Hey everybody, I’m Ashley Banfield and this is Drop Deadad Serious. I wanted to talk to you about something that has been on my mind and I’m not going to lie, I’ve been pretty obsessed with this case in Ohio. The 16 children uh Hampton, Ohio, Vinton County. It happened on June 30th. Sheriff’s deputies were executing a warrant on a house unrelated and found 16 kids crammed into a 12 by 12 room. The governor said it was pure evil, almost like feral animals, deplorable, horrendous, disgusting. one or more of the children may have died if officers had not responded to the home when they did. This is the case that has just, you know, consumed me.
A, how does it happen? But B, what do you do next? Yeah. I mean, you have 16 kids who probably know no other life other than horror, and horror is the norm. How do you save them, but at the same time tenderly care for them, but at the same time extract from them the forensic evidence you need to know. They’re the witnesses. They’re the backbone of the case against the people that did this to them. They’re the ones who we need the most to talk and they are the least likely to want to. Sometimes, not in the Turpin case, they wanted to talk. They wanted to escape. But in so many other cases, the dynamics are so complicated. Some of these children still love these parents that may have abused the hell out of them in all sorts of ways, but they’re still their parents. And so this is why I decided to check up on someone who I know would have the answers as to what is happening likely right this moment with these kids in the cider house. What is happening to them? Where are they? And how are the forensic investigators, the interviewers, going to extract the information that’s needed from these kids to build a case against the adults who’ve been charged, their parents and their grandparents? How do you talk to them? How do you get them to talk, especially when they can’t talk or won’t talk or are way too terrified to talk? So Denise Rodriguez Bowman, she was that person. She responded to the Turpin case. She questioned those kids. She forensically interviewed them. She knows more about how to deal with kids like the Cider 16 than any of us. And I had an incredible opportunity to ask her every question I could in a limited amount of time that I had. But oh my god, I had so many questions for her. So, just so you know her background, she was the director of forensic services and victim advocacy with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department when they were called to the Turpin House. And that’s what she jumped into. That was her her role, her action. And since that time, she’s left the sheriff’s department and she’s started a nonprofit called Speak Heart Alliance where she does a lot of the same services and has um, you know, is able to offer a lot of her same expertise. I had so many questions for her in a limited amount of time, but wow, did I ever learn a lot and you will too. Here’s our conversation. Denise, thank you so much for being on Drop Deadad Serious. I have so many questions. Um, and people like you are you’re just like child whisperers when it comes to kids who have been traumatized. I want to speak mostly about what happened in Ohio with these 16 kids, but because you’ve got, you know, the Turpin case as your history, um, I’d love to just ask you if when you heard about Ohio and the 16 kids there, if everything from Turpin flooded back to you. Unfortunately, it’s not like that in my work. I’ve done 25 years of forensic interviewing and child 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮, human trafficking. Um, when I see these really horrific and sad um, cases that come on in the media, it just breaks my heart. It it reminds me of every kid that I’ve interviewed, many of them who’ve been tortured, sexually abused, starved. Um, so it does it does take me back to that, but actually that case in particular that happened in Riverside County kind of never leaves you. It’s always there. you always kind of think about like what happened to those kids or wish them well and just all of the cases kind of run together in your in your in your mind in our mind as professionals. There are some that are really significant. Turpin was one of them, but there were there many others that I’ve worked on that don’t make the media. I’ll bet. And I think the Turpin case made the media because a there were 13, which was just mindblowing. And then B, these pictures of them and the Disney thing 1 2 3 4 5 and the cute little let you know renew our vows garbage. Those things just made it it was mindblowing. And and so I’m looking to this new case where we don’t have these images of phony bologoney um you know clean living. Instead we have very scant reporting of I saw the kids now and again and they were dirty and they were skinny and then we just never saw them. So this feels different. Yes. Um those kids definitely had the Turpin kids had some highs in their lives where they were able to go out and and uh you know interface with the world and have some um adventures and then go home and be tortured and locked up and chained up and and and not given love, nourishment or anything to survive in terms of basic needs. And then these children because they are younger, they’re they’re different in age and they really don’t have the language, they they were just, you know, surrendered to this one room and then that was it. So I’ll go over those ages real quickly. Um just to remind our viewers, uh the oldest was 18 and the report was that she couldn’t write her own name. Then