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Grantee examines Hawaii’s foster care system through an investigation into allegations of one horrific home

The first property in Waimānalo where child abuse allegedly took place is behind these locked gates, trees and dilapidated basketball goal photographed Tuesday, June 15, 2025, in Honolulu. These photos are made for John Hill’s project on child abuse. The photos are of places where alleged abuse took place. (Kevin Fujii/Civil Beat/2025)

For years, the state of Hawaii sent foster boys to live with John Teixeira, who sexually preyed on some of the boys and physically abused most of them, and older boys abused younger ones. Reports of abuse were inadequately investigated and went nowhere. With support from the Fund, Honolulu Civil Beat interviewed former foster boys and their relatives and dug into lawsuits, court records, police and autopsy reports, business and property records, social media, newspaper archives and federal reviews of Hawaii’s system. Their investigation paints a vivid picture of what can happen, then and now, in a foster home when no one is watching.