Ron Reigns:
Welcome, and thank you for joining us on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption with Kelly Rourke-Scarry, and me Ron Reigns, where we delve into the issues of adoption from every angle of the adoption triad.

Speaker 2:
Do what’s best for your kid, and for yourself. Because if you can’t take care of yourself, you’re definitely not going to be able to take care of that kid and that’s not fair.

Speaker 3:
And I know that my daughter will be well taken care of with them.

Speaker 4:
Don’t have an abortion, give this child a chance. All I could think about was needing to save my son.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
My name is Kelly Rourke-Scarry, I’m the executive director, president, and co-founder of Building Arizona Families Adoption Agency. The Donna K. Evans Foundation, and creator of the You Before Me Campaign. I have a bachelor’s degree in family studies and human development, and a master’s degree in education with an emphasis in school counseling. I was adopted at the age of three days, born to a teen birth mother. Raised in a closed adoption and reunited with my birth mother in 2007. I have worked in the adoption field for over 15 years.

Ron Reigns:
And I’m Ron Reigns. I’ve worked in radio since 1999. I was the cohost of two successful morning shows in Prescott, Arizona. Now I work for my wife who’s an adoption attorney and I’m able to combine these two great passions and share them on this podcast.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Adoption from a birth father’s perspective is not something that is commonly heard.

Ron Reigns:
Right. We don’t talk about it as much.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Correct.

Ron Reigns:
Much like all of these aspects, whether it’s abortion or adoption, the focus seems to be on the birth mother as opposed to the birth father. Right?

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Right. And one of our goals in the podcast has always been to really make sure that we understand everybody’s perspective. And it’s not just about the birth mother. The birth father is just as important.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
When I was meeting with a birth father and a birth mother the other day, I was talking with them and listening to their story. And the birth father started talking about his history, and why he is such an adoption proponent, and why adoption is the path that he chose for the second time.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And in listening to him, I actually stopped him midway into our conversation, because in my mind it was so revolutionary what he was saying. I don’t think that his thoughts are revolutionary. I think his ability to speak it, is. I think his openness and his candor is something that is not commonly expressed. When he was talking, it was so real and so raw. And I wanted to make sure that the world could hear what probably is the inner voice of so many other birth fathers.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And in listening to his story, I felt that for other birth fathers out there, aspects may be very relatable. And for those birth fathers out there with their birth mothers that are considering adoption, that listening to him may help them with their adoption decision.

Ron Reigns:
May give them strength.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
When I’m talking with birth mothers, I will often say things like, “It’s much clearer for you to walk down this path, having listened to somebody else that has walked down this path before you. And you’re going to be able to identify with them, maybe not on everything but certain aspects.”

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And so I asked this couple, if they would be willing to share their story. Obviously, they’re going to remain anonymous. But if they could share their story and what they’re saying so that we can bring more light, education, and awareness, to adoption from a birth father’s perspective. So here we go.

Speaker 5:
All these children that are just innocent, they had nothing to do with anything. And all I seen was money. I didn’t care about nothing or nobody until that moment. Me realizing that it was me, that I was the problem with the neighborhood, and that I was the problem with everybody’s families, and why all these kids are getting neglected, and why all these kids. the women are pregnant and they’re coming out and the babies are like drugged. They’re pretty much high. And I was a source of it and I just couldn’t do it no more.

Speaker 5:
I knew that if I didn’t break the cycle somewhere along the line, that I would be the source of making society so much worse. And it’s like, who am I to make the choices about everybody’s life? I’m nobody. And in my mind, it’s just wrong in so many ways. Before, I didn’t care, it didn’t mean nothing to me. If this girl was high, getting high, while she was pregnant, doing heroin or smoking meth, I didn’t care as long as I got money, it meant nothing to me.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And you made a lot of money.

Speaker 5:
Oh yeah.

Speaker 6:
And you used to make a lot of money.

Speaker 5:
Yeah.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So, what’s a lot of money? Like what? Like if you had to say-

Speaker 5:
200,000 in a week.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Come again.

Speaker 5:
$200,000 in a week.

Speaker 4:
They even did a newspaper article on my brother. This is the one who everything fell on was my older brother. They took everything from us. They took everything and everything went off on him. And the newspaper article was about how we made $200,000 in a week. And all they did was just sit there and collect and do whatever I told them to.

