A four-year-old should be involved in a lot of things: playing outside, preschool, family time. One thing they shouldn’t be involved in is a two-year long custody battle that spans different courts and states.
Veronica has lived half of her life with her adoptive parents, Matt and Melanie Capobianco, and the other half with her biological father Dusten Brown.
The story starts when the woman Brown is engaged to gets pregnant. The two end up breaking off the engagement and she severs ties with him. She chose to give the baby up for adoption and a couple from South Carolina adopted the baby girl. Brown, a member of the Cherokee Nation, was serving in the Army. Soon after Veronica was born Brown was scheduled to go to Iraq and was given notice of adoption papers that he allegedly signed because he thought he was giving up custody to the biological mother. When he found out the real situation, he called for a stay of adoption and the case went to court where it would be heard in three states and numerous courts.
On Monday Sept. 23, baby Veronica was finally given back to the Capobiancos. During the trials and waiting periods, Veronica lived with Brown at the tribal headquarters in Oklahoma. According to Todd Hembree, attorney general of the Cherokee Nation, this isn’t over. Brown decided it was best to go ahead with a “peaceful and respectful transfer” but Hembree said that they are not finished fighting.
Please, stop fighting. This isn’t just a principle at stake here. it is the life and well-being of a little girl. I understand that the father was upset because he wasn’t fully informed of what was going on and didn’t have a chance to make a decision about the situation. And I understand that the Capobiancos wanted a baby girl and went down all the right paths to do so and so wanted to keep their little girl.
But who in the whole situation was thinking about Veronica? Yes, both parties can probably say they were doing what they thought best for her. Both parties were also doing what they thought was best for them.
I land on the adoptive parents side here because of the situation. This couple wanted a baby and wanted to give Veronica a loving home that her biological mother was not going to be able to give her. Once the biological father understood what was going on, he didn’t want another family having anything to do with his baby. But to take her out of the home that she has known for the first couple of years of her life is a drastic thing to do.
Veronica should be able to return to a normal life and hopefully be left with only a vague memory of the custody battle that was fought over her. She will have to grow up with this history but if this stops here, she will be able to move on and have this whole situation be only a distant memory.
Note: The parties involved are still unable to speak about the case and so have been unable to give their side of the story and what they are thinking. The summary above of the case was a brief summary and does not cover all the details of the case or the decisions of the trial and Supreme Courts.
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