One of my foster brothers, David, was a victim of severe physical and sexual abuse. He lived with us only a few months after his mother died and his alcoholic father was using him to get booze. My parents begged the state to give him help. He was given to black-out rage and we later learned he was schizophrenic. But the state only locked him up. His experiences in the juvenile institution broke him further. He became a serial killer after attaining adulthood and was executed by Texas in 1999.

His brother Daniel was also my foster brother, and lived with us for several years. He also begged his probation officer to see if he could get David help. His oldest sister Linda and the oldest brother escaped the home and lived with other friends. When David was 18 and arrested for burglary, they testified as did my parents to ask the court to give him psychiatric help. The state just locked him up again.

Years later, Linda was watching Dr. Phil and saw one of the families of David's victims. They said no one cared about their murdered loved ones. Linda was heartbroken. She reached out and asked Dr. Phil to relay a message, that she and her remaining brothers cared, and were very sorry, and if it would help the family she would meet with them.

Dr. Phil's show told her she could come on the show and tell the family themselves. Linda agreed. This was a brave, courageous act of love, to reach out to the family and let them know that we all cared. We all were crushed. We had lost a brother in the worst of ways, with innocent victims who were killed simply because they had tried to help David.

I don't know what the producers told the family, but when Linda got there, Dr. Phil confronted her saying she knew David was killing people and did nothing. She was the reason the family's loved ones were suffering grief, because she could have stopped it and didn't.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Linda had asked for help for him, and at the time of the killings, David had disappeared as far as we could tell. A homeless drifter, 1500 miles away from where we were, we had no clue where David even was. My parents, and his siblings, had tried to get help for David and were ignored.The rest of us were shocked. Dr. Phil traded on the family's grief to get a ratings moment for his show. It was a lie, but a dramatic moment, so perfect TV. It increased the victim's family's grief, but it was perfect TV. It punished Linda for her compassion, and sullied her reputation, but it was perfect TV. The family was devastated yet again, because a "co-killer" was right in front of them increasing their grief.

Linda went on to work with abused children and wrote a book about their lives (ISBN 9781087020518).

So, Dr. Phil is a despicable human being, a man willing to increase a family's grief for ratings. He's willing to brush aside good acts to manufacture bad ones to see people cry. As a fellow Christian I urge him to repent of his judging of others, as that is a foretaste of how he will ultimately be judged.

My parents are gone now, but Linda dedicated the book to them. My mother just died this past June, so I want to end this much-too-long post with what Linda said about her in her book:

>After a year in Nelles ["juvie"], Daniel was free to leave under the supervision of a parent or responsible adult. He waited, but no one came for him. He called Mrs. Hagan, and she rushed down to stand in for his release procedure.

My mother thought one of Daniel's grandparents, uncles or aunts had come to take him, and they just needed a local to sign him out. But one by one they had all refused. Each time the state had gone back to Daniel and told him his grandparents, aunt or uncle so-and-so didn't want him. When my mother arrived at the institution she was shocked none of his extended family was willing to help a 14 year old boy who had lost his mother:

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>"No one wants me," he told her.
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>There was no time to consult with Mr. Hagan, but she already knew what he would say. "Danny, we want you," Mrs. Hagan said.
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>Daniel went home with her and lived with them until he left at the age of eighteen.

Dr. Phil could learn a lot from regular, normal, non-famous people stretching every dollar with 6 kids of their own that answer the call when a 14 year old says "no one wants me."