Vancouver, Wash. — Karreon Adams-Franks was 15 years old, autistic, nonverbal and legally blind. When he died in 2020 in his adoptive parents’ Vancouver home, he weighed 61 pounds. On Oct. 13, 2026, his family’s lawyers announced that the State of Washington and Evergreen Public Schools have agreed to pay more than $49 million to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit over his starvation, according to OPB and The Columbian.
The state’s share is $25 million. The suit accused Washington’s Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) and Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) of failing to act on reports of abuse in the home, OPB reported. The school district will pay about $24.3 million.
A state-subsidized adoptive home
Karreon’s adoptive parents, Felicia Adams and Jesse Franks, were convicted in 2023 of homicide by abuse in his death and of criminal mistreatment of his two younger brothers. Adams was sentenced to 35 years in prison and Franks to 30, according to OPB. OPB described Adams as Karreon’s biological aunt.
This was not a private household operating outside the system’s view. During the 2023 criminal trial, prosecutors said the couple received nearly $69,000 a year in adoption assistance for the boys, The Spokesman-Review reported. Washington taxpayers were funding the home where Karreon was starved.
The weight loss was catastrophic and it was not hidden overnight. According to trial coverage, Karreon weighed 115 pounds in July 2019. When he died on Nov. 27, 2020, he weighed 61, a loss of nearly half his body weight. Prosecutors said 61 pounds was what he had weighed before age 7.
What the lawsuit alleged about DCYF
The family’s attorney, Chris Davis of Davis Law Group, has said the state was warned. In 2023, Davis said the agencies were notified of food deprivation in the home three years before Karreon died but did not investigate, according to The Spokesman-Review. KOIN reported that an initial complaint about the household was made in 2017.
The most damning allegation concerns a home visit. About a week before Karreon died, a DCYF caseworker went to the apartment in response to a complaint that he looked “emaciated,” Davis told MyNorthwest. The lawsuit claims the caseworker did nothing to help him.
“She did not turn on the lights. She did not go to the boy and lift up his shirt.”
Attorney Chris Davis, describing the alleged DCYF visit, to MyNorthwest
The defense in the criminal trial argued that CPS and medical professionals saw no red flags at that visit, The Spokesman-Review reported. Karreon’s brothers were removed from the home the day after he died.
These are allegations from the civil case; the state did not admit them. Washington declined to comment on the settlement, according to OPB. Evergreen Public Schools said none of its staff failed to make mandatory reports, and that its insurers chose to settle to avoid a verdict exceeding the district’s coverage.
The pattern: oversight that looks away
Child-welfare agencies are quick to act when they suspect a biological family of poverty-related neglect. They remove children, impose case plans and demand drug tests. But when the home is one the system created, subsidized or approved, the scrutiny often seems to evaporate.
Karreon’s case fits a pattern FAN has documented repeatedly: adopted and foster children starved, beaten or killed in homes the state paid for, after warnings that went nowhere. A caseworker who allegedly stood in a dark room and did not look at a child reported as emaciated is not a resource problem. It is a failure of basic training, judgment and accountability.
Settlements this large are paid by the public. They do not, by themselves, identify which employees handled the earlier complaints, what discipline if any followed, or what changed in how Washington checks on children in subsidized adoptive homes.
What accountability looks like
- Release of the case history, to the extent law allows, showing every report made about the home and how each was handled.
- Independent review of the caseworker visit a week before Karreon’s death, and of any discipline that followed.
- Clear rules requiring caseworkers to physically see and assess children with disabilities when a report alleges starvation or emaciation.
- Public reporting of how many children in state-subsidized adoptive homes are the subject of abuse reports each year.
What families can do
Relatives who are worried about a child in an adoptive or foster home should put concerns in writing, keep copies and dates, and report to both the state hotline and local law enforcement. If a report is screened out or closed, ask for that decision in writing. Teachers, doctors and neighbors are often the only people who see these children. Their reports matter, and so does following up when nothing happens.
Key facts
- Child: Karreon Adams-Franks, 15, autistic, nonverbal and legally blind; died Nov. 27, 2020, in Vancouver, Wash.
- Weight: 115 pounds in July 2019; 61 pounds at death
- Adoptive parents: Felicia Adams (35 years) and Jesse Franks (30 years), convicted in 2023 of homicide by abuse
- Adoption assistance: nearly $69,000 a year for the boys, according to prosecutors
- Settlement: more than $49 million total; $25 million from the State of Washington, about $24.3 million from Evergreen Public Schools
- Agencies sued: DCYF and DSHS, accused of failing to act on abuse reports
- No admission: the state declined to comment; the district denies its staff failed to report
Sources
- OPB — $49 million settlement reached in wrongful death of Vancouver teen (Oct. 13, 2026)
- The Columbian — Evergreen Public Schools, state reach $49.34 million settlement in lawsuit over Vancouver child’s starvation death (Oct. 13, 2026)
- MyNorthwest — ‘He weighed 61 pounds’: Lawsuit says DCYF missed signs of starvation before 15-year-old autistic teen died (May 3, 2026)
- The Spokesman-Review — Adoptive parents testify in death of disabled Vancouver boy, say they never withheld food as punishment (Oct. 26, 2023)
- KOIN 6 — Law firm says social workers failed to prevent starvation, death of Karreon Franks (undated)
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