What We Had to Say About Denise’s Say

    This was Daniel’s response to Denise’s outrageous version of events, sent to Linda Saridakis within two weeks of reading it. We feel it more than adequately demolishes Denise’s cowardly attempts to make herself look good at our expense.

October 12, 2001

Ms. Linda Saridakis

Licensing Specialist

Ohio Department of Human Services

615 Superior Avenue, 10^th Floor

Cleveland, OH  44113

Dear Ms. Saridakis,

    Yes, it’s us again.

    Recently a friend and fellow adoption reform advocate obtained from your office the file on our complaint against Building Blocks Adoption Services in the case of the death of our son Cyril in Russia, as part of ongoing research into adoption agencies throughout the country. She shared it with us.

    Included therein was Mrs. Hubbard’s version of events during and following that occurrence, organized by date as ours was, as part of her opportunity to respond.

    That timeline made many misrepresentations, distortions and outright lies. While we have by now come to expect this from BBAS and its director Denise Hubbard, we nevertheless do not believe we can let these go unchallenged as they seem calculated to reflect negatively on our character and reputation.

    We are including a detailed rebuttal of Mrs. Hubbard’s assertions, at the very least to be added to the file. We leave it up to you whether to consider this a separate complaint — most of these allegations, after all, do not exist in any documentary form and rely on two or three different people’s recollections of the same conversation. So it may be difficult to investigate. But it should be in the file.

    Some of the cruelest of these misstatements of material fact concern statements and admonitions purportedly made by us to Linda Wright, a fellow BBAS client who visited Perm at the same time and, only partly because of our experience, chose not to proceed with adopting the infant girl to be placed with her as a daughter. Since, to our knowledge and belief, Ms. Wright had previous to the preparation of this timeline by Denise signed a confidentiality agreement in return for a small sum of money refunded to her, this is especially calculated and pernicious.

    Herewith, the specific points to which we wish to reply:

·        9-9-99      Copy of Dossier received from Case family. Question Ms. Case on her one Reference that she wrote, it looked like she wrote it and signed another name? She advised that you need to do what you need to do to get through this mess. And she would do anything to adopt a child. The truth did not matter she said, as long as you get what you want. Told her this was not proper and I was not pleased

This is utterly false. My wife simply does not remember any conversation to this effect taking place on this date, nor any date, nor the statements attributed to her here by Mrs. Hubbard.

Further, to accuse us of forgery is to twist the truth. We were asked to provide an updated reference letter at this time; is it any surprise if, to expedite matters, we retyped the reference letter originally sent us by the recommender and sent it to that person to sign? The recommenders would confirm that it is their signature on those letters if asked.

·        9/24/99 … Sent medical doctor list with video. Sent the Case’s info from Dr. D’s site. In reference to interrupting the Russian Medical. Advised Cases video was not that good, advised them they should request an updated video.

We never received any list of doctors, nor the page from Dr. Eric Downing’s site (www.russianadoption.org) that Mrs. Hubbard included with her filed material. Perhaps, we suspect, she is confusing our case with Ms. Wright’s? To judge from our conversations in Moscow, she had been sent this information.

The video was in black-and-white due (as it was later explained to us by a video expert when we had all relevant video duplicated) to being improperly copied from the European format. But otherwise it was fine, and we would have been happy with it, especially given the short time frame for the adoption as a whole. The strong suggestion that we request a second video was made about a week afterwards, we recall.

·        10-1-99 … Advise Physician said child was malnourished and with food and love child would be ok.

This is not what Dr. Adesman told us. Mrs. Hubbard told us this on the telephone.  She said to Elizabeth that Cyril’s stomach was distended and he was malnourished. Dr. Adesman at no time said this to me after he had reviewed the medical and video.

·        10-14-99 Received photo of [redacted] and child [redacted] from Bulgaria. She told me he was very healthy and could not believe how attached he was. He cuddled her and she threw him up in the air and said he needs more ruff and tumble to become tuff. She said she was very happy with him and could not wait to get him home. She said she knew the baby from Russia needed more one on one and the time between getting the baby home and bringing [redacted] home would give her and Dan time to bond and make the child healthy.

Again, this totally misrepresents this conversation regarding the first visit to Anguel in the orphanage in Burgas, Bulgaria, as required by that country’s adoption law. Elizabeth recalls quite clearly telling Denise “He’s a tough kid” and picking him up and playing with him, crucial in assessing his ability to attach. She does not recall saying that he needed to become tough and strong as he already was. She is not given to casual roughhousing with children, either, as this would seem to suggest.

