Insult to injury: Christian adoptive-mom says - "They should be thankful."

Mother and father in tears while Judge Edward Thomas reads the new death certificate of their baby boy, Samier Amer. They are innocent, but court will not return their three children.

Wayne County Minnesota - Rehab Amer was found innocent of responsibility for death of her 2 year old son (1985). But too late - her children must remain as Christians with adoptive family.

This story really happened - It took place a few years ago, but it is still very real in the hearts and minds of those who had to suffer through it, and are still suffering today.

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Associated Press

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INDEPENDENCE TOWNSHIP -- The evangelical Christian adoptive mother of a Muslim couple's three children says birth parents should be glad of the upbringing she gave the children, who were removed after the suspicious death of a sibling.

On Tuesday, a judge cleared the birth mother, an immigrant from Lebanon living in Dearborn, of responsibility for her 2-year-old son's 1985 death. The death led Michigan authorities to give her three young children for adoption.

Wayne County Circuit Judge Edward Thomas in Detroit ordered that the death certificate for Samier Amer be changed to say that his death was an accident, not a homicide, after evidence that the boy had brittle bone disease.

The ruling came after the county settled a lawsuit brought by birth parents Rehab and Ahmed Amer.

The children now are 22, 21 and 18. The Amers say the children were trained to be Christian missionaries and to believe that Muslims cannot enter heaven because they do not believe that Jesus is God.

Willard and Essie Stamper, who live in Oakland County northwest of Pontiac, say they raised the three and their five birth children as strong Christians and got them involved in Faith Tabernacle Church in Burton.

"You can't believe what we've been through for 16 years," Essie Stamper, 68, told The Flint Journal. The birth parents "should be glad for the life (the children have) had," she said. "They're loved by their family and by their church."

A jury found Rehab Amer not guilty of second-degree murder, but Michigan's welfare department refused to return the surviving children to their parents. The Stampers adopted them in 1990.

Essie Stamper called the case a tragedy and said she felt sorry for the Amers.

But she said she could not solve their legal problems: "I did the next best thing -- I raised the children."

She said she has been accused of brainwashing the children, and commented: "When you adopt the child, they are yours."

The 22-year-old, who was named Mohammed Ali at birth and later renamed Adam, lives in Minnesota after attending Bible College in Texas. The 21-year-old twin sister of Samier, who was named Sueheir and renamed Suzanne, is a receptionist living in Flint. The 18-year-old, born Zinabe and renamed Rochelle, lives with her parents in Independence Township and is a high school senior.

Stamper said the children hardly had an adversarial relationship with their birth parents.

She said she introduced the youngsters to their parents when they asked and the courts allowed it and even prodded the younger two into meeting their birth parents despite the kids' reluctance.

"I let (the Amers) come right to my house, into my living room," Stamper said. "All of these years, we've tried to work with them."

Over time, though, the relationship became strained, Stamper said. She said the Amers never accepted the fact that the Stampers were the youngsters' parents or that the children were, in fact, no longer children.

"They're grown. They make their own decisions," Stamper said.

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