♪ [cheers and applause] ♪ shine for the rest of your life ♪ ♪ stronger than ever, ever ♪ stronger than ever, ever ♪ shine every day and night ♪ stronger than ever, ever ♪ stronger than ever, ever >> tamron: hi! hello! hello, hello, welcome to the show! welcome, welcome, we have a great show for you today! hello, have a seat. from two of the hardest shows on broadway, , and the new show,

"jagged little pill", lachanze and celia rose gooding, they are the first mother-daughter duo on broadway and they are going to give us a performance you will not forget. a 9-year-old girl was able to save her siblings from the most desperate circumstances, a photo ended up in the hands of a teacher and that teacher took action and change the course of the lives of these kids forever. this is where they started out. you're going to see where they are now, a beautiful. in joining us in cyber hall, sequoia griffin watching on abc 7. renee hansen, salt lake city, utah, and denzil paris, joining us from miami, florida. part of our emerging designer series where i wore clothing from designers were not in big department stores. we have an update and we are

going to share that with you a little bit later in the show. one of the designs he made, i can't wait to share the uplifting part of his story. yesterday was a historic moment for our country, the third time ever a president has been impeached by the u.s. house of representatives. the democratic debate is tonight, the senate trial is in the new year. so there's bound to be a lot to discuss with their family over the holidays, or to avoid, depending on how you feel about it. apparently many of you want to avoid from the laughter in the audience. amazon's alexa now has a feature that allows users to change the subject during family disputes. all you have to say is "alexa, change the subject." this prompts alexa to throw out safer topics. there you are, arguing, hypothetically, you're my cousin, come on. you don't know what you're

talking about. yes i do, yes i do. alexa, change the topic. they will throw out things like "what superpower would you like?" "is "die hard" a christmas movie. one of the most epic debates i've ever had on television once with al roker, my friend from "the today show" who believes that "die hard" is a christmas movie. al roker, it is not. "love, actually" is a christmas movie. [applause] i thought i heard every stat in the world but research according to amazon, they found that 6:30 p.m. on christmas day is the time when families arguments are most likely to happen. it there is a science for that, so that got us wondering, what

kind of family disputes do you have around the table? anybody want ou out of family member? come on. what's your name? >> my name is terry. >> tamron: where you from? lyndhurst. we mainly argue, we play games, card games, anything, any type of game, we are arguing. somebody in the family is going to cheat, no doubt about it. playing spades, somebody is going to. >> tamron: is their family member who is a repeated offender? >> yeah, but i'm not going to call them out. >> tamron: alexa, change the subject. thank you so much. i mean, it is so interesting that we have this. does anybody have a tip on how to resolve it when it goes bad? you do? stand up a beautiful jacket, what's your name?

>> tony redford. arkansas. >> tamron: how do you resolve when things go left? >> my 3-year-old grandson, grayson, has been learning about green choices and read choices. i have six children and 21 grandchildren. >> tamron: amazing. >> thank you, thank you. it gets kind of loud in our house and my kids love to debate, they love to talk about stuff so the other day grayson said, he got a little bit loud and he said "stop, everyone, you're not making green choices." so maybe alexa could throw that out there. >> tamron: i love it. thank you for joining us on th that. renee in cyber hall, you would use the alexa for your family? >> you know, i have six

children, three in children in law and at one and a half grandchildren. i have very opinionated children. i'm not sure -- thank heaven fof alexa but i don't like it would help in our situation. >> tamron: it is going to be interesting to see as we said, the impeachment, the debate, the hearing, it will be a critical time in our nation, a conversation and critical time at home. this story is a tough one for me to report to you and bring to you but i wanted to share more information about our heartbreaking story out of texas. i try to get as much work out as possible, a missing mom and her newborn, her 3-week-old, they have not been seen since she dropped off her son at school december 12. heidi's parents say there is no

way their daughter would've left voluntarily, authorities are not ruling anything out. we got our friends down in texas at the abc affiliate in houston to get an update on this story. bree, the fbi has joined the search, what are they saying now? >> well, tamron, the first thing we know is authorities are working with some sort of timeline. let me sort of walk you through this, heidi was last seen around 8:00 a.m. on december 12, that will be a week ago, last thursday. after surveillance video captured her grabbing her 6-year-old son off at school. investigators believe that heidi, taking her 3-week-old daughter margo back to the apartment complex but then it really seems as if the two just vanished. authorities did find her car parked in the parking lot of their apartment complex. her fiance reported the parent missing around 7:30 p.m. that night.

