Death of 5-year-old girl is all too familiar story in Oklahoma

[Billybob]

The Oklahoman Editorial Comment on this article 19
Published: June 21, 2011

FROM the start, you knew how this story would end. We've all read it too many times before.

It began with a report in The Oklahoman on June 7 about the father of a 5-year-old girl being arrested in connection with her death. The girl, Serenity Anne Deal, had “obvious signs of abuse” when police found her body in her father's apartment June 4.
photo - A memorial is set up in front of an apartment on East Drive for 5-year-old Serenity Deal, who died after suffering physical abuse. Police arrested Deal's father, Sean Devon Brooks, 31, on complaints of murder and child abuse on Monday, June 6, 2011. Police arrested Deal's father, Sean Devon Brooks, 31, on complaints of murder and child abuse on Monday, June 6, 2011. Photo by Zach Gray

The father, 31-year-old Sean Devon Brooks, had called 911 to say his daughter was unresponsive. He told police that the night before, he had taken Serenity to his job working the overnight shift at a hotel and that she slept while he worked. The next morning, he said, she took a shower when they got home and he heard a thud, and found her unconscious.

He had no explanation for her injuries - bruises all over her body, including her face, and several wounds to her head, including a gash in the back of her head. Now he sits in jail, charged with first-degree murder.

Subsequently it was reported that Serenity had been placed with Brooks after the girl's mother was jailed for allegedly sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy. The mother, Samantha Ann Deal, entered a blind plea to a charge of forcible sodomy of a child and is to be sentenced next month.

The Department of Human Services was involved in this case, of course, and is (stop us if you've heard this before) under fire for its handling. The Oklahoma Commission on Children and Youth reported that child welfare workers pushed for Brooks - he only learned of the girl last year following a paternity test - to have permanent custody of Serenity, even though the girl sported black eyes and bruises following visits with him.

The report said Serenity lived for a time with her maternal grandparents, who wanted to adopt her, but that she was moved to foster care after it was learned the grandmother was letting Serenity stay with her mother and her boyfriend, a convicted sex offender.

Now four DHS employees - two supervisors, two case workers - are on administrative leave pending an agency investigation. DHS could release a report on that investigation this week. Meantime, House Speaker Kris Steele, R-Shawnee, who has backed legislation designed to help keep foster children safe, is questioning the agency's approach: “The outcome of Serenity's case is totally unacceptable.”

Steele's right, it is. But his is only the latest bit of railing against DHS. There have been many others, and plenty of efforts through the years to curb the large number of Oklahoma children abused and neglected. Yet it continues to happen.

If DHS mishandled this case, then those responsible should be held accountable. The shame is that Oklahoma has so many cases just like it every year - so many that the news stories about them have become almost formulaic.

Read more: http://newsok.com/death-of-5-year-o...ory-in-oklahoma/article/3578835#ixzz1Q1vBFoeV

 

[HMFIC]

Just terrible... I'm without words.

 

[OKMike]

How about the 4 year old girl from Muskogee who died after being molested? She had a high fever and a heart attack from what I assume to be bacteremia (infection in the blood), grandmother noticed bleeding when she changed diaper and her son (the father, was acting suspicious). Mother , father and grandmother are all in jail, exactly where they belong. Well maybe they belong in the ground but that's a different story. SICK SICK SICK

 

[waltham41]

I know of a case where DHS placed a -1 yr old girl with grandparents that both flunked court ordered drug tests, and the grandfather had been accused of molesting the girls mother when she was a child.

The girls mother has met all requirements to get her baby back, but DHS is dragging their feet because the grandparents want the baby. (She is an adorable little girl)

DHS is only as good as the people running the cases, and a lot of them drop the ball on a regular basis.

 

[Billybob]

Ryan Luke, Kelsey Briggs, Louise Slate, Joshua Minton, Zane earles, just a few of the times DHS dropped the ball and a child died horribly.
There have been many deaths and lawsuits totaling millions, including a current class action that will cost many more millions.

