DEATH FOR PAYNE

The Grand Jury has sentenced Christopher Matthew Payne to death for the cold hearted murder of his two beautiful children.  I ask you, will  death really be enough punishment for the pain that this man inflicted on those children or would it be more of a punishment for him to live his life in a small, dark, cell with the memories of what he did to his own flesh and blood to keep him company? 

I am not normally a supporter of the death penalty, since a lot of innocent people sit on death row in this country, but in this case, I almost feel that a harsher punishment is called for…more along the lines of cruel and unusual, do to him what he did to his children…that is what a part of me is saying.

Yet, the other part of me thinks that death is too easy of a way out for this piece of shit, that life, locked in a cell with no way out is a harder punishment…let him live with what he did!  Surround him daily with their pictures and images, until he goes insane.

 Do you think he cares about what he did, do you think he even feels it?  Is he one of those people who has no remorse whatsoever…I think he must be a monster, he would have to be to slowly kill his children the way that he did and so I wonder…exactly what punishment is fitting for this murder.

Please share your views on this case…

My other  opinion….Arizona CPS should be sitting in the cell right next to him!!!!!

 

Jury: Death for Tucson father who starved children

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/286767.php

 

By Kim Smith

Arizona Daily Star

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 03.31.2009

A Tucson man convicted of starving two of his children to death in a bedroom closet was sentenced to death today by a Pima County jury.

The jury took five hours over two days to decide Christopher Payne’s actions were so egregious they outweighed any of the 17 mitigating factors cited by his defense attorneys.

According to prosecutors, Payne locked up and began starving Ariana, 3, and Tyler, 4, following the loss of his job in April 2006.

 

Once they died, Payne stored the children’s remains in garbage bags for months before placing them in a 25-gallon plastic tub and taking them to a storage unit on East Prince Road.

An autopsy revealed Ariana had suffered 12 broken ribs and a broken shoulder bone in the weeks or months before she died.

Jurors convicted Payne of two counts of first-degree murder March 17 and decided last week that the age of the children, the way they died and the fact there was more than one victim warranted a closer look at the death penalty.

During closing arguments Monday, Assistant Pima County Public Defender John O’Brien pleaded with the jury to spare Payne’s life, saying his life still has value, his family loves him and he had a dysfunctional childhood that began when his late mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor when he was 8-weeks-old.

“Christopher Payne is a flawed human being. Christopher Payne was not able to overcome the risk factors in his life. Was that a conscious choice? Did he as a young man, as a young boy…..choose to become a killer?” O’Brien asked.

Deputy Pima County Attorney Susan Eazer told jurors discounted many of the “mitigating” factors brought up by the defense, including Payne’s addiction to heroin.

Payne managed to drive while high, call his father for money while high, sell heroin while high and properly care for his youngest son, Chris Jr., while high, Eazer said.

Payne did choose to become a murderer, Eazer said.

“Every day that he locked those battered and broken babies in the closet he chose to become a killer. Every day he didn’t give those children food and water and nutrients, he chose to become a killer,” Eazer said.

The jury’s decision brings to an end a saga that came to the community’s attention on Feb. 18, 2007, when a storage facility manager decided to clean out a unit that hadn’t been paid for for months.

Inside the unit, the manager found a foul smelling 25-gallon plastic tub that she dumped into a trash bin. She called police and they found Ariana’s remains stuffed inside. Police believe Tyler’s remains fell out of the tub and ended up in a landfill.

Payne was tied to the storage unit two weeks later.

Payne insisted the children starved themselves to death once they realized they weren’t going to be allowed to live with their mother.

At one point, Payne told detectives, “They were freaking me out because of how skinny they were getting, and I didn’t want anybody to know that because then they were going to take them away from me for good.”

Payne said he bought, stole or made food he thought would appeal to the children, like Cream of Wheat and pizza, to no avail.

Eventually, Payne said the children became incontinent and looked like “Ethiopians.”

Payne told detectives he performed CPR on Ariana for more than a day and Tyler died about a week later.

The children’s mother, Jamie Hallam, testified she and Payne split up about three weeks after Ariana was born in October 2002. She and the children didn’t hear anything from Payne until December 2005 when he asked if he could see them.

After the first visits went well, Hallam dropped Ariana and Tyler off with Payne on Jan. 20, 2006, for what was supposed to be a weekend visit.

Payne kept extending the visit, however, and when she asked for CPS help in getting the children back, she was rebuffed despite the fact she had sole legal custody of them.

Former CPS caseworker Cindy Graupmann testified she suspected Hallam of child neglect and using methamphetamine — suspicions that were never proven.

Graupmann also admitted she encouraged Payne to seek custody of the children although she’d never met Payne, had not done a criminal-background check on him and or asked him to submit to drug testing.

All those things would have been done if Hallam’s parental rights had been formally severed.

Hallam settled her lawsuit against CPS for $1 million last year. Her case against the Tucson Police Department is still pending.

Contact reporter Kim Smith at 573-4241 or kimsmith@azstarnet.com

MARYLAND WOMAN CHARGED IN DEATHS OF 2 GIRLS

Md. Woman Is Charged In Deaths Of 2 Girls

Children Were Found In Adoptive Mother’s Freezer Last Year

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/29/AR2009032902104.html

By Dan MorseWashington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 30, 2009; Page B01

Montgomery police have obtained a warrant charging Renee Bowman with murder in the slayings of two adopted children whose bodies were found in her Southern Maryland freezer last year, the county’s state’s attorney and police said yesterday.

