehigh County Commissioners meeting back in 2023, the same day County Comptroller Mark Pinsley released his controversial report.

Speaker 2 A report which, when I've asked officials about it, they're dismissive.

Speaker 2 The Lehigh County executive, Phil Armstrong, he told me he didn't even read it. Instead, he asked his child welfare folks whether there was anything to worry about.

Speaker 2 And the answers they gave him, he wouldn't tell me exactly what they were, but he says they were, quote, great,

Speaker 2 and that he was happy and satisfied. In the neighboring county, Northampton, where Amanda lives, officials told me Mark's report was misleading and harmful.

Speaker 2 They worried it would further erode people's trust in the child welfare system. But the shakeup Mark caused with his supposedly wrong-headed report, it's had a remarkably fruitful afterlife.

Speaker 2 Since the report came out, the Lehigh County District Attorney's Office has reviewed every case in which Dr. Jensen testified as a central witness.

Speaker 2 As a result, one father's 20 to 40 year prison sentence was just reduced by at least half. He's eligible for release this year.

Speaker 2 Then there are all the lawsuits against Dr. Jensen and Lehigh Valley Health Network.
It'll likely take years for those to sort themselves out.

Speaker 2 As for Dr. Jensen, two weeks after Mark Pinsley's report, She was replaced as medical director of its child advocacy center.
And six months after that, she retired from LVHN.

Speaker 2 She's still speaking at conferences, though. I watched a virtual one where she diagnosed a case on the fly during a QA.

Speaker 2 Based on a short description of symptoms and without seeing any records, she declared, you are dealing with abusive head trauma.

Speaker 2 Here's my diagnosis.

Speaker 2 It seems to me that everyone involved in child welfare cases that include a child abuse pediatrician, I mean, caseworkers, doctors, hospital administrators, cops, prosecutors, judges should take into account the real possibility that the CAP might be mistaken.

Speaker 2 I don't mean theoretically mistaken. I mean actually mistaken.
I don't say that with hostility.

Speaker 2 I'm saying it because to me it seems reasonable for everyone in the system to acknowledge that science and evidence often aren't clear-cut. Reporting this story, I've seen it again and again.

Speaker 2 Different doctors looking at the exact same information and coming to different conclusions about what that information means.

Speaker 2 I'm saying even one pause, one wait a second, might be the difference between a family staying together or being broken apart.

Speaker 2 I'm saying what Mark Pinsley was saying. When it comes to caps and the power they wield, families deserve a second opinion.

Speaker 2 In recent years, three states, Texas, Washington, and now Georgia, have written that option into law. The other 47 could think about doing this too.

Speaker 2 There's this phrase in child welfare circles, the removal calculus.

Speaker 2 The authors of that Michigan Law Review paper I talked about earlier, they say you have to get that calculus just right and only remove a child, quote, when absolutely necessary to protect children from serious imminent harm.

Speaker 2 What they do not advise is better safe than sorry. That approach, they warn, can cause its own serious imminent harm.
And more people than you might think are drawn into this system.

Speaker 2 One study using federal data estimated that nearly 40% of children in the United States will be subject to a child abuse investigation. Nearly 40%.

Speaker 2 For black children specifically, it's even higher at 53%.

Speaker 2 A bright spot is that some jurisdictions are rethinking better safe than sorry. One of those places, Northampton, where Amanda's abuse cases played out.

Speaker 2 The Children, Youth, and Families Administrator there, who grew up in foster care herself, told me their focus is now about prevention and trying to keep families intact by offering them help.

Speaker 2 It seems to be working.

Speaker 2 Four years ago, the county had 319 children in foster care. Now, that number has been cut in half.

Speaker 2 One last thing I thought I'd mention.

Speaker 5 Not long ago, Dr.

Speaker 2 Jensen got hired as a consultant to review evidence and investigations of violent crimes against children.

Speaker 2 The agency she's working for is evidently untroubled by the many lawsuits and allegations of misdiagnosis she faces. Dr.
Jensen is now a consultant for the FBI.

Speaker 2 The Preventionist is hosted, written, and reported by me, Diane Neary. Additional reporting by Ben Phelan and Janelle Pfeiffer.
It's produced by Janelle Pfeiffer and edited by Jen Guerra.

Speaker 2 Additional editing by Sarah Koenig and Danita Battijo. Fact-checking by Elizabeth Barber and Ben Phelan.
Additional fact-checking by Caitlin Love.

Speaker 2 For more reporting from the show, sign up for our newsletter at nytimes.com/slash serial newsletter. Music supervision and mixing by Phoebe Wang.
Additional mixing by Catherine Anderson.

Speaker 2 Sound design by Jonathan Menhevar and Phoebe Wang. Original music by Martin D.
Fowler, Dan Powell, and Marianne Lozano. Additional music for this episode by The Blasting Company.
Martin D.

Speaker 2 Fowler composed our theme song. Our standards editor is Susan Wesling.
Legal review from Dana Green. The art for our show comes from A.
Mae Hunt and Pablo Delcon.

Speaker 2 The supervising producer for Serial Productions is Ndaya Chubu. Julie Snyder is Serial's executive editor.
Our associate producer is Mac Miller.

Speaker 2 Additional producing comes from Nina Lossum and Corey Beach at the New York Times. And Sam Dolnick is the New York Times deputy managing editor.

Speaker 2 Special thanks to the parents in Pennsylvania who we interviewed, and to the dozens of people across the country who spoke with us about their own experiences of being separated from their families as children, and whose stories informed this episode.

Speaker 2 We'd also like to thank Jason Addy, Susan Anthony, Olivia Carzo, Maddie Day, and Emma Hogan for help with our reporting. Thanks to Dr.
Stanley Blondek, Dr. Nadine Burke-Harris, Dr.
Martha Burt, Dr.

Speaker 2 Charles Nelson, Dr. Maya Opendock, and retired Alachua County Sheriff Sadie Darnell.

Speaker 2 Thanks also to attorneys Kathleen Premer and Mark Freeman in Pennsylvania, Rosemarie Peoples in Florida, and Chris Gottlieb in New York City.

Speaker 2 Thanks too to Anthony Chiarito and Emma Ketteringham with the Bronx Defenders.

Speaker 2 In Northampton County, thank you to Maria Torres, Susan Wondolowski, and County Executive Lamont McClure for sitting down with us and talking through the children and youth procedures there.

Speaker 2 And finally, to attorneys Allie Crothamel and Tom Bosworth and their law offices, thank you so much for your time and for all the medical records and documentation you provided for this episode.

Speaker 2 The Preventionist is a production of Serial Productions and the New York Times.