The Rihas remain bitter over the treatment they and Nicholas received from the child welfare system, and continue to rail against its deficiencies — especially when it comes to emotionally disturbed children.
"These kids were dealt a bad hand to begin with," Ellery says. "But the cards don't get any better when they're in that system."
Judging by the voluminous record on Nicholas — thousands of pages of assessments, case notes, hospital records and progress reports — Nicholas was a difficult case for Children's Protective Services of Harris County. For its part, CPS has tried to improve its accountability to kids like Nicholas.
For one thing, parental rights are now terminated within one year if the evidence supports it. In 1999 the state opened the Children's Assessment Center, on Murworth, to give structure to the treatment of all foster children. Rather than wait for a child to display symptoms of an emotional problem, the center evaluates and assesses all children within 45 days of their entering the system.
It's hard to say whether any of this would have spared Nicholas some of the pain he endured. But even CPS spokesperson Hay acknowledges that Nicholas is "very, very lucky."
"The Rihas fought for him, they fought for him," Hay says. "Kids need that."
While Alice couldn't shortchange Nicholas if her life depended on it, she says, "If there's a hero here, it's Ellery."
And of course he feels the same way about her.
"I'm a hero only because I didn't say, 'Hell, no, I'm not going to do it,'" he says. "Truthfully, I wouldn't have done this without her insistence. We both came around and adjusted to what we had to do."