The Mystery of the Mansion Filled With Surrogate Children

充满代孕儿童的庄园之谜

The Journal.

2025-08-16

17 分钟
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A couple in Los Angeles say they wanted a big family. Surrogates who carried their children say they were deceived. WSJ’s Katherine Long explains why an investigation into a family who say they have 22 children is raising alarm among the commercial surrogacy industry, a fast-growing and multibillion-dollar market. Jessica Mendoza hosts. Further Listening:  - America's Maternal Mental Health Crisis - How Employer-Funded Child Care Can Work Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  • In the Los Angeles suburb of Arcadia,

  • there's a lavish nine-bedroom mansion surrounded by palm trees.

  • It's fronted in pale faux stone.

  • It has two turrets on either side of the front door.

  • Back in May, police showed up outside of this very fancy home.

  • Right away, something seemed unusual.

  • They might have noticed the surveillance cameras that were outside the house and the warning that it was protected by armed security guards.

  • The reason police were there?

  • An L.A. hospital had called authorities after treating a two-month-old baby with head injuries that suggested child abuse.

  • Inside, they found 15 children, none of them older than three years old,

  • all with buzzed haircuts under the care of six nannies.

  • Even more surprising,

  • investigators learned that all of the children belonged to the same couple and that many of them had been born through surrogacy.

  • My colleague Catherine Long has been following the case.

  • Now,

  • federal authorities are investigating whether this couple may have been selling the children that they created through surrogacy.

  • That's according to interviews that we've done with surrogates who carry some of the children who've spoken with federal agents in recent weeks.

  • The FBI declined to comment.

  • The couple maintains that nothing they've done is against the law.

  • The story has put the U.S. surrogacy industry on edge,