A Cherokee girl living in Oklahoma should be immediately turned over to her adoptive parents in South Carolina after her biological father missed a scheduled meeting with them accompanied by the girl, a judge has ordered.
The case file is sealed, but Monday's order from South Carolina Family Court Judge Daniel Martin was obtained by WCBD-TV of Charleston and posted on its website.
Matt and Melanie Capobianco have been trying to adopt 3-year-old Veronica since her birth in 2009 and raised the girl for two years. She has been living with her biological father, Dusten Brown, in Oklahoma since 2011, when South Carolina's Supreme Court ruled that federal law governing the placement of American Indian children favored him as her custodian.
The Capobiancos appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that the state should determine placement.
