The Empty Crib

• Share

(2 of 2)

Furlow started Tender Hearts in 1997, at age 40. She set up a convincing website and took out a small ad in the Yellow Pages, decorated with tiny hearts. It is a testament to how ripe the adoption world is for fraud that within months Furlow was part of the industry buzz, getting referrals from lawyers and other facilitators across the U.S. In reality, Tender Hearts is not a registered corporation. The two addresses she gave for her business are both residences. Furlow's website--which remains up despite a court directive to dismantle it--goes deep and long. Upon closer inspection, most of it appears to have been copied from other sites.

Furlow's background may have helped school her in the language of adoption. Right around the time she started her business, she worked briefly at Philadelphia's Thomas Jefferson University Hospital as an account representative, greeting patients at an admitting desk. Before that, she attended Manatee Community College in Florida, studying "pre-nursing," according to the college's records.

About two weeks after the first disappointing round with Furlow, Kiser-Mostrom flew back to the East Coast one more time at Furlow's behest. She says Furlow told her Roxanne had changed her mind. But in the end, Roxanne's mother supposedly took the child. When Kiser-Mostrom returned home to Nebraska, she noticed an Internet posting that made inquiries about Furlow. She replied and met Charles Elliott, a Philadelphia fraud examiner who had been hired to investigate Furlow by another victimized couple. He had posted the inquiry to find Furlow's other clients. Within weeks, he handed over the names of 10 couples to the FBI.

Furlow pleaded guilty last month to three counts of mail fraud--part of an agreement with federal prosecutors who had indicted her in April on 20 counts. The charges followed a yearlong FBI investigation in which Furlow was found to have collected approximately $215,000 in fees from unwitting couples, according to the indictment. (Furlow did not respond to TIME's requests for an interview.) Her attorney, Hugh Clark, offered this speculation to a Philadelphia TV station: "I think she started off with the idea that she wanted to place prospective parents with their adoptive children. Obviously at some point she was unable to fill the commitment that she was making, and from there things started to spiral downwards."

Furlow did successfully place two babies with adoptive parents. But in the vast majority of cases, according to the indictment, she spent most of her time telling stories. Even when she was not trying to extract more money from clients, she created new, gratuitous dramas, her victims say. "She enjoyed controlling other people's lives," Kiser-Mostrom says now. "I think it gave her some kind of thrill."

Experts say the best way to avoid getting conned is to be skeptical. They suggest calling government licensing agencies and the Better Business Bureau. But one Furlow victim, John Nakai of Littleton, Colo., did both. State employees told him they don't track facilitators, and the Better Business Bureau for Eastern Pennsylvania had (and has had to this day) no complaints about her.

At her sentencing in September, Furlow could receive up to 15 years in prison--though prosecutors expect she will get far less. Dozens of her victims plan to attend. The court will not have room for all the heartbreak.