Hi folks. Got directed to this site by a friend. I don't know much about this pizzagate thing beyond what he told me (lots of homework to do later) but he assured me this is the place for this story. I searched and it doesn't look like it was talked about here, but that doesn't surprise me because the story kinda came and went even in Arkansas. It's a sordid, convoluted tale, so I'll try to lay out the major events, in chronological order, with bullet points:

• Three sisters, ages 5, 3, and 1, are taken from their mother by Arkansas State DHS after they are sexually abused by their father and multiple other men.

• The mother of the girls, who did little to protect them, approaches an individual she knows from church to ask him to adopt the girls.

• This man, Arkansas State Representative Justin Harris (NOT the Justin Harris who recently got sent to prison for letting his baby die in a hot car), agrees to adopt the three girls despite already having three sons of his own.

• DHS does not want to give the children to Harris because they feel that the girls' issues stemming from their abuse would make them too challenging for first-time adoptive parents.

• The girls are placed with a foster family, veterans of the foster system, who had taken in more than 70 children over 15 years. This foster family describes them as reasonably well-adjusted and developmentally healthy, despite the abuse they suffered. The oldest daughter reportedly had more serious issues (and had suffered worse abuse) than the younger two.

• Before DHS can legally terminate the girls' mother's parental rights, she tries to draw up a private adoption with Harris, who refuses to go through DHS because his side business of a daycare was being investigated by DHS for various issues including inappropriate religious instruction and alleged misappropriation of state funding.

• DHS refuses to allow the adoption to go through. Multiple psychiatrists and child development experts weigh in and state that placing three girls who were sexually abused into a home with Harris' three young sons, along with the fact that Harris and his wife were often very busy with their daycare and Harris' duties as a State Rep, was a bad idea. They uged him to adopt any other children in the system.

• Harris uses his position as State Rep and his control of the DHS budget to coerce the department into approving the adoption.

• Shortly after the girls are sent to live with the Harris family, he declares that they are possessed by demons and communicating telepathically. Contrary to the advice of multiple experts, the girls are medicated, confined to separate rooms, have all toys taken away, have loud christian music played at them for hours at a time, and are observed only via cameras Harris placed in their rooms. Harris' wife, Marsha--herself a victim of sexual abuse (they married just 4 months after meeting at a child abuse charity event)--only interacts with them to give them food and water. Predictably, their behavior and mental health deteriorate. Harris orders multiple exorcisms. People who babysit for the Harris boys are appalled at how the girls are treated, and report having never witnessed any of the "demonic" behavior that Harris described.

• Harris decides to go around state regulations and simply "rehome" the girls by giving them to an employee of his daycare. Harris would later fire this employee, and gave conflicting reports as to why. Months later the employee was arrested for molesting one of the girls, and was ultimately sentenced to 40 years in prison. At the time he was turned in, the girls had been "rehomed" to yet another family.

• Harris' only defense of his behavior is that he could have faced accusations of child abandonment if he had attempted to return the girls to DHS custody, so he had no other option. He denies that he ever thought the girls were possessed or that he had exorcisms performed, despite multiple witnesses to the contrary.

*Despite the above, Harris suffers no personal or professional repercussions whatsoever. A change.org petition calling for him to resign failed to reach its goal, and the story seems to have been forgotten shortly after a very Harris-friendly 20/20 special aired in late October 2015.

I realize that's a lot to wade through, but it really just scratches the surface. There are so many more messed-up details to this story. Below are a handful of links that cover most of it:

http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/casting-out-demons-why-justin-harris-got-rid-of-kids-he-applied-pressure-to-adopt/Content?oid=3725371

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/13/the-story-of-an-arkansas-politician-who-gave-away-his-adopted-child-and-the-tragedy-that-followed/

http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/months-after-the-rehoming-of-their-adopted-daughters-was-made-public-justin-and-marsha-harris-have-yet-to-face-consequences/Content?oid=3871740

http://abcnews.go.com/US/young-girls-arkansas-state-official-center-adoption-controversy/story?id=34636997

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/rehomed-girls-to-appear-on-2020-to-debunk-rep-justin-harris-claims-about-their-demonic-behavior/

http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2015/10/24/twenty-problems-with-20-20s-coverage-of-the-justin-harris-rehoming

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Harris

https://www.change.org/p/arkansas-governor-asa-hutchinson-call-for-resignation-of-representative-justin-harris

Anyway, I don't expect any great revelations to come from this and I don't even know if there's anything further to investigate. Maybe this is just another incredibly sad piece of data in the world of abused kids. Still, this story really got to me when it happened and guess I just wanted to make sure it isn't forgotten. Thanks and God bless.