Danieal was covered in bed sores when she died of starvation in 2006. She weighed just 42 pounds.
Prosecutors pinned the blame on her parents and the social workers responsible for her care.
Lawyer Josh Scarpello represented social service agency manager Mikal Kamuvaka.
“It’s a horrible case where a lot of people failed Danieal and it was tough to find sympathy for any of the people involved so I can understand both the jury’s verdict and his reasoning in giving that sentence that he did,” Scarpello said.
Many friends and family testified for the social worker who was sentenced — noting his kindness and good character. No one testified for the deceased girl.
The prosecution pointed out that, as in life, no adults were there to speak up on behalf of Danieal.
“We actually looked back in the courtroom at the very beginning and saw all of these people in the courtroom and just thought to ourselves usually in a homicide case when we do sentencing we have family there,” said acting First Assistant District Attorney Edward McCann. “She didn’t have a family that cared for her, so we were her voice. And that was troubling obviously, that so many people let her down.”
The case highlighted widespread problems in the city’s Department of Human Services and led to major reforms.
Prison for three in Danieal Kelly’s death
July 16, 2011|By Joseph A. Slobodzian, Inquirer Staff Writer
Danieal Kelly’s father was not there when she starved to death almost five years ago in her mother’s squalid West Philadelphia apartment.
Neither was Dana Poindexter, the city Department of Human Services social worker who supposedly investigated reports that she was being neglected. Nor Mickal Kamuvaka, head of a DHS contractor paid to put a social worker in Danieal’s house twice a week to make sure she was safe.
But a Common Pleas Court jury Friday ruled that each played a role that inevitably led to an agonizing death for a 14-year-old girl with cerebral palsy who could not care for herself.
The jury deliberated seven hours before finding the three guilty on all charges:
Daniel Kelly Sr., 40, endangering the welfare of a child.
Poindexter, 54, child endangerment, recklessly endangering another person, and perjury.
Kamuvaka, 62, involuntary manslaughter, child endangerment, reckless endangerment, perjury, criminal conspiracy, and four charges involving what prosecutors called a “forgery fest” to create a case file to fool investigators into thinking Kelly actually got in-home services.
None showed any emotion as the verdicts were announced shortly before 4 p.m.
“It’s been five years and I am tremendously, tremendously gratified by the jury’s verdict,” said Acting First Assistant District Attorney Edward McCann, who with Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Selber got the case Aug. 4, 2006, upon Kelly’s death.
McCann praised the jury for seeing that all three played parts in the death in a fetid, two-bedoom apartment Kelly shared with her mother, Andrea, and eight siblings.
Andrea Kelly, 42, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in 2009 and is serving a 20-to-40-year prison term.
Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart set sentencing for Sept. 6.
McCann said Daniel Kelly faces a seven-year prison term, Poindexter eight to 16 years, and Kamuvaka up to 25 years.
Defense attorneys – Earl G. Kauffman for Kelly, Joshua E. Scarpello for Kamuvaka, and Craig Hosay for Poindexter – said they would discuss possible appeals with their clients.
Scarpello said he had hoped the jury might acquit Kamuvaka of involuntary manslaughter.
“The only reason she went to trial is she didn’t want to admit she killed anybody, and that’s what that charge means,” Scarpello said.
Daniel Kelly and Kamuvaka have been in custody. Kelly’s bail was revoked this year after he fled to Indiana. Kamuvaka was in federal custody serving a 171/2-year term for health-care fraud involving Danieal Kelly’s case.
Minehart immediately revoked Poindexter’s bail, and deputies removed him from the courtroom.
When Danieal Kelly died, she weighed 42 pounds, the weight of an average 5-year-old. Authorities said she was lying on a feces-stained mattress, her back pocked with maggot-infested bedsores, one so deep it exposed her hipbone.
Her shocking death – and those of other children under DHS supervision – triggered a wholesale review of what DHS did to protect the city’s most vulnerable families.
The Inquirer published a series on the children’s deaths, and in 2006 Mayor John F. Street fired the top two DHS officials. Other employees followed, some retiring before they were fired.
In August 2008, a county investigating grand jury recommended charges against nine people – including the three who went to trial – and blasted a “toxic culture” at DHS where workers did not do their jobs and supervisors did not hold them accountable.
DHS Commissioner Anne Marie Ambrose released a statement Friday saying the verdicts “represent the closing of a sad chapter in the history of the department.”
Ambrose cited a 2011 report of a DHS oversight board of child-welfare experts that found post-Kelly agency changes have “led to increased child safety and to improved fairness in the decision-making process for families.”
Witnesses who testified during the nine-day trial outlined a series of events where adults responsible for Danieal Kelly’s welfare went missing or ignored reports of her tortured deterioration between 2003 and 2006.
Kelly Sr. was charged for abandoning his daughter and her year-older brother, Daniel Jr., with his ex-wife even though he took them from her 10 years earlier because of neglect.
Witnesses said Poindexter, a former DHS intake social worker, never visited the Kelly house to investigate neglect complaints involving Danieal and then kept his investigation file open for 21/2 years, preventing her from getting in-home services.
And the jury found Kamuvaka ignored reports that her MultiEthnic caseworker assigned to Danieal in April 2006 never went to the house.
Four months later, the girl was dead, and Kamuvaka convened an “all-hands” staff meeting on Aug. 4, 2006, to create a case file showing she had received services.
Defense attorneys argued that only Kelly’s mother was culpable for her death.
Daniel Kelly removed the children in 1995 after in-laws reported Andrea Kelly was neglecting them. He took them to Pittsburgh, where he was living with a girlfriend, and the couple and children then moved to Phoenix, where they had three other children.
Daniel Kelly and his two children returned to Philadelphia in July 2003 after he and his girlfriend separated.
They again started living with Andrea Kelly – who by then had seven other children – and other relatives. But in March 2004 Daniel Kelly was ejected from the house after arguing with his mother-in-law.
He never again saw Danieal. He testified that his ex-wife moved and would not say where she and the children were living, though he conceded he took no legal action for visitation.
Outcomes for Other Defendants in the Case
Following is the status of those charged by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office in the Danieal Kelly case who did not go to trial:
Andrea Kelly, 42, Danieal’s mother, pleaded guilty in April 2009 to third-degree murder. She was sentenced to 20 to 40 years and is housed at the state prison in Muncy.
Julius Juma Murray, 54, Danieal’s last caseworker, an employee of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc., pleaded guilty in February to involuntary manslaughter, conspiracy, and child endangerment, and was sentenced to four to eight years in prison. Murray is also serving an 11-year federal prison term for his conviction on health-care fraud and conspiracy. Murray, a native of Sierra Leone, is in federal custody and will face deportation after serving his sentence.
Laura Sommerer, 36, Danieal’s last city Department of Human Services caseworker, pleaded guilty in 2009 to child endangerment and was sentenced to four years’ probation.
Marie Moses, 37, a friend of Andrea Kelly, pleaded guilty in 2009 to perjury and was sentenced to three years’ probation.
Andrea Miles, now 21, Moses’ daughter and a friend of Andrea Kelly, pleaded guilty in Juvenile Court in 2008 to perjury and was sentenced to probation.
Diamond Brantley, 25, a friend of Andrea Kelly, pleaded guilty in 2009 to perjury and was sentenced to two years’ probation.
Other than Kamuvaka and Murray, those indicted in the federal probe who were associated with MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc. were:
Solomon Manamela, 53, MultiEthnic cofounder. He was convicted at trial and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Currently at federal prison at Fort Dix.
Earle McNeill, 74, MultiEthnic cofounder. He pleaded guilty to fraud charges and was sentenced to 71/2 years. Currently at federal prison in Butler, N.C.
Manuelita Buenaflor, 68, MultiEthnic cofounder and quality assurance supervisor. She pleaded guilty to fraud charges and was sentenced to three years in prison. Currently at federal prison in Danbury, Conn.
Mariam Coulibaly, 42, MultiEthnic caseworker convicted at trial of fraud. She was sentenced to 11 years. She is at the federal prison in Hazleton, W.Va.
Christiana Nimpson, 55, MultiEthnic social worker. She pleaded guilty to fraud charges and was sentenced to 20 months. Currently in transit between federal prisons.
Sotheary Chan, 42, MultiEthnic office worker, pleaded guilty to fraud charges and was sentenced to 15 months in prison. Currently in federal halfway house in Atlanta, Ga.
Patricia Burch, 58, former Philadelphia special education teacher who moonlighted for MultiEthnic. She pleaded guilty to lying to a federal grand jury and was sentenced to 24 months. Currently at federal prison in Alderson, W. Va.
- Joseph A. Slobodzian
Danieal Kelly’s Death Could Have Been Prevented
How do employees who would be fired in the private sector keep working for government agencies?
http://blogs.phillymag.com/the_philly_post/2011/07/15/danieal-kellys-death-prevented/#comments
Today the jury goes back to work in the Danieal Kelly case. Given the facts of the case, I would not want to be on that jury. Like many similar cases that make headlines way too late, this case caused people to wonder, “How could a child die when being monitored by DHS?” What we learn is that DHS—or an equivalent entity in other cities and states—isnot monitoring. This causes a great hue and cry, reforms are made, and then it happens again with another child who comes to our attention only after abuse, neglect or death.
I recognize that the system is underfunded, understaffed, that social workers have brutal jobs and are severely underpaid. But in my experience working in the mental health system, I have seen social workers go above and beyond for the people they serve in the most heroic way possible. The social workers on the front lines who make a difference in people’s lives are, in my opinion, as worthy of praise as firefighters and police officers. And they prove that it’s far from impossible to do the job well.
Because their jobs are so stressful, it’s key to have good managers who facilitate good performance but also hold them accountable when they don’t excel, or worse, when they are neglectful. In my experience, I was shocked to see how many employees were retained even when everyone at an agency knew they were doing a terrible job. In the private sector these employees would have been terminated, albeit after the requisite HR mandates. So why, in the nonprofit and public sector, are poor employees kept on?
Let me give you an example. At one agency, there was an employee who slept on the job every day. He worked at a place where people with mental illnesses came for help, comfort and company. They generally weren’t in crisis, but they were entitled to be treated with respect. To have the staffer on duty sleeping all the time—what message does this convey to the visitors, who are already treated poorly by society? This staffer failed to do other work that was unrelated to interacting with people, i.e., paperwork and the like. He slept and slept and slept.
He was thought of as a joke. His manager wanted him fired. But the administration was reluctant to make a move. In this case, it was a question of being understaffed. Would a replacement be any better? The pay was so incredibly low, and applicants were often unqualified. If he was fired without a suitable replacement, the agency would be violating laws by not having sufficient staff at the location. But initiating a hiring process would be tough too, given that the job would be posted publicly and Sleepytime would find out. There was also a feeling that this guy—who was working additional jobs to make ends meet—was entitled to his sleep. As is so often the case, the needs of the clients, as they are sometimes called, was absolutely secondary.
Another example: A woman employee at a different facility was having increasing trouble coming to work regularly. Her behavior was erratic when she was there. In fact, several times she compromised the safety of her clients with her bizarre behaviors. Everyone felt keenly for her because she wasn’t well. She needed help. In the meantime, though, she simply wasn’t fit to be responsible for people. But I heard she wasn’t being fired because the administration feared a lawsuit for wrongful termination or discrimination. This fear was deeply entrenched. Employees often said, “I can’t get fired. They’re terrified of lawsuits.” This enabled some pretty bad behavior.
There was another employee who called out of work every Monday after payday. Each time he called out, he’d say a different family member had died and he had to go to the funeral out of state. Pretty soon his whole family was dead, including distant cousins. He missed as much work as he could get away with without violating rules. He was in direct service, meaning that clients depended on him particularly. His cavalier attitude about attendance was disrespectful and caused his co-workers to have to pick up his slack, thereby causing problems for their clients. Yet everyone laughed about his “antics.” And his supervisors said they couldn’t fire him because no one had proof that he was lying. Other aspects of his performance were subpar as well. Then he was accused of sexual harassment—which he’d been fired for at his last job. The accuser in this case was credible. But, to be fair (and I agree with this), the agency launched an investigation—an investigation that took a very long time. Ultimately, the results of the investigation were termed inconclusive. He kept his job.
And in a similar instance, an employee who was accused of sexual harassment—and was found culpable—was not terminated but simply demoted and moved to a different department. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the transfers I saw were not unlike the Catholic Church shifting guilty priests around.
In the case of Danieal Kelly, social worker Dana Poindexter’s employment history was appalling. In the private sector—and I’m talking even at a Barnes & Noble or something—he would have been fired 20 times over. But instead of working at a bookstore, he was responsible for safeguarding the lives of vulnerable children. The Inquirer has done excellent reporting on this case and revealed a very problematic work history. From the paper:
As a DHS intake social worker, Poindexter was assigned to investigate hotline allegations of child abuse or neglect. Poindexter had 60 days to file a report recommending services or close the case.
In a June 25, 2003, evaluation, [supervisor Donna] Grubb wrote that Poindexter still had eight cases assigned to him in 2001—all awaiting determinations.
“This failure to move your cases deprives children and families of the services that they desperately need,” Grubb wrote.
Emphasis mine because this kind of evaluation—that acknowledges he is not working hard enough to protect children—was probably filed away in an HR drawer somewhere and essentially forgotten. I have seen that countless times. Rather than sound an alarm and say, “He is jeopardizing lives!” things just move along. Also from the Inky:
DHS social worker Catherine Mondi testified that she was sent to investigate the Kelly household on June 20, 2004, after an anonymous call to the DHS hotline….. Mondi, who said she believed Andrea Kelly and her children needed services immediately, told the jury she followed DHS protocol and reported to Poindexter.
More than a year later, on September 15, 2005, social worker Trina Jenkins testified that she was sent to the Kelly household, at a new address, responding to another anonymous hotline call. Jenkins said she also found Andrea Kelly overwhelmed and, two years after Danieal’s case was first opened, none of the children was in school and Danieal had not received medical or therapeutic care…. Like Mondi a year earlier, Jenkins said she went to Poindexter and his supervisor, Janice Walker, but got a hostile reception.