Speaker 4:
You’ll never really see their faces ever in the neighborhood. I was the one putting out there doing all the work. I was the one putting everybody on in the neighborhood. It was all me. They knew it. A lot of people don’t know it, but it was all me. And it’s like, if it wasn’t for me, they would’ve still been nobody. They would’ve just had all this that they could do nothing with.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So how did you actually… You can’t just stop or turn that off. How did you do it? Did you go to rehab? Did you-

Speaker 4:
I just stopped and turned it off all on my own. I didn’t go no where.

Speaker 5:
It was pretty much my daughter being taken and stuff that-

Speaker 4:
I didn’t go anywhere.

Speaker 5:
That changed a lot of his outlook on a lot of things. Because for months he tried to get me to go to You Moms and everything like that. And I was just stuck in the streets, pretty much. And even though I was taking care of my daughter and she had everything she needed, she had all her clothes. She had food every night, everything like that. She had a place to sleep. I was just consumed with the streets, too, at the same time.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
In what way?

Speaker 4:
In every way. Literally, if she seen somebody that was selling drugs, and she felt like that was the person that was shining the most in the neighborhood, that’s who she liked to attract too. Even though she’s not realizing like 95% of everybody that’s in the neighborhood that are doing good, they come to me and they’re like, “Hey, I need your help.” And it’d be me, the ones that put these people on. And it’d be me, the one that make them shine and don’t nobody ever see it because that’s what I do. That’s what I do best.

Speaker 4:
I’ll get these little rundown drug dealers that nobody respects in the neighborhood, nobody ever really messes with them too much, and I’ll go and I’ll take them under my wing. I’ll give them a bunch of dope and nobody sees what I give them. They know what I do for them. And they love me to death for it. But it’s like, I already did what I did and I can’t take it back, so they’re already who they are. But I used to literally take these guys and like get them, mold them into what I want them to be, give them a bunch of drugs and send them off to the world.

Speaker 5:
And he was just always off dealing with other girls and stuff like that. That would go out and hoe for him-

Speaker 4:
I used to be a pimp.

Speaker 5:
And stuff like that. And so, I was pretty much running around the streets by myself, even though we were together, I was running around the streets by myself and stuff like that. And so, I’d stay from house to house, whether it was dope house or not, just trying to basically stay safe with my daughter. Trying to keep her with a roof over her head, so she wasn’t out in the cold, or wasn’t out in the rain and stuff like that.

Speaker 5:
Even though it was a bad environment for her and stuff like that, and I know that, but it was just like at the time, that’s all I had.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And so you were still kind of interested in him, and you were at pimp at the time. See the reason I’m asking you guys these questions is because I’m on the other side. So I’ve got to learn because I’m trying to help other people. And so if you don’t teach me, you’re not going to learn this in a book.

Speaker 4:
No you can. It’s a possibility.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I know.

Speaker 4:
I call it the art of manipulation through heroin, especially when girls who are on heroin. And people think that these girls are like hoeing for me, really, they’re not. What I’m doing is I’m literally fronting them drugs here because I know they need it, and I’ll give them heroin upfront. And I’ll just keep giving it to them, keep giving it to them. And when they run up a bill, I make them go get it, by any means necessary.

Speaker 4:
That means if they got to go post that ad on the internet and have to sell the crack of their life for this, that’s what they got to go do. And they’d go get my money for me. Not because I’m really pimping them, it’s because they owe me money and I’m a drug dealer and they want more drugs from me.

Speaker 5:
So they’ll go do anything-

Speaker 4:
So they go and they’ll go do anything, whatever’s necessary, to give me my money.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
What would be the consequences? Like what if they said, “I don’t have it,”?

Speaker 4:
Then I would just cut them off and they’d be sick. And nobody in the neighborhood would mess with them. They would always be sick.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Nobody would mess with them, meaning?

Speaker 5:
Nobody would give them dope because he was the one supplying them. So if they didn’t want to pay him-

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So you really did hold all the strings.

Speaker 4:
Yeah. So, it going like this, if she doesn’t give me my money, and she goes to try to mess with the next dealer, I’ll just say, “Hey man, look, check it out. She owes me money. Don’t give her nothing. And if you give her something, then I’m not going to give you nothing.” So, they look at it like this. They would rather not give this girl nothing at all, than not be able to get anything from me. Because then if they’re not getting anything from me, then they’re not making any money.

Speaker 4:
Because I was a bully. I’d come with my AK, and I’ll sit down inside their dope house and sell dope. Sell dope to them and then sell all my dope out of their house and let them see that there’s nothing they could do about it. It’s either they work for me or they worked for nobody, or they just don’t work at all.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And you held this power because of the gun?

