How Could You? Hall of Shame-Korean Adult Adoptee Phillip Clay case-Adult Death UPDATED

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, Korea, Phillip Clay ” was found dead in an apparent suicide.”

“Phillip Clay, 42, was found dead around 11:40 p.m., Sunday,[May 21, 2017] outside an apartment building in Ilsan, according to officials from Global Overseas Adoptees’ Link (G.O.A’.L), a non-governmental organization run by adoptees in Seoul.

While a police investigation is underway, surveillance camera footage reportedly showed he was alone in the elevator when he went up to the 14th floor of the building he jumped from, alluding to suicide.

The funeral was held at Myongji Hospital by Holt Children’s Services Inc in Korea. Around 30 people attended his funeral, including representatives from adoptee organizations such as KoRoot and Adoptee Solidarity Korea and the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

According to AK Salling, secretary general for G.O.A’.L, he was not well known by the adoptee community in Korea. On Wednesday, however, a Christian ceremony took place at the same hospital, where other adoptees visited.

Clay was deported from the United States to Korea in 2012. Adopted by an American family at age 10, Clay never attained American citizenship, a common problem that generations of Korean adoptees face in the U.S. His difficulties, however, did not end there. He was deported to Korea in 2012 and suffered from psychological issues, a prevalent feature in the lives of many adoptees.

“In Korea, there’s not a huge awareness of mental issues. It’s a serious factor because of the upbringing and traumatic events we go through in our lives are hard to process,” said Adam Crapser, another deported Korean-American adoptee.

He was one of the few that went to both the funeral and the ceremony.

“It’s hard to live a productive life,” he added.

Crapser relates to Clay in many ways. Like Clay, he was never given American citizenship; and like Clay, he was deported back to Korea, a country he had not lived in for decades.

After his deportation in 2016, he stayed in an immigration detention center for nine months, and then had to make a life for himself in Korea during the past six months.

“It could be me tomorrow,” he said, referring to Clay’s death.

Although his deportation came from lack of citizenship in addition to a criminal record, his ordeal is not uncommon for many adoptees in America.

AK Salling, 44, is an adoptee who returned to Korea in 2013 from Denmark. Since her return, she has volunteered and worked for organizations that support adoptees. For her, Clay’s struggles and death reflect the need for government to step up in providing a better safety-net for vulnerable groups including adoptees.

“This is a wake-up call that we need to look at post adoption services that are being provided,” she said.

“We need to ask ourselves if they are sufficient and if they include everybody.”
A sad ending for deported adoptee
[Korea Times 5/25/17 by You Soo-sun]

” Holt Children’s Services in Korea is being criticized by the Korean adoptee community, after the funeral service it held for Phillip Clay — a deported Korean adoptee — Tuesday and Wednesday. The remarks made by its chairwoman, Molly Holt, about Clay are at the height of the criticism; adoptees have described her comments as “insensitive” and “irresponsible,” and they highlight the agency’s disregard of the adoptee community.

Adoptees, at the service Wednesday, raised issues with Holt regarding its handling of Clay’s funeral, which may be summed up in three arguments.

First, they argue that Holt Children’s Services had resisted holding the funeral for Clay until the Korea Adoption Services intervened and said it was necessary and co-hosted the event.

Secondly, the agency refused to have the service in English, the common language for the adoptee community. Even when an official from the Ministry of Health and Welfare pleaded with Holt agency, it allegedly refused. Later, an English translation was provided by an employee of the Korea Adoption Services.

What sparked the greatest anger happened during Clay’s cremation.

At the cremation, John Compton, a board member of the Korea Adoption Services and a fellow adoptee expressed his discontent with the adoption agency.

“We stand here today, to honor another fallen adoptee, a life an adoption agency vowed to protect. It is with regret they have failed Phillip.”

He also said that “this funeral is a perfect example that, as adoptees, our best interests are still being ignored.”

“I urge the ones who vowed to protect Phillip, to effect change to prevent the loss of another precious life. Rest in peace Phillip,” he said, referring to the Holt agency.