The blog Dreamin Demon (which I confess to being unfamiliar with) puts things more bluntly:
Poindexter received a report in October 2002 about Andrea Kelly’s children living in a house with no gas, no water, no working toilets, and a collapsed roof. All he had to do was determine, by December 8, 2002, that the Kelly family needed services or that the children were not at risk. However, he did nothing. And this was crucial for Danieal, because whenever a case is not properly closed by the intake unit, any subsequent reports will go to the worker with the unclosed case: in this case, Dana Poindexter. Danieal’s family was hotlined four more times between October 2002 and April 2005. All four reports landed on the desk of Dana Poindexter. And every single time, he did nothing. NOTHING. According to the grand jury’s report, he “failed to complete a single investigative report, progress note, risk assessment, or any other document required by DHS.” …
In April 2007, a detective with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office searched Poindexter’s work area. In his cubicle, she found a cardboard box large enough to hold a file cabinet. It was filled to the top with case files, food wrappers and unopened mail (some four years old). At the bottom of the box was the Kelly family file. …
And yes, of course, the story becomes even worse when you consider that Poindexter’s immediate supervisor Janice Walker referred to his paperwork as “horrendous” yet gave him satisfactory and even superior ratings on his evaluations. Not enough for you? Janice Walker’s immediate supervisor Martha Poller falsified DHS records to conceal Poindexter’s nonperformance. Poller subsequently was promoted … to oversee child fatality reviews.
So now that you’ve read all this, are you surprised Danieal Kelly died? I’m not. I wish I were.
Commet from this story:
George Arthur Says:
July 16th, 2011 at 11:27 pm
You really disappoint me but I shouldn’t be surprised since all the profesional journalists have accepted the Grand Jury report. I am speaking specifically of your statement that “Martha Poller falsified records to conceal Pondexter’s nonperformance. That is simply not true despite what the vicious and sarcastic grand jury report said. (By the way if you think the report was written by anyone other than the D.A. specifically Ed McCann you are deluding yourself. Martha took action to facilitate the transfer of the case. When she testified at the trial the District Attorney even conceded that that was her motivation. I know because I was there. I am her husband. Yes, what happened was horrible to that child. And yes, Martha concedes that perhaps she should have been tougher with Dana. But please do not contribute to the mob mentality and hysteria. You are entitled to your own opinion but not to your own facts.
Prosecution grills Danieal’s father at trial
July 13, 2011|By Joseph A. Slobodzian, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Daniel Kelly Sr. said he loved his disabled daughter Danieal, would never have done anything to harm her, and had accepted that she “would be totally dependent on me for the rest of her life.”
He also conceded that he had “procrastinated” when it had come to such things as getting Danieal a new wheelchair, eyeglasses, and doctor visits and enrolling her in school.
And when his ex-wife and her mother ejected him from the house, moved with the children, and refused to provide new contact information, Kelly acknowledged, he did not go to police, a lawyer, Family Court, or anyone else to fight for visitation.
By turns polite and prickly, soft-spoken and sarcastic, Kelly tried Wednesday to convince a Philadelphia jury that he bore no responsibility for Danieal’s 2006 starvation death.
“You loved your daughter?” asked defense attorney Earl G. Kauffman.
“I loved her very much,” Kelly quietly replied. “I loved her with all my heart.”
“Did you do anything to put her in a dangerous situation?” Kauffman continued.
“Never,” Kelly replied.
Danieal, 14, who could not care for herself, was found dead Aug. 4, 2006, in her mother’s squalid two-bedroom West Philadelphia apartment. She weighed 42 pounds – the weight of a typical 5-year-old – and was on a feces-stained mattress, her back covered with maggot-infested bedsores, one that went bone-deep.
Kelly, 40, is charged with child endangerment on allegations that he abandoned Danieal and her year-older brother, Daniel Jr., in 2005 with ex-wife Andrea Kelly, though he had taken them from her 10 years earlier because of neglect.
Kelly was the only one of three on trial who chose to testify. The last defense witnesses are to testify Thursday morning, followed by closing arguments.
Kelly spent almost three hours before the Common Pleas Court jury, including an hour of rigorous questioning by acting First Assistant District Attorney Edward McCann.
McCann retraced Kelly’s custody of Danieal and her brother from 1995, when he took them to Pittsburgh after removing them from Andrea’s custody, to his return with them to Philadelphia in July 2003 after years living with a girlfriend in Arizona.
At each problem along the way, McCann pressed Kelly to explain what happened.
“Well, there were multiple reasons for that,” was Kelly’s common reply, as when he began a protracted tale of bureaucratic delays that kept him from getting Danieal care and schooling after returning to Philadelphia.
Finally, McCann cut Kelly off: “So, in nine months, she never went to school and never got her wheelchair and never got set up for services?”
Kelly paused: “That’s correct, sir.”
During seven days of testimony, prosecution witnesses portrayed Kelly as a father who had been there for his children only when he had someone’s support.
In Pittsburgh and Arizona, it was girlfriend Kathleen Ward, who told the jury how Danieal had thrived getting physical therapy and going to a special-education school.
But when Kelly and Ward split in 1999 and he moved with the children to an apartment in Mesa, Ariz., the children stopped going to school.
Kelly acknowledged that he had depended on others – Ward’s mother and sister, a roommate’s girlfriend – to watch the children while he worked.
Ultimately, Kelly conceded that he had left the children alone, giving his son Ward’s phone number in an emergency. In October 2001, a report by his roommate’s girlfriend resulted in an intervention by Arizona child-protection services.
After returning to Philadelphia, Kelly said, he and the children briefly lived with Walter Ingram, Andrea’s uncle.
Kelly said he then had rented a house with his mother-in-law. Soon, Andrea and her seven other children joined him, followed by Andrea’s sister and her children and other relatives until 19 people lived in the house.
But in March 2004, Kelly said, he got into an argument with his mother-in-law about conditions in the house. Police were called, and he was ejected and told not to return.
After several months with a friend, Kelly got an apartment in South Philadelphia. He said he had seen his son once or twice before Danieal died; he never saw Danieal again.
Kelly insisted he had not abandoned his children. He said Ingram had given him reports of their condition but had refused to divulge an address or phone.
Kelly insisted he’d had no indication that Danieal’s condition had been deteriorating.
McCann, however, cited testimony by Ingram, who said he had told Kelly “the kids were not doing well.”
“That’s not what he told me, sir,” Kelly replied.
Also on trial are Mickal Kamuvaka and Dana Poindexter, social-service workers who prosecutors allege neglected their legal duty to ensure Danieal and her eight siblings were safe.
Kamuvaka, 62, was founder and top administrator of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc., an agency hired by the city Department of Human Services to do twice-weekly in-home visits to ensure that Danieal and her eight siblings were safe and getting needed social services.
Kamuvaka is charged with involuntary manslaughter and counts involving falsifying paperwork to try to fool investigators into believing the Kelly household got the twice-weekly at-home visits DHS authorized.
Poindexter, 54, the first DHS social worker assigned to investigate neglect allegations against Danieal’s mother in September 2003, is charged with reckless endangerment and perjury. He is accused of never visiting the house and of keeping his investigation open for 21/2 years without recommending services.
Andrea Kelly, 42, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in 2009 and is serving 20 to 40 years in prison.
Danieal Kelly’s death was ‘a matter of time,’ witness says
July 13, 2011|By Joseph A. Slobodzian, Inquirer Staff Writer
The death of Danieal Kelly – the 14-year old with cerebral palsy who starved to death in her mother’s West Philadelphia apartment – was “a matter of time,” testified a cofounder of the city-hired private agency that supposedly provided at-home visits and care to Danieal and her eight siblings.
Manuelita Buenaflor broke down before a Philadelphia jury Tuesday as she described the dysfunctional operations of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc.
Under a contract with the city Department of Human Services, the West Philadelphia firm was to send workers once, twice, even three times a week to visit and help Philadelphia’s poorest at-risk families and children in their homes.
But Buenaflor described an agency plagued with caseworkers who made “ghost visits” to families and papered files with phony case notes.
Buenaflor, “quality assurance supervisor” for MultiEthnic and cofounder with Mickal Kamuvaka, said her July 20, 2006, audit of the Kelly case showed no visits had been made to Danieal and her family since that March 29.
Two weeks after the audit, Danieal, who could not care for herself, was found dead in her mother’s fetid two-bedroom apartment. She weighed 42 pounds and was laying on a feces-stained mattress, her back covered with maggot-infested bedsores, one that went bone-deep.
“It was horrific,” said Buenaflor, weeping before the Common Pleas Court jury. “I don’t even want to remember it.”
Buenaflor, 68, a native Filipino and former missionary worker in Thailand, said ghost visits by MultiEthnic employees were so problematic that “it was just a matter of time, just a matter of time before someone would die.”
Buenaflor is serving a 36-month federal prison term after her 2009 guilty plea to wire and health-care fraud and conspiracy involving federal funds MultiEthnic took for performing nonexistent casework for DHS.
Buenaflor was a prosecution witness in the March 2010 federal trial in which Kamuvaka and three other MultiEthnic workers were convicted of fraud.
In June 2010, a federal judge sentenced Kamuvaka to 17 1/2 years in prison.
Buenaflor was one of a series of witnesses who testified as prosecutors completed their case against Kamuvaka, 62, MultiEthnic’s chief administrator; Dana Poindexter, 54, a former DHS social worker; and Danieal’s father, Daniel Kelly Sr., 40, for their alleged roles in Danieal’s Aug. 4, 2006 death.
Kamuvaka is charged with involuntary manslaughter and counts involving falsifying paperwork to try to fool investigators into believing Danieal and her family got the twice-weekly at-home visits DHS had authorized.
Poindexter, the first DHS social worker who was supposed to have investigated neglect allegations against Danieal’s mother in September 2003, is charged with reckless endangerment and perjury for allegedly never visiting the house.
Daniel Kelly is charged with child endangerment for allegedly abandoning Danieal and her year-older brother, Daniel Jr., in 2003 with his ex-wife, though he knew she had neglected them in the past.
When the trial resumes Wednesday at the city Criminal Justice Center, defense lawyers are to begin their cases.
Daniel Kelly’s attorney has said his client will testify. It is unknown whether Kamuvaka or Poindexter will do the same.
Lawyers for all three have argued that Andrea Kelly, Danieal’s mother, was solely responsible for the girl’s death. They contend that in early 2006 she moved with her children to another West Philadelphia address and kept their whereabouts secret from her ex-husband and other relatives.
Andrea Kelly, 42, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in 2009 and is now serving 20 to 40 years in prison.
Ex-girlfriend paints Danieal Kelly’s father as loving dad, abusive partner
July 12, 2011|By Joseph A. Slobodzian, Inquirer Staff Writer
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Danieal Kelly in a school photo in 1999-2000 in Arizona. In 2006, she died of starvationin Philadelphia.
An ex-girlfriend gave a Philadelphia jury a paradoxical portrait of Daniel Kelly Sr. as a loving father to his son and his disabled daughter, Danieal – and a paramour by whom she was beaten and abused during the four years they lived together.
“I wanted to come here to prove that Daniel loved his daughter and he would never do anything to hurt her,” testified Kathleen Ward, formerly Kathleen John, who flew from Arizona to testify in Daniel Kelly’s behalf on Monday.
Kelly, 40, is charged with child endangerment in the 2006 starvation death of Danieal Kelly, 14. Prosecutors allege that after Kelly and Ward split up, he returned with the children to Philadelphia in 2003 and abandoned them to their mother, his ex-wife Andrea Kelly.
Two child welfare workers are also on trial, charged with failing to ensure weekly visits to check on Danieal Kelly’s welfare.
The girl, who had cerebral palsy and could not move about or care for herself, was found dead on Aug. 4, 2006 in a two-bedroom West Philadelphia apartment she shared with her mother and eight siblings.
An autopsy ruled that she starved to death. Her weight was down from 100 to 42 pounds, and she was found on an excrement-stained mattress, her back pocked with deep bedsores.
The jury also heard testimony Monday that there was almost no paperwork involving Danieal Kelly or her family when detectives searched the cubicle of Dana Poindexter, 54, the Department of Human Services social worker assigned to investigate neglect allegations. What paperwork existed was at the bottom of a five-foot-tall cardboard box filled with trash, debris, and unopened mail.
Other prosecution witnesses testified that Mickal Kamuvaka, 62, the head of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc., a DHS subcontractor, held a mandatory staff meeting on Aug. 4, 2006, to create paperwork to document twice-weekly visits to the Kelly household that never happened.
Prosecutors are expected to complete their case Tuesday.
Kelly’s lawyer Earl G. Kauffman, with the agreement of judge and prosecutors, was allowed to call Ward to testify out of turn, in the middle of the prosecution case, to accommodate her flight schedule.
Ward, who lived with Daniel Kelly and children Danieal and Daniel Jr. from 1995 to 1999 in Pittsburgh and then Phoenix, provided crucial testimony supporting the elder Kelly.
Ward, who also had three daughters with Kelly during their time together, wept continually as she remembered her two stepchildren.
Prosecutors have said Ward gave Danieal and brother Daniel Jr. the only loving home atmosphere they knew.
“I was her mom,” Ward said, describing how Danieal thrived in Arizona in a special education school and regular physical therapy.
“She was the joy and blessing of my life,” Ward told the Common Pleas Court jury.
She said Kelly was a full partner helping raise his two children and their three girls.
“He never treated her bad – ever,” Ward said of Kelly’s feelings toward Danieal. “He loved her to death.”
Under questioning by Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Selber, Ward also detailed a darker side to Kelly – a man she reluctantly acknowledged beat and abused her in their time together.
Once, Ward said, Kelly hit her in the head with a phone receiver and she needed stitches to close the wound. Another time, Ward said, Kelly called her an epithet and spat in her face.