Bowman, who has been in the Calvert County jail since September, probably will be served with a copy of the charging documents this week, said John McCarthy, the state’s attorney. Detectives think that Bowman killed the girls in May 2006 when she was leasing a home in the Aspen Hill area and that the girls died of asphyxiation, McCarthy said.

Bowman, 43, came to the attention of law enforcement last year, when the girls’ 7-year-old sister jumped out of a bedroom window of Bowman’s home in Lusby and was spotted by a neighbor. She was infected with sores and lesions and had injuries on her feet and knees, ligature marks and extensive scarring on her neck.

Calvert authorities charged Bowman with attempted murder of the 7-year-old and child abuse and have been holding her in the county jail since then.

When investigators searched Bowman’s home, they found the two bodies in the freezer. They were later identified as those of Jasmine Nicole Bowman, who would be about 9, and Minnet C. Bowman, who would be about 11.

Bowman told authorities that one of the girls died of starvation and that the other died after a fall, law enforcement sources have said. Montgomery police have said they long suspected the slayings took place in their jurisdiction.

The warrant charges Bowman with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of child abuse resulting in death and one count of child abuse relating to the surviving girl. Investigators said they think she kept the bodies in the freezer for at least a year while she moved from Montgomery to Charles County to Calvert.

With Bowman locked up, detectives had more time to investigate before placing charges, said Lt. Paul Starks, a Montgomery police spokesman. The investigation involved coordinating efforts among four agencies in Montgomery and Calvert, he said.

Investigators have determined that while in Montgomery, Bowman beat all three children, Starks said. At times, she kept her children in a locked room, forcing them to urinate in a bucket, he said.

Bowman will first face charges in Calvert. In October, she was indicted there on attempted murder and other charges in the alleged abuse of her surviving daughter, according to court records. She is scheduled to be tried Sept. 28.

Her attorney, Dorothy Gardner-Hodge, could not be reached yesterday.

The surviving girl, now 8, was hospitalized for several days after fleeing her mother’s home. She then moved in with a foster family in Calvert, where officials said this year she was safe and doing well.

After the criminal charges in Calvert are resolved, Bowman will be brought to Montgomery to face the murder charges, McCarthy said.

The case has heightened concerns about child welfare services in the District. Bowman, who had been a foster parent to each of the three girls, received $2,400 a month from a program that encourages adoption of children who are wards of the state.

The city’s Child and Family Services Agency recommended Bowman as a suitable adoptive parent, even though she had filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001, the year she adopted one child, and had just emerged from it in 2004, when she adopted two others.

At times while the bodies were in the freezer, Bowman sat at her computer and went shopping for clothes. She considered faux-fur cropped jackets and bought a pair of inexpensive ones on eBay. She also bought a gold ring with fake diamonds shaped into a heart for $27.01 and a gold bracelet that said “I Love You” for $36.

 

Another fine example of how CPS removes children from their parents and then places them into a home that they “believe is better”.  I believe their judgment is sorely lacking and should not be trusted at all.

   They place these children in these homes and pay these people to take care of these children…and never check on them again.  They have no concern for these children’s well-being at all. 

This woman was making 29,800 dollars off of these children a year and she didn’t even have to prove that she still had them!  No one checked on these kids.  This is not the first case of adopted children being killed by the “proper, good parents CPS placed them with.

 I am curious as to why these children  were removed from the parents and allowed to be adopted in the first place.  Knowing the system the way that I do, I would bet at least one of them was removed on trumped up, make believe charges by CPS…

I wonder if these children would still be alive, if CPS would have left them with their parents.

PROSECUTORS UPGRADE CHARGES IN TODDLER’S DEATH

By Eric Pera
THE LEDGER

http://www.theledger.com/article/20090326/NEWS/903265086?Title=Prosecutors-Upgrade-Charges-in-Toddler-s-Death

Published: Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 12:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, March 27, 2009 at 12:35 a.m.

LAKELAND  Clarissa Johnson says she never found the perfect home for the ashes of her first child, Michael, who was born three months premature and died from complications of a bowel obstruction.

Now after four years, the 20-year-old Lakeland woman must deal with the ashes of another son, Zachary, who police say was violently shaken to death while in the temporary care of his maternal aunt and her husband, Mysti and Matthew Wyrosdick.

Prosecutors on Thursday upgraded charges against Matthew Wyrosdick to aggravated manslaughter of a child, a first-degree felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison. He is being held in the Polk County jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Johnson was at a loss for words Thursday to describe her emotions over the death of her youngest son, Zachary, a precocious toddler taken from her eight months ago after she and her husband, Gene, were jailed on July 26 and were charged with stealing a car and money from an elderly relative.

Zachary’s death on March 13 from injuries suffered a day earlier has been the focus of an investigation by law enforcement and the Department of Children & Families, whose errors in the case are outlined in a 14-page summary included with some 500 pages of DCF documents released Tuesday to the public.

Among those errors – DCF took too long to reunite Zachary and his brother, Austin, 2, with the Johnsons.

DCF also faults staff members at Educare Early Learning Center in South Lakeland who photographed numerous marks and bruises on Zachary while the boy was in temporary custody but never alerted authorities of their concerns.

A decision by DCF whether to suspend or revoke the day care’s license, or to fine the facility, was still pending late Thursday afternoon.

Johnson said Thursday that after she and her husband were released from jail Sept. 12, they worked hard to hasten the return of their children, who were scheduled to come home sometime in April, roughly nine months after they were separated.

“We had already finished our case plan,” she said. “We had stable housing and income.”

