Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host Ashley Flowers and I'm Brett and today I want to tell you a story that highlights just how

broken the American foster care system is a young boy with a tragic past seemed to get a happy ending when he was adopted by parents who

appeared to understand the unique work of raising a child with severe emotional problems, but his

mysterious disappearance raised a ton of questions about those same parents and the system that put him in their care to begin with.

This is the story of Jelique Rainwalker.

In the fall of 2007, a boy in New York State named Jelique Rainwalker is going through a difficult time.

Jelique is 12 years old and he's one of these kids where I mean you can't help it feel like they've gotten just a really rough lot in life.

Pretty much from day one.

You see when Jelique was born, his mother had substance use problems with alcohol and crack cocaine and so as a result, Jelique was born addicted to crack.

He was sexually abused as an infant and entered the state foster care system at a very young age and so by the time he was seven years old, he had been in not one, not two, but six different foster homes.

Oh my God, and that much change at such a young age, not to mention, you know, whatever damage he may have suffered in utero from the drugs.

Like that's going to cause a lot of trauma.

It did.

I mean, Jelique's got some pretty severe behavioral issues that have manifested in violence and both suicidal and homicidal tendencies, even at a young age.

And he's also been diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder, which according to the Mayo Clinic's website means that he has a hard time kind of like building emotional connections with other people like his adoptive parents.

So he's been adopted.

Yeah, so in 2002 when Jelique was seven years old, he went to live with a couple named Jocelyn MacDonald and her husband Stephen Kerr.

And they live in East Greenwich in Washington County, which is near like Eastern New York.

And they adopted him in May of 2004 officially.

So he'd been with them like it's like about two years before the adoption was official.

Now the couple also had three biological sons and an adopted daughter.

But Jelique's emotional and mental health issues are never far away.

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