ID of Rumored Russian Teens Killed by US Adoptive Father Hidden by Red Tape

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – On Friday, David Wayne Campbell, 51, from the state of Washington called the police and reported that he had shot two children, a woman and another person. The man shot himself hours after police had arrived. The county coroner identified three victims: Lana J. Carlson, 49, Quinn Carlson, 16, and Tory Carlson, 18. Shortly after the incident, reports emerged claiming that the teens killed could have been adopted and of Russian origin.

Earlier in the day, it was reported that representatives of the Sheriff's Office had not found any documents confirming the Russian citizenship of the teenagers killed in the shooting.

"The problem of establishing the true citizenship and origin of children shot by their adoptive father David Wayne Campbell in the United States emerged due to the failure and unwillingness of the US authorities to create a single database of children adopted from abroad, primarily Russian ones. For over 4 years we have been striving to achieve it without having any information about the lives of thousands of our children," Astakhov posted on Instagram.

According to the ombudsman, all the children remain citizens of Russia up to the age of majority in case they have left Russia in accordance with the law. He also confirmed that the teenagers had communicated with each other in Russian, but there is a possibility that they could have been adopted from the states of the former Soviet Union.

Russian diplomats along with the country's Foreign Ministry continue to clarify whether the teenagers killed in the shooting had been adopted in Russia, waiting for a response from the US State Department on the issue, Astakhov concluded.