What I loved in the documentary was when his mother said she loves him exactly how he is; he doesn’t have to be a savant for her to love him. That’s true love. Anna did not love him. She loved herself.

The family should have been allowed to speak more about Derek and their experience.

Seeing Dwrrick like this is so eye opening. I can't believe Anna thought he could consent.

Homeboy really spoke for 10 straight minutes with the actual family sitting right beside him. I think he has Anna Stubblefield syndrome.

What an incredible family. They moved mountains to make sure Derrek had every opportunity and support possible. Daisy has done an amazing job with her two boys, she's such a fantastic mother. I hope they know that what happened wasn't their fault and that they have all the joy and peace in their futures xx

This needed to be sooo much longer. I have so many questions!

An electronic keyboard is completely inappropriate and way too complex a tool for a man like Derrick to grasp. When a man is at this level of profound disability, the best his caretakers can hope for----and what would be the most useful adaptive tool in Derrick's case---would be learning how to hit large "Yes" or "No" buttons. I'm not even sure that he's at a level where he could use a very simple choice board with pictures. He probably wouldn't be able to understand, even if the board was extremely simplified with only 4 options, such as buttons for: "Eat/Hungry," "Hurt/sick," "I want," and "Bathroom." Facilitated communication is the disability caretaker's version of an Ouija board---it's the caretaker's hand that's guiding the speech.

There is nothing on earth like the love, patience and endurance of a great mother!!!! Hats off to you Ms. Daisy. That lady that did that mess to Derrick was an apex predator. I am so sorry you, John and Derrick went through that trauma. I pray for you all's continued healing in Jesus name!

if you do the research you'll see it has been debunked many times over: it is the facilitator typing, every, single, time. why its still promoted i have no idea, especially when things like teaching people how to use AAC devices , sometimes with adaptive buttons and switch access, , eye gaze, large track ball mouse ; also ASL, makaton signing, along with basic and modified sign language etc. to enable people to communicate spontaneous and autonomously. FC does not work, sorry, but i have seen it in my 21 years working in the adult disability services field and advocacy, it is the facilitator typing; and, you'll notice, with each so called ''facilitator'', the clients ''speech'' or typing patterns and styles fluctuates , the literacy levels vary, and personality is different with each facilitator.

Look how much DJ loves his brother. Man F that evil woman. I don't think she knew consciously, but a part of her MUST have known deep down...

Did the family consult about filing lawsuits against the rapist and Rutgers?

The filmmaker spoke too much. I hope that he is not another Anna simply exploiting this trusting Black family.

Dignity of risk. Also everyone communicates. It's our job to learn how that works.

God bless John

Seeing Derrick here makes it very clear where he is mentally. Certainly there are some nonverbal people who are mentally capable but just not verbal. Derrick is an infant in a 30 something year old body.

He cannot give informed consent.

I can't believe she removed his diaper to do him on the yoga mat and wherever else. If he could tell what he didn't like, how come he couldn't tell his mother he had to use he restroom?

The mother was the most dynamic speaker. Clear, concise. uncomplicated, straightstraight forward and relaxed. Such a mature and confident woman. To raise such amazing sons; a scholar and a clean cut well taken care of sofa

Whoever did the editing in this video, the Interpreter is ahead of them speaking and it doesn’t match up. Somebody needs to fix that if you’re gonna have an interpreter very confusing.

At 10:55 the good people let Miss Daisy Johnson speak. At 16:55 Derrick’s brother John had a couple minutes. This clip was too verbose. The questions were horribly worded. The man with the brown sweater… nice gem.

Why dont they bring out the device and let him " tell us he lives her"???? How hard is that?

Did he consent to being shown to the world on Netflix 👀🧐

16 minutes of the director ignoring the hosts' question 😅 the cringe description about her appearance and classifications. she came in hot with the question she felt was most important and not giving formal introductions or asking foundational questions about the goal of the documentary and how it began was very cringe.

Whether or not Derrick could consent, Anna was in a position if power over him. And the fact that she didn't do anything to correct that makes me thing she's either evil or delusionally stupid.

Should Derrick have been there? He's not a show animal.