Ward also acknowledged that Arizona police once investigated a child-abuse complaint after Kelly struck Daniel Jr. with an electric cord, leaving three large welts on the young boy.
But Ward insisted Kelly loved his children: “He may have been tough with Dan-Dan but he still loved his children.”
Ward said she lost touch with Daniel Jr. and Danieal when Kelly took them back to Philadelphia and Andrea Kelly would not let her speak to the two children.
A key part of Kelly Sr.’s defense is that Andrea Kelly hid the children, changed phone numbers, and refused to divulge her new address to her ex-husband or others.
Andrea Kelly, 42, pleaded guilty in 2009 to third-degree murder in her daughter’s death and is serving a 20-to-40-year sentence.
Two testify of severe decline in Danieal Kelly’s health over five years
July 07, 2011|By Joseph A. Slobodzian, Inquirer Staff Writer
The Arizona special education teacher and the Philadelphia school psychologist each knew Danieal Kelly – separated by five years.
Both agreed on one thing: They would never have recognized the Danieal the other knew.
The contrasting portraits of Kelly, a 14-year-old with cerebral palsy, dominated testimony Wednesday in the criminal trial of the girl’s father and two social services workers for their alleged roles in the starving death in 2006.
Teacher Lynn Levin recalled the 9-year-old girl who attended Madison Rose Lane School in Phoenix from 1999 to 2001.
In two hours of testimony, Levin told the Common Pleas Court jury that despite her physical and mental limitations, Kelly loved school, was learning to speak, and sang along with a Shania Twain recording.
“Her personality was so sweet, so endearing,” Levin testified. “She was appreciative for whatever was being done with her or for her.”
The Danieal Kelly seen by Philadelphia School District psychologist Wendy Galson on June 12, 2006, at a school admissions evaluation at her mother’s West Philadelphia house, was anything but.
“She appeared thin, small, and she was sitting in a larger umbrella stroller,” said Galson. The Danieal she met did not speak, screamed loudly when Galson tried to move her stroller, and was unable to tolerate even an hour’s evaluation.
Less than two months later, she was dead, her weight down from 100 to 42 pounds, her body dehydrated and pocked with deep bedsores.
Galson looked shocked when Acting First Assistant District Attorney Edward McCann projected a photo of a grinning, exuberant Danieal in Arizona at a school party.
“Look at her chubby cheeks,” said Galson, who also commented on the flexibility of Danieal’s arms, which were raised in a cheer.
When she met Kelly, Galson said, her arms and hands were curled and locked close to her body, the result of a lack of physical therapy.
Danieal’s father, Daniel Sr., 40, is charged with child endangerment for leaving her with his ex-wife, Andrea, whom he knew had neglected her before.
Daniel Kelly had taken their two children, Daniel Jr. and Danieal, from Andrea Kelly’s custody in 1996. He and the children moved to Arizona with his girlfriend; the three returned to Philadelphia in 2003 when the relationship ended and he then again left the children with his ex-wife.
Andrea Kelly, 42, has pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and is serving 20 to 40 years in prison.
Two others are charged with failing to provide at-home social services deemed crucial to Danieal Kelly’s health and safety and then lying about it.
Dana Poindexter, 54, a former intake social worker at the Department of Human Services, was supposed to investigate child-abuse complaints, verify them, and, if they were found to be true, start the process of getting services.
Also charged is Mickal Kamuvaka, 62, cofounder and chief administrator of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc., a now-defunct DHS contractor that was paid to have a worker monitor the health and safety of Danieal Kelly, her brother, and Andrea Kelly’s eight other children.
Daniel Kelly’s lawyer has said Kelly will testify in his own defense. Lawyers for Poindexter and Kamuvaka have said that only Andrea Kelly is responsible for Danieal’s death.
Also testifying Wednesday was DHS social worker John Dougherty, who on Aug. 4, 2006, was sent to investigate after the girl was found dead.
Dougherty called the house in the 1700 block of Memorial Avenue “one of the worst I’d ever seen.”
“The house was deplorable, full of clothing and debris. The smell was atrocious. It hit you when you first walked in,” said Dougherty.
Dougherty’s testimony supported the prosecution’s claim that the two social workers on trial never provided services – including twice-weekly visits to the home – approved for the Kelly family.
Dougherty testified that the DHS caseworker responsible for the Kelly household, Laura Sommerer, joined him on that 2006 emergency call.
Dougherty said Sommerer was supposed to have inspected the Kelly house at least once a month. The household was also supposed to receive twice-weekly visits from Julius Juma Murray, a MultiEthnic employee.
Sommerer, now 36, pleaded guilty to child endangerment in 2009 and was sentenced to four years probation.
Murray, 53, pleaded guilty in February to involuntary manslaughter, conspiracy, and child endangerment, and was sentenced to four to eight years in prison.
On Tuesday, Daniel Kelly Jr., now 20, testified that he recalled just three social worker visits to the home in the three years he and his sister lived with their mother in West Philadelphia.
Danieal Kelly trial: Damning memos read
BRIAN HICKEY
PHILADELPHIA
Published: July 07, 2011 10:00 p.m.
Last modified: July 08, 2011 9:27 a.m.
As the child-endangerment trial of Danieal Kelly’s father and two social workers continued Thursday, a retired DHS supervisor testified that the worker assigned to the case faced numerous reprimands and suspensions on the job.Danieal Kelly’s father, Daniel, and two social workers, Mikal Kamuvaka and Dana Poindexter, are on trial for their alleged roles in the 14-year-old cerebral-palsy stricken girl’s gruesome, DHS-altering death.Reading from her evaluations of Poindexter, Donna Grubbs, who retired from DHS in 2006, said it’s “obvious you care less and less about your responsibilities as a social worker.” She then spoke about another case that Poindexter “put on a back burner,” but when police responded, they “became nauseated when they entered the house.”
When Poindexter received a 10-day suspension, a memo from then DHS Commissioner Alba Martinez concluded, “I hope this is the last time we have to remind you of these issues.” It wasn’t.
When DHS case worker Catherine Mondi fielded a hotline call about Danieal in 2004 — that she could be heard screaming at times and didn’t receive necessary services — she deferred to Poindexter, who was already assigned. She would die two years later.
Daniel Kelly is expected to testify.
Danieal Kelly trial bores in on record of social worker
July 09, 2011|By Joseph A. Slobodzian, Inquirer Staff Writer
When Philadelphia social worker Dana Poindexter was suspended in August 2008, after a grand jury recommended criminal charges for his role in the 2006 starvation death of Danieal Kelly, his bosses could not have been shocked.
After all, Poindexter’s supervisors in the Department of Human Services had already suspended him three times – twice in 2003 and once in 2005 – including one incident where an infant in his caseload died at home.
But Poindexter remained a DHS employee and even got a “superior” rating on a job evaluation two months before a 30-day suspension in 2005.
Poindexter’s troubled work history – and DHS’s inability to get rid of an employee one former supervisor said “didn’t seem to want to be a social worker” – was dissected Friday in the Common Pleas Court trial of him and two others in the death of the disabled 14-year-old girl.
Danieal’s father, Daniel Kelly Sr., 40, is charged with child endangerment. He allegedly abandoned Danieal Kelly and her year-older brother, Daniel Jr., with their mother, Andrea, in 2003 after returning with them to Philadelphia following several years living with a girlfriend in Arizona.
Also charged is Mickal Kamuvaka, 62, cofounder and onetime chief administrator of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc., a now-defunct DHS contractor paid to do twice-weekly visits to monitor Danieal Kelly’s welfare after the case was taken from Poindexter in September 2005.
Poindexter is charged with child endangerment, as well as perjury over what he told the grand jury.
Lawyers for the three contend that only Andrea Kelly is responsible for her daughter’s death. Andrea Kelly, 42, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and is serving 20 to 40 years in prison.
Poindexter’s attorney Craig Hosay struggled Friday to rehabilitate his client’s image before the jury. He spent more than an hour questioning Martha Poller, a retired DHS administrator, about Poindexter’s job evaluations.
Hosay focused particularly on Poindexter’s Aug. 1, 2006, review, in which supervisor Janice Walker rated him “superior” in every category.
Hosay got Poller to confirm what he has described as personal animosity between Poindexter and his previous supervisor, Donna Grubb. Hosay also noted that Poindexter’s performance improved under Walker, who had supervised him years before as well.
Grubb, who has retired from DHS, testified Thursday that Poindexter was suspended for 10 days in 2003 after the death of a three-week-old infant.
Social worker’s performance at issue in Danieal Kelly trial
July 08, 2011|By Joseph A. Slobodzian, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
When Philadelphia social worker Dana Poindexter was suspended in August 2008, after a grand jury recommended criminal charges for his role in the 2006 starvation death of Danieal Kelly, his bosses could not have been shocked.
After all, Poindexter’s supervisors in the Department of Human Services had already suspended him three times – twice in 2003 and once in 2005 – including one incident where an infant in his caseload died at home.
But Poindexter remained a DHS employee and even got a “superior” rating on a job evaluation two months before a 30-day suspension in 2005.
Poindexter’s troubled work history – and DHS’s inability to get rid of an employee one former supervisor said “didn’t seem to want to be a social worker” – was dissected Friday in the Common Pleas Court trial of him and two others in the death of the disabled 14-year-old girl.
Danieal’s father, Daniel Kelly Sr., 40, is charged with child endangerment. He allegedly abandoned Danieal Kelly and her year-older brother, Daniel Jr., with their mother, Andrea, in 2003 after returning with them to Philadelphia following several years living with a girlfriend in Arizona.
Also charged is Mickal Kamuvaka, 62, cofounder and onetime chief administrator of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc., a now-defunct DHS contractor paid to do twice-weekly visits to monitor Danieal Kelly’s welfare after the case was taken from Poindexter in September 2005.
Poindexter is charged with child endangerment, as well as perjury over what he told the grand jury.
Lawyers for the three contend that only Andrea Kelly is responsible for her daughter’s death. Andrea Kelly, 42, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and is serving 20 to 40 years in prison.
Poindexter’s attorney Craig Hosay struggled Friday to rehabilitate his client’s image before the jury. He spent more than an hour questioning Martha Poller, a retired DHS administrator, about Poindexter’s job evaluations.
Hosay focused particularly on Poindexter’s Aug. 1, 2006, review, in which supervisor Janice Walker rated him “superior” in every category.
Hosay got Poller to confirm what he has described as personal animosity between Poindexter and his previous supervisor, Donna Grubb. Hosay also noted that Poindexter’s performance improved under Walker, who had supervised him years before as well.
Grubb, who has retired from DHS, testified Thursday that Poindexter was suspended for 10 days in 2003 after the death of a three-week-old infant.
Grubb testified that Poindexter had been assigned in September 2002 to investigate reports of neglect involving three siblings. Poindexter visited one of the siblings, a boy, at his school and reported that “the child appeared to be safe.”
But Poindexter’s file noted that he went to the home to check on the boy’s sisters, found no one there, left his business card, and never returned. On Dec. 20, 2002, DHS was notified that a 3-week-old baby born to the boy’s 14-year-old sister had died.
Under questioning by Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Selber, Poller confirmed Poindexter’s other suspensions, including one of 30 days in October 2005.
Poller said Poindexter was suspended – and Walker orally reprimanded – after Poindexter was sent to take a 14-year-old girl from her school to a grandmother’s house after the girl reported she was abused at home.
Poindexter picked up the girl, Poller testified, but the grandmother was not home, so he dropped her off at 52d and Jefferson Streets with bus tokens and a few dollars to get to her grandmother’s later.
The grand jury that recommended charges in Kelly’s death criticized DHS’s management then as a “toxic culture” where caseworkers failed to do their jobs and supervisors failed to hold them accountable.
Friday, Poller said she was not sure if Poindexter should have been suspended. She said she agreed to the discipline only after meeting with her boss and a city personnel officer.
As an intake social worker, Poindexter was supposed to investigate and refer a case for at-home services within 60 days, or close the case. When the Kelly file was taken from him in September 2005, it was still uninvestigated after three years.
Though the Kelly case was given to a new social worker to arrange at-home services through MultiEthnic, prosecutors allege that the DHS subcontractor did almost as little as Poindexter.
Kelly, who had cerebral palsy and could not care for herself, starved to death Aug. 4, 2006, in the filthy two-bedroom West Philadelphia apartment she shared with her mother and eight siblings. She weighed just 42 pounds and was resting in her own waste on a bare mattress, her back covered with deep bedsores.
Philadelphia jury hears Danieal Kelly’s brother
July 06, 2011|By Joseph A. Slobodzian, Inquirer Staff Writer
Though he lived with his mother and nine siblings, 15-year-old Daniel Kelly Jr. knew he was the only one responsible for himself and his severely disabled 14-year-old sister, Danieal.
His father had abandoned them in 2003 to the care of their mother, who had moved them all to a squalid two-bedroom apartment in West Philadelphia without heat, electricity, or water.
“After a while, I would take care of me and my sister because nobody else would,” Kelly told a Philadelphia jury Tuesday.
Kelly, now 20, testified in the criminal trial of his father and namesake and two social workers charged for their alleged roles in the events leading to the Aug. 4, 2006, starvation death of Danieal Kelly.
Kelly testified that in 2006, Danieal, who had cerebral palsy and could not move around or care for herself, was losing weight and becoming increasingly incommunicative.
The night before Danieal died, Kelly said, he tried to give her water and begged his mother to call an ambulance.
Kelly said Andrea Kelly refused: “She’s just sick, she’ll get over it tomorrow.”
Kelly said he woke the next morning and “heard her [his mother] crying. I already knew what happened.”
Kelly described a childhood of constant deprivation at the hands of a father who seemed not to care about his children and a mother unable to care for them or her eight other children.
Daniel Kelly Sr., 40, is charged with child endangerment for leaving his children with his ex-wife, whom he knew had neglected them before.
Two others are charged with failing to provide at-home social services deemed vital for the safety and health of Danieal and her siblings and then lying about it.
