IT WASN’T LONG before Jennifer Williams noticed there was something unusual about the two young girls she was fostering. Three-year-old Arya Hernandez was bright, outgoing, and without any of the behavioral issues Williams had become accustomed to over more than a decade as a foster parent in Georgia. But 4-month-old Emma seemed sickly. The baby’s soft spot was too big for her age and in the wrong part of her head, and the whites of her eyes were discolored. She was also bowlegged and held her limbs in an unusual, awkward way.
Williams was only taking care of the girls for the weekend while their usual foster parent was out of town. She decided to call the girls’ foster mom to ask why she wasn’t told about Emma’s medical problems.
“She texted me back pretty quickly and says, ‘Well, did no one tell you Emma and Arya are in foster care because of abuse?’” Williams says. “‘Emma was abused physically by her parents.’”
The response surprised Williams. If baby Emma was abused by her parents—resulting in fractures, as the foster parent told her—why did no one warn her?
When the girls left to go back to their usual foster home, Williams contacted the girls’ caseworker about her concerns. The caseworker thanked her for her insight and told her that the child protection agency was looking into medical evaluations for Emma. Still unsettled, Williams decided to search for the girls’ family on social media. What she found left her even more perturbed.
“My family is facing an emergency and are in dire need of your help,” a July 10 Facebook post from Wilairat “Tuckey” Hernandez, the girls’ mother, began. “On June 6, 2023, my husband and I had our two daughters Arya and Emma taken from us at the Children’s Hospital by the Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS). We took Emma to The Hospital after noticing she had unexplained swelling on one of her legs…. Images were taken of Emma’s leg and rib cage and it was determined she had a fractured leg and cracked left ribs.”
Tuckey’s post went on to describe how DFCS had accused her of abuse within hours of arriving at the hospital, despite no other signs of abuse or dysfunction in the family. While Tuckey suspected an underlying medical condition could have caused her daughter’s fractures, getting her tested would be difficult with the girls in DFCS custody, and possibly financially prohibitive. Making matters even worse, Tuckey—a Thai immigrant who had worked as an au pair when she first came to the United States—had now been charged with child abuse.
“This situation is tearing me and Matthew apart, and causing extreme stress for both of our children,” she wrote. “Especially my baby Emma who was 100% breastfeeding prior to all this.”
As she read Tuckey’s post,