According to adoptees present during the ceremony, Molly Holt responded to his statement with smears, including remarks that Clay, during his visit to Holt Services the prior week, had used all its paper and ink. The agency paid for the taxi he took to its office, which Molly Holt also allegedly complained about.

The word quickly spread to other adoptees in Korea and abroad.

David M. Warburton, a Korean adoptee in Canada, said he was “appalled” at Holt Children Services’ intention not to hold a memorial for Clay.

“As his custodian, it meant to deprive him of basic human dignity and a custom closely valued and shared by one of its founding ideologies. The fact that it refused to fully accommodate a bilingual service, one that would have been important for Clay and those attending within his community, contributes to a longstanding divisive relationship it has had with Korean adoptees. The intervention in the lives of others deserves more responsibility and demands more respect.”

Hanna Sofia Jung Johansson, a 41-year-old Korean adoptee in Sweden, offered to pay for all the expenses incurred during the weekend prior to his suicide. She said that she would pay the costs for the “taxi to Ilsan; meals during Friday to Sunday; printing papers; and ink.”

“I am truly sorry that you felt that Phillip was an obligation, rather than a fellow human being,” she wrote.

“Phillip is not the first or last international adoptee who will end their life,” another Korean adoptee wrote on her social media.

For Kristin Pak, 41, a representative of Adoptee Solidarity Korea and a Korean adoptee, sorrowfully said Holt’s behavior was nothing new.

“It’s unfortunately not surprising because it does not respect us at all.”

Holt Children’s Services denied all three allegations and argued that  the Korea Adoption Services is in part to blame.

“She was the one who took the most care of Phillip,” said an official from the Holt agency. “We also never intended to not hold the funeral and Molly Holt never intended to say hurtful things,” she added.[Yeah, Right! ]

The agency also denied being Clay’s legal guardian, although it facilitated his adoption.

Phillip Clay, 42, was found dead after falling from a 14-story-building in Ilsan, Gyeonggi Province. Although the police investigation is still underway, most believe the alleged suicide is the result of the ordeals he endured as a Korean adoptee in America.

He was sent to the United States at age 10 and he returned unwillingly to Korea after he was deported. Clay was among the many Korean adoptees who did not receive U.S. citizenship, which is the case for many adopted to America before the mid 1980s, usually as a result of their adoptive parents’ failing to go through with the naturalization process. Clay was deported to Korea in 2012 for having a criminal record coupled with a lack of U.S. citizenship.

Clay’s sufferings did not cease when he returned. He had struggled to adjust to a new life in a country – with a new language and culture – he had been away from for decades. He also suffered from psychological issues that were not adequately met by existing safety-nets in Korea.”

Holt criticized for ‘irresponsible’ funeral for ill-fated adoptee

[Korea Times 5/25/17 by You Soo-sun]

Kris Pak/ASK Korea (ask@adopteesolidarity), as shared on Facebook, gave us permission to share this post:

“Molly Holt at the cremation of Philip Clay who died on three days ago by suicide:

Philip “used up all our paper and ink printing his weird books on Saturday” so he was told to leave the office. Molly complained that Holt had to pay for the taxi he took to their office. And she, of course “tried to tell him to take his medicine…if only he wasn’t drunk” he wouldn’t have killed himself.

It was when, 오명석, a person who had been closer to Philip, who was also adopted, said, “We stand here today, to honor another fallen adoptee, a life an adoption agency vowed to protect. It is with regret they have failed Phillip. This funeral is a perfect example as adoptees , our best interest is still being ignored, as many of the adoptees here knew Phillip, in which he would have wanted us to be involved first hand carrying out his last wishes. In closing, I urge the one who vowed to protect Phillip, affect change to prevent the loss of another precious life. Rest in Peace Phillip,” that Molly responded with the smears above.

Holt Korea was his custodian due to mental health problems. KAS was aware of his case and interceded when Holt wanted to quickly cremate his body without any memorial, funeral, or wake in order to cover up their continued mishandling of Philip’s case from adoption to adult life in Korea to his death.