Dana Poindexter, 54, a former intake social worker for the city Department of Human Services, was supposed to investigate child-abuse complaints, verify them, and, if true, start the process of getting services.
Mickal Kamuvaka, 62, was cofounder and chief administrator of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc., a now-defunct DHS contractor assigned to monitor the health and safety of Danieal and the children who lived with Andrea Kelly.
Andrea Kelly, 42, has pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and is serving 20 to 40 years in prison.
Daniel Kelly Jr. was the first witness Tuesday as the prosecution resumed its case before a Common Pleas Court jury.
He testified in a soft monotone, staring at the tabletop as if in shock. He looked at his father only when asked to identify him by acting First Assistant District Attorney Edward McCann.
The elder Kelly watched his son without apparent emotion. Only when Daniel Kelly Jr. testified that his father had disciplined him by “whippings” with an electric cord, and that he once had kicked Danieal because she ground her teeth at night, did the elder Kelly furrow his brow and shake his head from side to side.
According to court documents, the elder Kelly took his children from his ex-wife in 1996 after finding them neglected. He took them to Pittsburgh and began a relationship with a woman named Kathleen John.
The following year Kelly, John, and his two children moved to Phoenix, Ariz.
Daniel Kelly Jr. told the jury his “stepmother” was his only good childhood memory. Both he and Danieal went to school and she began flourishing: learning to speak and, with therapy, gaining some use of her hands and arms.
Daniel Kelly Jr. wept when McCann showed him photographs of Danieal, laughing, at her birthday party, taken in Arizona.
But Daniel Kelly Sr. and John separated, and he and the children moved to an apartment. They no longer went to school, his son said, and Danieal got no more therapy.
At night, he said, his father went to work, leaving them alone.
After they returned to Philadelphia in 2003, Kelly said, his father again left them in the care of their mother and moved out.
He saw his father once more before his sister died and once afterward, the younger Kelly testified.
As for the twice-weekly visits from social workers the “at-risk” family was supposed to get through DHS, Kelly recalled two or three visits.
Prosecutors say Danieal, who weighed about 100 pounds when she lived in Arizona, weighed just 42 pounds when she was found dead in her mother’s West Philadelphia apartment. Her body was riddled with maggot-infested bedsores, one of which went to the bone.
Danieal Kelly’s body appeared to be decomposing, opening witness says in neglect trial
July 02, 2011|By Joseph A. Slobodzian, Inquirer Staff Writer
Helen Garczynski said the call to the Philadelphia Examiner’s Office was unusual: the decomposing body of a 14-year-old.
Even with a long list of bodies to be retrieved for autopsies from around the city, said Garczynski, the Aug. 4, 2006, call about a child was enough for her to immediately be dispatched to the scene.
She said the 1700 block of Memorial Avenue in West Philadelphia was eerie: “The whole street seemed like it was condemned. It didn’t look like nobody lived there.”
But police were in front of 1722, Garczynski said, and with them a little boy who asked, “Can my Nana say goodbye to my sister?”
Inside the filthy, stinking house, Garczynski said, was the recently dead Danieal Kelly, whose body was so emaciated and bedsore-ridden it must have appeared decomposed to police.
Garczynski was the first prosecution witness Friday in the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court trial of the disabled child’s father, Daniel Kelly, 40, and two social services workers for their alleged roles in Danieal’s starving by her troubled mother.
Andrea Kelly, 41, pleaded guilty in 2009 to third-degree murder and is serving 20 to 40 years in prison.
Garczynski, a veteran of 11 years with the Medical Examiner’s Office, told the jury it was clear Danieal, who had cerebral palsy and could not move around or care for herself, had lived in unspeakable conditions for some time.
Feces were piled on the floor in front of the bed as if someone had brushed them off, she testified.
Garczynski said the odor from the girl’s body was “real bad, but it wasn’t the normal decomposing body smell I’m used to. It was more like some infectious smell.”
Garczynski said Danieal was wrapped in sheets on a bed in a rear first-floor room. The house had no electricity, running water, or ventilation.
The body was abuzz with flies, and maggots were crawling from a bedsore. She said Danieal’s body was literally “embedded into the mattress.”
“I actually had to physically pull her from the bed,” Garczynski testified.
After Garczynski’s testimony, the trial recessed for the Independence Day holiday. Testimony resumes Tuesday.
In her opening to the jury, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Selber acknowledged that Andrea Kelly killed Danieal.
But Kelly’s ex-husband, social worker Dana Poindexter, and social services agency head Mickal Kamuvaka each committed acts that “predictably and inevitably led to her death,” Selber said.
Each had a “legal duty of care” to Danieal that they ignored, Selber said.
In their openings, the defense lawyers – Earl G. Kauffman for Kelly, Craig Hosay for Poindexter, and Joshua Scarpello for Kamuvaka – said Danieal’s mother alone caused her death.
Andrea Kelly secreted her eight children and undermined efforts to locate and get care for Danieal and her siblings, they said. They said prosecutors were trying to spread blame for a notorious tragedy that should not have happened.
Kauffman said Kelly, charged with child endangerment, will testify and tell how he cared for Danieal.
Poindexter, 54, was an intake social worker for the city Department of Human Services who Selber said ignored five reports about Danieal’s mistreatment. Poindexter is charged with child endangerment, recklessly endangering another person, and perjury.
Kamuvaka, 62, was cofounder and chief administrator of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc., a now-defunct private firm DHS hired to monitor the health and safety of Danieal and her siblings.
Kamuvaka is charged with involuntary manslaughter, child endangerment, conspiracy, and counts involving an alleged cover-up of the circumstances surrounding Danieal’s death.
Starvation death trial opens on gruesome note
July 01, 2011|By Joseph A. Slobodzian, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
http://articles.philly.com/2011-07-01/news/29726647_1_danieal-kelly-mickal-kamuvaka-starvation-death
A technician for the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office described to a Common Pleas Court jury today the gruesome scene in the West Philadelphia house where 14-year-old Danieal Kelly’s body was found.“It smelled real bad, but it wasn’t the normal decomposing body smell I’m used to,” testified Helen Garczynski, recalling the early afternoon of Aug. 4, 2006, when police let her inside the house in the 1700 block of Memorial Avenue in West Philadelphia.“It was more like some like some infectious smell,” Garczynski.
Police then led Garczynski to the rear first-floor room where the rigid, nearly skeletal body of Danieal was in a bed, wrapped in sheets.
The body was abuzz with flies, and maggots were crawling from a bedsore. Garczynski said the girl’s body was literally “embedded into the mattress.”
“I actually had to physically pull her from the bed,” Garczynski testified.
Garczynski was the first witness to testify in the start of the trial of the girl’s father, Daniel Kelly, 40, and two social services workers for their roles that allegedly led to the disabled child’s starvation death at the hands of her mother.
Andrea Kelly, 41, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and is now serving a 20-to-40-year prison term for third-degree murder.
In her opening statement to the jury, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Selber acknowledged that only Andrea Kelly killed her daughter, who was born premature with cerebral palsy and could not move around on her own.
But Kelly’s ex-husband, social worker Dana Poindexter, and social services agency head Mickal Kamuvaka committed acts that “predictably and inevitably led to her death,” Selber said.
In their openings, the three defense attorneys said the blame for Danieal’s death rests solely on the mother, who hid her family and undermined efforts to locate and care for Danieal and her siblings. Defense attorneys said prosecutors were trying to spread blame for a tragedy that should not have happened.
Daniel Kelly’s lawyer, Earl G. Kauffman, told the jury that Kelly – charged with child endangerment – would testify in his own defense and describe how he tried to see that Danieal received proper care.
After the first witness, the trial recessed for the Independence Day holiday weekend. Testimony resumes Tuesday before Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart.
Poindexter, 54, was an intake social worker for the city Department of Human Services who, the grand jury alleged, tossed Danieal’s case file into a trash-filled file box. Poindexter is charged with child endangerment, recklessly endangering another person, and perjury.
Kamuvaka, 62, was cofounder and chief administrator of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc., a now-defunct private firm hired by DHS to monitor the health and safety of Danieal and eight siblings who lived with Andrea Kelly.
Kamuvaka is charged with involuntary manslaughter, child endangerment, conspiracy and a half-dozen other counts involving record-tampering and perjury – part of an alleged cover-up of the circumstances surrounding Danieal’s gruesome death
Judge: Patronage led to Danieal Kelly death
Friday, June 11, 2010
By MARYCLAIRE DALE
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=7489300
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PHILADELPHIA – June 10, 2010 – Political patronage contributed to the starvation death of a disabled Philadelphia girl under the city’s watch, a federal judge said Thursday in sentencing a social-services contractor to 17 1/2 years in prison.
The city paid Michal Kamuvaka’s politically connected firm $1 million a year to ensure that its neediest families got specialized attention.
Company workers assigned to the chaotic home where 14-year-old Danieal Kelly was wasting away in a wheelchair were supposed to ensure she and her siblings had proper housing, schooling and medical care.
But after 10 months of supposed twice-weekly visits, Danieal, who had cerebral palsy, was still not enrolled in school and had not been seen by a doctor. By the time she died in the sweltering home in August 2006, she weighed 42 pounds and had maggot-infested bedsores.
City audits of Kamuvaka’s company, MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Services, were “laughable,” since the firm got a heads up weeks in advance to get its paperwork in order, U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell said Thursday.
Dalzell doubted that even a whistle-blower, had one stepped up, could have interested the city in the contractor’s failings.
“It was patronage – plain and simple,” Dalzell said. “It was a deal, and nobody was taking this seriously” within the city’s Department of Human Services.
Case worker Julius Murray made just 10 visits, not the 46 noted in records dummied up on orders from Kamuvaka after Danieal died, Dalzell found.
“Here was a woman with a doctorate in social work who ran the operations of an agency so lackadaisically that, in the words of one of her colleagues, ‘It was just a matter of time’ that one of her charges died,” Dalzell said in giving Kamuvaka the maximum term and revoking her bail.
Later Thursday, Dalzell sentenced another company co-founder, Solomon Manamela, to 14 years for his role in the fraud. Manamela, a 52-year-old political refugee from South Africa, faces deportation when he gets out.
“Part of me died (after Danieal did),” Manamela, who oversaw training, told the judge.
Kamuvaka, 61, came to the U.S. from Liberia on a college scholarship, and went on to earn a Ph.D. and become a beloved mentor to social-work students at Lincoln University, several of whom spoke on her behalf Thursday.
She and co-defendant Earle McNeill, 72, formed the company in about 2000 to bid on the city contract. They had no other clients, and their primary experience was with adults and addicts.
“McNeill was, by whatever magic, indeed able to win the … (contract) in the summer of 2000, notwithstanding the reality that (the company) had no experience whatever in dealing with ‘at risk’ children,” Dalzell wrote in a recent opinion.
Even after Danieal died, the judge said Thursday, Kamuvaka visited an ally at City Hall, a DHS program director, in an effort to keep and even extend the $3.7 million, multiyear contract.
Then-acting Health Commissioner Carmen Paris soon ordered a coroner not to release the grim autopsy results, the coroner testified at Kamuvaka’s trial this year. But it was too late. Investigators – and the public – were becoming aware of the case. Paris resigned in 2008, days after a 258-page county grand jury report on Danieal’s death accused her of interfering with the investigation.
“It took a lot of people to kill this little girl,” said Dalzell, who faulted MultiEthnic, City Hall and the school district, which also made a home visit.
But the blame starts, he said, with the girl’s parents. Her mother, Andrea Kelly, is serving a 20- to 40-year state sentence after pleading guilty to third-degree murder. The girl’s father, Daniel Kelly, was accused of abandoning his daughter and faces child-endangerment charges.
Kamuvaka and Murray also still face a November trial in state court on involuntary manslaughter charges.
In all, nine MultiEthnic employees were convicted in the federal case – Kamuvaka, Manamela and two others at trial and five others through pleas. McNeill was previously sentenced to 7-1/2 years. The two others who went to trial will be sentenced Friday.
“I don’t think anybody should think of Dr. Kamuvaka as an evil person,” defense lawyer William Cannon argued. “This situation certainly got away from her, there’s no denying that. But that she would be indifferent to the situation that enveloped Danieal would just not be accurate.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bea Witzleben said the case is not one where children fell through the cracks. The Kellys, and other families ill-served by MultiEthnic, were identified by the city and assigned help.
“She (Kamuvaka) asked for this responsibility. She was given it and paid for it,” Witzleben said. “There was hope for that child to have a decent life.”
Two social-service administrators get long jail terms in Danieal’s death
June 11, 2010|By MICHAEL HINKELMAN, hinkelm@phillynews.com 215-854-2656
Two administrators and co-founders of a city-funded social-service agency, convicted in March of conspiracy and fraud charges stemming from the death of Danieal Kelly, were sentenced yesterday to long terms in federal prison.
Kelly, who was 14 and had cerebral palsy, died in August 2006 from bedsores and malnutrition.
Mickal Kamuvaka, 61, who ran the day-to-day operations of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc., was sentenced to 17 1/2 years by U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell.
Solomon Manamela, 52, a supervisor of caseworkers at MultiEthnic, drew a 14-year sentence.
Dalzell ordered both defendants taken into custody immediately.
The Department of Human Services had hired MultiEthnic to provide in-home social services to 500 families with children at risk of abuse or neglect. The agency was paid more than $3.6 million between July 2000 and December 2006.
Authorities said that after Kelly died, Kamuvaka, who is known as “Dr. K” and who has a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania, orchestrated a fraud to backdate and falsify records in an attempt to fool city auditors into thinking that the agency had been making visits to children, including Kelly, that never occurred.
When the feds began investigating, prosecutors said Kamuvaka convinced one former MultiEthnic co-worker to lie to federal agents and schemed to obstruct the federal grand jury’s investigation by withholding and shredding agency records related to Kelly and dumping them into a trash bin.