roughly 12 hours after they were last seen or even heard from on that surveillance video. but he says that he did that because he hadn't talked to her but he said he knew he was worried when silas' school called saying she never picked him up. he said he went and picked the sun up and returned back to the apartment complex, that's when he called authorities. the fbi said to team, they are involved, they are helping the texas rangers and they've been combing the area, knocking on doors not only asking to go into neighbors homes but asking for details, what kind of car you driving, what's the make, the model, the color, gathering that information. they are also going to hours and hours of video, not just from the apartment complex but from neighboring businesses. there is a lot happening with this investigation right now but her parents spoke up for the first time yesterday like you

mentioned, very emotional, understandably, and they said pointblank, there's no way their daughter would've left voluntarily, she loved being a mother, her kids were her world and she would never have left silas. >> tamron: bree, heidi's fiance has denied involvement, he has not been named publicly in any way. at this point are there any persons of interest that police have alluded to even? i know they have not identified anyone but have they alluded to anything? >> so this is where i think it gets a little interesting, a lot of people questioning this on social media. the fiance is spoken out more than once to media, very emotional and always said, i think she was taken and when he was asked point blank, were you involved, are you involved, he said he's going to ignore that question. he knows it's out there, he

knows he didn't do anything wrong. authorities when asked if he was involved, this is where it was weird, because they are not saying whether he is a person of interest or not, they won't confirm that and that's really the biggest question surrounding this right now, basically they are saying anything could be going on at this point, whether it's foul play or she left herself but a lot of question circling the fiance. >> tamron: the bottom line is our thoughts and prayers are with this young mother, her 3-week-old baby, her son. we appreciate you updating us as well. by the way -- [applause] because we want to help, the austin police department, they've tweeted out a tip line asking anyone for information to call 512-974-5100

please go to tamronhallshow.com, we will have that information available for you. it's important, not just because it's the holidays, as you know my sister was living in texas when she was a victim of domestic violence, it's something we don't like to talk about but it's reality. we don't know what happened but we know that mom and her daughter need to be back safely. coming up, three siblings talk about breaking the cycle of neglect. a teacher reached out to help them after seeing the photos that we are going to show you where their life is now, where a holiday story, a story for every day that will bring wmth to your heart. we will be right back. ♪

♪ shine for the rest of your life ♪ >> tamron: many of us will be sharing pictures over the holidays are beautiful, special moments in our lives. but there were photos shared recently that brought heartbreak and disbelief, showed kids being

neglected in home. look closely, there is a little girl you will see in some of these photos all by herself. after these photos were taken, that little girl and her siblings were rescued when a teacher saw the pictures and took action. the little girl is now 18 years old and her story went viral with people wanting to know how the family is doing. she is here with her two sisters to share their story and how life is for them now. please welcome danica richardson richardson, looking at those photos, looking at where you are now, you know life is so much better. your story went viral, people were so surprised, we know this happened but to see it in so

many photos, really hit a nerve. >> we just thought it was normal, that's how we grew up, there was trash everywhere, drug needles, broken glass on the floor and that's just -- that was our normal, we walked around and it was every day that we will cut ourselves and that's just how it was. >> tamron: where were your parents. >> our mom was asleep a lot. >> our dad passed away while we were really young, her mom was sleeping really drowsy, she was always on something, she didn't really understand or fully listen to us. >> she always was asleep and not really present in the moment. >> tamron: were people in and around your neighborhood, or other family members aware that this was going on? >> there were a lot of reports to cps but we were in and out of

foster care a lot but my mother was very smart, she knew what she needed to do in order to win us back. >> tamron: when that photo was taken, what agents were you? >> i was a baby. in my post i made i said it was 18 months. i was young. >> she was about six months, i was five years old. >> i would've been about three. >> tamron: in this home unprotected. when social services would come you said your mother was able to outsmart the system, what do you mean by that? >> she will clean herself up, when we were gone in foster care she would clean the house up and make sure that everything looked presentable, that she was clean and she'd get us back, she would have visitations with eyes where she would manipulate us into

saying that we wanted to be with the judge -- to be with her. so she tell us to tell the judge. >> tamron: she had a long history of substance abuse. she had experienced this of seemingly abuse and neglect in her life and this was generational for you. you weren't in school any longer, you dropped out of school at age nine. >> at one point i opted to be homeschooled so that i could make sure that my sisters got to the bus, i can leave in the middle of the school day to go and check on my little brother, who was home alone because my mom would be asleep and he was just two years old at the time. >> tamron: you became a caretaker for your younger siblings and you were nine. >> she was our mom. if i was scared in the middle of the night, i want to go to my mom's room, i have a lay in bed with her. >> tamron: the pictures that were taken, who took those