These comments by Denise have the effect of casting aspersions on our parenting philosophies. Made as they were between the very premature death of one child and before we had realized our dream of adopting another, they are particularly mean-spirited in addition to being false.

·        10-28-99 Called Cases ref. visa invite, helped them with completely forms

Not done. We filled those forms out ourselves, with little input from Mrs. Hubbard other than perhaps her agency sending us the documents. We did not need the help in any event.

·        11-23-99 I spoke with Rep. advised him of conversation with the Case family. The Case family told the rep in Russia they did not like it there, she kept saying how much better Bulgaria was and the orphanages in Bulgaria were better. I told the rep. that Cases were advised to contact Gennadv if they needed anything

Again this is totally not true. Prior to Cyril’s death, and indeed even after it, we were quite forthcoming with nice remarks about Russia, especially since we both speak Russian and had visited the country separately during the Soviet era (the theme of many of our remarks). Denise may have chosen to attribute some perfectly understandable remarks made in emails (to third parties, we should add) and on Internet bulletin boards by Elizabeth after Cyril’s death, several months later.

·        11-25-99 Received call from Rep. ref. Case child passed away that morning.

This one obviously requires some lengthy and careful attention, since it goes to the heart of the matter under discussion. I will reply to points from this one separately.

·        Ms. Case said that she encouraged Ms. Wright not to adopt her baby girl. She said that she told her that her baby would die also and that probably all babies would. I spoke with Ms. Wright and she said that Ms. Case felt strongly that she should not adopt or bring any child home from Russia. Ms. Wright advised she was then too afraid to adopt and she was there herself and had no one there to support her and she felt bad for the Cases. She said Mrs. Case kept telling her and scaring her about adoption. Even though Ms. Wright said her child was playing, crawling and very active and even grabbed her face. She just did not know what to do. So she said she would not adopt because Ms. Case said it was not the right choice for a single mother to adopt.

Of all the things Denise Hubbard says or tries to imply in this narrative, this is the most galling.

It’s the exact opposite of the truth, and we would both testify to that in any court. I distinctly remember having a long conversation with Ms. Wright during the police interrogation. During that time she informed me that she had changed her mind about adopting Yekaterina (her would-be daughter). This was before any discussion of the subject.

I tried to persuade her to reconsider, that she shouldn’t permit coming into the hotel lobby to see us sitting on the sofa with a dead baby between us to so affect her. I desperately wanted something good to come out of all this.

She responded that it was not only this … that there had been some bad omens on her trip over, that it had been explained to her that major mistakes had been made on Yekaterina’s medicals, that the girl had some problems, such as yellowed eyeballs, that just didn’t look right to her and augured possible future special needs that, as a woman planning to be a single mother, she just didn’t feel she was prepared to handle (this is what Denise exaggerates and distorts into the last sentence of the above passage).

Later, when it was my turn to talk to the police, Linda shared the same information with Elizabeth, who repeated my attempt to persuade her otherwise but understood when Linda in turn reiterated her reasoning.

Also, when Mrs. Hubbard called us, the very first thing my wife recalls is Wendy  Stamper, Ms. Hubbard’s assistant asking “Is this Linda?” (apparently she had intended to call Ms. Wright). When she learned that it was us, she turned the conversation over to Ms. Hubbard, who then immediately asked, “What happened with Linda?”

She replied that she didn’t know and that she should ask Linda herself. That was the extent of our conversation about Ms. Wright.

Since Ms. Wright is and was under the terms of a confidentiality agreement when Mrs. Hubbard prepared this narrative, there is no way to independently verify this abusive allegation. Mrs. Hubbard took unfair advantage of Ms. Wright’s enforced silence on the issue, deviously avoiding the prospect of being called to account for what would be under any other circumstances the most grotesque of slander.

·        11-25-100 [sic] 1 spoke again with the Rep. he advised that the Cases would need to stay in Russia until the judge advises they could leave. They would need to investigate the child’s death but believed it was due to the viral infection and dehydration.

This was not what we were advised by the Russians we were dealing with. We were told we had the option of staying for the entire investigation, and that while that would have been the most desirable course of action, it was not mandatory, as we had contributed all we could have possibly contributed to the investigation.