The children were placed in the care of Clarissa Johnson’s sister and brother-in-law in Lakeland shortly after the Johnsons were jailed last summer. The placement was made by the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office in an unusual arrangement.

Hillsborough is one of only about seven Florida counties in which a law enforcement agency, rather than DCF, provides child protective investigations (CPIs), said DCF spokeswoman Carrie Hoeppner.

“It’s a unique system of care,” she said.

Ultimately, Circuit Judge Rex Barbas of Hillsborough County approved a plan giving temporary custody of Zachary and Austin to the Wyrosdicks, despite objections of a DCF CPI in Polk, Hoeppner said.

The Polk CPI’s concerns of inadequate income and Matthew Wyrosdick’s 2002 charge for soliciting a prostitute were overruled, according to a DCF review.

Because the Johnsons were arrested in Hillsborough, the case was handled in that county.

One of the more egregious missteps in the case, according to DCF’s review, was for workers at Zachary’s day care to ignore a state law mandating child care personnel to immediately report suspicions of child abuse and neglect to the Florida Abuse Hotline System.

Between Jan. 9 and Feb. 18, workers at Educare Early Learning Center took 17 photographs of Zachary showing bruises and scratches on his face and head.

Those pictures didn’t surface until after the boy was severely injured March 12 at the Wyrosdicks’ home, Hoeppner said. That same day, Clarissa Johnson notified a child protective services manager of her son’s injuries, initiating an investigation that led to the discovery of the pictures.

Without admitting wrongdoing, Ryan Hamaker, owner of Educare Early Learning Center, told The Ledger he’s cooperating with the ongoing investigation into Zachary’s death.

“We’re not prepared to say too much now (but) we have nothing to hide,” he said. “We are going to reach out to the media at some point. Safety is our primary concern.”

Clarissa Johnson said Thursday that she noticed marks and bruises on Zachary during her visitations at her sister’s home. “I asked my sister, ‘How did he get bruises?’ But Zachary was clumsy,” she said. “He always walked around, falling and stuff,” so concerns were dismissed.

Johnson said she’s been urged by DCF to get counseling to deal with her son’s death, but she’d rather not. “We have to do what they say, even though we don’t want counseling,” she said.

The loss hurts most at home, Johnson said, “because we have his pictures all over.”

A memorial service for Zachary will be held Saturday at 2 p.m. at Willow Oak Baptist Church in Mulberry. His ashes will be placed in a double urn along with those of his brother Michael. Clarissa Johnson said she hasn’t yet decided where the remains will be kept.

[ Eric Pera can be reached at eric.pera@theledger.com or 863-802-7528. ]

 

DCF 15 Page Summary Can Be Found At The Following Link: 

DCF Investigation Summary

 

Neighbor Says DCF Was Warned of Abuse Leading To Infant’s Death

State officials say they are reviewing DCF’s oversight of Zachary Johnson.

 

 

By Eric Pera
THE LEDGER

http://www.theledger.com/article/20090316/NEWS/903165023

Published: Monday, March 16, 2009 at 10:12 p.m.
Last Modified: Monday, March 16, 2009 at 10:52 p.m.

LAKELAND | Iris Scandrick says she heard what sounded like an old-fashion beating, and the wails emanating from the apartment next door were especially disturbing to the Lakeland grandmother.

Scandrick said she dialed the state hotline for reporting child abuse and anonymously alerted the Florida Department of Children & Families of her concerns.

“I didn’t give them my name, I told them I heard these children screaming,” she said.

Scandrick, 52, said she made the call more than a week ago and assumed her complaint was being looked into. Afterwards, she said, the two boys next door, Austin Johnson, 2, and Zachary Johnson, 17 months, were quiet.

That silence was broken Thursday morning. Scandrick said she again heard cries and an adult male shouting “shut up, sit down.”

“Then I heard a big thump,” she said, which caused her to put an ear to the wall. Describing the next sound, Scandrick hammered her dining room table with her fist.

She said she called the Lakeland Police Department. The police arrived within six minutes.

Zachary was severely injured and was taken to Tampa General Hospital. He died Friday of what autopsy determined were injuries consistent with either a blow or shaken baby syndrome, according to police.

The child’s uncle, Matthew Wyrosdick, 32, who shared temporary custody of his nephews with his wife, Mysti, has been charged with aggravated manslaughter. Prosecutors said Monday they will consider filing a more severe charge but won’t make a decision until they receive all the reports on the case.

Mysti Wyrosdick said Monday evening that she’s in shock over what her husband of two years has been accused of.

“He loves those boys very much,” she said. “I’m not justifying what my husband has been accused of, but I can’t see him doing it. I don’t see it at all.”

Matthew Wyrosdick had his first court appearance Monday in Bartow. His bail has been set at $100,000.

Scandrick said she’s angry and sick over what she considers to be a lack of any response from the DCF into her initial complaint. “I really feel like that boy’s life could have been saved,” she said.

Carrie Hoeppner, a DCF spokeswoman in Orlando, said the department has no record of any calls made to the abuse hotline about the Johnson children. She said the matter is undergoing a thorough review, however, in case something was overlooked.

Also under scrutiny are the steps by caseworkers and their superiors that led to the children being taken last summer from their parents, Earl and Clarissa Johnson, and placed with the Wyrosdicks, Hoeppner said.

“In light of the tragedy, we have an obligation to fine-comb through this case,” she said.

Because of media requests for access to DCF files on the matter, the department is poring through its records, Hoeppner said, blacking out names and other confidential information. The files may be released by the end of the week, she said.

