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What happened to Rilya?
What happened to Rilya?
By Palm Beach Post Editorial Sunday, March 20, 2005 Years ago, one part of Florida's government badly failed Rilya Wilson. How badly isn't yet known, but another part of Florida's government thinks the failure was fatal. Last week, the state charged Geralyn Graham with first-degree murder in Rilya's death. Miami-Dade County Prosecutors believe that Graham — often referred to as Rilya's "caregiver" — killed the girl in December 2000. At the time, Rilya was 4 years old. The Department of Children and Families, which placed Rilya in the foster home, didn't notice that she was missing until April 2002. During the time DCF was supposed to be verifying her well-being, according to a housemate, Graham tied Rilya to the bed and kept the child in a dog cage. More from Opinion • Sound off in the blog • Columnists • Editorials/Letters • Don Wright cartoons Rilya never has been found. The state's chief witness against Graham has a long criminal history and says Graham confessed to her last year while both were in a South Florida detention center. With such a witness and without a body, the state's case will be hard to prove. Yet it's good to know that someone in state government still is thinking about Rilya's case. In the flurry of criticism and revelations after her disappearance became known, DCF admitted that it had lost track of hundreds of children, and workers were fired or resigned. After the usual attempts to put all the blame on underlings, DCF Secretary Kathleen Kearney quit in August 2002. DCF hardly has become a healthy agency. Judge Kearney's replacement, Jerry Regier — who also tried the blame-the-underlings route — resigned in August 2004 amid revelations that DCF regularly handed out contracts to insiders' friends. It is sad enough that the state may have enabled Rilya's death by losing track of her. It is sadder still that the state hasn't done more to fix the system that lost track of her. http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion...edit_0320.html "Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons, For you are crunchy and taste good with catsup." |
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