Fate of Twins Sold on Web Up to St. Louis Judge

ST. LOUIS —  The twin baby girls twice adopted over the Internet are settling into a foster home here--the fifth home and fifth set of parents they have known in their young lives.

Meanwhile, in a downtown court, Circuit Judge Steven Ohmer is weighing their future, focusing on two key concepts: stability and fitness.

Above all, Ohmer wants to give the girls stability. Now 10 months old, they were adopted last fall by a California couple. After a few months, their birth mother took them back--and promptly gave them up for adoption to a British couple. The girls lived in Wales with their new parents for a time, then landed in British foster care during a transatlantic custody battle. They returned this month to Missouri, where their biological parents live, and were delivered into the state’s protective custody.

Now Ohmer is in charge of finding the girls a permanent home. Both sets of adoptive parents have dropped their claims to the children. That leaves the twins’ biological parents, Tranda and Aaron Wecker, contending for full custody. The Weckers are divorcing. So it’s up to Ohmer to sort out which parent could give the babies a better home. Or whether the girls would be best off in long-term foster care.

The state Division of Family Services is investigating the Weckers--and “anyone else who may have an interest” in the girls--”to see whether the parents are fit to have custody and, if not, who else might be,” Ohmer said.

The probe could take months, for there is much to investigate.

Father Is a Former Cocaine Addict

Aaron Wecker, 29, a welder by trade who now earns his living renovating houses, recently told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he began using drugs as a teenager and slid into a $700-a-week cocaine habit that gripped him hard despite several stints in rehab. He finally quit in 1996, he said. But the following year he was arrested for drunken driving. And he had trouble holding down a job. His relationship with Tranda was also tempestuous. At one point, she sought and received a court protective order after accusing him of abuse. The two split up several times only to reconcile then split again. “We’re just obviously not meant for each other,” he said.

Wecker says he has a girlfriend now, has stopped drinking and has found steady work. He and Tranda share custody of their 3-year-old daughter, Nala. And he wants the chance to make a home for the twins, Kiara and Keyara. In court papers, he argues that his estranged wife should not be granted full custody because she abused the girls emotionally “by neglecting their well-being and attempting to sell [them] over the Internet for adoption and profit [not once, but twice].”

Tranda Wecker’s attorney, however, maintains that she will be a good parent to the little girls. In addition to the twins and Nala, she has two sons, ages 9 and 13, by earlier relationships. “She’s always taken care of her children, she doesn’t have any skeletons in her closet and she will be able to provide for [the twins’] care,” Bill Meehan has told Associated Press.

But Ohmer signaled in an interview that Tranda Wecker’s role in the dual Internet adoptions would be scrutinized in his court.

“Obviously, when somebody is either selling their babies or putting them up for adoption, it makes you wonder, are they fit to have kids?” Ohmer asked. “Maybe they are. They very well could be. That’s what [the investigation] is all about, trying to determine what’s in the best interest of the children.”

Mother Says She Received No Money

Both adoptions were facilitated by an Internet placement service, A Caring Heart. The service charged the California couple $6,000 for the first adoption. Then, after Tranda Wecker took the girls back--under California law, she had 90 days to change her mind--the service placed the twins with the British couple for a fee topping $12,000.

Tranda Wecker, 29, has said through an attorney that she did not receive any money from the adoptions and regrets trying to give up her babies. Aaron Wecker agreed to the adoptions because he did not feel ready to care for the twins but says he has changed his mind because of the girls’ long ordeal. “I’m not stellar and I haven’t led a perfect life, but I’m trying now,” he told the Post-Dispatch. “I’m very motivated thinking about having my kids with me.”

Both Parents Allowed to Visit the Twins

As the background checks of both parents continue, Ohmer has sealed the court file, closed all proceedings to the public and asked attorneys to restrict their comments to the press.

“The twins are trying to reestablish relationships with parents and siblings, and if it’s done in a fishbowl, in front of cameras, it just won’t work,” he explained.

The hard work of reestablishing those relationships began last weekend, when Aaron and Tranda Wecker got a chance to see their twins for the first time in four months. Each parent met with the girls for about an hour. Such visits likely will continue throughout the custody case--regular, but brief, said Bryan Hettenbach, the attorney representing the twins’ interests. “It’s not like a whole day to go to the park. It’s pretty restrictive.”

So far, Hettenbach has seen the twins only once, strapped into their car seats as they were taken into protective care upon arrival in St. Louis. But the reports he has received indicate that they’re in fine health and are on track developmentally, with “good dispositions,” he said. “I think they’ve received good care.”

That’s Ohmer’s goal for the future too: to make sure they receive good care and are not bounced around from birth parent to adoptive parent to foster parent and back.

“These twins are only 10 months old,” Ohmer said. “I would hope I could fashion an order that would give them some structure and stability in their lives.”