Before imposing sentence, Dalzell said Kamuvaka’s stewardship of MultiEthnic was so “lackadaisical” that it was “just a matter of time” before one of the children under its care would die.
The judge also said that Kamuvaka and Manamela had engaged in an “orgy of document fabrication” and that neither defendant appreciated the “full import” of the crimes.
Kamuvaka declined to address Dalzell at sentencing.
Defense attorney William Cannon said she wanted to preserve her appellate rights. He said in court papers that “should not be looked upon as some coldhearted indifference to . . . the tragic death” of Kelly.
Prosecutors said that nearly every MultiEthnic employee – with the exception of one – who was interviewed by investigators described some illegal or improper act Kamuvaka had asked or directed them to take.
Absent case worker for starved girl gets 11 years
Published: Friday, June 11, 2010
By MARYCLAIRE DALE,Associated Press Writer
http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2010/06/11/news/doc4c1259e1c724d652744560.txt
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The morals of social workers who routinely skipped home visits to Philadelphia’s most troubled families, leading to a disabled girl’s starvation death, reminded a federal judge Friday of the “banality of evil” seen in Europe during the Holocaust.
U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell sentenced the family’s case worker, Julius Juma Murray, 52, of Upper Darby, and another employee of a social-services contractor to 11 years each for fraud and obstruction.
Witnesses this week called the pair and their seven convicted co-defendants — who include a former missionary nun and doctoral-level social worker — good people for whom the charges are anomalies.
The comments reminded Dalzell of Nazi Party members who were kind to neighbors and dogs.
“‘The banality of evil.’ Isn’t that what’s going on here?” Dalzell asked, citing a phrase coined by political theorist Hannah Arendt. Arendt, a German Jew, argued that the great evils in human history are committed not by psychopaths, but by ordinary people who accept the status quo.
Dalzell presided over a harrowing five-week trial this year that laboriously detailed the slow, painful demise of 14-year-old Danieal Kelly. She had cerebral palsy but had once thrived in the care of her father and his attentive girlfriend in Phoenix. A photograph from that era taken on a class trip shows a bright-eyed girl in pigtails grinning broadly for the camera.
But when his relationship failed, Daniel Kelly left Danieal with her unfit mother in Philadelphia, who was raising eight children in a squalid two-bedroom home.
By the time Danieal died in August 2006, starved and dehydrated, she weighed 42 pounds and had maggots crawling in her deep bedsores. She had not been to school or seen a doctor in the previous 10 months, despite being on the city’s radar.
The city was paying a startup firm called MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc. $1 million a year to focus on its neediest social-work cases.
But the politically connected firm — led by experienced, Ph.D.-level social worker Michal Kamuvaka — frequently skipped home visits, assigned student interns to the Kellys and other complex cases, and furiously forged documents to try to cover their tracks after Danieal died.
“‘Dr. K’ had a dozen people who just think she’s a saint. But we know just the contrary. We heard it over five weeks,” Dalzell said Friday. A day earlier, he had sentenced the 61-year-old Kamuvaka to 17 1/2 years in prison, despite pleas from friends and proteges.
Case worker Julius Juma Murray, 52, of Upper Darby, was supposed to be the final safety net for the long list of people who failed Danieal. But Murray — hired despite his lack of social work training — skipped visits as Danieal wasted away.
Andrea Kelly is serving 10 to 20 years for third-degree murder, and Daniel Kelly is charged with endangerment for allegedly abandoning her.
In all, nine MultiEthnic workers were convicted in the case, including case worker Mariam Coulibaly, sentenced Friday to 135 months. Coulibaly, 41, a mother of three from Brookhaven, had no role in Danieal’s death but helped forge documents, lied to the FBI and hid $50,000 after the verdict to shield it from the court-ordered restitution.
Danieal Kelly Starved to Death with Maggot-Infested Wounds; Social Workers Convicted in Fraud Case
- By Edecio Martinez
- March 5, 2010 1:42 PM
- http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-6267226-504083.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody
- PHILADELPHIA (CBS/AP) Four social workers have been convicted in a fraud case stemming from the starvation death of disabled Philadelphia teenager Danieal Kelly.
Photo: Danieal Kelly, 14, starved to death in August, 2006.
A federal jury in Philadelphia returned the verdicts Wednesday afternoon in the trial involving now-defunct MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc.
Company co-founders Mickal Kamuvaka, 60, and Solomon Manamela, 52, and former caseworkers Julius Juma Murray, 52, and Miriam Coulebaly, 41, were all convicted of conspiracy, lying to federal agents and multiple counts of health care fraud and wire fraud.
Prosecutors say the company defrauded the city of millions of dollars by not visiting needy families – then covering it up with false paperwork.
14-year-old Kelly, who had cerebral palsy, weighed less than half her expected weight when she was found dead in 2006, an expert witness for the prosecution testified. Officials also said she suffered from maggot-infested bedsores when she died.
“Danieal Kelly paid the ultimate price for these defendants’ fraud, and we hope that this is some measure of justice for her and the other children who were the victims, really, of this fraud,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Bea Witzleben said.
Kelly’s mother is already in prison after previously pleading guilty to third-degree murder.
Ex-DHS worker receives probation Laura Sommerer, Danieal Kelly’s last social worker, got 4 years for endangering the child, who died at 14.
July 16, 2009|By Joseph A. Slobodzian INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
In sentencing the last Philadelphia social worker assigned to Danieal Kelly – the 14-year-old with cerebral palsy who starved to death in 2006 in her mother’s squalid apartment – a Philadelphia judge said yesterday that the woman’s bosses should have been charged with her.
“That the people at the top walked away from their positions and even advanced without any significant consequences is a crime which almost equals or maybe surpasses the crime in this case,” Common Pleas Court Judge Benjamin Lerner said.
Lerner made his remarks before sentencing Laura Sommerer, 34, to four years of probation for pleading guilty to child endangerment.
Even before the scathing grand-jury presentment in August resulted in criminal charges against Sommerer and eight others, including Danieal’s parents, the girl’s gruesome death had taken a toll among officials at the city Department of Human Services.
In October 2006, two months after Danieal’s death, DHS Commissioner Cheryl Ransom-Garner resigned, her deputy was fired, and a regional state welfare director was demoted. Carmen Paris, the city’s acting health commissioner when Danieal died, resigned days before the grand-jury report was made public.
After the criminal charges were filed, seven DHS administrators or supervisors were suspended without pay.
But only Sommerer and DHS caseworker Dana Poindexter, 52, her predecessor on the Kelly case, were criminally charged. Both were supposed to have ensured that contract caseworkers DHS hired visited Kelly’s house twice weekly to make sure she was well. It was later learned that she had not been visited for almost two months before her death.
In January, state welfare officials recognized improvements at DHS by restoring its full operating license, although they warned that “much more work needs to be done.”
Lerner said DHS’s management problems had persisted through several mayoral administrations and said, “I hope things change. It’s a terrible thing that it takes the example of a case like this, and the unrelenting glare of publicity, before those changes occur.”
Sommerer’s sentence was far less than the 3 1/2 to seven years in prison she could have received. The sentence was negotiated by Assistant District Attorney Edward McCann and defense attorney Nathan J. Andrisani. Both said it took into account her cooperation in the criminal probe and good works in the community.
DHS Commissioner to Dismiss Laura Somerer and Dana Poindexter
Philadelphia–Philadelphia Department of Human Services Commissioner, Anne Marie Ambrose announced her intent to terminate Laura Sommerer and Dana Poindexter, the two social workers indicted in the Danieal Kelly case.
Both Poindexter and Sommerer were subject to disciplinary panel hearings yesterday, during which their respective cases were evaluated by an internal committee of peers, supervisors, and union representatives. The Commissioner conducted a careful review of all the evidence presented. Her decision to release Sommerer and Poindexter is in line with the disciplinary panel’s recommendations.
The investigation of seven other DHS employees with varying degrees of involvement in the Kelly case is ongoing. In the meantime we continue to review cases and visit families to assure safety. All seven individuals remain on suspension.
Commissioner Ambrose said “it is our mission at DHS to support and protect vulnerable children. I intend to hold every staff member and provider accountable for upholding that mission.”
Plea deals reached in DHS case stemming from 14 year old’s death
June 11, 2009 — 11:45am ET | By Dan Bowman
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/plea-deals-reached-dhs-case-stemming-14-year-olds-death/2009-06-11
One employee from the social-service agency MultiEthnic Behavioral Health has plead guilty to charges of fraud and obstructing justice, and two other employees are set to do the same very soon in the wake of a 14-year-old girl’s death, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The guilty pleas come as part of an agreement where all three will testify against the agency, which tried to cover up the death in 2006. The organization had been paid upward of $3.7 million by the city to take care of patients like Danieal Kelly.
Christina Nimpson, Manuelita Buenaflor and Sotheary Chan all worked for MultiEthnic Behavioral Health when Kelly, a cerebral palsy patient, died of starvation in a hot apartment in Philadelphia while under the care of the agency. While none of the three employees were specifically assigned to take care of Kelly, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports, all three participated in covering up various failures on the agency’s part. Buenaflor, for example, a supervisor, created documentation of visits that never occurred, erased documentation of lack of oversight and backdated various records. Nimpson, according to her plea agreement, “frequently did not make the required visits to the families assigned to her.”
The girl’s mother, Andrea Kelly, was also charged in her daughter’s death. She pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in April, and was sentenced to between 20 and 40 years in prison. Case worker Julius Juma Murray and MultiEthnic head Mickal Kamuvaka also face involuntary manslaughter charges in the case.
OUTRAGE! PARENTS of DANIEAL KELLY SUING CITY and DHS for NOT PREVENTING THEIR DAUGHTER’S DEATH!
Andrea Kelly Starved Her 14-year-old Daughter to Death, Blames DHS and City!
Patricia Sicilia
Aug 13, 2008
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/953489/outrage_parents_of_danieal_kelly_suing.html?cat=17
In a stunning display of hubris, the parents of Danieal Kelly, the 14-year-old girl with cerebral palsy who was neglected and starved to death by her mother, are suing the City of Philadelphia and its Department of Human Services (“DHS”) for not preventing their daughter’s death!
In my previous article on this subject, I recounted how her emaciated, bedsore ridden, maggot infested body was found by rescue workers on August 4, 2006. At last count, nine people have been indicted for charges ranging from murder, manslaughter, endangering the welfare of children, involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment to forgery, tampering with public records, conspiracy and perjury. Those charged include the parents, DHS workers, staffers at an outsourced agency hired to check on Danieal, and three of Andrea Kelly’s friends. Seven others have been fired and/or suspended from their jobs at DHS, pending posible charges, and the head of the city’s health department has resigned.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported today that, the day after the parents were charged in her murder, Eric Zajac and Brian Mildenberg, attorneys for Andrea and Daniel Kelly, filed a complaint charging the City, DHS, the Commonwealth and several caseworkers with failing to protect Danieal, and want them to compensate the family for its loss. The suit blames Danieal Kelly’s death on caseworkers for DHS and MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc., a firm the city hired to provide support to the family. The suit states that the parents and siblings of Danieal were deprived of her “love, tutelage, companionship, support, comfort and consortium” as well as the “economic value of her life expectancy,” and seeks unspecified damages, as well as reimbursement for medical bills, funeral and burial expenses, and attorneys’ fees!
This mother kept her daughter in a dirty, airless room on a mattress on the floor, didn’t feed her or give her water, take her to school or the doctor, and didn’t even clean up the girl’s waste, knocking it onto the floor and letting it dry there for rescue workers to step on when they found her body!
After criticism that the Kellys were attempting to profit from their daughter’s death, their names were removed from the suit, and any proceeds would go to her nine brothers and sisters who are now in foster care.
District Attorney Lynn Abraham was outraged. “”The nerve, the gall,” she said yesterday. “This is such a perversion of what parents are supposed to be.”
However, this suit opens the Kellys up to questioning under oath — a prospect that has the DA chomping at the bit. “I would like to depose her right away,” Abraham said, “I could cross-examine her myself for two weeks.
The Inquirer reports that lawyers for the City and Commonwealth stated that: “Daniel and Andrea Kelly have inverted the maxim in which a child kills his parents and throws himself on the mercy of the court, claiming that he is an orphan.” In an interview, Chief Deputy Attorney General Barry N. Kramer, who represents the State Department of Public Welfare which oversees DHS stated, “It’s the definition of chutzpah.”
City and Commonwealth lawyers have filed papers calling the suit meritless and moved for dismissal, saying the child’s death was the result of “parental neglect.”
Just unbelievable! This makes me so glad I don’t work for lawyers anymore!
Danieal Kelly’s parents sue DHS – Philadelphia News
by David Henry & Dann Cuellar
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=6322915
CENTER CITY – August 12, 2008 (WPVI) – Danieal Kelly’s parents have filed a wrongful death suit.
It is a document that has outraged the mayor and district attorney, who can’t believe Danieal’s parents had the nerve to sue the city, and that they were able to find a lawyer willing to take their case.
“I have never heard of anything so crazy in my life,” Mayor Michael Nutter said.
The lawsuit seeks monetary damages from the city because 14-year-old Danieal Kelly was under DHS supervision at the time of her death two years ago.
Danieal lived with her mother and nine brothers and sisters in a vermin infested row home.
She had cerebral palsy and couldn’t fend for herself.
She weighed just 42 pounds and had a mass of open bedsores when she died.
Daniel’s last word was “water.”
“The parents, essentially, murdered their daughter and then turn around and sue us,” Mayor Nutter said.
Danieal’s mother Andrea Kelly is charged with murder.
Her father, Daniel Kelly, who didn’t live in the house, is charged with endangering her welfare.
They filed the lawsuit against the city the day after they were arrested.
The district attorney can’t believe any lawyer would take the case.
“I think this lessens the reputations of attorneys in general and doesn’t do anything to them either; in my judgment, they look terrible as attorneys and professionals,” D.A. Lynne Abraham The lawyers who filed the suit are Brian Mildenberg and Eric Zajac.