Zachary’s parents were jailed in July on charges of car theft, exploitation of the elderly, credit card fraud and petty theft, Hillsborough County Jail records show.

The DCF placed the children temporarily with their aunt and uncle, and they remained in their custody while their parents, who have been out of jail since September, worked toward regaining custody.

The homecoming was about one month away, Hoeppner said, as the Johnsons were satisfying their case plan.

Mysti Wyrosdick said that early on she was unemployed so the children stayed at home with her two days a week and spent the other three days in day care with monetary support from the state. Wyrosdick, who has since found work as a preschool teacher, said the boys eventually lost their part-time slot to two children in need of full-time day care, leaving Zachary and Austin at home with her husband, who had lost his seasonal job in retail sales.

She said she asked a DCF caseworker “multiple times” for assistance in another day care referral, but never got a response.

“I loved my nephew (Zachary) more than anything else in this world,” Wyrosdick said. “Now, I can’t see my other nephew. I’m by myself trying to figure out what’s going on.”

[ Eric Pera can be reached at eric.pera@theledger.com or 863-802-7528. ]

ERIN MAXWELL UPDATES: CAN THEY FIRE DSS COMMISSIONER? I HOPE SO

County legislators call for DSS commissioner to be fired

 

Updated: 03/26/2009 06:08 AM

By: Andy Mattison

http://news10now.com/content/all_news/136278/county-legislators-call-for-dss-commissioner-to-be-fired/Default.aspx

OSWEGO, N.Y. — It was a tense meeting Wednesday as county legislators sparred with each other and the public about social services’ handling of the Erin Maxwell case. The county’s health and human services committee met to come up with suggestions on how the department can improve going forward, when legislator Arthur Gearsbeck suggested a change be made involving commissioner Frances Lanigan.

“We made a mistake. We should just fire this person and start over. We need to clean this department out and start over. That’s what we need to do,” said Gearsbeck.

A motion was made by legislator Doug Malone for commissioner Lanigan to be fired, but it was tabled until the next meeting so the legislators could determine the process for removing an appointed official.

“I think a discussion of that is fair. It’s fair for them to discuss that. I don’t have a problem with that,” said Lanigan.
The criticism of commissioner Lanigan continued during the public portion of the meeting. Armed with signs members of the community, some who claimed to have seen Erin’s living conditions for themselves called for county legislators to make changes to a system even some legislators admit is flawed.

“I’m here to once again call on our county legislators to bring about the necessary changes we need in OCDSS, which include replacing our current commissioner of social services with someone who can champion that change,” said Fulton resident Jackie Siver.

“Frozen kittens in a freezer? How could you let that happen? How could that be?” asked Fulton resident Kevin Gibbs.

“The conditions were not pretty when we went in there in 2006, absolutely. However, when we left the home, they were not in the same standard, they met a minimal standard,” said Lanigan.

One person who was also at the meeting but did not speak was Dr. Dennis Mullaney. Dr. Mullaney worked at Lee Memorial Hospital in Fulton for four years and said he tried to meet with social services a few times about handling child abuse cases but got nowhere.

“We were trying to say can’t we work together, we’ve got to do a better job, that there’s children at risk and in a sense, we were told they know what they’re, doing buzz off, you’re an amateur. Thanks but no thanks.” said Dr. Mullaney.

Lanigan said she was prepared to offer her resignation if the state report said her department was responsible for what happened to Erin but didn’t when the report said that even if social services acted differently it couldn’t have prevented Erin’s death.

As for the motion for her to be fired, the committee’s next meeting is scheduled for April, but it’s possible they could meet before then

 

Oswego County social services official won’t resign over Erin Maxwell case

by John Doherty / The Post-Standard

Wednesday March 25, 2009, 1:16 PM

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/03/two_lawmakers_want_to_oust_dss.html

Oswego, NY — Two Oswego County legislators today agreed to accept resignation of Social Services Commissioner Frances Lanigan over her department’s dealings with the family of Erin Maxwell in the years before the 11-year-old died.

Lanigan said she never has offered to quit and does not plan to step down.

Legislators Doug Malone and Arthur Gearsbeck then asked county attorneys to look into whether Lanigan could be fired.

The discussion occurred early during a nearly three-hour session of the legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee.

The other five members of the committee did not support the attempts of their two colleagues to remove Lanigan.

Lanigan said she did say she would resign if a state report concluded her department was responsible for Maxwell’s death on Aug. 30. That report, released last week, concluded DSS failed to do an adequate job handling the case, but did not say the girl’s death would have been prevented had the department done a better job.

Erin Maxwell died several hours after being asphyxiated in her squalid town of Palermo home. Investigators found she also had been sexually abused. Her stepbrother, Alan Jones, has been charged with murdering her. Her father and stepmother, Lindsey and Lynn Maxwell, face child endangerment charges for allowing the girl to live in deplorable conditions.

After her death state police found more than 100 cats and other animals living in the house, which also contained piles of animal feces. Erin Maxwell routinely was locked in her bedroom at night, sent to school hungry and wore clothing that smelled of cat urine, investigators found.

DSS had visited the Maxwell home three times between 2003 and 2006. Each time they concluded that conditions met minimal standards for the girl to continue living there.

Since the girl’s death, critics have said Lanigan and her staff failed to adequately act on complaints filed against the family between 2006 and her death.

Lanigan has maintained her department has received no complaints subsequent to DSS workers’ 2006 visits to the Maxwell home.

