The Irony of an Idyllic Paradise is that it isn't Paradise at all.

By Elizabeth Scheinberg

(Pardon the underline. Sometimes Echo has a mind of her own. Perhaps it's because she can see into the past or perhaps b/c her A.I. has achieved humanity.)

By every description, this home on Longhouse Drive in West Milford, New Jersey, is an idyllic paradise. Tucked from danger by a chain link fence and a screen of mature shad trees, and off a country, almost rural lane that connects New Jersey to New York, the property boasts 50+ acres of 1930s bucolic nature. Thus, it's location, one that abuts the New York State line is ironic as much as it is heart-breaking.

In 1979, New York inspectors has deemed the Delaware's Gingerbread House "grossly inadequate" and delisted it for the second and final time from it's approved placements for student and adults who needed care that could only be provided in a specialized facility out-of-state.

On May 17th, 2010, the parcel was purchased for a mere $525,000 by a group known as Somerville Llc, with a registered address of 2520 Wrangle Hill Su 200, Bear, Delaware, 19701. Advoserv. Companies can change names, happens all the time - sales and mergers and the occasional need to just hide a rotten to the core history. However, in the digital age, they all leave behind a footprint, a trail that's captured and stored in free public records, like http://njparcels.com/owner/1615_2202_5.01

Therefore it seems almost grotesque that Advoserv would purchase a property that is defined by the borders of a state that has deemed their violations so severe it banned sending it's children and adults there due a documented elevated risk for abuse and neglect. It not an idyllic paradise, but a scene from a horror novel.

On May 19, 2017, almost seven years to the day Somerville Llc/Advoserv settled on the property, the Beltre family is notified that their beloved brother, Carlos, a resident of the home has stopped breathing. His family has engaged Bellwether in litigation. His death is a bit of a mystery.