it was 18, 16, 15, 14, 13, 11, 9, 8, 6, 5. twins who were four, twins who were 20-month old and of course a set of conjoined twins who died. So 18 birth children, 16 survived, three sets of twins, and I it’s just hard to even say it, but two were lifellighted, seven were admitted to hospital, one would have died, according to the governor, had that child not received attention. Um, and at least one critical, I believe. And again, not because anyone called and said, "We’re in a crisis. Come help rescue." Just because they were found that way. This is just it’s unfathomable to me. Is it unfathomable to you? [sighs] I can’t understand how many systems have um missed this family. But what I’ve read and what I’ve gathered, I did not personally work on this case, is that this family was um they moved around a lot. And oftent times when you move around a lot, you’re trying to um escape systems. So that could be child protection, that could be the school system, that could be law enforcement. Um many um nonprofits that are trying to assist your family once we have seen this pattern in other families. Once they uh there’s a cause of concern and maybe there’s a referral of some sort from one of those agencies I mentioned, if they come and have some interaction with family and they the family then feels like there’s a threat to maybe removal or or criminal, they leave. So this family in particular was moving around a lot. It it could be because they wanted to not um get uh too comfortable and under these systems that maybe were already starting to look at them. Would you say it’s equal less than or more than some of these families who move around a lot might actually be moving because they are impoverished. They find a place, the bills come in, they leave for the next place. So, it’s not so much that the law is chasing them, but maybe the landlords are. That’s very well possible. I mean, we’re living in a country where it’s very difficult for families to make it today. And so, and and that’s your average middle class family. Um, you know, children that are, you know, or young adults that are graduating from college, like it is very expensive to live. I live in California. It’s absurd. So, then you think about families who have uh so many children who so the socioeconomic is um lower. And so, then how do they survive? How are they? This what lends me to this family in particular based on, you know, this family and how many children they had to have been getting some sort of government assistance. And so when that happens, you have to disclose how many children you have, you know, your living, your address of where you live. and and um if those agencies need to follow up or there’s concern then they would make a report to child protection. It really is child protection that would get involved or law enforcement and then oftent times if there’s fraud in child welfare then they have their own fraud unit and they would come out. So someone should be having eyes. Um so these families either by you know wanting to evade that or by just systematically being living in poverty moving. There’s so many factors and variables that could come into play. Weirdly the Dollar General store staff um they noticed that they were using a food stamp kind of purchase device. Um, and it just makes me wonder, were there food stamps being acquired in that household without the requisite information of how many kids there really were? Or maybe they were just surviving on I need food stamps for me and one or two kids. Because I would think at that point, if you’re getting the food stamps for the kids, they’d say, "Where are the kids? We don’t see them registered for school." Well, and to that point is that agencies like child welfare that provide um food stamps and you know tanniff benefits, child welfare benefits to um families in need, not don’t necessarily correlate to school districts and they may not necessarily just depends on what state they may want to see the children and they may not. So it would be that and and and to th the point of those um government workers, they have very high case loads when they are distributing um you know aid there. They may have a case load of like 200. So then to then be able to say where is this where is that the system starts to weaken with that high case load. So for them to say where are the kids? We need to see them would really warrant uh some concern on that um that uh you know social worker or that person that’s um distributing funds. You know, Tom Salisbury, who was the lead detective on the Turpin case, he referred me to you because he said, "You’re really good at what you do." And it the questions that I have um regarding this new case in Ohio, I think are almost the same as the questions I would have in Turpin. These kids are extracted in an emergency situation. Again, some are nonverbal, some are in critical condition. an 18-year-old can’t write her own name and in comes Denise Rodriguez Bowman. What where do you start? What do you do? Yeah. So, a forensic interviewer, which would have been my expertise. Uh there are investigating social workers. So, two people generally come out. Salisbury would call two people, child protection social workers and a forensic interviewer. A the social worker would be looking at a global assessment and what are the needs immediately? What do these kids need? They’d be going to a hospital for a medical assessment. Um, you know, just kind of seeing the basic need in the global assessment of the family system. The forensic interviewer would come in and talk to law