Action News tried to get responses from both lawyers.
At the home of lawyer Eric Zajac, who’s also an elected member of the Radnor Township school board, there was no direct response to the D.A.’s explosive statements.
Zajac did refer Action News to a written statement saying they have filed legal petitions to have a trustee represent the estate in light of the charges against Danieal’s parents. The statement says “if Danieal’s parents are convicted, the proceeds would go to her brothers and sisters.”
Abraham says the lawyers are only interested in what she calls, a fat payday for themselves.
“The other children are going to be well taken care of for the state and these lawyers are not suing for them, they’re suing for themselves,” Mayor Nutter said.
Brian Mildenberg responded to the case on Action News at 11: “It’s just outrageous, it is outrageous. We are suing on behalf of Danieal Kelly. Her estate is suing. Her parents are not suing. There are legal beneficiaries to the estate that will be determined by Pennsylvania law by a judge in the orphan’s court. We have no part in determining who the legal beneficiaries are and I’d like to make another comment because Lynne Abraham and Mayor Nutter stated that the remaining children would be taken care of by the state. Well, I hope they’re taking care of better than the state took care of Danieal Kelly.”
The lawsuit says Danieal suffered “unbearable conscious pain and suffering, mental anguish and physical and mental injuries.”
It also says Danieal’s parents have been deprived of, among other things, her love and companionship.
The D.A. wonders where was the love when Danieal was dying of starvation.
Mayor Nutter says the city will eventually seek reimbursement for whatever money it spends defending itself against the lawsuit.
Nutter forcefully announces DHS shakeup – Philadelphia news
David Henry
PHILADELPHIA – August 4, 2008 (WPVI) – An emotional Mayor Nutter used strong language to announce more shakeups at the Department of Human Services after criminal charges were filed against DHS workers last week.
“I am fully, thoroughly, and completely pissed off about what has happened here. Behaviors exhibited by public employees is unacceptable and I am furious at their actions. When I think of my own daughter, and if she were in someone else’s care, and they performed the way some of these individuals did, I would kick their ass myself,” Mayor Michael Nutter said during a Monday morning news conference.
You can watch the entire news conference held by Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter by CLICKING HERE.
The District Attorney filed criminal charges last week against nine people, including DHS caseworkers Dana Poindexter and Laura Sommerer.
They are charged in connection with the death of 14 year old Danieal Kelly.
The girl suffered from cerebral palsy and was allowed to rot to death in her bed.
The grand jury report was critical of seven other DHS workers, mostly administrators and supervisors, but they were not charged.
Today they were suspended, pending further action.
Nutter has ordered a thorough internal investigation of how the Kelly case was handled.
“It is possible that further suspensions and personnel actions will be made as a result of these investigations,” the mayor said.
The fallout over the Kelly case began two years ago.
The DHS Commissioner at the time, Cheryl Ransom-Garner, was fired by Mayor Street.
Carmen Paris was acting health commissioner at the time of Danieal’s death.
This weekend she resigned her current post as an assistant health commissioner.
The grand jury report accused her of interfering with the investigation.
Back in 2006, Mayor Street appointed an oversight committee.
It made a number of recommendations that were presented to Mayor Nutter in January.
He says many of the reforms are being acted on and that the DHS of 2008 is vastly improved.
A leading child welfare advocate disagrees.
Richard Gelles is dean of the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania.
He testified before the grand jury.
Gelles says DHS continues to lurch from crisis to crisis with no adequate oversight.
Mayor Nutter says he has full confidence in new DHS commissioner Anne Marie Ambrose and health commissioner Donald Schwarz.
Mayor Nutter will be issuing new marching orders during two meetings tomorrow with the entire DHS staff. He wants the dedicated workers to know they’re appreciated, but will be telling the slackers their days are numbered.
The Death of Danieal Kelly: Philadelphia’s Shame
Despite Reports that Danieal Kelly, Who Suffered from Cerebral Palsy, was Being Abused and Not Cared for Properly, Philadelphia’s DHS Failed to Take Action
Patricia Sicilia
Aug 4, 2008
Danieal Kelly, the third of Andrea Kelly’s nine children by five fathers, was 14-years-old when her curled, 42-pound body, starved body was found on August 4, 2006. Police and paramedics were called to Danieal’s West Philadelphia home and when they opened her bedroom door, the stench of decay hit them. Danieal, who had been dead for several hours, was on a dirty mattress surrounded by feces. Maggot-infested bedsores covered her back. She had been on the mattress for such a long time, the shape of her body was imprinted into the mattress. A grand jury report was released this week, indicting nine people and describing Danieal’s life of pain, neglect, abuse and eventual death.
Danieal Kelly suffered from cerebral palsy and, according to a grand jury report, her mother was said to be “embarrassed by her disabled daughter, didn’t want to touch her, take her out in public, change her diapers or make sure she had enough fluids.” According to a grand jury report, Andrea Kelly’s family and friends constantly confronted her about Danieal’s deteriorating condition, but while she would promise to get help for her, she failed to do so, and eventually banished the concerned relatives from her home. While Danieal’s condidtion worsened, Andrea Kelly was said to have entertained, attended classes and tended to her other children. Danieal was not enrolled in school or given medical attention. The report stated that Andrea Kelly “rebuffed one of her sons when he begged her several times to call 911 to get help for Danieal in her final days.”
The house where Andrea Kelly lived with her nine children was in squalor, with mattresses on the floor. Kelly’s other children are now in foster care, including the baby she gave birth to the fall after Danieal’s death, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
According to reports, Daniel Kelly, long separated from Andrea Kelly, had custody of Danieal and her brother Daniel in 1995, when he moved to Arizona and lived with a girlfriend who cared for the girl. Those years are documented with photographs of her riding a pony, at a party at a bowling alley, and smiling with classmates in her special needs class. When Daniel Kelly broke up with his girlfriend in 2001, the girl was withdrawn from school. In 2003, he returned to Philadelphia and asked his estranged wife and her other children to move in with him. Soon after, he moved out, abandoning Danieal to Andrea Kelly’s care.
Danieal was supposed to be under the supervision of Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services (“DHS”), but a grand jury investigation has uncovered gross negligence in this girl’s care. A 258-page grand jury report documented that neither DHS nor the now defunct, non-profit agency MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc., which was out-sourced to follow Danieal’s case, had even seen the girl or properly reported on her care during their tenure. Neighbors contacted DHS numerous times reporting that Danieal was in danger, but those complaints were ignored. Anthony Miller, the father of some of Andrea Kelly’s children, called the DHS hotline on April 20, 2005. The grand jury states: “Mr. Miller said he was moved to make the report to DHS because ‘I seen Danieal Kelly upstairs in a hot room laying in pee, no curtains, no blinds, no fans, just laying in pee.’” Mr. Miller said no one from DHS ever contacted him.
Nine people have been indicted in her death: her mother, charged with murder, and her father, charged with endangering the welfare of children. In addition, four social workers, suspected of falsifying home visits and progress reports, have been charged with crimes including involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment, forgery, tampering with public records, conspiracy, endangering the welfare of children. Three of Andrea Kelly’s friends were charged with perjury for lying to the grand jury about the girl’s condition before her death.
The Philadelphia Inquirer this week reported that Assistant Health Commissioner Carmen Paris resigned the day after the release of the grand jury report. Paris was acting health commissioner and oversaw the Medical Examiner’s Office in August of 2006 when Danieal was found dead. Paris allegedly tried to cover up the details of Danieal’s death and told the doctor who performed Danieal’s autopsy and a supervisor in the Medical Examiner’s Office “not to speak to anybody,” not even homicide detectives, about the case. While Paris has not yet been charged with a crime, District Attorney Lynne Abraham said charges could not be ruled out.
Danieal’s case was brought to the public’s attention in late 2006 when the Philadelphia Inquirer published a series of articles focusing attention on the failings of DHS, particularly on the case of Danieal Kelly, and over 20 other children who died while they or their families were supposed to be under the supervision of DHS.
Top Aide Quits in DHS Fallout Carmen Paris, acting health chief at the time of Danieal Kelly’s death, came under heavy criticism.
http://articles.philly.com/2008-08-02/news/25258808_1_grand-jury-report-danieal-kelly-starvation-death
August 02, 2008|By Jennifer Lin, Dwight Ott and John Sullivan INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS
Philadelphia’s former top health official resigned yesterday amid allegations that she interfered with an investigation of the starvation death of 14-year-old Danieal Kelly.
Carmen Paris, 51, was acting health commissioner at the time of the teen’s death. A 28-year city employee who most recently was paid $110,845 as an assistant health commissioner, Paris resigned one day after being suspended and escorted from her office.
Health Commissioner Donald Schwarz, a deputy mayor, said in an interview that he was able to confirm on his own what he read about Paris in a scorching grand jury report released Thursday.
“I’m a pediatrician, and I was incredibly sad and pretty determined that the information in that report makes a difference in the lives of children in Philadelphia going forward,” Schwarz said.
The grand jury report accuses the Department of Human Services of gross negligence in the death of Danieal Kelly and charges nine people, including her parents. Paris was not charged, but was singled out for criticism for telling the medical examiner to keep quiet about the case.
Calls to Paris yesterday were not returned.
Yesterday’s development came nearly two years after The Inquirer published investigative articles that detailed the deaths of children under DHS supervision. After the reports appeared, then-Mayor John F. Street appointed a blue-ribbon panel to overhaul the agency.
Yesterday, DHS Commissioner Anne Marie Ambrose said the department was finalizing plans on how to conduct an investigation into the roles of other employees named in the report but not charged.
“This is a top-to-bottom look at what needs to change,” Ambrose said in an interview.
She said she was prepared to make those plans public on Monday and that they would involve an extensive investigation. As of yesterday, no one else had been suspended, she said.
Danieal Kelly, who had cerebral palsy, starved to death in full view of her family, DHS social workers and employees for an outside contractor, MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc.
Of the nine defendants – including two DHS social workers, Laura Sommerer, 33, and Dana Poindexter, 51; two employees for a contractor; and three friends of the mother – only one remained at large yesterday.
A warrant is out for the arrest of Diamond Brantley, 22, a family friend, who is accused of lying before the grand jury.
Six defendants were arraigned, with bail of $50,000 to $200,000 set for all except the victim’s mother, Andrea Kelly, 39, who is charged with murder. The mother of nine other children, she faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Two employees for MultiEthnic – caseworker Julius Murray, 51, and director and co-owner Mickal Kamuvaka, 59 – face manslaughter charges, which carry a maximum sentence of five years.
The victim’s father, Daniel Kelly, 37, was charged with endangering the welfare of a child. He was released yesterday on $50,000 bail.
On Aug. 4, 2006, paramedics found her emaciated body, covered with bedsores, maggots and flies, in a fetid, hot bedroom in a West Philadelphia rowhouse.
The criminal charges have left workers at DHS reeling, with some proposing that they walk off the job in protest – an idea that was squelched yesterday by union officials.
To do so would have brought the department back to the depths of despair it felt in October 2006, after Street fired the top two officials and hundreds of workers walked off the job in protest. The firings came days after The Inquirer exposed the deaths of more than 20 children whose families were known to the agency.
The series led to investigations by the District Attorney’s Office as well as by federal authorities.
According to research by city prosecutors, Philadelphia taxpayers have spent $321,167.80 so far on outside law firms to represent DHS employees in grand jury proceedings.
Kahim Boles, an official for the union that represents DHS rank-and-file workers, said there is a disciplinary process at the agency.
“They should not be going to jail for the work they do,” said Boles, president of District Council 47, Local 2187, of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
He said he was also troubled that only lower-level social workers were charged in the case and not supervisors.
“My members should not be the only people on the chopping block,” Boles said. “They don’t do their jobs in a vacuum. This goes all the way up the chain. They were all supervised by a supervisor, who was supervised by an administrator, who was supervised by a director.”
Rita Urwitz, a vice president of the AFSCME unit that represents DHS supervisors, District Council 47, Local 2186, took issue with the grand jury report, saying it was based on a case that, although tragic, is now two years old.
“This case traumatized the agency when it came out two years ago, and it has been very alive since then,” she said. “Not to diminish the case, but the [district attorney's] report is using testimony about a time that isn’t today.”
Preliminary hearings for the defendants are scheduled on Aug. 11.
The highest bail – $200,000 – was set for Kamuvaka, a native of Namibia who was also ordered to surrender her passport.
A family friend, Andrea Miles, 18, was charged with perjury and was being processed as a juvenile because she was a minor at the time of the incidents. Another friend, Marie Moses, 34, was also charged with perjury.
Starved, disabled girl was failed at every turn
For days before Danieal Kelly died in a fetid, airless room – made stifling hot by a midsummer heat wave – the bedridden teenager begged for something to drink until she could muster only one word: water.
Unable to help herself because of her cerebral palsy, she wasted away from malnutrition and maggot-infested bedsores that ate her flesh. She died alone on a putrid mattress in her mother’s home, the floor covered in feces. She was 14 but weighed just 19.05 kg.
The nightmare of forced starvation and infection that killed Danieal while she was under the protection of the city’s human services agency is documented in a 258-page grand jury report released this week that charges nine people – her parents, four social workers and three family friends – in her ghastly death.
The report describes a mother, Andrea Kelly, who was embarrassed by her disabled daughter and didn’t want to touch her, take her out in public, change her nappies or make sure she had enough fluids. It portrays Daniel Kelly, the father who once had custody of Danieal, as having no interest in raising her.
And it accuses the city Department of Human Services of being “uncaring and incompetent.”
“It was this indifference that helped kill Danieal Kelly,” an angry District Attorney Lynne Abraham said. “How is it possible for this to have happened?”
The report should “outrage the entire Philadelphia community” and bring about “earth-shattering, cataclysmic changes” at the Department of Human Services, Abraham said.
