whitney clegg

Jan 8, 2025 | theassemblync.com | Ren Larson |whitney clegg

Desiree walked into Gateway Women’s Care in September 2022 excited to learn how far along she was in her pregnancy. Then 24, the self-described “Google freak” had spent days studying images from ultrasounds to get ready for what she might see. She was happy about the pregnancy and eager to share the news with her close-knit family, especially her mom.

Dec 18, 2023 | indyweek.com | whitney clegg |Jeffrey C. Billman |Nick Ochsner

Garnell Hill said he used to be angry about how the child welfare system had treated him and his 9-year-old son over the last three years. But ahead of a hearing to determine his son’s future on Thursday, he said he felt “empowered.” As The Assembly and WBTV reported earlier this week, Hill didn’t learn he had a son—whom we are calling “Christopher” to protect his privacy—until 2020, after he was already in foster care.

Dec 15, 2023 | theassemblync.com | whitney clegg |Jeffrey C. Billman |Nick Ochsner

Garnell Hill said he used to be angry about how the child welfare system had treated him and his 9-year-old son over the last three years. But ahead of a hearing to determine his son’s future on Thursday, he said he felt “empowered.” As The Assembly and WBTV reported earlier this week, Hill didn’t learn he had a son—whom we are calling “Christopher” to protect his privacy—until 2020, after he was already in foster care.

Dec 13, 2023 | indyweek.com | Nick Ochsner |Jeffrey C. Billman |whitney clegg

This is the final installment in a three-part investigation published as a partnership between The Assembly and WBTV in Charlotte. Read part 1 in our November 29 print edition or online. Read part 2 here. Christopher was nervous when he arrived at Raleigh’s Pullen Park to meet his biological father for the first time. “I wonder if he likes Spider-Man, too,” the then six-year-old told his foster dad, Ryan O’Donnell, as he pushed him on the swings.

Dec 13, 2023 | indyweek.com | Nick Ochsner |Jeffrey C. Billman |whitney clegg

This is the second in a three-part investigation published as a partnership between The Assembly and WBTV in Charlotte. Read parts 1 and 3. Elizabeth Simpson vividly recalls her first day in Durham’s abuse, neglect, and dependency court, which decides child welfare cases. While she’d represented prisoners and immigrants, and recently started working for the civil rights group Emancipate NC, she had no background in the field back in January 2020.