The Parents Passed a Drug Test. Should They Get Their Children Back?

PORTSMOUTH, Ohio — Dylan Groves had suffered tremendously long before his tiny body was found in June at the bottom of a 30-foot well, decomposed and wrapped in plastic bags. He had been born a few months earlier with several drugs in his system, and had spent his first days in the care of a foster mother who had cuddled him while he shook and sweated through withdrawal.

After 12 days, the foster mother, Andrea Bowling, was ordered to return Dylan to his father. “I begged and pleaded for more time,” she said she told the county’s child welfare agency.