We indicated to the Russians that, given what had happened, we wanted to return home as soon as possible, and they understood. They had us, as our timeline indicates, sign paperwork waiving our right to file a claim or suit against the orphanage (probably the most culpable party) for Cyril’s death, which they told us would make our departure more acceptable to the authorities.

In fact, we have the distinct impression they felt it was in their interests to get us headed back to Moscow and the US as soon as possible. Perhaps, as is frequent in contemporary Russia, the money they earned from assisting us was either wholly or partially off the books, and thus we don’t blame them for not wanting this information to get from our mouths to the Russian tax police, the most feared law enforcement agency in the country.

But beyond the night of Cyril’s death, we had no direct contact with any representative of any Russian investigating agency, and were thus never directly informed as to the desirability of our remaining in the Perm region for any length of time.

It’s also interesting that, before the investigation and autopsy had officially begun, the Rep. (Dennis Gorontsaev) apparently has some idea of what Cyril died of.

·        11-27-99 … She asked about the money for the “dead child” I told her that of course the foreign fee would be refunded. That was not an issue. She said at least she would get to deduct this child in 99. it was not all a loss.

Here we see the beginnings of a theme that will be relentlessly repeated for the rest of the relevant portion of the narrative: “The Cases are greedy bastards who, once Cyril died, cared only about the money.”

There are two points here that require reply.

First, neither of us asked about the refund ourselves. It was only my mother, when Dennis Gorontsaev called Thanksgiving morning to inform her of Cyril’s untimely passing, who raised the subject. I doubt very much that BBAS would have done so of its own accord.

Secondly is the tax issue. As you may be aware there was, at the time, a $5,000 federal credit available to families who adopted, whether domestically or internationally.

It was Denise Hubbard herself who brought this subject up to us in phone conversation. We simply were not lucid enough to think about that at the time. Of course we assented … we had spent an awful lot of money, including some Denise’s own contract specified was non-refundable, to go and watch a child die after three days.

I think I am not alone in saying that’s not what we paid to do, nor would anyone pay as much as we paid to do.

·        The rep said that Gennady returned $1500 to the Cases. and did not charge for many things in Russia

Yes, we received $1,200 back, most of which we decided to leave behind to pay for Cyril’s burial. But if there was anything we were not charged for (and we used as little as we could to keep expenses down), this is the first we’ve heard of it.  The Russian rep Gennady did give us a written account of our expenses for both the driver and the translator.

·        Advised the staff did what they could for them. Advised that the reps. told him the Cases went out on the town the night or night after the death?

This again really rankles us. If “the reps” told Dennis this, they were lying to cover their own behinds.

Unfortunately, we do believe that information of this potentially defamatory character was indeed disseminated from some source unknown to us. Another BBAS couple, two months later, traveled to the city of Izhevsk, in the adjacent Udmurtia region, to complete their adoption (having, we should note, earlier lost a BBAS referral for reasons that later turned out to be blatantly false).

The BBAS reps there (a different set of people from those we dealt with) were familiar with our story, and apparently had heard that we were intoxicated that night. The other couple quickly set that impression right.

The truth of the matter is that we never did any such thing, either before or after. The afternoon prior to Cyril’s death, I had gone with the driver and translator to visit the Perm Regional Museum, but he was still alive when I returned to the hotel.

Elizabeth never left the hotel from the day before Cyril’s death to the morning we left for Moscow … about three days. During much of the time after, she was experiencing physical reactions to the trauma of a baby dying before our eyes and was psychologically unfit for such carousing as seems to be implied.

It was also quite cold in Perm during this time period (about 20 or 30 degrees below zero at night), with much snow and ice on the streets and sidewalks, making it even less likely that we would leave.  

The day after, while we were waiting both for the autopsy to be finished and for our new travel arrangements to be made, and fielding the odd condolence call from home, I left the hotel for an hour or so to shop for some inexpensive food items such as bread and cheese in the nearby rynok (open-air market). That was it.

·        Case advised they wanted to pay for the child’s funeral. They advised that the child died due to a viral infection that he acquired 48 hours prior to his death.

Yes, we did indeed want to pay for Cyril’s funeral as I have indicated here and elsewhere.

But as for Cyril’s illness being some sort of 48-hour bug, we never said anything to that effect. In fact, it was Denise who brought that timeframe into the discussion the preceding day, when she described what killed Cyril as a “a 48-hour bug.” All we had said was what the Russian translator had told us was the preliminary finding, that cause of death was due to “an acute intestinal infection,” with no mention of onset time.