Andrea Kelly, 39, the only defendant charged with murder, was ordered held today without bail. The social workers – suspected of falsifying home visits and progress reports in the case – face charges ranging from child endangerment to involuntary manslaughter. The family friends are accused of lying to the grand jury about the girl’s condition before her death.
None of the lawyers for any of the defendants had any immediate comment.
Human Services commissioner Anne Marie Ambrose, in office only a month, said yesterday that she is intent on improving child safety and worker accountability in an agency that has repeatedly been accused of failing to protect children.
Late today, the city announced the resignation of Assistant Health Commissioner Carmen Paris. The grand jury had accused Paris of interfering in the investigation of the girl’s death while she was acting health commissioner, but found insufficient evidence to charge her with obstruction of justice.
The report on Danieal’s death in August 2006 documents a downward spiral from the early years that she spent in Arizona with her father and his girlfriend.
Though Danieal attended special-needs classes only sporadically, a school report described her as an active learner and “one of the sweetest students ever enrolled in this program.” But allegations of parental neglect soon surfaced, and following Daniel Kelly’s breakup with his girlfriend in 2001, Danieal never again attended school.
Daniel Kelly and his children moved to Philadelphia in 2003. He eventually asked his estranged wife to move in, even though she had several other children and he knew she was incapable of caring for Danieal, authorities say. He then moved out.
“Daniel Kelly was well aware what deserting his daughter meant to her safety and welfare,” the grand jury report said. “He just did not care.”
The Department of Human Services received at least five reports of Danieal being mistreated between 2003 and 2005. All described a “helpless child sitting unattended, unkempt and unwashed, in a small stroller in her own urine and feces,” her screams ignored by her mother, the grand jury report said. The stroller, which served as a wheelchair, apparently never left the house.
Agency employee Dana Poindexter, assigned to investigate, also ignored Danieal, authorities say. Already having been suspended after a 3-week-old baby died on his watch in 2002, Poindexter continued his “slovenly, neglectful and dangerously reckless work habits” after being assigned the Kelly case, the grand jury said. He did not file a single report, authorities said.
The Kellys finally were assigned help from a private agency in 2005. Employee Julius Murray was required to visit the family twice a week, but authorities believe he may have come to the house only once – to have Andrea Kelly sign predated forms attesting to future visits.
The grand jury report said Laura Sommerer, a city social worker, failed to hold the now-defunct company accountable when, months later, Danieal still was not enrolled in school or receiving medical care.
And after Danieal died, authorities say, company director Mickal Kamuvaka held a “forgery fest” in her office where she had employees “concoct almost a year’s worth of false progress reports.”
But authorities say Andrea Kelly, whose other children are now in foster care, is primarily responsible for her daughter’s death.
The report said she was confronted repeatedly by her own mother, uncle, friends and even two of her sons about Danieal’s deteriorating health. She would lie or put them off by saying she would seek help, or banish them from the house, authorities say.
In the meantime, the report said, she entertained friends, attended classes and fed her other children.
“This behaviour indicates that Andrea Kelly did not merely allow Danieal to die,” the report said. “She may have even wanted her disabled daughter to die.”
When an ambulance responded to an emergency phone call for Danieal on Aug. 4, 2006, the girl had been dead for several hours. Authorities said she was so emaciated she looked like the victim of a concentration camp.
She had been lying on the filthy mattress for so long that her body outline was imprinted on it.
9 charged in death of neglected, disabled Pa. teen
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-07-31-pa_N.htm
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Four social workers were among nine people charged Thursday in the death of a disabled 14-year-old girl who authorities say wasted away from neglect before dying at 42 pounds.
Danieal Kelly’s mother was charged with murder; counts against other defendants range from involuntary manslaughter to perjury. District Attorney Lynne Abraham said any of the nine could have foreseen the horrific fate of Danieal, whose emaciated body was found in her mother’s squalid house covered with bone-deep, maggot-infested bedsores in August 2006.
Abraham had scathing words for the city’s Department of Human Services, calling its handling of the case “callous, indifferent, unconscionable” — and all too familiar.
“Danieal did not fall through the cracks,” she said. “It was a failure of institutional inclination. Saving Danieal was just too much trouble.”
Two of the social workers are city employees; two others worked for a company hired by DHS. Department Commissioner Anne Marie Ambrose scheduled an afternoon news conference to discuss the case.
Warrants were issued for all nine defendants Thursday. Andrea Kelly, the mother of Danieal (pronounced “Danielle”), was charged with murder, and father Daniel Kelly, who did not live with the family, was charged with child endangerment.
A 258-page grand jury report recommending the charges said not only that Andrea Kelly refused to get her daughter food, water and medical treatment, but that she repeatedly prevented one of her other children from calling an ambulance “for his obviously dying sister.”
A listing for Andrea Kelly’s attorney, Vincent Giusini, rang unanswered Thursday. It was not immediately clear if Daniel Kelly had an attorney.
Two employees of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health, a now-defunct company that DHS hired to provide social services to Danieal, falsified documents to cover up the fact they rarely, if ever, checked on her, the grand jury said.
Julius Murray and Mickal Kamuvaka were charged with involuntary manslaughter and tampering with public records.
An e-mail sent to Kamuvaka was not immediately returned. Contact information for Murray could not immediately be located.
Murray’s “fraudulent nonperformance of a job” — he seldom went to the Kelly house, which he was supposed to visit twice a week — allowed Andrea Kelly to starve her daughter over a period of months, the grand jury said.
After Danieal’s death, Kamuvaka directed Murray to fabricate and backdate reports on the family, grand jurors said.
DHS social worker Dana Poindexter was charged with child endangerment for what the grand jury said were his “less than meager” efforts to look into several reports over three years that Danieal, who had cerebral palsy, was not receiving medical care, social services or schooling.
“He did not complete a single investigation or risk assessment,” the report said. “Indeed, his file on the family was buried at the bottom of a filing-cabinet-sized box, beneath food wrappers and unopened envelopes relating to other children’s cases.”
A message left for Poindexter’s attorney was not immediately returned Thursday.
Another DHS employee, Laura Sommerer, faces a child endangerment charge. As Danieal’s social worker for 10 months, she didn’t notice Danieal’s deterioration, even after a visit June 29, 2006 — about five weeks before the teen died.
“The children appeared safe and comfortable in the home,” Sommerer wrote in a report, according to grand jurors.
Sommerer’s attorney, Lisa Dykstra, declined to comment Thursday.
Also charged were Andrea Miles, Marie Moses and Diamond Brantley, all of Philadelphia, who were friends with Andrea Kelly. The report accuses them of perjury for telling grand jurors that Danieal had been fine on Aug. 3, 2006, the day before her festering corpse was taken from the house.
It was not immediately clear if they had attorneys.
The report should “outrage the entire Philadelphia community” and bring about “earth-shattering, cataclysmic changes” at the Department of Human Services, Abraham said.
Abraham said that although at least 55 children have died under the agency’s watch, it has given only “lip service to halfhearted corrective action.”
“You can’t continue to bury these children and say things are getting better when they’re not,” she said.
Report shows how DHS failed
The remedy: A new dedication to children—and oversight.
By John Sullivan and Craig R. McCoy
Inquirer Staff Writers
Posted: Thu, Jan. 24, 2008, 7:55 PM
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/special_packages/inquirer/child_welfare/20070601_Report_shows_how_DHS_failed.html?viewAll=y
Children have died needlessly because of “significant system failures” that plague the city Department of Human Services, a panel of experts said in a wrenching report made public today.The agency has been adrift for years, confused about its mission and resistant to change. As a result, it “fails to protect some of Philadelphia’s most vulnerable children,” the panel said in a much-anticipated review of the $600 million-a-year department.Appointed by Mayor Street after articles in The Inquirer raised question about DHS, the panel said the agency had to make sweeping changes or children would remain “at risk of continued abuse and neglect.”The panel scrutinized 52 children whose families were known to DHS who died from 2001 through 2006 – and found that 27 died of abuse or in suspicious circumstances. A dozen others died needlessly in unsafe “co-sleeping” episodes, panelists said.
“There were preventable deaths,” said panelist Cindy W. Christian, a pediatrician who heads the child-abuse unit at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
To overhaul the agency, the panel recommended a series of reforms ranging from a rethinking of its core mission to the development of new investigative tools. Among other steps, it said the agency must:
Visit all children under 5 within two hours of receiving a warning that they might be abused or neglected. Currently, the agency takes up to five days to conduct many such visits.
Require social workers to use a common set of guidelines to evaluate whether children are in danger. Before the scandal broke, DHS had no such common standard, leading it to render important decisions about families randomly and capriciously.
Monitor more closely the outside contractors who handle most of the face-to-face contacts with children, parents and guardians. The agency should issue public report cards grading their performance, the panel said.
The panel said the mayor must appoint a permanent oversight commission to keep watch on DHS.
“This is urgent and doable,” said panel co-chair Carol Wilson Spigner of the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. Acting DHS Commissioner Arthur C. Evans Jr., who took over after Street forced out the previous commissioner, said the agency had already implemented some of the changes and would phase in the rest.
“DHS is embracing all of the recommended reforms,” Evans said.
Street, through a spokesman, commended the work of the unpaid panel but said a detailed response would come later. “The report is a road map to lasting reform and we welcome it,” spokesman Joe Grace said.
Michael Nutter, the Democratic nominee for mayor, said last night that, if elected, he would use the report as “a blueprint for change.”
Nutter added: “DHS must be fixed on behalf of the children of Philadelphia.”
Al Taubenberger, the Republican candidate, said he found the report powerful and convincing.
“It’s unconscionable that children are dying on the watch of the city and this agency,” Taubenberger said.
The panel suggested that DHS’ problems lie in a lack of leadership, not a lack of money.
As the report noted, “DHS is better financed and resourced than most, if not all, [agencies in] other major cities.”
Nor is the problem a lack of outside scrutiny. The agency’s pervasive problems have been documented in more than 20 lawsuits and reviews over the last two decades.
“Throughout the reports, there were themes that persist and remain unresolved today,” the panel wrote.
Said Spigner: “What we found was, the system does not know how to turn itself around.”
One key issue, the panel found, was that the agency had become the angel of last resort for the city’s most desperate residents, forcing social workers to try to solve an array of problems brought on by poverty.
The report said the agency long ago lost sight of its core mission: protecting children.
Again and again, the panel noted how random the decision-making had become within DHS.
To end that, the agency has already developed a new “safety-assessment tool” to guide all social workers in their contacts with clients.
The tool instructs DHS staff to focus on such issues as drug abuse, alcohol abuse and domestic violence – rather than, say, the cleanliness of a home.
Without guidelines, the panel found, social workers responded differently to the same set of problems in a family.
In particular, this “wide, wide variation in response” was noticeable in the case of children who died, said panel member Carol E. Tracy, executive director of the Women’s Law Center in Philadelphia.
The panel said the agency had also been hamstrung by its allegiance to state recommendations about how to classify clients.
Following those state rules, the agency has been responding quickly to cases in which children were allegedly being abused or sexually assaulted. But it responded much more slowly to warnings about possible neglect.
“Children die from neglect. They didn’t just die from physical abuse and sexual assault,” said Spigner. “So it’s a false dichotomy.”
At the panel’s urging, DHS had already begun responding with the same speed to all complaints involving younger children, regardless of their nature.
To underscore the new philosophy, Evans said, he has told his people, with a bit of hyperbole: “If we get a call saying, ‘The hair isn’t combed right,’ we go out and see the kid.”
The panel also called on DHS to do a better job of analyzing its performance and become more open with the public.
The department had piles of data in expensive computer systems, but made almost no effort to analyze it, the panel found.
“It’s all there, but it never really comes together,” said Evans.
He has been more transparent about the agency’s inner workings since taking the post in October.
To turn around the agency, Evans will have to rely on the existing cadre of DHS managers, many of whom have been promoted over the years from social worker positions to management jobs without proper training, the panel said.
“Managing requires a different set of skills, and there has not been an investment to help people acquire them,” said Spigner. “There are people in key positions who don’t know how to manage.”
Rita Urwitz, head of the DHS supervisors’ union, said she did not quarrel with the need for more management training.
“There has been for many, many years a problem with the infrastructure and zero training for staff and no real plan to fix it,” Urwitz said.
Estelle B. Richman, who once was the senior child-welfare official in Philadelphia and now heads the state’s Department of Public Welfare, said the report was a powerful critique of DHS.
“Unfortunately, the report is also a reminder that we’ve gone though this before,” she said. “The challenge for me and everyone else is to never have to go through another report like this again.”
Inquirer Investigation: ‘Bury Your Mistakes’
By Ken Dilanian and John Sullivan
Inquirer Staff Writers
Posted: Tue, Jun. 12, 2007, 11:57 AM
- In September, five months shy of her second birthday, Alayiah Turman was pummeled to death after she interrupted a video game.
Marrieon Currie, 11 weeks old in January, took his final breaths as he was being doused in hot water, thrown down stairs, and beaten with a mop handle.
Bryanna Redmond, a skinny 2-year-old known as “Princess,” died last year from a punch that split her spine.
Before they were killed – each by a parent, police say – all three children had come under the scrutiny of the city’s child-protection agency, the Department of Human Services, which has the power to remove children from abusive homes. In each case, relatives or neighbors say they saw signs of danger. DHS either never saw those signs or discounted them.
Three years after a string of blunders by DHS were widely blamed for failing to prevent the torture-murder of toddler Porchia Bennett, an Inquirer investigation has found that young children are still regularly abused to death after coming to the attention of DHS. Although 3-year-old Porchia’s death prompted the department to solicit expert advice on how to improve its investigative procedures, agency officials have failed to act on most of those recommendations.
From 2003 through 2005, at least 20 children died of abuse or neglect after coming to the attention of DHS, including 10 just last year, according to department records. Those numbers were coaxed out of the agency after four weeks of repeated requests.
In recent interviews, DHS Commissioner Cheryl Ransom-Garner acknowledged that the agency had made mistakes, but she declined to discuss them, citing confidentiality rules.