photos? >> my brother thomas, he was her half brother, he has a different mom. he would come stay with us on the weekend and he got super sick and tired of living in that condition. >> she was really mean to him, he felt bad. he will say to this day, he feels bad that he left us but he needed to take pictures, >> tamron: you are only nine years old, did you understand the danger and that things that were in front of you? >> i have my suspicion that that was what she was doing. when we were younger, i heard her say to her friend one time that she was high and i was like "oh, my gosh. >> tamron: you are hearing all

this, seeing all of this, you knew that this was not how a child was supposed to live. >> eventually. we thought it was normal. even in the foster care system we thought it was normal to go back to our mom. >> tamron: we are trying to introduce you to alcohol at at t >> i was probably eight or nine. >> i was in between six and seven. >> tamron: with extended family, you mentioned your half-brother coming in, when other extended family members would see you and come by, did they try to help? i ask is not in a judgmental way, i don't want us to be on television unloading all of your mother's pain. >> we are adopted now, they wanted to adopt us all along time ago. they wanted to adopt us the first time we went into the foster care system.

>> they were fighting for us for a really long time. >> tamron: were you ever able to ask your mother why? >> she schizophrenic, so even when she was on her medicine, ae could, she wasn't even fully aware of what she had done. she loved us a lot. and drug addiction is a disease and it was really hard. it's hard to -- to live in addiction like that. >> tamron: so at some point this picture gets in the hands of a teacher, of a person who wants to help. and i want our audience to learn after the break how that photo got into the right hands and how it changed their lives forever and where you stand now on your journey has young women and what you had to face regarding your own mother. we will be right back. [applause] ♪

♪ [applause] >> tamron: we are back with three brave young women jaralee, brinley, and danika. you are explaining to us how those photos we were looking at got into the hands of a teacher who wanted to help, what happened there? >> our brother thomas showed them to his teacher and his

teacher brought them to cps. >> tamron: that was the beginning of it all permanently changing. >> that was the last time we were taken. >> no. >> not then? never mind. >> but that was the beginning of a long list of people who send in pictures are called and said, this is what i saw, you guys should check it out. >> you broke free of the silen silence. you were taken, eventually adopted. your mother passed away of a drug overdose. was there a moment you are able to have any conversation with her? >> yeah, actually, a few months before she died she called me on the phone and said hey, i just want you to know that i think i'm going to die this year" and

basically "sorry." she basically said, "i want you to know that i think i'm going to die this year and that i love you and i'm sorry for everything." >> tamron: you said it best, addiction is a disease. there are many people in this world who have regrets based on falling prey to that. she is, i'm sure, very proud of you at this point. you've gone on, you're getting ready to graduate high school. >> right now i'm a lifeguard, i teach swim lessons, i'm about to graduate this year and i hope to get a bachelor's degree in social work. [applause] >> tamron: you have already finished college.

>> yes, i have a bachelor's degree in child development, i'm a behavioral specialist in an autism unit and i have a husband and an 8-month-old son. [applause] >> i got married last month. >> tamron: congratulations. >> my husband and i moved down south so we could go to school and i will be doing school for it -- becoming preschool teacher. [applause] >> tamron: why was it so important to share this story? those pictures were when you were nine and they've been circulating and all of a sudden somebody started reposting the story on facebook and social media, you went viral all these years later. >> i was posting it on reddit, i turned to jara and i said,

should i post it? we came back to so many comments. >> at that point we were glad we had inspired so many people. >> people were sharing their stories with us, people were saying we inspired them. >> tamron: we've seen recent pictures of little kids in cars with parents who are completely zoned out on drugs and kids who lost their lives as a result of being in this environment. >> later on they will realize this, it's not normal to be in that situation. we thought it was just normal so we went on with it. >> it's really important for them to know that they are not their parents decisions.

the thing their parents do with their lives. >> and it's important to know that if you are the one with an addiction, it's okay to get help. it's important to get help because you could end up losing to think far more important to you then drugs will ever be. >> tamron: your children, your life are your children. has this been healing for you? to share this story? >> more than i expected. >> being able to help other people has really helped us. >> talking about it, having so many people interested and willing to discuss it. >> tamron: do you feel empowered? >> i feel like it's more awareness. something people talk about now that still do something about it. >> i do feel empowered. >> tamron: now that you click that send button on your story and it went viral, was it all

worth it? >> yes. >> absolutely. >> tamron: we are so happy for all three of you, i know you're going to be a strong voice as this country tries to deal with addiction, the opioid consequences of it. we are going to have an important place in that conversation. thank you so much for joining us. thank you. up next, from two how to shows on broadway, we are going to bring a little music and cheer n here. tony award winner lachanze and her daughter celia rose gooding, the first mother-daughter duo performing on broadway at the same time. they're going to perform right here on the "tamron hall show" show, we will be right back! ♪ >> when the discussion is as important we don't wanted to end.