We Were Once a Family

A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America

By: Roxanna Asgarian

Narrated by: Suehyla El-Attar

One of Literary Hub's most anticipated books of 2023

"Narrator Suehyla El-Attar gives an impassioned performance that enhances the touching, terrifying tale of social injustice and systemic failure. Her delivery is compelling and clear, evoking a captivating listening experience from this true-crime tragedy."- Library Journal

The shocking, deeply reported story of a murder-suicide that claimed the lives of six children—and a searing indictment of the American foster care system.

On March 26, 2018, rescue workers discovered a crumpled SUV and the bodies of two women and several children at the bottom of a cliff beside the Pacific Coast Highway. Investigators soon concluded that the crash was a murder-suicide, but there was more to the story: Jennifer and Sarah Hart, it turned out, were a white married couple who had adopted the six Black children from two different Texas families in 2006 and 2008. Behind the family's loving facade, however, was a pattern of abuse and neglect that went ignored as the couple withdrew the children from school and moved across the country. It soon became apparent that the State of Texas knew very little about the two individuals to whom it had given custody of six children—with fateful consequences.

In the manner of Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family and other classic works of investigative journalism, Roxanna Asgarian’s We Were Once a Family is a revelation of vulnerable lives; it is also a shattering exposé of the foster care and adoption systems that produced this tragedy. As a journalist in Houston, Asgarian became the first reporter to put the children’s birth families at the center of the story. We follow the author as she runs up against the intransigence of a state agency that removes tens of thousands of kids from homes each year in the name of child welfare, while often failing to consider alternatives. Her reporting uncovers persistent racial biases and corruption as children of color are separated from birth parents without proper cause. The result is a riveting narrative and a deeply reported indictment of a system that continues to fail America’s most vulnerable children while upending the lives of their families.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

We once were a family

What a tragic tale. The writer has laid open one of the worst child neglect stories of our Government.

Tragic but important

The story was incredibly sad and eye-opening to how child protective services work. Although we know, systemic racism has been it play, it is rampant in that at target, black families, and takes children from their homes.

There are more than one side of a story

I found the book interesting and well written. I respect the author for paying attention to the birth families. There is no doubt that they suffered and continued to be mistreated. I would like to add, however, that the matter of a child removal often involves court. The description of how children were removed from their parents in the book comes from the parents, may or may not be how it actually happened. I also felt the author paying less attention to the impact of having parents with substance use and mental illness but blaming so much on poverty. Finally with so much emphasis on racism, which I agree, I wonder if this book could have been narrated by an African American mother. It is a little disappointing that this book could come across as the white people's story when African American person is not included in the book production.

unbiased

I like how the author presented facts surrounding each incident that occurred to get the children to the next phase of their lives. It was presented in such a manner that you are left to determine who was at fault.

A devastating story of families torn apart

Deeply researched and sensitively told. This is investigative journalism at its finest. A must read.