What They Stole

In *What They Stole: A Familicide Rooted in Intercountry Adoption,* creative and freelance writer Paige Towers tells the story of the Sueppel family and explores how their tragedy connects to the larger history of intercountry adoption in South Korea. Back in 2007, Steven Sueppel was the vice president of Hills Bank and Trust in Iowa City. In the fall of that year, it was revealed that he had allegedly embezzled more than half a million dollars from the bank, and was facing the possibility of a long prison sentence for his crimes. At the time, Steven was living with his wife, Sheryl, and their four adopted children from South Korea. Overwhelmed by the intense financial pressure, Steven murdered Sheryl and their children before taking his own life. Following the tragedy, Holt International, one of the largest international adoption agencies in the world, was mentioned as the agency through which the Sueppels adopted their children. With regard to why she chose such a heavy subject to write about, Towers recalled that the idea came to her after graduating from college, when she moved to South Korea to teach English. "...I found it odd that such a modern, economically booming country was still sending children overseas for adoption... because really, it was the first country where intercountry, overseas adoption, really exploded. Not only was it the largest sending country in the world, but it later became the model for which the Holt Agency and others applied this model to other countries, and so I found it to be an interesting case study and I wrote the book."

Rather than writing separate books on each topic, Towers explains why she chose to weave together the story of the Sueppels with the history of South Korea's adoption practices. "I felt really personally connected to the case... and I wanted to link those stories back to... the larger history of Korean adoption… it's such a complex, overwhelming socio-geopolitical thing that I felt that it was less intimidating for me as a writer to find this personal connection and to hold on to it and allow readers to hopefully feel a connection with this eastern Iowa family... it was important to me to tell these children's stories and not to condemn adoption or condemn adoptive families, but to try to unravel the complex mainstream narrative behind the act."