I remember this quite well as it was I who took the call from the translator.

This would be merely another dismaying instance of Denise having us say something she said, were it not for the unmistakeable implication that we were responsible for Cyril’s death as he was in our care when he got sick.

But this is all moot since we now strongly suspect, for reasons outlined elsewhere, that Cyril had been sick for some length of time before we first saw him in the flesh.  

·        They said they were advised that they were not to take him from the orphanage. but the doctor said that his fever went down and since they really wanted to take care of him that they could take the child.

Yes, we did want to take him back to the hotel from the orphanage. She seems to imply that the whole thing would have been so much better, that he might even have actually lived, had we not insisted on putting him under our care and chosen instead to leave him in the place where we are convinced he got sick, to be neglected along with 60 other unhealthy infants by undertrained, underpaid and overburdened staff.

·        Cases asked for the death and birth cert. So they could use it for income tax purposes. I advised them that since the adoption was not finalized I did not know that if they could use him as a deduction. She said she wanted to try. She was very chipper and wanted to come home.

This again. Taxes had not really entered into our thinking by this time. We wanted some sort of official acknowledgement of his life, something to prove he was. Maybe no one else cared for him, but we did.

Elizabeth was “chipper?” You try and be “chipper” in those circumstances. She hadn’t slept or ate in days and was somewhat sick.

·        Dennis advised Cases just left Perm went back to Moscow and never helped with the funeral arrangements and only wanted a copy of the birth, death cert. He advised me that would take time.

A nice stab in the back. See above. We were never asked to help with the funeral arrangements (we would have done so gladly) and, as I have said before, were sort of hustled out of the Perm region by the Russians.

·        12-4-99 Called the Cases to see how they were.

Our reconstruction of this time period shows that this conversation actually took place on Dec. 6, as we were in Buffalo on the date in question.

·        Again Elizabeth was gruff and said fine for having a dead baby and said why are you calling? I am not going to sue you? Again I advised her that I was just calling for her well being and to see if she was able to find a counselor for grief and loss She said her place of work had those services and she was going to seek them. . I offered to come to NY to visit, and she said that was totally unnecessary. I advised Ms. Case I did not mind coming to help her through this time.

Given that Mrs. Hubbard was planning to go to Bulgaria on Dec. 8 at the latest, this is rather disingenuous. Not only did she never make any such offer to the best of my wife’s recollection, she would not have been able to stay very long if she did.

·        She said in a couple of days she would advise if she was going to seek the adoption of the child from Bulgaria. Ms. Case advised me she was sure the baby had a bad virus since her husband who gave the baby mouth to mouth became deathly ill in Moscow. She said that was proof to her that the child was sick with an infection and explained his greenish color stool. She said her husband had the same color stool and was vomiting fiercely. I advised her that it might be true since the pathology report came back to how that the child was ill 48 hours from prior to his death.

As I’ve said elsewhere, I was indeed sick within 48 hours of Cyril’s death and my efforts to help revive him, which included giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

However, there is a huge difference between the way an illness presents in an undernourished eight-month-old infant and a healthy, 230-pound man in his early 30s. My symptoms, to some degree or another, had persisted for several days after our return to the US. I highly doubt that Cyril only got sick 48 hours before his death … his severe diaper rash is incontestable proof of that. 

And if she has a pathology report stating otherwise, we’d very much like to know about it (it certainly does not jibe with her statements otherwise concerning anything of this matter).

·        1/2000 Sent video of [redacted] to Case family. Advised them he looked good and director was unsure of location of siblings. Ms. Case advised that she was fine, sought counsel and they’ were anxious to bring the child home. She was not too pleasant. very verbal, kept asking about the Autopsy, death cert. And birth cert. So they can get their taxes done. I advised her that all measures were being taken

We received the second video of Anguel on Dec. 24, 1999. We remember this quite well because we were able to share it with some of our relatives over New Year’s weekend in New York City (and since that was the Y2K New Year, we remember that one quite well).

Once again with the taxes, as well. We were never this determined.

I should also state here unequivocally that we never needed, and thus never asked for, Cyril’s birth certificate.

·        Mrs. Case asked about the time frame for adopting Anguel I advised her again the time frame was 4-6 months from the time that the documents were all entered into the Ministry of Health

It’s nice to hear her admit here what she tried to wriggle out of later on in an email we submitted with our original complaint … that it was only supposed to take 4-6 months from when our documents were submitted to the Bulgarian Ministry of Health to the day we brought Anguel home with us.