Speaker 4:
No, because… Well, yeah, because of that and because of the drugs and because of the other people that were so infatuated with who I made myself, that they backed me. So, it’s like either you’re going to do it anyway, or you’re going to have all these young gorillas that don’t want nothing but to earn stripes. They want to earn stripes. They want her in the clout.

Speaker 5:
Reputation.

Speaker 4:
They want to earn the position, that reputation and everything in between. And these little youngsters know that if they do what I want them to, they’re going to live a good life. They’re going to have their own hoes. They’re going to have their own dope house. They’re going to have their own gun. And they’re going to have money, they’re going to have a car. They’re going to have everything that goes with the life, if they do what I asked them to. So, it’s like-

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
What’s the average age?

Speaker 4:
Nothing under 18. I don’t play that. These other guys that run around and they bully these little young… I don’t do that. I don’t give a damn.

Speaker 5:
He has kids.

Speaker 4:
And a lot of times, even when they’re 18, I’ll get them and I give them an option. I ask them a question, “Is this really what you want to be doing with your life?” If they tell me no, I just give them some money, enough to where they’ll be okay. And send them on their way. “Here, go do something different with your life because this isn’t where you want to be at. I mean, even though I am who I am and that I’ve done a lot of things, I still had some type of conscious about the things that I was doing.

Speaker 4:
I didn’t like if they were too young, and when they’re young, 18, 19, 20, you could easily mold them into what you want them to be in every type of way, shape, form, or fashion. It’s almost like brainwashing an individual. And when they’re young like that, if they’re already too far gone, I’ll get them, and then yeah, with no problem. But if they’re not, then I try to send them on the right path.

Speaker 5:
Like with me. When I was 15 and we first met each other over at his mom’s house and stuff like that, he asked me, he was like… Because I used to sell crack when I was 15. I started selling crack when I was 14, before he got out of prison. And that was just basically to survive, to get food for me and my mom. My mom worked at Taco Bell and everything like that. But by the time she paid rent and everything like that, we didn’t have much.

Speaker 5:
So without her knowing I would just go and I started selling crack. And I was selling crack for a couple years. And then we met each other and he was like, “Well, how do you feel about selling dope?” And at first, I told him, I was like, “I don’t mess with that,” because just everybody I knew lives were messed up from it.

Speaker 5:
So he left it at that. A couple of months later, I call him and I asked him for some dope, for some G. And he was like…

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Okay, back up. What is G? I don’t mean to be-

Speaker 4:
Crystal meth.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Okay.

Speaker 5:
Yeah. He was like, “You’re messing with that stuff now?” And my first reaction was like, “No, I’m not, no, no.” Like I wasn’t going to tell him, “Yeah, I’m doing dope now.” And he’s like, “Yeah, I’ll be there in a minute.” Never showed up. And then next time I seen him was we were hanging out at his mom’s house and I had a pipe and some dope in a bag and stuff. And I loaded a bowl and I hit it. And I was like, “Want to smoke with me?”

Speaker 5:
And he’s like, “Yeah, let me see that.” And he grabbed it and he looked at it, and he was like, “This ain’t how you load a bowl. Let me see your sack.” So I handed him the sack. He turned around and walked out the door with it. And I’m sitting here like, did he just rob me? That’s how I felt like at the time, did he just rob me? And me at that time, I didn’t realize it. But now I realize it, like he was just trying to get me to not smoke. Because when I first met him, what I told him, was that I didn’t mess with that.

Speaker 4:
I was only out for seven months at the time when… I got out in the middle of 2012, and then I got arrested in the beginning of 2013. So I wasn’t that long when I first met her. When I got out, she was grown. With the second go around, when I got out that second time, they tried to RICO act me again.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
What does that mean?

Speaker 4:
They tried to give me a natural life for criminal mob boss syndicate, for money laundering, for drug trafficking, for guns. Some one of my brothers got caught with… He had 42 counts of misconduct involving weapons, four sales charges to an ATF agent, a bunch of drug charges. They tried to hit us with a bunch of money laundering charges.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
How’d you only get four years?

Speaker 4:
Because we had the same prosecutor and she was a new prosecutor. So, when she went to file, she misfiled, she didn’t know what she was doing. She tried to hit the RICO act on us and didn’t know how to file it properly. And because she misfiled her RICO act, we walked.

Speaker 5:
The first time I ever got arrested, I was with his brother that got charged with 42 gun charges. They raided the house that we were staying at. And I just so happened to be over there, picking up my stuff. And I walked up and I told him, “I was like, you’re about to get raided.” And he’s like, “No, I’m not, no, I’m not.”

