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Two toddlers were adopted into a Fort Bragg family and within a year both were dead. It took more than three years but their adopted father, a Ft. Bragg soldier,
is now facing murder charges. The ABC11 I-Team went inside the cases to find out how the systems in place to protect North Carolina children let the kids' lives and justice fall through the cracks.
It was a normal January night at the Rivera household. The family's four children were fed and put to bed, but within an hour one would be dead.
"My daughter's not breathing, she's purple," the mother told the Harnett County 911 operator.
The family found their two-year-old daughter, Olivia, unresponsive in her crib.
"She was laying down. All the kiddos were sleeping, we went to go check on them and my husband told me to call 911.. she was purple," the mother repeated to the operator.
Efforts to save the toddler failed. Her death came just two months after the family experienced an eerily similar situation.