In any event, this is also directly contradicted by the timeline she sent us later that month in email, also included with our original complaint.

·        I advised her of the new law and the next step in the Bulgarian adoption rules and the time frame can vary

Not only were we never advised of any changes in Bulgarian procedure, we were never advised in the first place of what that procedure was, at least not by Building Blocks. We had to find the outlines of that out for ourselves through an Internet mailing list, as we said earlier.

The “new law” she refers to here might well be a reference to Bulgaria’s issuance of new passports to all its citizens as required for its planned entry into the European Union, a factor that was affecting later-stage adoptions at that time but certainly not ours.

Once again, Mrs. Hubbard does not acquit herself well in the matter of acquaintance with foreign adoption laws and procedure.  

·        I advised that only’ the timeline could start once all the documents were submitted. We advised her we were still waiting on some of her documents to be completed and sent to us.

Once again, I will reiterate what is to me a chief aspect of our complaint about Denise’s handling, or rather mishandling, of our Bulgarian adoption.

By this time, all of our documents had been ready and sent to Building Blocks. They were not waiting on us anymore. I distinctly recall that we mailed the last documentation we were asked to provide well before Christmas in the hopes that Anguel’s adoption would commence before 1999 was out.

Denise admitted in email later that she did not send them out in time before the Christmas holidays began. Why? Because she was too cheap to use an express package delivery service and preferred to send this material with traveling families.

To the best of our knowledge, no Building Blocks clients traveled to Bulgaria until Jan. 10, 2000.

What she was waiting for in late January 2000, I believe, was for the translator in Bulgaria to finish our documents. A regrettable delay, perhaps, but one that was not only not our fault but could have been avoided for a little extra money.

·        2/3/2000 Received documents for Bulgarian adoption. and note ref. money paid’? Note stated $35K and counting’? Advised the Cases that their remainder of their Bulgarian Documents would be sent to D.C.

Considering that Denise Hubbard herself informed us via email that our documents had been entered into the Bulgarian Ministry of Health as of Jan. 17, this is rather late for them to be in Washington being authenticated. As far as we know this had been done in mid-December.

    That concludes the extent of the points I wish to reply to. The remainder of Mrs. Hubbard’s timeline consists of quotations from our own emails to her, which of course we do not dispute.

    We will only add that her account of the back and forth about our efforts to contact Dennis Gorontsaev for assistance in getting Cyril’s autopsy report and death certificate, while largely true, continues to elide the very salient fact that she and Mr. Gorontsaev were having an acrimonious parting of the ways at the time. We remain suspicious that she was just fobbing us off on him to make trouble, and was not in any kind of good faith trying to help us get the documents we requested.

    You might also be interested to know that earlier this year, her agency was at the center of a major adoption scandal in Bulgaria. From what we understood, falsified medicals were used to secure the three refusals of children for domestic adoption required under Bulgarian law before children can be placed internationally.

    Whether Mrs. Hubbard was aware of this or not, we cannot say with certainty (although she certainly should have been). But investigators for the Ministry of Justice also discovered that the facilitators were charging far more money than was required for an adoption in Bulgaria, and disguising it under other categories. In fact, they relied partially on information we had provided to them.

    The investigation resulted in the arrest, and possibly the dismissal as well, of the directors of all three orphanages Building Blocks works (or worked) with in that country. Additional charges were made against their Bulgarian facilitator. We do not know the disposition of these charges at the present time.

    However, we do have documentation supporting this, in the form of articles printed out from the web pages of Bulgarian newspapers (primarily in Bulgarian, but we have translated some of them) that mention Building Blocks by name. We would have no problems passing that along to you if you are interested in putting that into the file, and looking into whatever might arise from that information in the way of possible violations of Ohio law or regulations.

    If there is anything else we can do for you, or if you have any further questions about this communication, please do not hesitate to let us know, by mail, telephone or electronic mail.

                                                                                                Sincerely,

                                                                                               Daniel Case

Cc: Richard Marco Jr., Esq.

    Unfortunately, between the time when we wrote this and when we actually sent it, we changed our minds about sending it to them.

     Just a slight oversight on our part – “I Thought I Sent That 7 Months Ago?” We figured Denise would understand that things like that happen — after all, it seemed to be a pretty common occurrence at her adoption agency.

