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But there was also something strange about him. Masha said Mancuso was friendly and brought her gifts. He said he wanted to adopt a 5- or 6-year-old Caucasian girl, and Mancuso picked Masha out from a videotape sent to him by the adoption agency. Matthew Mancuso had found Masha through an adoption agency in Cherry Hill, N.J. Then one day, a divorced 41-year-old American showed up saying he wanted to adopt her. It was a sad and desperate existence, but because adoption is rare in Russia, Masha expected to live there until she turned 18.
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When authorities responded, they took Masha away to live in an orphanage. When she was 4, Masha says, her mother stabbed her in the back of her neck during a drinking binge. She doesn't remember her father, and says her mother was an alcoholic. Masha was born in a small, industrial city in southern Russia. "He took away five years of my life that I could never get back." "It's like he stole my childhood," the young girl, Masha, said.
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