LIKE I SAID, I THINK YOU HAVE TO HAVE A CRIMINAL RECORD TO BE EMPLOYED BY CPS

Editorial: CPS can’t ignore criminal records

http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/story/1726174.html

 

Published: Wednesday, Mar. 25, 2009 – 12:00 am | Page 16APublished: Wednesday, Mar. 25, 2009 – 12:00 am | Page 16A

 

For the last several months, Sacramento Bee reporters have been examining a question that should concern all county residents: How many employees of Child Protective Services have criminal records?  As it turns out, one of every 14 CPS employees has a criminal record in Sacramento County alone. Undoubtedly, the number would be higher if records outside the county were checked.

Some of these convictions occurred many years ago or involved relatively minor offenses. But others involve serious matters. The Bee’s Marjie Lundstrom and Sam Stanton found a registered sex offender working as a receptionist at CPS offices. They found CPS employees convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, heroin possession, embezzlement and spousal abuse. They found three social workers with multiple DUI convictions; two had been arrested three times.

Given that CPS workers routinely make decisions that affect the lives of children and families, you’d assume that CPS administrators would have wanted, from the get-go, to learn all they could about their employees.

You’d think they’d have wanted to know sooner rather than later if their background checks had failed, or if a long-standing employee had been recently convicted of a crime.

Yet that is not what occurred. Partway through the investigation, CPS officials retreated. CPS Director Laura Coulthard and her boss, Lynn Frank, director of the Department of Health and Human Services, declined to be interviewed. Instead, they sent memos discouraging workers from talking to reporters and offered counseling to those who were the focus of The Bee’s “intrusive” questions.

This is a sign of an agency in denial. While the vast majority of CPS workers perform their tough jobs admirably and have a clean record, The Bee’s research has found far too many with troubling histories. By urging their employees to stay mum instead of examining the agency’s screening practices, CPS managers seem more interested in damage control than in public safety.

Two big questions hang over CPS’ practices. The first involves pre-employment screening and the county’s background check policy, which was last revised in 1988.

The second involves the county’s attempts to be notified by outside authorities when a CPS employee, after being hired, runs afoul of the law.

A CPS spokesman told The Bee that the county receives subsequent arrest notifications. But if that is the case, why is Cynthia Lee Quinn still a CPS social worker?

An El Dorado County judge convicted Quinn of violating a restraining order after she allegedly harassed neighbors with laser pointers, obscene phone calls, videotaping and nails in their driveways.

After one family moved to Sacramento County to escape the harassment, they soon received a suspicious visit from Sacramento County CPS workers investigating a report of a child beating.

You can have a reasoned debate about whether people convicted years ago of minor offenses should be barred from CPS employment. We believe CPS managers should have some leeway, based on the nature of a person’s past offense and subsequent actions.

The trouble is, CPS hasn’t begun to keep up with recent arrests of its employees. They are not doing the minimum to keep the wrong people from ending up in crucial jobs. And that just adds to the questions about this troubled agency. When will the county’s supervisors demand answers?

FLORIDA DCF SHUNS BLAME IN BOY’S DEATH

Prosecutor reviews report on baby Gabriel’s ‘08 death

 

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/orl-lake-infant-death-032509,0,1612055.story

TAVARES – A homicide prosecutor said he was reviewing the Lake County Sheriff’s Office investigation into the death of Gabriel Golden, an infant who died from skull fractures last year in a Leesburg home.

“These can be especially difficult cases to prove,” said Assistant State Attorney Bill Gross, who offered few details about the report completed by detective Mark Knuuttila. “They generally rely a great deal on complex medical testimony.”

No charges were filed after the Nov. 3 death of the 5-month-old boy, although Ashley Baker, 32, one of Gabriel’s caregivers, was identified as “a person of interest” in the case during court hearings that determined who should have temporary custody of two other children living in the Picciola Road home in Leesburg.

Gross said his review of the case could take “months.”

Baker, who declined an interview request, was arrested Jan. 30 on unrelated theft charges and remains in the Lake County Jail.

After Gabriel’s death, the Department of Children and Families issued a report in which the agency admitted its staff had neglected to ensure the baby’s safety. The report said staff had focused too much attention on Gabriel’s biological parents, Andrew and Andrea Golden, and not enough on the caregivers, Tammi and Ashley Baker.

The Goldens were financially unable to provide or care for the child and gave up “all parental rights” to the Bakers on Sept. 3, according to signed documents obtained by the Orlando Sentinel.

Before the Bakers agreed to take custody of Gabriel, DCF investigated claims that his biological parents had left him with others for days, had relied on handouts from local churches and were both thinking about joining the military.

But the DCF report also said the Bakers had been investigated at least 14 times on abuse and neglect allegations. Most of the investigations found no wrongdoing on the part of the couple, however.

The DCF report, while noting that Ashley Baker had a lengthy criminal record, also quoted Gabriel’s paternal grandparents as saying “it is obvious that Gabriel is wanted and loved in that house.” Vickie Laabs, Tammi Baker’s mother, said “they all love Gabriel” and fell in love with him when they started watching him.

Two other children in the home at the time of Gabriel’s death remain in the temporary care of others.

Their mother, Tammi Baker, 31, won additional privileges with both children during a hearing last week in Lake County, although Magistrate Heidi Davis reserved judgment on where Tammi Baker’s son and daughter ultimately will reside.

The son, 12, resides with family friends; the daughter, 6, resides in Pensacola with her biological father.

The magistrate warned Tammi Baker that if she is permitted unsupervised visits in her home with the children that Ashley Baker, if released from jail, is not allowed to be around the kids.

Ashley Baker pleaded not guilty last month to charges of burglary and two counts of dealing in stolen property. He is accused of breaking into the home of his stepson’s foster parents, stealing more than $4,000 worth of jewelry, including a keepsake pocket watch, and attempting to pawn stolen goods.

Stephen Hudak can be reached at shudak@orlandosentinel.com or 352-742-5930

You can see more on this story at:

Fla. DCF Shuns Blame In Boy’s Death
The Ledger – Lakeland,FL,USA
After more than a week in two different foster homes, the children were placed with the Wyrosdicks on Aug. 12 over the objections of a CPI assigned to …

MILWAUKEE CHILD WELFARE REPORT

State reports on Milwaukee child welfare efforts

 

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/41772767.html

Crocker Stephenson of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Mar. 24, 2009

The 2008 progress report the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare presented to the child welfare community Tuesday afternoon is critical in understanding how the bureau is performing and in setting goals for the coming years.

It is also, child advocates say, confusing if not downright misleading.

For example, 2008’s most infamous cases of child abuse in Milwaukee County – the beating death of 13-month-old Christopher Thomas and the torture of his sister – are not even counted in the report.

Also, the bureau calculates the percentage of staff turnover – a key indicator of the system’s stability – in such a way that the number it comes up with is all but meaningless.

“We should throw this thing away,” said Susan Conwell, a local child welfare advocate and executive director of Kids Matter Inc.

A bit of history places the importance of the report in context:

By all accounts, Milwaukee County in the early 1990s had one of the worst foster care programs in the nation. Many children languished in the system for years without a coherent plan that would enable them to either reunify with their parents or be adopted.

Children’s Rights Inc., then the American Civil Liberties Union’s Children’s Rights Project, filed a suit in federal court in 1993 on behalf of 5,000 children receiving welfare services in Milwaukee County.

In response to the lawsuit, the state took over the county system in 1998, creating the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare, which is part of the state Department of Children and Families. The DCF, headed by Secretary Reggie Bicha, is itself not quite a year old.

There have been significant improvements.

The number of the children in the system has been reduced. The number of children either reunified with their parents or adopted has increased. Caseloads are lighter. Monthly face-to-face contacts are the rule rather than the exception.

And on Tuesday, Bicha and others highlighted more sought-after changes, such as more staff, including nurses, and better training and pay for foster parents.

The suit, settled in 2002, requires the bureau to reach specific outcomes in areas such as permanency and safety. A handful of those outcomes have yet to be met, and so the bureau issues a report twice a year that not only tracks its progress toward reaching its goals, but also provides the community with a broad, statistically loaded profile of what’s going on in Milwaukee County.

The report is presented, as it was Tuesday, during the semiannual Community Meeting on Child Welfare. Among the attendees was Children’s Rights senior litigation counsel Eric Thompson.

Thus, the report is critical in two ways: For many, it is the clearest picture of what the bureau is doing and failing to do to protect our abused and neglected children, and it is the basis upon which the bureau and Children’s Rights set goals for improving service year after year.

But is the report reliable?

Take, for example, its section on maltreatment.

According to the settlement agreement, “no more than 0.60% of children in BMCW custody shall be the victims of substantiated abuse or neglect allegations by a foster parent or staff of facility required to be licensed.”

According to the report, the bureau last year achieved an annual performance of 0.39%. In other words, the bureau more than met that standard during 2008.

Some abuse not counted

But drill down a bit, and the number isn’t what it seems.

According to the report, 16 children suffered maltreatment in 2008. But those 16 are only children who were in foster care or in a licensed agency. Not included are the hundreds of children in any given month placed with unlicensed relatives.

Among those children during 2008 were the two Thomas siblings, who were in the court-ordered kinship care of their unlicensed aunt and uncle.

Confusing matters further, even though children in court-ordered kinship care are not counted among the mistreated, they are counted by the bureau in its tally of children in out-of-home care.

If the seven children identified by the bureau as mistreated in court-ordered kinship care had been counted, the percentage would jump from 0.39% to 0.56%.

Still within the standard, but just barely.

“It isn’t a useful number,” child welfare advocate Conwell said.

She cited an example of what’s not counted.

“Last fall, a 5-year-old foster child was raped by a teenager in a respite home. The 5-year-old ended up with gonorrhea, and the teenager was criminally prosecuted. But that rape doesn’t count in child abuse statistics because the teenager doesn’t have a foster care license and the rape happened in a respite home.

“We should be looking at child safety in every supervised placement, rather than excluding abuse by license and location,” Conwell said.

Mark Sarvela, Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare program evaluation manager, said the maltreatment percentage is calculated in accordance with the settlement agreement with Children’s Rights, a position Conwell dismissed as too narrow.

“Taxpayers are paying a lot of money for a lot of evaluators to write reports that don’t answer essential questions about child safety. People keep blaming the quality of these reports on the settlement agreement, but the settlement is a floor, not a ceiling. We can and should count all child abuse.”

Among the speakers Tuesday was Cyrus Behroozi, administrator of Department of Children and Families’ Division of Safety and Permanence, who said that no matter what the court-mandated goal might be, no child should be maltreated.

“I want to stress,” he said, “that the number should be zero. Even one child mistreated is unacceptable.”

Behroozi and Bicha outlined several initiatives contained in Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget that they believe would improve the safety of Milwaukee County children.

One of the most significant: $1.2 million over the next biennium for nurses who would pay monthly visits to medically fragile children and children under 3 in out-of-home care.

The budget would also add 15 initial assessment positions and three supervisor positions to the bureau, increase foster parent payments by 5% in each year of the biennium, allocate $1.1million for foster parent training, and increase the number of licensed kinship parents.