enforcement and say, "All right, what do we have? What was the condition of the home? What are parents saying? What do we know this far about the kids?" and they were going to say limited language, can’t read or write, you know, whatever that is. And then the interviewer would go into a room and really a forensic interviewer does uh a comprehensive forensic interview in terms of like assessing their language, assessing their cognitive ability, the developmental ability to even interact in an interview. When we interview kids, we need kids who speak. Yeah. There’s no other way around that. That’s what an interviewer does. And we mirror, we follow, we’re really patient. We do a lot of rapport building with kids prior to starting a forensic interview because we’re a stranger. But it’s an art. Well, tell me, tell me about that. How do you build that rapport with kids who may have been, you know, there was awful stuff going on in the Turpin house? I don’t know what was going on in this other house. I have no idea, you know, what the cider kids went through. But how do you build that rapport? So there’s a the art and science of interviewing. We follow a protocol. So you have a question design of questions and and how you ask questions which is very different than the way most people talk to children. But the rapport building is really a finesse, a little dance, a real like really it’s hard to teach people this if you really just know how to connect with people. It’s an energy. It’s an energy exchange. It’s a presence. It’s a kindness. But without being super kind and giving them all this information and and you really are walking a line, but you with experience, you come in saying like, "Tell me everything about you." And if there is if there’s like apprehension, you take it really slow. You may ask to draw with them or color. But you don’t go to the heart of the crime right away. You don’t just come in and say, "Tell me everything your parents did." Because that’s it. It’s over. You know, you oftentimes, too, if there’s a lot of apprehensiveness, you say like, "Tell me about how you’re feeling right now. Tell me what you’re thinking right now." You know, I understand something’s happened in your family. How do you feel about talking to me? And then kind of, you know, assessing and just debriefing with them about their concern about what’s happening in their family system in that moment. They may not be saying anything about 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮. It’s just what their interests are. Tell me about something you like to do. Tell me everything about what you like to do. And then you hear what they like to do rather than me saying, "Do you like school? Do you like pizza? Do you like food? Do you like No, it’s it’s asking them what they are into, what they like." And then you play off that. You kind of grow that. You You do narratives, which is a narrative is really I’m going to ask you a question that’s open-ended. Tell me everything about what you like to do. I’m going to hear it and then I’m going to build a narrative off that that you, the child, is going to have to explain. So, you said you like to dance. Tell me about the last time you danced or you like to, you know, play. Where do where do you dance? Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about where, you know, tell me about you like to play with your brothers and sisters. Tell me about the last time. We’re actually trying to build um an event. So, it we we when we do this work, we’re not going to who, what, when, where. M we’re going to tell me about something. The kid is to then tell you a little bit and then you say, "Tell me about the last time you did that. Tell me of everything from beginning to end." And you’re trying to get the child to talk, right? So this is rapport building, but at the same time, there must be things that come out that are just clear and convincing evidence. So for instance, what do you like to do? I like to walk from the one wall to the other, and I do it 300 times a day. This is now evidence. It’s like it’s you’re rapport building but you’re getting the goods, right? And so then you’re like, "Tell me everything about doing that. How do you do it? Where do you do it?" You know, explain it to me essentially is what we’re saying. We use different language. That is part of a protocol. But we’re like, "Tell me everything about that." That’s open-ended questions. And you then follow them. And as you follow them and you’re listening to that, then you’re going to say, "Okay, well, you said that you do this this many times a day." like tell me more about that how like help me understand I don’t know why meaning my mom told me I have to yeah we do it we don’t necessarily go why do you have to do these things you know we are doing it very subtly we’re doing it dance very subtly and we will get to that that we’ll get to that point about like who makes you do that you know what what what’s the reason for that um so that they have that opportunity to speak their truth, their experience. It’s their experience. It’s their truth. And often times, sometimes these kids don’t understand that it’s not wrong. So, an interviewer is really like a facial, the tone of my voice has to really be built in neutrality and objectivity and exploring all different hypothesis. So, whatever they’re saying to me, I’m going to be leading it up with another question. But I what we really like to do is get them to explain it all to us and then we’ll go back and ask additional questions. Where where’s your goal when you find a circumstance? And let’s just talk about this Ohio circumstance. 