Heidi McFarland summarized pretty succinctly what led to them losing their baby in two sentences:
One piece of paper was all that was needed. Basically, this would have been a whole different story.To make things worse, the baby died within five weeks of being returned to his birth mother, having been killed by his birth father. Drew Weehler-Smith was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 50 years in prison after Gabriel died from severe head injuries.
This is what their current attorney, Roxanne Conlin, had to say about the ruling:
Today a jury in Polk County awarded Heidi and Rachel McFarland 3.25 Million Dollars for the loss of the baby boy they thought they were adopting. Their attorney didnt get the basic document signed by the birth mother in a timely fashion. After having him for 78 days, they had to give him to her when she asked for him. If the lawyer had done what he was supposed to do, the birth mother would have signed a document called a release of custody and 4 days after she signed it, it would have been almost impossible for her or the baby's father to take Gabriel away from them. The lawyer just didnt get around to it. The birth mom got mad at the McFarlands and ripped this baby away from the only parents and the only home he had known. That is all the jury knew when they reached this verdict. There is more to the story. 5 weeks after the baby was returned to the birth mom, and while she went out for concert tickets, the birth father killed the baby. The jury didnt know that and also didnt know that for every hour of every day he was not with them, Heida and Rachel worried that he was living in a cockroach invested apartment with a 16 year old who drank and took drugs. God bless the civil justice system for holding people accountable for the damage they do to others and to this jury who came to the right conclusion even without all of the evidence.Both the McFarlands and Conlin have indicated that they will see very little of that $3.25 million judgement, but are glad for the moral victory and they hope that they might prevent similar situations like this in the future.