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Rihanna adoption

10 images Created 2 Dec 2020

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  • Aliyah Randle (center) is comforted by her mom, Laurell Florence (right) and her case manager, Nancy DeMoss, December 19, 2015, while having an asthma attack at the Child Crisis Center, Mesa, Arizona. Laurell visited often, she was trying to piece her life together, so she could get her daughter back.
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  • Aliyah Randle listens as her housemates wish her well, January 22, 2016, during her going away party at the Child Crisis Center, Mesa, Arizona. Linda Ponter (right, education specialist) ask the children gathered, “Is the center a forever home?” “Nooooo,” they respond.
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  • Aliyah Randle (right) and her mom, Laurell Florence drag their belongings up three flights of stairs to their new apartment, January 22, 2016, in Tempe, Arizona. Aliyah ran from room to room, exploring.
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  • Laurell Florence sits on a bench after a severance hearing, April 5, 2017, at Maricopa County Juvenile Court. “I feel like I’ve been backed into a corner. I feel like a fish around a bunch of sharks. They point a finger at me, like this is all my fault,” Laurell sobs.
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  • Aliyah Randle plays with Barbie and Ken, September 2, 2017, in the bedroom she shares with one of her foster sisters. Aliyah now has the house and family she had hoped for when she was living at the shelter.
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  • Aliyah Randle holds an old photograph of herself, with her mom and dad, September 30, 2017, in the backyard of James and Lorraine Agnew. Aliyah has been in foster care since she was 7, she came to live with the Agnew’s in December of 2016. She felt safe, something she hadn’t felt in a long time. Aliyah asked the Agnew’s to adopt her.
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  • Aliyah Randle sits on a chair in the kitchen while Lorraine Agnew fixes her hair for the adoption hearing, March 28, 2018. “Never again will you have to worry about them coming to take you away,” Lorraine says. Aliyah leans her head back against her stomach. “Never again,” Aliyah repeats.
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  • Rihanna Agnew holds her memory box, March 28, 2018. The family stopped at the mall on the way to the hearing, an adoption day tradition in the Agnew family, to pick out a box and have it engraved with the name and date. Aliyah choose to change her name, to Rihanna, after her favorite singer. She carefully spelled it and then watched as it was engraved on the lid of the box. “Oh my gosh,” Aliyah said, “it’s really happening.
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  • Aliyah Randle was adopted and changed her name to Rihanna Agnew, March 28, 2018, during a hearing in Judge Karen O'Connor’s Maricopa County Juvenile courtroom. But there was a moment, after the judge made it final, that Rihanna bursts into tears. “I’m never going to see her (birth mom) again, am I?” she asks her new mom. You’ll see her again if she makes the right choices, Lorraine promises.
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  • Rihanna Agnew arrived home, March 28, 2018, after her adoption hearing, to a driveway with drawings, the centerpiece says, “Welcome home, Rihanna Agnew.”
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Mark Henle Photography

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