Russian Adoption Return: Police Investigate Mother Torry Hansen

(April 13) -- The Sheriff's Department in Bedford County, Tenn., said today it is conducting an investigation into the "acts and omissions" of Torry Hansen, the Shelbyville woman who last week returned her adopted 7-year-old son to his Russian homeland.

According to a press release provided to AOL News, the Sheriff's Department is seeking interviews with both Torry and Nancy Hansen, the boy's adoptive grandmother, as well as the boy himself to determine whether any laws were broken during his time living in the United States or in his return to Russia.

Police talk to reporters about Torry Hansen

Mark Humphrey, AP

Tennessee police announced Tuesday that they had launched an investigation into Torry Hansen, the woman who sent her 7-year-old adopted son back to Russia. Here, Bedford County Sheriff Randall Boyce, left, and Detective Becky Hord field questions about the case in Shelbyville, Tenn., on Monday.

Last week Hansen placed the child, unaccompanied, on a one-way flight from Washington, D.C., to Moscow, where she had hired a man to pick him up and take him to the Russian Science and Education Ministry Building.

"I adopted this child, Artem Saveliev, on September 29, 2009," Hansen wrote in a note stuffed into the boy's backpack. "This child is mentally unstable. He is violent and has severe psychopathic issues/behaviors. I was lied to and misled by the Russian orphanage workers and director regarding his mental stability and other issues."

Hansen also claims Artem hit, spat at and threatened to kill members of his new family.

The Sheriff's Department said its inquiry comes as the result of requests by the district attorney general's office and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Though the department said it could proceed with filing charges only if it determined a crime had been committed in Bedford County, it was not treating the matter lightly.

"Law enforcement in this jurisdiction considers this an extremely serious matter and is proceeding with the investigation accordingly," the press release stated.

Thus far, Hansen has declined to speak to investigators unless formal charges are filed, CBS News reported.

Artem is now being cared for at a Russian hospital.

In the wake of Artem's return, outraged Russian officials have threatened to suspend all adoptions of Russian children by U.S. parents. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has called Hansen's actions a "monstrous deed."