 

[Billybob]

Here's a case few know about, it resulted in a $20 million judgement in a separate civil case against the foster parent.

August 9, 2005
The cockroach-bitten baby died while in the state's care.
BY MATT ELLIOTT
World Staff Writer
The state Department of Human Services has settled a wrongful death lawsuit alleging that child-welfare workers failed to protect an infant who died from a respiratory illness while in state custody.
Seven-month-old Aurora Espinal-Cruz's foster brother found her cockroach-bitten body Jan. 27, 2002, lying face-down and unresponsive in a crib at her foster parents' Tulsa home, a medical examiner's report states. Doctors pronounced her dead later at Hillcrest Medical Center. Medical personnel investigating her death found what they believed to be cockroach bites on her vagina and anus, the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit, filed in October 2003 on behalf of the child's estate, alleged that DHS case workers failed to seek medical care for Aurora's respiratory illness, which the medical examiner's report identified as the cause of her death.
Also, the lawsuit accused DHS of violating the girl's civil rights under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and it accused case workers of negligence and indifference to the girl's suffering.
District Judge Rebecca Nightingale approved a sealed settlement agreement Wednesday after another judge denied DHS lawyers' motion to dismiss the suit, records show.
The plaintiff's lawyer, Daniel B. Graves, would not comment, citing the sealed settlement and juvenile records' confidentiality. DHS spokesman George Johnson Jr. said that "as a part of that agreement, there was no admission of liability on the part of the state."
He said Nightingale sealed the case to protect other juveniles related to the case.
Although Tulsa police investigated the death, no criminal charges were filed against the girl's foster parents, Deanza and Lorenzo Jones Jr.
Graves alleged in his filings that DHS had received childabuse complaints in the past against Deanza Jones, who was convicted in 1991 of misdemeanor fraud.
On Oct. 14, 2002, about nine months after Aurora's death, Tulsa police investigating a report of child abuse arrested Deanza Jones on a complaint of injury to a minor child, an arrest report states. She was later charged on accusations that she struck a boy who was then 8 years old several times with an extension cord, injuring his leg. Jones admitted her guilt and received a two-year deferred sentence, records show.
The lawsuit also alleged that DHS workers failed to notify Aurora's foster parents of her medical condition and that the couple, whose home was infested with cockroaches, failed to seek treatment for her.
DHS lawyers filed court documents denying the allegations. Aurora was born June 21, 2001, to Jaimee Espinal-Cruz, who was 27, Graves wrote. In November, allegations surfaced with DHS that Aurora's older sister was "excessively disciplined" by her stepfather.
No criminal charges were filed, but DHS removed the girls, placing them with their maternal grandmother and stepgrandfather, Graves' filings state.
In December 2001, a pediatrician diagnosed Aurora with an upper respiratory infection. The doctor prescribed antibiotics and told Aurora's grandmother to come back if Aurora did not improve. However, after more abuse allegations - for which no charges were ever filed - DHS removed Aurora from her grandmother and placed her in several foster homes, ending with the Joneses' several days before her death.
Meanwhile, Aurora remained ill, but DHS workers did not return phone calls from her grandmother, who had called them with information about the baby's illness, Graves alleged. In addition to Aurora's foster parents and DHS, the lawsuit also named as defendants Thomas Key, Dulcie Owens, Audry Lyn Banks, Alicia Bullock, Donna Hendrix, Judy Lewis, Amy Donaldson, Michelle Barr, Kelly Johnson and Steve Scott.
At the time of the lawsuit, Owens was the DHS child welfare supervisor with Aurora on her case load, a DHS attorney wrote in a witness list. Key was a child welfare worker who also had the girl's case.
Banks, a foster-care supervisor, approved a home study conducted by Bullock for the Jones home, the attorney wrote. A home study is conducted before a foster home is approved for placement.
Hendrix was assigned the Joneses' foster-care case in November 2001. Lewis, the placement coordinator for the fostercare unit, arranged for children's placement in the Joneses' home. It was not clear what roles Barr, Johnson and Scott played.


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