The "self description" at the beginning is insane... who came up with this nonsense?

To me it was child abuse

This guy is talking too much

At a point he started just saying a bunch of nothing and restating things he had already said

Also why didn’t they think to give him Derek sign language for a way to communicate

I am struggling with what is Derrick thinking? This is so over the top wordy. I wish he stop yapping. It's boring.

I find this situation to be sad and confounding. I am quite familiar with trauma disorders, through personal experience. From my perspective, I am wondering if perhaps Anna formed a special bond with Derrick that allowed him to open up and to communicate. There is a lot of convincing and compelling evidence indicating that Derrick truly is an intelligent adult with agency, deep thought, emotions, etc. There is also compelling evidence that Derrick is severely mentally retarded. However, I have a theory as to how these two seemingly contradictory conclusions can both seem to be true at the same time. I still have hope that Derrick is intelligent, and here is my case: the mother and brother’s disownment and complete separation of Derrick and Anna was in itself a severe trauma to Derrick, rendering him to essentially shut down. There is also a very simple way to prove this theory-reunite Anna with Derrick, under strict supervision, and utilize a third party facilitator to hold Derrick’s arm, and see what happens. Allow Anna and Derrick to repair and reforge their special bond, their loving connection. This, sadly, will likely never happen, and I cannot help but to feel terrible sadness for Derrick. His is a very sad, lonely existence. The most intriguing part of this documentary is this apparent failed facilitated communication once Anna was disowned and separated from Derrick. Why could he suddenly no longer use the keyboard? It seems as if he was never able to, and that Anna was, perhaps inadvertently, influencing his typing. However, it seemed, almost conclusively, that this was not the case-the best evidence being the papers written by Derrick during his African American Literature course. These papers were written with the assistance of a third party that was not familiar with the course subject matter. How else could this be explained, other than Derrick being an intelligent agent? Secondly, the records saved on the electronic keyboard, partially shared in the documentary, also (strongly) suggest intelligence and agency. It is quite interesting that this data transcript was not admissible in the original court case. Even more interesting, Anna’s conviction was overturned, because of this obvious mistake on the part of the court. The recorded data on that keyboard must be quite compelling, and I wish that it would be made public. Obviously the family is holding on to this tightly, as it would destroy their desired narrative and prosecution. Shame on the family. Shame. So why then is Derrick suddenly no longer able to utilize facilitated communication? As stated above, I argue that perhaps his mother and brother, disowning and separating Anna, was in itself, a severe trauma to Derrick, and his family was essentially saying “No Derrick, you are not a free man, you are not intelligent, you are not allowed to have your own life, you are not allowed to live and love outside of our preferred, benighted existence. You, Derrick, are simply retarded and unintelligent. No woman could ever love you.” This, I argue, could explain his sudden inability to communicate. Another interesting aspect to this story is that Anna, is clearly well-intentioned, and clearly she did (and perhaps still does) love Derrick. She loved this man, despite his severe disabilities. She did not groom Derrick. She did not encourage secrecy in any way. She has been, and still is, an open book. She encouraged Derrick to inform his family of the relationship. If Anna was looking to take advantage of Derrick, this would simply not have been the case. She would have encouraged secrecy and she likely would have denied everything and lied. How can anyone assume ill intent? Why would she tell the mother and brother about the relationship? Why? Someone, please, explain this to me. It’s nonsense. It’s devastating. Again, my argument is that the mother and brother’s decision to disown and separate Derrick and Anna was in itself a severe trauma. Imagine how this would affect his already feeble mind? It would be devastating. Enough, perhaps, to inhibit his ability to communicate via facilitated communication. I wish and hope, in futility, for Anna to reunite with Derrick, under strict supervision, and that perhaps once and for all we can discover the true ability and person that is Derrick Johnson.