12 x 12 room, 16 kids. You can’t lie down 16 bodies in that much space. So, what’s your goal now? Are you looking as a forensics interviewer? I need to know if there was uh you know if they were physically forced into doing certain things through pain. Um I need to know if they were if food was withheld which is another form of torture. Um I need to know whether there was uh sexual 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮 of these children. Are you have goals that you’re headed towards or is everything so open-ended you’re waiting to find out what the spectrum is? So there’s many protocols in the United States that we follow and most states follow different ones. Um and it just depends on the interviewer, their comfortability, like where they are with the child. Like no interview completely looks the same because a child is uniquely different. These children would not be uh a typical interview, right? because they don’t really have language and um you know there’s a lot of uh deficits based on the fact that they were not um in school and things like that. Um so when you say like tell me I would say like tell me about what you eat when do you eat like explain to me what you’re eating and you get them to explain it. I am not going to say like do you eat in the morning? Do you eat in the afternoon? Do you eat at night? I’m going to say like when you wake up in the morning, tell me what you what you first do and then what do you do after that and what do you do that? We’d build that up and then say and tell me what you eat. Um tell me tell me where you’re eating. Tell me who’s giving you the food. Help me understand um you know when you’re hungry, what can you do to eat? Where do you get that food? So we’re ex we’re doing it a little differently the way you ask it. So what we do is we listen to like you may be an investigator saying I want to know this, I want to know this, I want to know that. And then we go in there and kind of ask it in a different way. So with the sexual 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮 allegation, we would say sometimes like I talk to kids when you know something’s happened to their body. Tell me, has something happened to your body? And if they don’t really understand what that means, then we funnel it a little bit more and say, you know, let’s go over body parts. Tell me what you got call these body parts. Do you have private parts? And they may not know what that means. Especially these children, right? Because they they’re not they’re not nurtured. They’re not in school. They’re not learning this by teachers. Um you know this that touching is wrong. So certain touching is wrong. So then we have to scaffold it a little bit and say um I talk to kids when someone’s touched them on these parts of their body. What do you call this? Some will go to the the private, you know, to the other private parts and then say, "Has has someone touched you?" That’s a yes no question. Generally, we try to keep away from those yes no questions. But if we do get a yes, then we say, "Tell me about that. Who did that? What happened? Help me understand what happened." And so then we we will we kind of it is it is a lot of patience on an interviewer’s part. And they generally um can be long interviews. And we’re we’re kind of like moving it along just based on the kid’s ability to be in that room and how long they can be in that room. And the and the child’s, you know, willingness to reveal what’s so mortifying potentially to them or terrorizing never tell anybody or I will do something to you will never leave those kids. So how how do you get beneath the the terrified child? And again, I don’t know that that’s the circumstance in this home. I know something is very wrong in that home. But how do you get beneath the terrified child who thinks everything will get worse if he or she says anything? So the difference between these kids and the Turpin kids is that the Turpin kids, they were ready. Some one of the siblings jumped out of the room, got help and said, "We’ve had enough." So when I talked to them, they what the one child, she never stopped talking. She was like, "Talk, talk, talk, talk." She told me everything. These kids, these kids are accidental disclosures is what we would call that. They did not make the intentional outcry. They were they someone didn’t go get rescued or they didn’t find a support person to be able to tell you know what is going on. So then when you from the you know authorities they still see you as a person with this system. Um they may not have the words or know what that is but it’s scary to them. And so you go and talk to them. they um accidental disclosures. They those kids may not tell you initially what happened. It may take time. So you may try to interview them and they’re not saying anything. They’re really reluctant. They don’t they they won’t speak or they’re very limited in disclosure. Um how do you make them feel safe? How do you convince them, oh no, this is now the safe place. You are free to speak. How do you convince a little kid? So we say those kind of things like this is a really safe room. everyone here that’s here to talk to you today. My job is to talk to you to keep you safe, to understand your family, figure out how we can help, help to understand what’s happened to you. This is a safe place. So, it is language. It is a feeling. It is a finesse of the interviewer to make that kid feel that way. Do all kids come out feeling safe? No. But it really it’s like so many