    And she, too, would react the same way her clients did when they knew there was information out there relevant to their adoption that they couldn’t seem to get from their agency. Once again, BBAS’s ODJFS file was to provide some rather amusing reading on this score.

    On Oct. 17, she received an email from Linda Saridakis entitled “Case Family” (damn those evil Cases to hell!), right around the time that the Blevinses were having fun with Maria’s escort: “I received a letter from the Case’s today which was cc’ed to you.  Did you receive this letter?  What happened in Bulgaria?”

    Literally moments later, Denise responded: “Do I did not get the letter.  They have their child and have had him for a year.”

    She was right. Anguel had been home a year, and perhaps her dream of no longer having us hanging over her shoulders was dashed with this email.  She was not able, however, to respond to Linda’s question of “What happened in Bulgaria?”

    Linda asked – “What does ‘Do I did not get the letter’ mean?”

    Denise: “I meant NO I did NOT get the letter.”

    Linda requested that Denise to contact her attorney, and Denise must have done this as 10 days later, she said in email to Linda: “Please send us via fax (800) 688-2478 a copy of the last letter that the Case family sent you. Neither I nor Attorney Marco received a copy of this letter. If it is in the BBAS file, we feel we should have a copy of it.”

    Denise probably hadn’t realized that her agency's file was public record ... and that we ourselves might someday see her lie-filled response to us and, worse, call her on it.

    Well, now it’s on the Internet.

    Were she and her attorney so ignorant that they thought we would never see “her side of the story” and, in writing — HOW SHE AND HE HAD DELIBERATELY SHUT US OUT waiting for Anguel? No — again, greedy people just don’t think that way. But she was going to find out.

    Linda didn't respond immediately. Later, she said that she had been out of the office on Nov. 1 and told Denise to request the letter from Columbus. She provided the name and telephone number of the man who could help her obtain the information.  Linda told Denise that she would fax the letter, but would only do so after “certain information” had been redacted.

    This did not go down well with Denise.  She was finally getting a taste of her own medicine. “If what is in my file is public record, then please send the entire letter.  Unsure why you would need to edit this letter if it is public privacy [huh?].  It is our file. Thank you for your assistance.”

    For the record (ahem), Denise was actually right for once. BBAS’s file is indeed public record, and she has as much right as we do to see it. We certainly don’t object to that.  

    But she went on in another email Nov. 3, “So the contents of the letter is NOT public knowledge? I left a message for Columbus to call back. Not sure what the secrecy is about? What is going on?”

    Again one of her favorite rhetorical ploys: the short accusing statements in the form of a question.  And the word “secrecy.” Poor Denise. She really must have been tired of walking around with her mouth hanging open.

    We believe Denise lied in this next statement.

    Note that this email and the previous email was sent on a Saturday – what public officer in that position works on Saturdays?“Please note I spoke with Columbus and [name redacted] advised it was no problem for you to send to me and he was going to email you and advise for you to fax me the unedited letter.”

    Gosh, if only Denise and Attorney Marco had had the balls to ask us directly! We would gladly have provided that pesky letter to them!  We would even have sent it Federal Express because it absolutely, positively had to be there overnight. 

    Denise must have known that we had spotted the fabrications, misrepresentations and distortions in her rebuttal to Cyril’s story.  She really thought she’d gotten away with it.

    She was scared now. If that had been in our possession when I had visited Leslie Sherr, she would have been tied up in court.

    Linda Saridakis,  responded on Nov 6: “Just returned to the office.  I already told you about the letter. I assumed that since the letter was cc’ed to you that I would not have to do this, but they said yes. They said the normal procedure is to redact all identifying information, in the case that the letter is used for other purposed (such as court). The information that was provided to the Cases, redacted certain information” [that is true — it did, but only slightly] “I was unclear so I did not want to get in trouble for sending you the wrong information. That is it. Hope you received what you needed.”

    Undeterred, Denise shot back to Linda: “The gentleman advised for you to send me the unedited letter. If it is in my file, it is public knowledge and we should be able to read this. We did not receive this letter from the Family. Please send the letter as requested per Columbus…[name redacted] advised he was going to email you. If you did not receive this email, let me know and I will call him again. Thank you.”

    That is all of the exchange, but judging from the email that Denise sent the Blevines, she received our rebuttal. 

    More than the facts, though, we truly hope she enjoyed the experience of having her heart ripped out. Does that mean she ached right then as we had at one time? If so, good.

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