Sad tale of daughters’ medical problems may get even sadder

With its stylish copper and stone facade, the house at 5760 Royal Castle Lane stands out of place in a neighborhood of tan stucco homes and ceramic tile roofs.

If all had gone as scripted, it would have been the dream home of the Terri and Chuck Cerda family, whose tale of medical woe attracted the attention of ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" show and a national television audience. The Cerdas' young daughters, Molly and Maggie, were said to suffer from a medical condition that suppressed their immune systems, and the family's house was supposedly riddled with mold.

Germs that wouldn't bother healthy kids were potentially life-threatening to the girls, the public was told. And so the girls wore medical face masks in public while their mother advocated on their behalf.

It all made for compelling reality TV, and while the home was being built in May 2009 most of the Southern Nevada press focused an extremely soft lens on the family and its plight.

By that November, I reported that the Cerda family had moved out of its new home and put it on the market. The Cerdas had moved to Oregon, and family friends claimed they couldn't afford to pay the taxes and maintenance on the new house.

By then, Terri Cerda had started two websites to raise funds on behalf of children with immune deficiencies.

While the story played in the local media and many were moved by the family's medical plight, some neighbors contacted me with their suspicions that the girls might not be as ill as their mother claimed. Other neighbors said they observed what they considered to be Terri Cerda's aggressive fundraising at a nearby supermarket.

Parents who had youngsters at an elementary school in the neighborhood detailed what they considered behavior inconsistent with the children's publicly stated medical issues. They didn't always play with their masks on and seemed quite healthy. They wore the masks in their mother's presence; and once the national television program took an interest, the masks stayed on consistently.

The neighbors whispered their suspicions, but never for attribution and without any hard evidence. No one wanted to be portrayed as the Grinch of Royal Castle Lane.

It now appears the neighbors' suspicions might have been justified.

Clackamas County, Ore., authorities, acting on the suspicions leveled by doctors and social workers and the opinion of child abuse and neglect specialist Dr. Thomas Valvano, reported the Cerdas to state child-welfare authorities, The Oregonian newspaper reported Sunday. Officials said they were highly suspicious of claims that the girls were medically fragile.

Although the state in February took temporary custody of the girls, they were later returned to the parents. Terri Cerda and her two children then left Oregon and returned to Southern Nevada, The Oregonian reported.

At a hearing earlier this year, Valvano said he believed the children were the victims of medical child abuse.

While the mother claimed her daughters' medical condition placed them in constant danger, half a dozen doctors testified to the contrary.

Meanwhile, Terri Cerda and a lawyer for the family argued they had hundreds of pages of medical records in their favor.

Following a child custody hearing in March, Cerda told The Oregonian, "We have several hundred pages of medical documents that prove our kids have been diagnosed with immune deficiency disease since they were 4 years old. We saw doctors that were top notch in the world. The kids have been tested, and you can't lie about lab work."

ON THE BOULEVARD: The campaign of front-running mayoral candidate Carolyn Goodman has turned loose a 60-second television spot that slams challenger Chris Giunchigliani as an entrenched partisan politician who is "wrong for Las Vegas."

Giunchigliani's latest commercial casts Goodman as an ill-informed neophyte riding her husband's coattails.

Campaigns going negative can mean only one thing: Early voting starts Saturday.

Have an item for the Bard of the Boulevard? E-mail comments and contributions to Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith.