A Web of deceit

Victoria Corderi Correspondent • Profile

Two families wanted to adopt and thought they’d found the perfect birth mother, a woman they met online.  Instead, the Mantooths from Texas and the Colemans from Tennessee became victims of a heartless con.

Dateline's Victoria Corderi exposes one cold-hearted scam in a Dateline Hidden Camera investigation.

These are notes from e-mails from a woman who has promised to give her baby to a couple for adoption:

"I am totally committed to this adoption and I want you and Lori to be the mommy and daddy to this baby."

"I would like to see her but feel she should be placed in your arms."

"I felt such a bond with you and I want you to adopt this baby."

"You are the only couple that I am pursuing."

"This baby is not mine, she is yours."

"I know I have found the mommy and daddy for this baby."

"And I know God hand-picked you for us."

Karen and Mark Mantooth spent the last seven years trying to become parents. First, their treatments for infertility were unsuccessful. Then, two adoptions fell through. It seemed like heartbreak after heartbreak.

Karen Mantooth: That’s all I've ever wanted out of life was to be a wife and a mom.  Just the frustration of, "am I ever going to be a mom?"

Victoria Corderi, Dateline correspondent: So it's been a tough nasty road?

Mark Mantooth: Oh yes.

Karen Mantooth: It has. 

Last fall, they thought the long wait was almost over when they met a woman looking for a couple just like them: a loving family to adopt her baby girl.

Karen Mantooth: It was late in her pregnancy. She only had six or seven weeks left to go. We got to talking on the phone and we seemed to click.  We hit it off pretty well.

The Mantooths didn't find her through a traditional adoption agency but with the help of the Internet. They had signed up with an adoption match-making service that posted their profile online.  It was essentially an advertisement offering themselves as potential parents.    

Mark Mantooth: The audience was targeted to birth mothers who wanted to find a home for their child.

Karen and the birth mother bonded quickly, talking on the phone several times a day.

Karen Mantooth: I'm like, "this person really cares about this baby." You know? She really cares about what kind of family this baby's going to. 

Finally, Karen and Mark seemed to be on their way to parenthood. While they prepared for their baby at home in Texas, a couple 800 miles away in Tennessee hoping to adopt also turned to the Internet.

Lori Coleman:  I just started kinda playing online, seeing what was out there.

This would be Lori and Chris Coleman's second adoption. Like the Mantooths, they had endured years of infertility treatments.  Then they turned to a private attorney who specialized in adoption. Kennedy was placed in their arms four years ago, just hours after being born.

Lori Coleman: You can hear it on the tape, her birth mother saying, "She's all yours." 

Chris Coleman: We couldn't ask for anything better and that was what we were expecting to experience again.

This time, the Coleman's thought they could find a potential birth mother on their own, using the vast adoption resources online. Websites, message boards, and chat rooms are all part of the fast-growing world of independent adoption.

Lori Coleman: I started discovering all these postings from expectant mothers.

Independent adoptions are usually less expensive than traditional private adoptions because lawyers or agencies aren't paid to find a birth mother, but step in later just to do the legal paperwork.  

Corderi: What were you seeing online? “Birth mother looking for a loving family?”

Lori Coleman: Yeah, exactly.

The Coleman's found a promising candidate quickly. Lori replied to a posting from a pregnant woman named Christy.  Soon they were talking daily and exchanging heartfelt e-mails, like this one. 

“I am so happy that I have found you.  I wanted the perfect family for this baby and I know in my heart that I have found them.  I am 100 percent sure of this adoption and placing this baby with you both.”

Lori and Christy became fast friends, confidants even.

Chris Coleman: They were talking ten or 15 times a day.

Corderi: Ten or 15 times a day? Really?

Chris Coleman: Yeah.

Lori Coleman: She called me a lot.

Twice, Lori drove three hours to Nashville to meet Christy in person. She gave Lori this photo of her daughter, and said she was a single mother, raising a two-year old alone.

Lori Coleman: She was just a really super, nice, sweet person that I just connected with.

The Coleman's hired an attorney to draw up the adoption papers. Christy signed documents saying she was nearly 8 months pregnant and Lori and Chris made plans to be at the hospital for the birth. They also agreed to pay some of Christy's living expenses, rent and food.  This is standard procedure in most private adoptions.

4-year-old Kennedy was excited about becoming a big sister, while Lori happily got ready for the new addition to family.

Lori Coleman: I completely redid the nursery. And I bought all new clothes and bought something for her to come home from the hospital in.

In Texas, Karen and Mark Mantooth also had hired an attorney, and were making plans to be there for their baby's birth.

Karen Mantooth: She needed to know that someone was going to love her baby.

Both the Colemans and the Mantooths felt the anticipation and excitement of impending parenthood.  The birth mothers had told them they were the only ones and there was no going back.

There was just one problem.

Both couples were talking to the same person.  Christy, it appeared, had promised her baby to two different families.

Was she simply undecided? Or was this some kind of cruel game playing with people's lives?

Lori Coleman: She was really just totally confusing me at this point.

Mark Mantooth: We just wanted to find out the truth and if this is really happening?

We wondered the same thing. Dateline decided to go looking for Christy with our hidden cameras to find out.

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