The bureau would also seek to create 185 new foster homes in Milwaukee County. There are about 695 foster families now.

“There is still work to do,” Bicha said. “We are here to create opportunities and move forward.”

Staff turnover rate

Among those challenges is staff turnover, a perennial problem at the bureau.

It, too, is set out in the report in a confusing way.

According to the report, the bureau started 2008 with 179 ongoing case managers. By December, 105 had left. That would seem to mean the turnover was 59%.

The bureau, explaining it “continues to use the method described in the Settlement Agreement,” inflates the number of caseworkers it started the year with by adding to it the number of caseworkers hired over the course of the next 12 months (123) and comes up with a turnover rate of 34.8%.

Again, Sarvela said, this number is calculated in accordance with the settlement agreement.

“That is certainly not how the children in the system experience turnover,” Conwell said.

Thompson, the Children’s Rights attorney, called the turnover rate a crisis.

Thompson was critical of the report’s finding that one in four children in BMCW custody continues to bounce to four or more placements while in foster care, drastically reducing the chances of finding a permanent home.

“These are our kids, our families, and we’ve got to do a better job,” he said.

READ THE ENTIRE REPORT

http://www.childrensrights.org/wp-content/uploads//2009/03/2009-03-24_milwaukee_monitoring_report.pdf

ARREST MADE FOR DEATH OF A SIOUXLAND CHILD

http://www.kcautv.com/Global/story.asp?S=10057422&nav=1kgl

Posted: March 23, 2009 07:12 PM EDT
Updated: March 23, 2009 07:12 PM EDT

Nearly three years after a Siouxland toddler died from head trauma, his foster mother has been arrested in connection with his death.

For some, justice may have been served, but it still won’t bring back a life that was taken too short.

20 month old Nathanial Saunsoci died of blunt force trauma to the head, in September of 2006.

At the time he was under the care of Carlos and Tisha Vega, at their home in South Sioux City, Nebraska.

After public and media tips to the Dakota County Sheriff’s Office, Saunsoci’s former foster-mom, 35 year-old Tisha Vega, was found in Pennsylvania and arrested for manslaughter.

The arrest was long awaited news for the Native American Community.

But in addition to relief, the long wait created frustration.

Vega is currently being held at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Pennsylvania.

Local authorities are waiting for an extradition decision, to bring her back.

Vega did go before a Pennsylvania judge today, and was denied bond.

BEFORE RYAN WEEKS DIED, MOM TRINITY ANDERSON CAME CLOSE TO LOSING HIM

Child welfare report details the brief life of Ryan Weeks

http://newsok.com/before-ryan-weeks-died-mom-trinity-anderson-came-close-to-losing-him/article/3355818

BY ANN KELLEY

Published: March 24, 2009

State child welfare workers at least twice recommended 3-year-old Ryan Weeks and his siblings be permanently removed from their mother’s home because of alleged abuse.

Ryan Weeks 3-year-old died Nov. 5

These and other findings are in a 17-page report on Ryan’s death recently released by the Oklahoma Commission on Children and Youth.

Ryan died Nov. 5, just four days shy of his fourth birthday. His mother’s boyfriend, Rocky Allen Moore, 22, of Elk City is accused of beating him to death, and faces a first-degree murder complaint.

Moore’s preliminary hearing is set for April 7. Meanwhile, his attorney has asked that Moore’s competency to stand trial be assessed.

Beckham County District Attorney Dennis Smith said Ryan’s mother, Trinity Anderson, 22, was not home when the injuries were inflicted. She has not been charged, despite her long history of alleged child neglect documented with the state Department of Human Services.

What report found

According to the report:

• Less than three weeks after Ryan died, Anderson gave birth to her fourth child.

• Ryan was almost a year old when DHS opened a case on his family. The report reveals he spent nearly his whole life in a home riddled with domestic violence and drug use.

• Even in DHS custody, at one point Ryan and his older brother were moved from one foster home after DHS officials found the foster mother had a long criminal history, the most current being for forgery and bogus checks. She also had not completed her foster parent training and was having behavioral issues with her own child.

• Anderson twice came close to losing her parental rights before Ryan’s death, but each time swayed child welfare workers with renewed efforts to clean up her life for her children.

• Anderson and Ryan’s father had a tumultuous relationship. His father was jailed in December 2005 on a domestic abuse complaint. Anderson at one time took the children to a shelter. DHS subsequently took the children away because she didn’t take steps to protect them from domestic violence.

• She regained physical custody after she met Moore and gave birth to his child in May 2007.

• After the children moved in with Moore and Anderson, there were reports to DHS about marijuana use by Anderson and Moore. Both failed drug tests, and Anderson was caught trying to cheat on a drug test with a plastic cigar container filled with someone else’s urine.

• In September 2007, Anderson’s three children were placed in foster care. Ryan’s older brother told a child welfare worker Moore had made him smoke marijuana and drink alcohol, and that Moore and his mother fought frequently.

• A foster mother for the children was so convinced the children were being abused while on unsupervised visits with Anderson that she had Ryan’s older brother examined by a doctor. The doctor reported finding scratches and bruises on the boy and recommended he not have additional unsupervised visits with his mother.

• Eight months later, the children were returned to Anderson and Moore.

REPORT OF RYAN WEEKS DEATH

AND CLEAR ACROSS THE COUNTRY: MORE COMPLAINTS ABOUT CPS

Across this entire country you have people complaining about Child Protective Services, DSS, DSHS or whatever name they go by, in whichever state we are discussing.  It seems by whatever name they go by, they are all committing the same crimes and mistakes across this country.