Speaker 5:
So he goes and gets in the shower and I’m still up there. Because there were a couple people in the house and I was just like watching his back, basically, making sure they didn’t do anything. And one of the people, about a year prior to that, I told him, I was like, “This girl is going to set you up. She’s going to set you up. I’m telling you right now, just the question she was asking me, she’s not in it for you.” And sure enough. We got raided.

Speaker 5:
The police knocked on the door. She got up and answered it and just opened the door for them. And the next thing I know, there’s like 30 officers swarming the apartment. He’s on house arrest at the time with an ankle monitor for gun charges, and there’s three guns laying out. Two of them weren’t actual guns. One was just like a green gas oozy, the other one was a 45-pellet gun, but they were the ones that look real. So, in any case, if they look real enough that you can commit a crime like robbing somebody, you get charged with the real possession of weapons.

Speaker 4:
they’re less lethal firearms, they’re actual real guns that were converted into air soft pistols, is what a lot of people fail to realize. They just changed the top slide out to where the bullets can’t pump out of them. And like, if you were to take them apart, the bottom part slide and the trigger part, the actual firing pin mechanism that’s there, is flipped around the other way. So, all it does it just pop the BB out, you see what I’m saying?

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So why use those?

Speaker 4:
They take old firearms that are probably-

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Recycle them.

Speaker 4:
Yeah. And recycle them and turn them into air soft pistols.

Speaker 5:
And then you can easily make them back to a regular gun with no problem. Just takes a little bit of elbow grease. And…

Speaker 4:
I take a top slide, a recoil spring, and a firing pin, and that’s it. And you can convert it right back into a firearm with nothing.

Speaker 5:
And then-

Speaker 4:
Oh, and the barrel. You got to change the barrel out.

Speaker 5:
And so they came in, they arrested him automatically. They pulled him out of the shower, put some shorts on him and put him in cuffs and put him in the car and took him to jail. And I’m the only one left. Like that’s how I knew the girl who set us up is because they didn’t ask her no questions, not name….nothing. They just were like, Okay, you’re free to go.”

Speaker 5:
And so I was the last one left in the apartment. They took him to jail.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Why not you?

Speaker 5:
Well, they hadn’t taken me to jail yet. I was only 18. I had just turned 18. Had no charges, never been arrested in juvie or anything like that. And they’re all like, “Well, what are you doing here?” They’re looking at me like you don’t even belong in this scene, basically. Because I had never been in trouble. And I asked him for the wallet, which was his wallet. I claimed his wallet so that I could put his money on his books. And when the girl that set us up had taken the wallet and his sack of dope and put it in a little bag together.

Speaker 5:
So when they found the wallet, they found out the quarter ounce of dope. And they were like, “Well, look it here, who’s this?” And I looked at him. I said, “To be honest with you, I’m going to tell you right now, it’s not mine, but I don’t know who’s it is.” And so, they took me to jail and charged me with a quarter ounce of dope; possession of dangerous drugs. That was the first charge I ever caught. And ever since then, and that was in 2014, up until 2017, in the middle of 2017, I was dealing with that charge.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
After everything that we’ve heard for this first of two segments of this conversation that I had with these two birth parents, I’m almost speechless.

Ron Reigns:
I don’t even know what to say about it. It’s powerful.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
It’s powerful, and it’s moving. And I want to state to all of our listeners, this was unrehearsed, un-coached. You will hear me a couple of times, ask a question for clarity.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
But other than that, this is their story. And the bravery that they have in sharing it, I think goes without saying. And so, I’m excited to be able to share part two.

Ron Reigns:
So make sure you listen to the next episodes because we’ll be bringing that to you as well.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
You don’t want to miss it.

Ron Reigns:
We have a pregnancy crisis hotline available 24/7 by phone or text at 623-695-4112. Or you can call our toll-free number, 1-800-340-9665. We can make an immediate appointment with you to get you to a safe place, provide food and clothing and started on creating an Arizona adoption plan, or give you more information.

Ron Reigns:
You can check out our blogs on our website at AZPregnancyHelp.com. Thank you for joining us on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption, written and produced by Kelly Rourke-Scarry and edited by me, Ron Reigns. If you enjoy this podcast, rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts. And as always thanks to Grapes for letting us use their song I Don’t know as our theme song. Join us next time for Birth Mother Matters in Adoption, for Kelly Rourke-Scarry, I’m Ron Reigns and we’ll see you then.