The services were not conducted in English even after an English-speaking minister was found. NOT by the Christian Holt organization, but by, Simone, a non-Korean speaking adoptee who works for KoRoot, an NGO. The bible readings and sermon were offensive, fatalistic, and totally dismissed Philip’s life as “God’s will.” At the wake last night adoptees were ignored until we argued until 11 pm for English interpretation (which wasn’t provided). No adoptees were asked to give their input about his memorial or services.”

Molly Holt!!!!

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Update:“A cardboard box about the size of a microwave left South Korea last Thursday, red “fragile” stickers affixed to its sides.

The box traveled to Kailua, Hawaii, and stayed for a few days before being flown to Dallas. Around 1 a.m. Wednesday, the box landed in Philadelphia. And just before 8:30 a.m., a man carried it into the Hampton Inn on Bartram Avenue near the airport and placed it on a chair in the Franklin Room, a nondescript conference space just past the continental breakfast area.

He opened the box slowly and pulled out some bubble wrap, revealing a smaller white box packed in, tight. Inside that box was a white cloth bag and inside that bag a gilded ceramic urn. The man placed it inside a crown of blue and white flowers on a glass table.

Phillip Clay was home.

“In death, Phillip Clay did what he couldn’t do in life,” said the man, John Compton. “He entered the U.S. legally.”

Clay was just 8 when a Philadelphia couple adopted him in 1983 from Eunpyeong Orphanage in South Korea. As an adult, he struggled with mental illness. He had repeated run-ins with the law and was a notorious bicycle thief. In 2012, he was deported back to South Korea because of his criminal record. He knew no one there and decades earlier had lost the language.

Clay hung on for five years.

“It was really, really hard for him to find a sustainable life for him over there,” said Compton, an adviser with the Global Overseas Adoptees Link.

On May 21, Clay jumped from the 14th floor of an apartment building in Ilsan.  A memorial service was held there for the 42-year-old shortly afterward.

A little more than a dozen people came to Clay’s memorial at the airport hotel Wednesday morning. Most were fellow adoptees and adoption-reform advocates. City Councilman David Oh gave some remarks. Almost none of the mourners, besides Compton, had met Clay. But they knew his situation all too well.  Many recited poems and lyrics from songs.

When Clay came to the United States, adoption and immigration were separate processes, something of which many parents and their children were unaware. Before 2000, citizenship was not granted automatically for adoptees.

“I was born in 1957 and I came here when I was 8,” said Stefanie Blandon, who dabbed a tissue on her tears after Clay’s memorial. “I was naturalized when I was 12, but it was something I took for granted.” She had driven down from New York City.

An estimated 30,000 adoptees lack citizenship because of the disconnected processes, according to the Adoptee Rights Campaign, known as ARC. The group is pressing Congress to grant citizenship to all adoptees regardless of when they came here.  Many advocates believe that had Clay been a citizen, he could still be alive in the U.S. today, even if he were in prison or a mental health facility.

“That number is staggering,” said Anne Montgomery, a Philadelphia advocate for the Adoptee Rights Campaign who attended Wednesday morning’s service. “It is unfortunate that we have to come together [over his death] to highlight this issue.”

Clay’s story was covered by the New York Times and news outlets in South Korea. TV Chosun had a crew following Clay’s ashes on the 6,900-mile journey.

Compton had met Clay in South Korea after he was deported and tried to help him. He recalled picking him up from prison and driving hours back to Seoul. They bought cigarettes and Egg McMuffins and argued about which technology giant was better, Apple or Samsung.

“I appreciate you all coming here to pay respects,” Compton told those gathered, “and to welcome him home.”

Clay’s adoptive parents did not attend the memorial. When it was over and the room cleared out, Compton said he would place the urn back in the box, gather up the flowers, and deliver Clay’s remains to his family.”

In death, Phillip Clay finally returns to U.S. legally

[Philly 7/19/17 by Jason Nark]