These are not just ordianary citizens, although there are scores of those speaking out.  The people coming forward with some of these complaints are also: Prosecutor’s, Senators, Doctors, police officers, and lawyers all complaining about the failures, abuses of power, law breaking, and the numerous other issues of these departments,  and still nothing is being done. 

People are suing these departments left and right and these cases are not being thrown out of court…these “people” are not losing these suits, but winning and winning big.  And those lawsuits that are not going all the way to court are being settled out of court, with these departments paying out millions of dollars for their failures and criminal activities.

Even with all of these things occurring…people who are actively speaking out against CPS are looked upon with contempt, viewed as having a conspiracy theory against DSS, or child abusers who are trying to get even.

Open your eyes people…what is being said about these departments is real, it is the truth and they are covering it up!!!  It is time for America to take a stand against this “all powerful” government entity.  We need to stand together and say, enough is enough, we can’t ignore this any longer.

I can post a story on this blog everyday about a child that has been protected to death by CPS and never post them all.  Their failures and crimes are an abomination on the very soul of this country…our nations children.  Children are dying, families are being destroyed, the American Dream of our fore fathers for civil rights, due process, and protection under the constitution is being shattered by this out of control government agency.

Our country was designed on a checks and balances system for the protection of the people, yet these departments work on the outside of that system, there is no accountability for CPS and there should be and until there is, children will continue to die.

SPEAK OUT….Write your State Reps, Senators, Congress, and the President, anyone and everyone you can think of…demand accountability for CPS…demand changes to the laws that govern them, demand criminal prosecution for their crimes and when they break the law or violate civil rights, and if that doesn’t work, demand that they be shut down and a better system created. 

Prosecutor alleges ‘pattern of misconduct’ at DSHS

Meghann Cuniff

The Spokesman News

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/mar/20/prosecutor-alleges-pattern-misconduct-dshs/

 

 

A “pattern of misconduct” plagues the Colville office of the Department of Social and Health Services and has resulted in the wrongful removal of foster children, in one instance described in a court ruling as a “draconian solution” to a financial dispute, according to the county prosecutor.

The sharply worded letter, sent Wednesday to Gov. Chris Gregoire, Attorney General Rob McKenna, and more than 30 state legislators and state employees, follows months of investigation by Stevens County Prosecutor Tim Rasmussen and accuses the office of “shopping” for doctors and counselors to support its agenda, ignoring rules regarding the removal of foster children and contradicting recommendations from health care providers.

Rasmussen’s letter, which calls for state intervention, includes a complaint from a doctor who said a baby became addicted to drugs after being placed on a morphine drip, despite his assurances that the child did not have methamphetamine in its system as state workers suspected.

“It is really unfortunate that this child was put through this degree of trauma at such an early age and I believe it can only be laid at the feet of the (Child Protective Services) workers,” wrote Dr. Barry J. Bacon in a letter dated Nov. 18.

Bacon said Friday that he stands by the letter.

“I believe that there are some serious problems” with the department, Bacon said.

State Rep. Joel Kretz, R-Wauconda, asked Rasmussen to investigate after receiving what he called “an inordinate” number of complaints about the office.

Kretz spoke with department ombudsman Mary Meining last August and she looked into complaints, but Kretz said Friday he’s hoping for drastic changes in how such complaints are handled.

“I don’t think conventional means are going to get to the bottom of this,” Kretz said. “There’s a culture in that Colville office that needs to be weeded out and have some light shown on it.”

The Colville office serves Stevens, Ferry and Pend Oreille counties.

Connie Lambert-Eckel, deputy regional administrator for the DSHS children’s administration, said she received the letter yesterday and couldn’t comment on specifics.

The department has been working with Rasmussen on his concerns for some time, Lambert-Eckel said, but his letter contains new claims.

“We will be diving into these concerns very appropriately, very responsively, very quickly and very early next week,” she said.

Rasmussen was openly critical of the agency following the high-profile death of Tyler DeLeon, who died of dehydration in 2005 at the age of 7. DeLeon’s adoptive mother, Carole DeLeon, was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of criminal mistreatment in a plea deal.

Rasmussen at the time said caseworkers failed to act on signs that the boy was malnourished.

“I think lots of people did let Ty down, starting with the people in the Department of Social and Health Services,” he said in 2007.

The state of Washington recently paid a settlement of more than $6 million to children who were under Carole DeLeon’s care, including $180,000 to the estate of Tyler DeLeon.

Rasmussen’s letter, which doesn’t mention the DeLeon case, details one instance in which a judge blasted the department for removing five foster children on what the court ruled was a “very questionable basis.”

“The court found that removal by the department was done primarily for financial reasons,” Rasmussen wrote. “The court noted its ‘displeasure and sense of outrage at the department having operated the way it did in removing the children,’ and speaks of the department ‘having done a grave disservice’ to the children.”

When the social workers tried to remove two other foster children from that home, the judge refused and called their request “child abuse,” the letter reads.

“Something is very wrong,” Rasmussen wrote.

The letter includes accusations that children have been subjected to forensic examination for sexual molestation when no allegations of abuse exist and ignoring recommendations from Court Appointed Special Advocates.

“I hope something comes of it, but we’ll just have to see,” Rasmussen said Friday.

Kretz said the department hides behind bureaucracy and privacy laws.

“We’ve gotten case after case that I can say I have not had my questions answered,” he said. “There needs to be another method to look into problems rather than self examination by an agency.”