This Wall Street Journal article recounts the unraveling of Sovann Komar (“Golden Children”), a Cambodian orphanage founded in 2003 by Elizabeth Ross Johnson, heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, and her local collaborator Sothea Arun. Motivated by compassion for impoverished Cambodian children, Johnson invested around $20 million to create a model community where orphans would be raised in family-style homes by foster parents. Despite good intentions, the project devolved into dysfunction and abuse. After Johnson’s death in 2017, investigations revealed systemic physical and sexual abuse, corruption, and mismanagement. Sothea was later convicted in absentia of rape, child abuse, and fraud, though he maintains his innocence and remains in hiding.