Unpopular opinion: u wished to discover Derek’s capacity for personal agency despite his inability to communicate verbally, but then ignored his capacity for personal agency because u felt he couldn’t understand his experiences due to his inability to communicate verbally. Is it unreasonable to believe that he fell in love with the first person outside of his direct family who truly communicated with him? Is it unreasonable to believe that person could fall in love with him? The former conclusion implies manipulation while the latter implies delusion when viewed from a cynical perspective. What if they were sincere though? What if she was sincere? What if…

Waffle waffle at the start

im sick of people pigeonholing themselves, and making that their primary reasons for feeling, or doing what have ya, look at Morgan freeman, Neil degrass Tyson the scientist: these guys, just to name a few, do not go around constantly saying ''as a black person.....'' in fact both of them are against using that as the focal point, or the reason, they are successful or the reason they struggled at certain points, etc. Neil Tyson said it best: he wont speak about his successes at conferences that are about ''being black'' or any events that are MLK or black history month; why? because he said that if people are most focused on me as a scientist because im black, then im not being a good scientist. my skin tone has nothing to do with my success, my attitude, my drive, my self discipline, my motivation, my intelligence should be the focus and the main keys to success as a scientist.

Derrick doesn’t want to be on that stage. They are clearly parading his differences to prove their case

Would you concede that if irrefutable evidence proving that Derrick is in fact aware, intelligent, and having agency, that he could then, also provide consent? This is the crux of the situation-is, or is not, Derrick an intelligent mind with agency? If yes, then the entire debate ends. If no, then we still have a debate-Anna’s true intentions. To be clear-if we could prove Anna’s intentions were indeed false, deceptive, selfish, and predatory, then she should suffer the complete consequences of such actions. The documentary however, provides much evidence to the contrary, namely Derrick’s papers and other revealed data messages from the electronic keyboard, the testimony of Devva Kasnitz, as well as the personal testimony of Anna’s herself. Let us remember also, that the family is refusing to release the entirety of the text data stored in the keyboard. Currently, there is compelling evidence showing that no, Derrick is not intelligent, does not have agency, and could not provide consent (as seen later in the documentary). It does not, however, prove Anna’s intent. It does not prove her to be a narcissist, “white savior,” seeking power and control over a severely mentally disabled man. It can both be true that Derrick could not provide consent, and that Anna could have believed otherwise (even if mistaken). In other words, Anna was perhaps well-intentioned, but gravely mistaken. This would imply that Anna’s, yet unproven, influence over the facilitated communications was perhaps subconscious and unintentional. This is quite a stretch. I concede that this seems implausible, but arguably quite possible, given the scientific consensus on the psychology of the human mind (namely bias, self-deception, illusion of Self, etc.). The documentary certainly provides compelling evidence that Anna was, maybe, well-intentioned. I believe the initial court ruling was the best decision possible, given the available evidence. The most conclusive being the testimony or deposition of Dr. Howard C. Shane. He met with Derrick, and Derrick was unable to demonstrate intelligence, beyond that of an infant, essentially. After the separation from Anna, Derrick was suddenly unable to communicate. He could no longer utilize the facilitated communication technique using the electronic keyboard. This is confounding. How could this possibly be, unless everything with Anna was falsified-unless Anna was in fact influencing his communications? Or perhaps Anna was outright in control of his every word, one typed letter at a time. Much evidence however, points to Derrick being the one in control; namely the actual, literal words used, the sentence structures, the perspective, and the fact that it wasn’t always Anna facilitating. So was this a conspiracy with the other facilitator? Doubtful. But again, why then could Derrick suddenly no longer communicate??? If he is truly intelligent, with agency, why wouldn’t he defend himself? Why wouldn’t he choose to communicate with his own mother and brother? This would also seem doubtful. So is Derrick intelligent or not? If Anna was so incredibly intelligent enough to fake all the communication data on the keyboard, and conspire with others, with ill-intent, why then would she be so foolish as to encourage Derrick to disclose the “loving relationship,” the sexual intercourse? How would that benefit her in any way? Surely she wouldn’t, as a predator, have willingly confessed to her crimes? This is confounding and so difficult to make any sense out of. Can anyone explain this, aside from asserting that she is a manipulative, narcissistic mastermind, with the desire to leave her marriage