Column: Former foster child lobbies Congress to amend ICWA

Thursday, February 14, 2013  

"On Memorial Day weekend 2001, Gene and Carol Campbell set out to find their foster daughter, who had been missing. They worried about the girl, Sierra Goodman, because she had been drawn deeper and deeper into satanic worship.

They found Sierra and her boyfriend, Darryl Headbird, walking down a road near their home in Bemidji and stopped to talk to them. They didn't know that Headbird had already murdered his father, and was prepared to murder them.

Headbird drew a knife and stabbed Gene in the neck, then chased and stabbed Carol. When a car approached, he fled with Sierra. They were later caught and jailed.

But the world works in mysterious ways. Last week, Sierra and Carol were part of a group that traveled to Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress about the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). Only now Sierra's last name is Campbell. At age 18, she asked her former foster parents to adopt her.

Their unlikely and dramatic story is being retold now in an attempt to modify the ICWA, which was passed in 1978 to curtail the widespread placement of Indian children in non-Indian homes. The ICWA gives tribes strong jurisdiction over child custody and adoption cases in order to help them preserve their culture."

Get the Story:
John Tevlin: Sierra shares lessons on Indian adoption (The Minneapolis Star Tribune 2/14)