little parts of who you are as a person is how you showing conveying like a lot of through your eyes, through your tone, through your body language that you really genuinely do care and that you’re here for their safety. And then we’ll say like it’s really important that I know what happened. It’s really important I know what happened so that we can help you. Let you know let us help you but we need to know what happened. And then there’s a reluctancy. It t it can take about 20 minutes just in that space just saying it going the non-abuseere related u topics talking about things that are not there bring it back in see if you can get something take it back out just depending on the kid so you’re kind of going in and out of a little bit of disclosure talking about safety and they’re okay and then trying to get information and then going back to non-abuseere related topics. Does it ever work with the um with the non-verbal? I’m thinking about Ruby Frankie’s case when one of the the children uh it was a little girl, her head was shaved, she was sitting in a closet and the police officer, God bless him, was so gentle and dear offering her pizza, she just wouldn’t move or speak. Do you ever Yeah. And do you ever get a child who just does not break from that? Like you will never get through, you will never get anything from that child. They will continue to be non-verbal. they will not give up the goods. So when I saw that just recently actually I watch them often and so um I saw that and I thought it’s just a little too soon for her. So that officer doing those things that was nice. It was a nice gesture. He was trying to you know build rapport. He was trying to show that he was safe and that’s great. They should do that but they should really never in that moment try to start forcing conversation about what happened to them. That’s why forensic interviewers exist. they should, you know, be the safe person, let them reiterate, you’re safe. We we have you and then a skilled forensic interviewer will come in. And they really do a lot of effort not to align with law enforcement. You’re a neutral person. You’re not the police and you’re not the child protective social worker. And sometimes you need to articulate that like I’m just a I’m just a lady who who talks to kids and I I really I understand something happened. I’m really here to hear you and and what’s happened, but let’s color. Let’s get to know each other. Let’s do this non-𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮 related information gathering before we even get there. So, that’s what we would do with that little girl. It wouldn’t be in her best interest when I saw that to interview her in that home where she was victimized. Get her out of there and get her into a child advocacy center. They’re all over the country. They are built on 10 standards that is recognized by the National Children’s Alliance so that there is best practice on how to do that. So when you take a child to a child advocacy center, it’s very friendly. It’s child friendly. It’s all made for children. It’s all all those systems are set in place to help um this reluctant child start to speak, right? That is why they exist. And like I said, do you ever have uh ones that just never ever come around? Yeah, I mean I’ve had kids were just that never spoke. Um but you know, when I was younger, when I first started the work, it was a little bit more difficult. As I started to kind of become really comfortable as an interviewer to really just here’s my protocol. Yes, I know what I need to do as a forensic interviewer, but I can be a human. and bringing in like that humanistic part just so like you can’t say I care about you so much you can’t say those things because you’ve got to go to court and that could be suggestive could be seen as coercive so really it’s just a presence and I’d say that I’ve gotten I I was the person that would they would bring the most difficult kid to and say let’s see if you can do it and oftentimes I could do it but it’s a lot of humility it’s a lot of grace it’s just like You’re really like surrendering to like the space of like saying before an interview or like [snorts] interview, please let me be like the best self that I can be and let them know that I’m really authentic and getting that information. I’m here. I’m I care really. I do. I mean, it sounds to me like you truly have to have the patience of a saint. And me as an interviewer, I would go mad because I’m just always diving for the the information as quickly as I can. Um, but I want to ask you about the the hard look, all of it’s hard, but when there’s sexual 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮 of these kids, sometimes the criminal code is so specific and there’s penetration and there’s not. And that these are the kinds of questions I can’t even imagine how you get there. How do you [gasps] That’s an all that’s a lot of in it just depends. But again, I really firmly believe that forensic interviewers when all of them out in the country, they’re amazing people, but you have to be at the top of your game. Like you and you have to have be able to have a lot of constructive criticism based from your colleagues in the work. You have to constantly re-evaluate yourself and say, "What did I do right or what did I do wrong in order to get these kids to talk?" Um when we talk about penetration, you know, we follow like did tell me about the first time, tell me about the last time, tell me about another time that was different. Um most forensic interviewers, the majority of the work is sexual 