A Child Lost Forever: The Jerry Sherwood Story (1992) Reviews

• Really, really good!!

  sugar-bear2004-12-04

  I remember watching this movie when I was about 14 years old on Lifetime. Beverly D'Angelo plays a young mother who is forced to give up her newborn son for adoption. Her son gets adopted by this older Christian couple. They already have a 4 year old son(Miko Hughes). The wife and husband seem normal, kind, etc. Then one day the adopted son(Cortland Mead)who's about 4 now acts up one day at the dinner table. The mother(Dana Ivey) gives her adoptive son a beat down while the father and brother sit at the table and act like nothing is happening. Then that night, the mother makes the boy kneel on a broomstick and makes him say prayers repeatedly. It isn't until about 20 years or so later that D'Angelo tries to see what her adopted son is up to when she recevies the tragic news of her life. Very good movie!!

• Based on a true story

  lolizerz2003-01-05

  A teenage mom is forced to give up her baby boy for adoption. 19 years later, as she tries to find her son again, she learns that he died in his foster home at the age of three. Nobody thought relevant that the birth mother be informed. She discovers that he has in fact been murdered at the hands of his foster mother. Based on "A death in White Bear Lake" book, this movie stays close enough to the real story, but fails to bring out the fact that the whole community knew and covered the abuse of this child for years (before, and after he was murdered). It was a great TV movie, way different than your usual abused-kid-of-the-week afternoon flick, and I really wish somebody would release it !

• He's... dead?

  TheBlueHairedLawyer2014-12-09

  During the 1970's, Jerry Sherwood was arrested and gave birth in jail, forced by a welfare agency to put her child up for adoption. Dennis was a defiant child, but he most certainly didn't deserve the psychological and physical abuse he was put through by his religiously nutty adoptive mother. In the present day, Jerry has made herself a respectable parent with other children of her own. Deciding after eighteen years to finally meet her long lost baby, she discovers to her horror that her son never had the chance to live past three years old. Dennis supposedly died from a disease... but Jerry persuades the cops to investigate further, and with the help of a news reporter she learns of just how dangerous Dennis' adoptive mother really was. Jerry Sherwood's story is true, but this film highly dramatizes it. Nevertheless it is able to convey a powerful message and it was interesting to watch. It's a typical Lifetime movie and the acting was pretty good, not much more to say.

• Good TV Drama.

  rchaney1012000-10-05

  Beverly Deangelo was very good in this movie about a mother's fight for the memory of Her Baby. Ivey was really scary as the adoptive mother Who beat and Killed the little boy. I used to like Max Gail on Barney Miller, But I couldn't understand why His Charictor didn't put a stop to the Abuse of His adopted son. But all in all it was a good TV Drama. I'd rate it a Seven out of Ten.

• Heart Wrenching...

  bronzesrv2018-11-10

  I remember watching this movie as a teen, of course very sensitive subject matter. What's so heart-wrenching about it is that is a true story. And I can't imagine what it's like to look for the child you gave up years ago all to find out he was killed by a sick abusive parent! It really makes you think. And you wonder how often does sick things like this happen! This is not a movie you want to watch over and over especially if you're emotional with subject matter like this, which I am. Beverly D'Angelo's acting skills as, always were spectacular.