Arkansas representative gave his 'possessed' daughters to molester: babysitter

Republican Arkansas Representative Justin Harris allegedly gave his two adopted daughters to a molester, as he believed they were possessed by demons according to his babysitter.

USA Today reports that less than a year after Harris adopted the girls, he handed them over to the family of Eric Francis, now 39, of Bella Vista because of their behavioural problems.

Harris claimed that he did not know that they had previously been sexually abused.

Francis proceeded to sexually assault the older of the two girls, who was six at the time. He has since pleaded guilty and is currently in prison until at least 2027.

"Severe injustice"

The Harrises released a statement following these revelations, stating: '"Rep. and Mrs. Harris have suffered a severe injustice. Due to threats of possible abandonment charges, they were unable to reach out to DHS for help with children who presented a serious risk of harm to other children in their home.

"Upon the advice of both a psychiatrist and a pediatrician, they were forced to move the children to the home of trusted friends, who had a lot of experience with children with reactive attachment disorder. Rep. and Mrs. Harris are devastated about the outcome of that decision, but faced with no good option, they did the best that they knew how."

According to Gannet's TVH11 DHS spokesman Amy Webb told them, "If a family has tried to make it work and they've exhausted all their resources and they come to us, we would not seek abandonment charges."

"We would take that child back into our care with no repercussions for the family," she said.

Devil

According to the Arkansas Times Chelsey Goldsborough, the babysitter in question, said that the girls were kept isolated from each other and the rest of the family - because the Harrises believed they were possessed by demons and communicated telepathically.

Apparently they had hired exorcists to purge the girls of the demons.

While the Harrises denied these claims and the Department of Human Services, multiple other sources backed Goldsborough's account up, and one told reporters that Harris' wife Marsha spoke openly about the supposed demonic possession.

Further, while the Harrises claimed that they were not warned about the girls' difficulties with having been previously abused, the family that had them before the adoption claims that they had fully warned Harris about the issues they faced.

The Times further reports that according to the previous family that had the two girls, they and the DHS had tried to talk Harris out of the adoption given the girls' history of abuse.

Meanwhile, in a separate development, Harris released a campaign advert touting his family values earlier this month.