I know she did not murder her child – being adopted or not – I think the prosecution wanted this case dead and quick. This young lady shall be released! This is not only an incorrect outcome, but a tradegy for all of us!

Best wishes, My thoughts go out to you – Hannah!

Although, I’d never heard of ‘salt poisoning’ either, there are many measures these adoptive parents could have been taught to help Andrew through what had to have been another terribly emotional and confusing transition period for him even when he was moved from his foster family to his ‘forever home’. No 4-year-old has any concept of relative time frame or the term ‘forever’. All this child knew was that he’d been moved from one home he’d been in for close to 2 years to another and there was no way he wasn’t going to be affected by that! I am in no way blaming the Overtons or Hannah for anything that happened as a result of Andy’s transition. I give them a great deal of credit for being willing to adopt a child they knew came from such a disruptive and possibly drug addicted background. I DO blame whatever agency placed this child with them IF they were not totally honest or did not provide the tools the family needed to work with the possible situations that might arise given the child’s history. By the way, I’m an atheist, and I don’t think “god” (by anyone’s religious beliefs)is to blame or is going to help this woman…she’ll need dollars, not prayers! She’ll also need more anecdotal support, so I’d like to see experienced foster parents across the country get behind this family and attest to the type of behavior we see in many of our children of all ages when it comes to the many ‘food’ issues that arise from neglect and abuse. I think it’s time that we, as Foster Parents, step up and stop allowing the agencies to expect us to work wonders with ‘our’ kids when we’re not given all the pertinent information and sometimes even lied to in order to get us to accept the placement. They need to stop withholding vital information and provide required services so that these kinds of incidents can be prevented in MOST cases. In the Overton’s case, I’m wondering if anyone ever apprised them of the plethora of ‘food issues’ that arise with former foster children. I, too, will be going to their site to see what I can do to help a woman who had no blame in this poor child’s death and whose husband and 5 other children are now also paying the price.

I served on a drunk driving case once and there wasn’t any actual evidence on which to convict the guy, so we had to acquit even though we didn’t want to (because who doesn’t want to see drunk drivers locked up). We had a couple of hold-outs on that jury that kept saying “But what if….” But we don’t get to convict people (most of the time) on “what if’s.” It’s supposed to be on actual evidence that they DID what they are being tried for.

Even before they reached the end of the story I told DH that I’d never even heard of “salt poisoning.” And while we know it’s not good to ingest a lot of salt, I didn’t know it could kill you. And wouldn’t have known that the symptoms that the boy exhibited were signs that he was dying or even that he needed immediate medical care.

Yes, a child died and YES that’s a tragedy any time it happens. But sometimes you can’t blame someone for something they never intended to have happen! Next thing you know, parents will be convicted of negligent homicide when a child wraps a blind cord around their neck or some other equally horrible, preventable but not always foreseeable tragedy!

Thank you for posting the information about how to help. Stories like that make me fear for the future of our justice system. This is not how it was intended to work.