I think DHS is doing a great job,” she said. “Our staff do a heroic job every day, working to save Philadelphia’s children. One child death is too many. And from every death we do a review to determine what can we do differently.”
Those reviews, however, are secret.
“In Philadelphia, you can bury your mistakes,” said Richard Gelles, dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Work.
Ransom-Garner declined to discuss details, but said DHS reviews had found that no policies or procedures were violated in six of the eight cases The Inquirer examined. In two of the cases, DHS could not answer the question by the time this article went to print.
There always will be deaths that child-protection authorities could not have foreseen or prevented. And the agency is in much better shape than two decades ago, when a class-action lawsuit forced it to improve.
But experts who consulted for DHS in recent years told The Inquirer that the agency’s system for evaluating risk is inadequate. They said the agency still had not addressed key failings uncovered after Porchia Bennett’s death.
“Their investigators are not being given a policy for how to make decisions or an understanding of what risks can be tolerated,” said Gelles, a former DHS consultant who became so disillusioned that he now serves as an expert witness for lawyers suing the agency.
Mayor Street, walking into City Hall yesterday to attend a chess lecture, declined to answer questions about the performance of his human-services department.
“I don’t have any comment,” he said. “I don’t have any comment on that at this time.”
In the three cases with the most extensive public records about the department’s actions, an Inquirer review of court documents and interviews with relatives and neighbors found that people had concerns about the children’s welfare before they died – red flags that could have been apparent to inquiring caseworkers.
Five other cases, where there is less public information about DHS actions, raise questions about whether the agency could have done more to prevent the deaths. The Inquirer examined only cases in which the agency’s involvement could be determined from other sources, because DHS would not disclose which of the dead children it had checked on.
The Inquirer found:
In the Bryanna Redmond punching death, the toddler was killed after the agency closed a case involving her mentally disabled mother, who had talked of abandoning the baby at birth. A grandmother testified in court that she had asked DHS for help, to no avail.
Marrieon Currie’s mother, Lea, who had a history of mental and physical problems, told neighbors that she was hearing demons. DHS had been providing her services and left the infant in her custody. But neighbors, who tried to help with the baby, told The Inquirer that she was incapable of caring even for her dog.
When Alayiah Turman was beaten to death last month, DHS had been investigating an abuse allegation. The agency said it had not detected any injury; Alayiah’s grandmother said she had seen bruises on the child, and the medical examiner found a healed arm fracture during the autopsy.
A video game unplugged
Police say Alayiah’s father, Tyrone Spellman, confessed to killing his daughter after she pulled the plug while he was playing Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon, a violent combat video game.
Ransom-Garner told The Inquirer on Sept. 13 – before the newspaper launched its inquiry into child deaths – that the agency had been investigating the family.
A few weeks before Alayiah was killed, the commissioner said, an anonymous caller reported that an adult was yelling at a 2-year-old, and that there were holes in the floor of the home. The next day, she said, a caseworker interviewed Alayiah’s mother, Mia Turman, and inspected the child. There were no bruises, Ransom-Garner said, and the toddler appeared happy and playful. She said there had been no other complaints.
The agency made another surprise visit a few days later. The caseworker asked Turman whether anyone else lived in the house, in order to perform a background check on each adult. The caseworker took Turman’s word that no men lived there, Ransom-Garner said.
Neighbors and relatives told The Inquirer, however, that Spellman had been born at the Brewerytown rowhouse where Alayiah was killed. He was living there with his brother and another relative, Keith Walker.
Turman had moved to Spellman’s house only recently, said neighbors, many of whom say he is innocent.
Walker told The Inquirer that he had tried to revive the little girl when he arrived home that night. Detectives later told him that there were obvious signs of past abuse, he said. Alayiah’s grandmother Marvine Turman told The Inquirer that she remembered seeing bruises.
Asked about that, Ransom-Garner said she could not discuss the case, even though she had talked about it previously.
Asked whether caseworkers were instructed to interview neighbors during their investigations, she said that they were not prohibited from doing so, but that there were no specific guidelines about it.
A shattering death
Alayiah died three years after a killing that was supposed to change the culture at the Department of Human Services.
In August 2003, 3-year-old Porchia Bennett died after enduring months of abuse at the hands of a couple her mother paid to care for her. DHS acknowledged it erred in the case.
First it lost track of the family before Porchia was born, even though the agency had not resolved a previous abuse investigation.
Then, three days before she died, a DHS worker failed to investigate an abuse report at her house.
In the aftermath, DHS did make some changes. It overhauled the way caseworkers search for families, authorizing the use of databases and private investigators.
So why are children in its system still dying?
One answer, experts say, is that while the agency fixed its tracking system, it failed to adopt proposals for significant changes in how it investigates abuse and weighs risk to children.
As a result, the agency still depends on the judgment of individual caseworkers – some of whom are incompetent, according to DHS critic Gelles.
After the Bennett case, then-Commissioner Alba Martinez hired several consultants to examine and overhaul the agency’s risk-assessment procedures.
DHS officials said Friday that they might implement some of the recommendations.
“This is a work in progress,” Deputy Commissioner John McGee said.
Ransom-Garner said the agency was working to improve its systems on its own timetable, consistent with state regulations. She also argued that the Bennett case did not point to profound problems in how DHS operated.
“What happened to Porchia Bennett, we looked at that case and said, ‘Lessons learned, what do we need to do here?’ ” she said. “The system was not broke.”
Losing sleep
Ransom-Garner’s predecessor, Martinez, struck a different tone when she hired a Penn team led by Gelles, a nationally recognized child-welfare expert, and Carol Wilson Spigner, a child-welfare official in the Clinton administration.
“This was Alba’s project, because she wanted to prevent another Porchia Bennett,” Gelles said. “She lost a lot of sleep over it.”
Gelles said the DHS policy manual “said you should do this you should do that, but it gave almost no guidance as to how.”
That policy manual on investigations is still in place.
Gelles now believes the best way to change the agency is to fight it, he said.
“I said to Cheryl, ‘You can do this the easy way or the hard way: You can change, or I’m going to sue you.’ They’ve chosen to do it the hard way,” Gelles said.
In May, the Penn team handed over two major recommendations: a new policy on investigating child fatalities, and a new policy on assessing the safety of a child in a home.
The city has not adopted them.
John Goad, former deputy director of the Division of Child Protection at the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, had a similar experience.
He had helped engineer a turnaround in Chicago’s system, where, he said, reports of repeat child abuse fell by half. Martinez hired him to evaluate her agency.
Goad said DHS workers had a difficult time deciding how to handle cases and sometimes made the wrong decisions.
“Their decision-making structure is wanting,” he said. “They tended to lose focus on some things that pertain to child safety.”
After visiting the city in 2003, Goad wrote 65 pages of guidelines and definitions. His report included 14 scientifically determined factors that contribute to a child being unsafe.
Ransom-Garner said the agency had improved its call-routing system, but had not implemented Goad’s other recommendations.
One year after Porchia died, McGee, then the agency’s operations director, said: “It’s much less likely that a case like Porchia’s will happen again.”
Not again
People knew Bryanna was in danger from the day she was born.
Nurses at Frankford Hospital-Torresdale Campus became concerned when her mother, Viola Redmond, a 22-year-old with an IQ below 90, told them that she didn’t want the child.
“It was alarming. . . . She didn’t pay any attention at all to the baby,” testified the social worker, Columbia Elmelhaoui.
Her testimony, and this account, is drawn from court documents in the Viola Redmond murder case, interviews, and other public records. DHS declined to comment on the case.
A DHS caseworker went to the hospital shortly after the birth in January 2003. Three days later, the worker visited the home in the tidy Crescentville section of Northeast Philadelphia where Viola Redmond was living with her parents.
Along with baby Bryanna, Redmond was caring for a 16-month-old son, Jaleel. She worked a cleaning job at the nearby IRS office.
The caseworker, Robin Goodwin, reported that Redmond seemed “mentally retarded” and “childlike.”
Though at risk, Bryanna would be OK, Goodwin decided, “because of the fact that there are both maternal grandparents in the home.” She did not respond to a request for comment.
DHS referred the case to a private contractor, paid by taxpayers to train Redmond in parenting skills, according to DHS records.
“Most of the time they came, [Viola] was at work,” testified Rosetta Redmond, the baby’s grandmother, at her daughter’s sentencing hearing.
On Dec. 8, 2004, DHS closed the case, deeming the children safe at the grandparents’ house.
Two months later, Viola Redmond and her boyfriend, Damor Davis, decided to move into their own apartment.
Rosetta Redmond testified that she had repeatedly warned DHS that the couple intended to move out. A caseworker promised to get back to her, she said, but never did.
Not long afterward, Viola Redmond’s sister, a parole officer, made an anonymous call to DHS to report that “the child may have a broken bone in her face.”
The call arrived at the DHS hotline at 10:12 a.m. July 15.
It was too late.
Across town, Bryanna was buckled over in her bed, slipping into shock after a death blow to her stomach.
Davis testified that he had found the child in that condition when he returned home from work about 6 a.m., and met Viola on her way out the door.
By 11:58 a.m. Bryanna was dead.
Ian Hood, a Philadelphia deputy medical examiner, testified that the toddler had died of an injury more severe than all but one or two he had seen in his career.
In a statement to detectives, Viola Redmond said she had punished Bryanna for having a temper tantrum by punching her in the stomach.
On the day Bryanna died, a DHS caseworker named Lekisha Harvey tried to investigate the sister’s abuse complaint. But somehow the address had gotten garbled.
It took DHS three days to search a public-assistance database, which turned up Viola’s former address on Reach Street in the Northeast.
The judge in the case, Benjamin Lerner, commented from the bench that the case raised questions about the agency.
“Who is in charge, who gives little children to people who are so obviously, absolutely completely incapable of taking care of them?” Lerner wondered.
From the bench
Lerner, who has been dealing with DHS for decades, as a public defender and then a jurist, argues that the agency is not aggressive enough in removing children from potentially abusive homes.
“I don’t think the system has changed at all” since Porchia Bennett’s death, he said in a recent interview. “I believe that we have to be more forceful earlier in children’s lives when we see that they are simply not being taken care of. I believe that we have to be more accepting of the fact that good motives are not sufficient in parenting, and that many people lack either the will or the ability to raise children in a safe and healthy environment.”
DHS is credited with improving significantly since its worst days in the 1980s, when a series of scandals led to a 1990 class-action lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups.
In 2000, outsider Martinez took the helm and quickly won high marks for a variety of changes. The next year, DHS settled the class action, known as the Baby Neal case. The settlement allowed advocates to audit how the agency handled a sampling of cases for two years. The arrangement expired in 2003.
But experts say the Philadelphia agency remains seriously flawed, with a staff of uneven quality overburdened by caseloads that can exceed 30, nearly double the 17 that national standards recommend.
“In general, they’ve done a lot of great things at the department, and it’s a totally different place than when we sued them,” said Frank Cervone, who runs an agency that provides free legal advocacy for children. Cervone was part of the 1990 lawsuit and is among the city’s foremost DHS experts.
“That said,” he added, “they remain a public agency that has a lot of problems.”
Hearing demons
Almost everyone who knew Lea Currie had serious doubts about whether the 25-year-old could care for her newborn son, Marrieon.
“She was hearing demons,” said neighbor Felix Cruz, 33, who lived just two doors away from Currie on Charles Street in the East Frankford section of the city.
“She was off-balance,” he added, echoing nearly a dozen others interviewed on the block. “She shouldn’t have been raising that kid on her own.”
Currie had tried to kill herself at 17, and she suffered from cerebral palsy, a muscular disorder that left her barely able to walk up the stairs.
Yet after Marrieon was born last fall, DHS decided to leave the baby in her home and send a contract worker to provide support services, neighbors said.
Three months later, Marrieon was dead.
On Jan. 23, Currie held the infant under hot water, threw him down a flight of stairs, and beat him with a mop handle, according to court records.
She quickly confessed and was charged with murder, records show.
Currie told neighbor Amelia Lewis, 35, that demons had confined her and the baby to an upstairs bedroom, Lewis said.
Neighbors said Currie was incapable of even caring for her dog, which they eventually took away.
“She was always calling people to buy food for the dog when she remembered,” said Paul Wons, 45, who worked with Currie’s mother and now lives in the Currie house.
Awaiting trial, Currie has been committed to Norristown State Hospital. Psychiatrists initially ruled her unfit for court, noting that she had “stopped eating and drinking” and had been “soiling herself and lying in her own menstrual fluid.” Court records refer to her as “severely mentally disabled.”
Timika Bowens, 29, who lives across the street, has known Currie most of her life. She can’t understand how DHS left Marrieon in her care.
“DHS killed that baby,” she said.
Bowens and four other residents recalled that in a meeting several weeks before the baby died, a DHS worker asked neighbors to care for the child.
“Who would leave it on the neighborhood to care for a child?” asked Timika Bowens’ mother, Irene.
DHS officials said that it wasn’t their policy to ask neighbors to care for a child, and that if that had happened, it would have been inappropriate.
Neighbor Blanche Jacobs, 41, recalled a day when Currie made a startling confession to her. ” ‘I don’t know how to love my baby,’ ” Jacobs said Currie told her. ” ‘Ms. Blanche, please tell me how.’ “
In one of her few references to a specific case, Ransom-Garner insisted that neighbors had not relayed their concerns to DHS.
“People have a lot to say after a child death,” she said.
But in interviews, neighbors said it should have been clear to anyone, after a few moments of conversation with Currie, that the young mother was in trouble.
“Anyone who would see her, who talks to her, interacts with her, would know right away she couldn’t care for that child,” Timika Bowens said.
“They should have done their job.”
Danieal Kelly, Mom Let Daughter With Cerebral Palsy Rot And Starve To Death Because She Was Ashamed Of Her.
http://unforgottenangels.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/danieal-kelly-mom-let-daughter-with-cerebral-palsy-rot-and-starve-to-death-because-she-was-ashamed-of-her/
