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For the @washingtonpost, I wrote about Dontay Davis, the surviving older brother of three of the Hart children who were killed by their adoptive moms in March 2018.https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/his-siblings-were-killed-by-their-adoptive-mother-he-was-left-in-foster-care-to-suffer-a-more-common-fate/2019/12/11/f54f793a-d654-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html …
In July 2018, I reached out to Dontay in prison. His siblings had been driven off a California cliff months earlier, but Dontay didn’t know that yet.https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/his-siblings-were-killed-by-their-adoptive-mother-he-was-left-in-foster-care-to-suffer-a-more-common-fate/2019/12/11/f54f793a-d654-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html …
Dontay’s family knew how badly he wanted to reunite with his siblings, who he hadn’t seen in more than a decade, and they were worried about what he’d do when he found out. They didn’t want to jeopardize his chances of coming home that October.https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/his-siblings-were-killed-by-their-adoptive-mother-he-was-left-in-foster-care-to-suffer-a-more-common-fate/2019/12/11/f54f793a-d654-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html …
Dontay and I kept in touch, and once he got out and heard the news, he agreed to let me tell his story. After he was separated from his siblings in 2006, he spent much of the rest of his childhood in foster care in Texas.https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/his-siblings-were-killed-by-their-adoptive-mother-he-was-left-in-foster-care-to-suffer-a-more-common-fate/2019/12/11/f54f793a-d654-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html …
The Harts didn’t want to adopt him because of his behavioral problems, which are common in kids who have suffered trauma — which for Dontay included the separation from his parents and siblings.https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/his-siblings-were-killed-by-their-adoptive-mother-he-was-left-in-foster-care-to-suffer-a-more-common-fate/2019/12/11/f54f793a-d654-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html#click=https://t.co/ExC2yXoQi3 …
He was institutionalized at 10 years old shortly after he was removed from his family. He had tried to kill himself by looping a belt around his neck and tying it to his bedpost. “I knew what it was. I knew I’d never see the boys again,” he told me.https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/his-siblings-were-killed-by-their-adoptive-mother-he-was-left-in-foster-care-to-suffer-a-more-common-fate/2019/12/11/f54f793a-d654-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html#click=https://t.co/ExC2yXoQi3 …
Dontay spent years in a residential treatment center, where he was heavily medicated and unable to take visits from his parents, whose rights had been terminated, or his siblings, whose adopted parents would not allow contact.https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/his-siblings-were-killed-by-their-adoptive-mother-he-was-left-in-foster-care-to-suffer-a-more-common-fate/2019/12/11/f54f793a-d654-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html#click=https://t.co/ExC2yXoQi3 …
“I always wondered what they were doing,” Dontay said of his siblings Devonte, Jeremiah and Ciera. “They kept saying the foster parents didn’t want me to have no contact. I thought, 'Is it because I’m bad?'”https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/his-siblings-were-killed-by-their-adoptive-mother-he-was-left-in-foster-care-to-suffer-a-more-common-fate/2019/12/11/f54f793a-d654-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html#click=https://t.co/ExC2yXoQi3 …
Two years before he aged out of care, his father figure, who he’d lived with since birth until he was removed from his home, was able to obtain custody of him again.https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/his-siblings-were-killed-by-their-adoptive-mother-he-was-left-in-foster-care-to-suffer-a-more-common-fate/2019/12/11/f54f793a-d654-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html#click=https://t.co/ExC2yXoQi3 …
But by 19, he was serving 3 years for robbery. “[The system] thought, ‘How do we house him while we have him, meet his most basic needs?’ No one thought about how he would be as a 19-year-old,” @socialworkwill said.https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/his-siblings-were-killed-by-their-adoptive-mother-he-was-left-in-foster-care-to-suffer-a-more-common-fate/2019/12/11/f54f793a-d654-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html#click=https://t.co/ozqb3QNPuw …
Dontay, 23, has been out of prison for more than a year. He has no car, no phone, no computer. He’s never held a job. He lives with his aging father, Nathaniel, who is 78.https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/his-siblings-were-killed-by-their-adoptive-mother-he-was-left-in-foster-care-to-suffer-a-more-common-fate/2019/12/11/f54f793a-d654-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html#click=https://t.co/N3g9yQKn8O …
In much of the coverage of the Hart family murders, Dontay was not even mentioned. But he and his family live with the loss of Devonte, Jeremiah and Ciera every day.https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/his-siblings-were-killed-by-their-adoptive-mother-he-was-left-in-foster-care-to-suffer-a-more-common-fate/2019/12/11/f54f793a-d654-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html#click=https://t.co/N3g9yQKn8O …
“I was like, fuck life. Fuck God,” he said when he found out. “That was the last little hope I had in my life, you know? I had that hope that I was gonna see my little brothers again, one day we gon' kick it.”https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/his-siblings-were-killed-by-their-adoptive-mother-he-was-left-in-foster-care-to-suffer-a-more-common-fate/2019/12/11/f54f793a-d654-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html#click=https://t.co/N3g9yQKn8O …
You can find more of my coverage on the birth families of Devonte, Jeremiah and Ciera, and of Markis, Hannah and Abigail, here.https://twitter.com/strawburriez/status/1102323798517403654?s=20 …
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