and openly continue a long term relationship with Derrick? How can this be explained? So how could this be resolved? Only one way-prove conclusively that Derrick is in fact an intelligent mind with self awareness and agency. How can we do this? By reuniting Anna with Derrick, under strict, clinical supervision, with the support of the family, and using a third party facilitator for the facilitated communication (the use of the electronic keyboard). This will never occur however, so the argument is moot. We will never know and therefore we must all remain agnostic. Any other conclusion, although seemingly reasonable, is unfounded and unprovable. The most frustrating component of this story is the fact (as shown in the documentary) that Derrick was supposedly, intelligently communicating via facilitated communication for a period of time, and then suddenly, apparently, unable to do so after revealing his relationship with Anna, and subsequently his mother and brother disowning and separating Anna and Derrick indefinitely. My theory is that, perhaps, just maybe, the mother and brother’s complete disownment and separation of Anna and Derrick was in itself a severe traumatic experience for Derrick, resulting in an unknown, and likely unknowable, cognitive and emotional response from Derrick. Imagine, please, if he really does have some form of advanced intelligence and agency, that of an adult, and he seemed to have, miraculously, found love, a loving relationship with a woman who cared deeply for him, and suddenly it was taken away from him. How could his mind respond? Would this be a severe trauma, to have this all taken away from him? Perhaps by shutting down and becoming further dysfunctional, regressing, perhaps rebelling against his family, perhaps by suffering from a special, or unique case of PTSD? How would this trauma impact his already unique mind? This is a theory, admittedly difficult for most people to understand, and perhaps quite esoteric, requiring a thorough knowledge of psychology, trauma, and mental illness, as well as an open mind. To be clear, I am not asserting this to be true, but only asking the question if it might be true. Might Derrick actually be an intelligent, self-aware mind with agency, hopes, dreams, and a chance at a better, meaningful existence? Sadly, we will never know. Certainly Anna made a critical misjudgment in engaging with Derrick physically. She made a serious mistake. Regardless, she must be, and perhaps already has been, held accountable for these grave errors. However, there is not enough conclusive evidence to outright declare that Derrick is in fact severely mentally retarded and unable to consent. What if Derrick is intelligent, but suffering from a complex case of PTSD from the trauma of losing Anna? Could this be possible? Unlikely, I admit, and moot, as we will never know, but there is too much compelling evidence that Derrick might actually be intelligent. I do not side with Anna. I do not forgive her behavior. I have compassion and sympathy for Derrick’s family. But I also have hope for Derrick, and tremendous fear and sadness that he may truly be an intelligent man, trapped in perpetual despair and unfathomable suffering, unable to ever defend himself or recover, unable to express himself, unable to even find any relief. What is his current quality of life? What would it have been if he were able to continue his apparently loving relationship with Anna? Was it so bad that Anna loved him? Was it so bad that Derrick was attending classes and, as shown in the documentary with a third party facilitator, able to write intelligent thoughts? I am an advocate for Derrick Johnson.

She goes through the trouble of describing her race, hair, dress, and shoes; she missed a big one--that she is very overweight

This family did such a disservice to Derrick

Glass jugs of drinking water from the taps is better for us all than water bottles made of plastic....cheaper all round so better for our health . Please lets do that from now on and prevent the huge companies making more plastics that we have to tidy up :-)

I just think that the mother and son/ brother made it as a black family thing.....and was looking to make some money..

It makes me sick that these people are exploiting Derrick, and making money off him.

So they’re making money off of him just like I thought, extortion poor guy. He still can’t speak for himself. His family is making money off of him.

Not Derrick telling his brother to stfu at one point 😂

if you do the research you'll see it has been debunked many times over: it is the facilitator typing, every, single, time. why its still promoted i have no idea, especially when things like teaching people how to use AAC devices , sometimes with adaptive buttons and switch access, , eye gaze, large track ball mouse ; also ASL, makaton signing, along with basic and modified sign language etc. to enable people to communicate spontaneous and autonomously. FC does not work, sorry, but i have seen it in my 21 years working in the adult disability services field and advocacy, it is the facilitator typing; and, you'll notice, with each so called ''facilitator'', the clients ''speech'' or typing patterns and styles fluctuates , the literacy levels vary, and personality is different with each facilitator.