21 children removed from Arcadia home after couple accused of tricking women into surrogacy
On May 7, Arcadia Police Department officers responded to a local hospital for a report of a 2-month-old child with significant head trauma, according to Arcadia Police Department Lt. Kollin Cieadlo. Officers confirmed that the child had apparently been shaken, dropped or went through a traumatic incident.
Detectives responded to a home in the 600 block of West Camino Real Avenue and discovered there were 15 other children inside the residence, Cieadlo said. Police wrote a search warrant for surveillance footage, hard drives and phone records from the home and identified the nanny, 56-year-old Chunmei Li, as the suspect in the child abuse. Officials said they also corroborated that the parents, 65-year-old Guojun Xuan and 38-year-old Silvia Zhang, allegedly knew the child was injured and did nothing for two days.
Two days later, Zhang and Xuan were arrested on suspicion of felony child endangerment and neglect and their children were taken into protective custody, police said. The nanny, Li, wasn't at the home and is still outstanding. Six other children who were temporarily away from the home at the time have since been taken into protective custody by Department of Children and Family Services and placed into foster care.
The 21 children, some who were born through surrogacy, range from 2 months to 13 years old, with the majority of them being between 1 to 3 years old, Cieadlo said. The case was deferred by the district attorney for further investigation and the couple was released without any charges being filed.
In an interview with Bioethics and Culture, a networking group that focuses on ethics in biotechnology, Kayla Elliot said she met the couple when she was done having children of her own but wanted to help others grow their family. The Texas mother of four said she first posted on Facebook about wanting to become a surrogate and that Mark Agency, the surrogacy company she used, reached out to her through social media. She said that she knows now that that should've been the first red flag.
Elliott agreed to become a surrogate for a Chinese couple, and was told the child was conceived with the father's sperm and a donor egg. She underwent an embryo transfer at Western Fertility Institute in Encino last year. During the transfer, Elliott was supposed to meet the couple in-person for the first time. Only the father was present and Elliott was told the mother had a stomach bug and didn't want to get her sick.
'Now we know that that was the same situation told to many other women that also used them,' she told the interviewer. 'It was some type of a lie.'
When Elliott was 17 weeks pregnant, she was scrolling Facebook and looking through surrogacy agency reviews. Elliott saw the Mark Agency and saw they were all negative. One woman in particular urged people not to use the agency.
'She was basically saying that we've heard stories that women have said they're using these parents and these parents have multiple women pregnant at the same time for the same family,' she said. 'And it's not disclosed ahead of time.'
Through Facebook comments, Elliott found two other women who were carrying babies for the same Chinese couple that she was. Elliott immediately reached out to her lawyer, who contacted the surrogacy agency's lawyer. Elliott was told that because the father was much older than the mother and their mentality was that they wanted to have as much children as they could before he got way too old.
'It's all B.S.,' Elliot added.
Elliott said that through her pregnancy, she had very minimal contact with the intended parents, which was another red flag. Elliott induced labor and still didn't heard from the intended mother. Eventually, she heard from the surrogate agency, which asked if there was a closer airport to the hospital because the mother was having a difficult time getting there.
The intended mother eventually arrived six hours after the baby was born.
Elliott said on discharge day, the mother wasn't holding the baby, which she thought was strange.
'You would just think somebody who wanted a baby so bad would be holding the baby or loving on the baby but she barely even looked at her,' Elliott said. 'It was weird.'
The woman handed Elliott $2,000 and thanked her for giving birth.
Since then, Elliott has launched a GoFundMe campaign for legal fees to try to get legal custody of the child she delivered who is now in foster care.
'I'm reaching out with a heartfelt request for support as I seek legal placement of the baby girl I delivered as a surrogate,' she wrote. 'Due to unexpected circumstances, babygirl, along with many others, have been placed in foster care.'
'This little one deserves stability, love, and a safe home. I am prepared and deeply committed to providing that for her, but the legal process to secure placement is complex and costly.'
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