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮. So they’re like 90% talking about sexual 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮 and then like the other 10% is torture, general neglect, domestic violence, you know, things like that. Um, and so you’re really just like, "Tell me about where that happened on your body. What what did they touch that part of your body with? Help me understand how were your body? Tell me about how his body was. Tell me what that felt like." And then from there, you’re scaffolding around, you know, what they’re telling you about which parts of their body. And then you’re hearing it and you’re like, you know, you said this and this. Help me understand, you know, what you said about this. And so they they they they really the kids really have to do the tough job of articulating all of the experience. And we say, "Tell me everything. Even if you don’t think it’s important, tell me everything that happened. I wasn’t there. I need you to help me explain everything that happened. I know this is hard, but this is this is why we’re here." Do do you have a sixth sense for when a child is and I will use the AI term. AI hallucinates and comes up with stuff that’s crazy. Do you ever have a six sense for a child who is either making something up out of anger or making something up out of remembering a nightmare and thinking it was real or just trying to please you? So um most children that disclose um sexual 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮 are actually disclosing that it didn’t happen when in fact it did. So most kids when you ask a kid if they were abused sexually they us if more than half are saying no for true 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮 that actually happened. It’s the opposite. So it’s the opposite. And when you look at false allegations which is what kind of you’re talking about the the percentage is really low or innocent like honest to god an innocent false allegation. It was a nightmare this child thought was true because they’d been through so much of the reality. But most kids are able to say it was a nightmare. Okay. And then I then I then it was and that nightmare was this this and this. But then someone an external person is saying that it did happen. So then we’re doing source monitoring like where do they believe it happened and why do they believe it happened when they just told us it was a nightmare. And so then we start to explore who has talked to them and where did they get that information from. there are some kids that um you know are coached and so you’re you’re trying to get that information and then you really go into the family system like tell me everything about mommy tell me everything about daddy what does mommy say about daddy what does daddy say you know and you you you’re but you’re neutral you have to talk about both people you can’t just hone in on one sure you can’t the coaching terrifies me because sometimes the coaching on kids becomes their reality you know it does and oftentimes you’ll say well tell Tell me how you know that source monitoring. I’m trying to figure out how they know that. And they say, "Well, because this parent told me I wasn’t born yet. Yet, you know, they told me that, you know, daddy was arrested and he went to jail because he was stealing drugs." And you say, "And and and how old you was in mommy’s tummy." And you’re like, "Okay." So, but they articulate it like they were there. It’s because they’ve been told the story by a parent and they believe it. So that interviewer needs to dig in to see how that, you know, we just don’t listen to kids and say, "Okay, we’re done." We have to get additional information because we have to be able or law enforcement has to be able to cooperate or decide if that um these allegations are sufficient enough to to keep continue criminally. It seems insurmountable almost um the kind of work you do. I I want to ask you this about the the 16 kids. I I think about them every day, honest to God, and I’ll bet you do, too. knowing what you do for a living, but what do you imagine? And I know it’s not your jurisdiction. I know you were with Riverside back then and this is Ohio, but what do you imagine is happening now with them all within these first few days and weeks? You know, I was a prior social worker for child protection and then I became a forensic interviewer. Um I’m I know that they were detained, right? but they were detained by uh child protective services, whatever that they call that in their county and they are in foster care. You know, so many social workers, the these these social workers are um you know, they usually get a bad rap. Most social workers that work in child protection get a bad rap. They’re affected by these things. They they they have a lot of passion and care for kids. So, I know from the social worker who responded to all the way to their administration, they have their best interest at heart. They’re looking to put them in an environment where they’re safe, where they’re cared, where they’re nurtured because of what they’re coming from. 16 kids are hard to place together. So, most child protection agencies want to place kids together. That’s that’s their goal. They’re not trying to rip kids apart, kidnap kids, do all that stuff that we hear all over the internet. And I understand why people feel the way they do. I’m not I’m not arguing that point. But um these kids probably can’t stay together. There’s not one foster home that can take 16 kids. Will they try to group allies of of of siblings who who are