Mother of Internet twins says portrayals are unfair

ST. LOUIS -- The mother of twins, widely scrutinized when the children were twice adopted over the Internet, said she's been falsely portrayed around the globe.

For one thing, Tranda Wecker tells the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in a Saturday story, she never sold her babies over the Internet. A broker who arranged the adoption got the money, she said.

Wecker, 30, of St. Louis said she was broke and under stress when she decided to put the girls up for adoption.

She turned to an Internet adoption broker shortly after Kiara and Keyara were born in 2000.

Tranda Wecker and her husband Aaron, who still share custody of their 5-year-old child, were estranged at the time. They recently divorced.

Wecker said the adoption broker, who lived in the San Diego area, seemed to understand Wecker wanted an open adoption.

In 2000, a California couple paid the Internet broker $6,000 to adopt the twin girls.

But after visiting with the adoptive parents, a San Bernardino, Cal., couple, Wecker said, she realized they were growing opposed to allowing visits by the biological mother.

So Wecker left with the twins from the home with no intention of returning them, she acknowledged Friday.

"I had to make it seem like I was going to return them," Wecker said.

In state custody

Then, a Welsh couple said they paid the broker $12,000 -- twice what the first couple had paid -- to adopt the same children in Arkansas and brought them to England.

Wecker told the Post-Dispatch Friday she used a relative's address in Little Rock to establish Arkansas residency for the purpose of the adoption.

But a custody battle ensued, and a judge in Arkansas voided the second adoption when it became clear that Wecker and her children weren't residents of the state. The twins were put in state custody in Missouri.

This past December, St. Louis Circuit Judge Steven Ohmer terminated the Weckers' parental rights over the twins and said he is working to find the girls a permanent home.

He must still decide who should retain custody of the Wecker's 5-year-old child. Until then, an earlier agreement for joint custody between Tranda and Aaron Wecker remains in effect.

Tranda Wecker said she is working, although she declined to say where. She also is repaying more than $21,000 for welfare benefits she should not have received.

She admitted in January last year that she cheated the government out of rent subsidies, unemployment checks and food stamps. A federal judge put Wecker on probation and ordered her to pay back the money.

Wecker said Friday she is getting on with life. "I'm coping," she said.