more connected to each other and somehow learn that information and group them together? Yeah. And sometimes because these older kids in this home are maybe parentified like they are the parent, they had to care and nurture these kids. They will do an assessment if that is in that older child’s best interest to stay with the littles. Yeah. Or not just for their own healing and their own like autonomy to heal and get what they they need rather than taking care of all the kids. So complicated because of course the little one expects that the bigger sibling is the parent, but that poor sibling is a child and needs to be a child and oh god years old now. So they technically can’t even be in the same room in the same home. You know, they would be having to be placed somewhere else. But sometimes special circumstances, they really do look at these cases and say, "What can we do for these kids immediately to keep them together?" they will have like multiple visits with each other very quickly um after the removal so that they’re still seeing each other and that they’re connected. So, so keeping that keeping that cohesiveness together so that it just really depends. Sometimes it’s not in their best interest. Sometimes things have happened between the siblings and they’re like like in their best interest they need to be separated. I get it. So I I see that I see them probably, you know, getting the the medical attention that they need. Um getting the basic hygiene that they need and then helping them, you know, become see like be in a society that they haven’t been in in quite a long time. I have one last question because I know your time is tight. Um I have so many questions, Denise, but I [snorts] do want to ask this one. Is there any mention at all to these kids? Or do you expect that there’d be any mention at all to these kids of their parents or their grandparents? What do you mean? The ones who’ve been arrested. Yeah. Um, so you know, love is a tricky thing and loving your family and all the dynamics dysfunctional, positive or negative, is is still that it’s your family. So, these kids may be asking for their parents and maybe when they’re going to go home or they may be relieved, which I’ve had many kids relieved, the Turpine kids, they were relieved to not be back in that. They were just like over the moon like, "Do I ever have to see my parent again? Please tell me I’m never going to see them again. I don’t want to see them again. I love my foster parents. I love this home I’m in. I love being in school now. I don’t want to go back." So it it really and so and and it may not be all of them. You have 16 kids and they may all feel differently. Um you know it it really lends me to mom having kids really early on in her life, a child herself without a lot of education probably with a family system that wasn’t, you know, was probably abusive and and neglectful prior to coming to this with this man in this home. And you know, [sighs and gasps] there’s sometimes at some point you have to say who’s comes first, my kids or my husband and this family system, this dysfunctional family system, and and they may just not have the resources or the knowledge of how to get out of those situations. And of course, we don’t know any of it yet, but we will learn. And who knows how many crimes might be uncovered and added to the already facing. My god, Denise, you are a saint. Thank you for the work that you There are many saints all over the country. I want to acknowledge that there are many people doing this fabulous work and it’s not easy. It’s really not easy and you do have to have the patience of a saint and thank you for doing the work that you do that you’ve done and thank you for sharing it with us. Can I have you back? Yes. I’d love to come back. Thank you so much. It’s great to talk to you. My great thanks to Denise Rodriguez Bowman for that interview and just that wisdom and I think she’s going to be back because there’s so many more questions I have. We don’t know the half well a lot more about the CERS case and I think we’re at the tip of the iceberg honest to god. Um but boy oh boy that’s wisdom that is immediate. It’s the here it’s the now and what those kids will be going through right now and likely for weeks to come will form likely the backbone of this case against those four who’ve been arrested. Mom, dad, grandma, and grandpa. I do want to say one thing about the Turpin case because many of you will probably remember it and this was the double tragedy. They were rescued from the Turpin household and they were placed into foster homes and then god who could have imagined they were some some of them were terribly abused even worse in some of the foster homes and those became criminal cases as well and Denise worked on those as well doing the forensic interviews. So, it’s not that we forgot about it. Definitely, we just had a limited amount of time to talk and I wanted to really focus on the CERS children and what is going, you know, on with them right now. Hey everybody, thank you so much uh for everything. I always love that you’re here. I love that you subscribe. I love that you’re members. If you have information about any of the cases that we do, please reach out to us. Drop [email protected]. It’s our tip line. Dropdeads info umgmail.com. We can keep you anonymous if you like or we can help connect you to the authorities um if you want to report information to them as well. In the meantime, thanks so much for listening. Thanks for watching. And remember, truth isn’t just serious, it’s drop deadad serious.
