Deaths of foster kids show flaws in system

Deaths of foster kids show flaws in system
By David Olinger Denver Post Staff Writer
Fourteen-year-old Jimmy Wood died of an apparent prescription drug
overdose. He was last heard crying alone in a closed bedroom.
Mollie Gonzalez, 10, reached into a refrigerator in her bedroom and
drank a fatal dose of her anti-seizure medicine.
Talitha Brooks died of heatstroke in a sweltering bedroom just after
her first birthday.
All three were Colorado foster children placed in government custody
to protect them from harm. Yet the circumstances of all three deaths
remained hidden from public scrutiny despite internal investigations
that faulted the foster parents and the agencies supervising them.
When foster children die, the government agencies responsible for
their welfare "should be held even more accountable for what happens,"
said Sen. Steve Johnson, the Larimer County Republican who chairs the
committee overseeing Colorado human services programs.
"I wonder sometimes, should the Department of Human Services be
responsible for reviewing cases when they also have the responsibility
for overseeing the county's administration of those programs? You're
not going to want to do a review that says you were negligent in your
oversight," he said.
Department officials say they thoroughly investigate the deaths of
children in foster care, even in cases that have not been publicized.
But "without question, we have a higher obligation" to disclose
information, department director Marva Hammons said, "when a death
occurs in county custody and it's related to abuse or neglect."
Hammons said she would "review our practice of disclosure of deaths"
in foster care, "and revise it if necessary."
Report's gaps shock lawmakers
In Jimmy Wood's case, the final report of Colorado's child fatality
review team did not mention that he lived in a foster home and likely
was killed by a controversial drug used to sedate hospital patients.
Two case reviewers from state human services spoke to Adams County
employees about the child's death, addressing "concerns regarding
county actions and services provisions," the four-sentence report
said. "Therefore the state reviewers decided not to further review or
provide a formal report. Case is filed, as of September 2001."
State legislators shown a copy of that report expressed surprise at
its brevity and the absence of information about a foster child's
death.
"My gosh, you get obituaries longer than what you get here for a final
death report," said Rep. Debbie Stafford, vice chairman of the House
committee overseeing the Department of Human Services.
The Aurora Republican said she fears that if a child's death "hasn't
received notoriety, perhaps it doesn't get as much attention" from the
fatality review system.
On the day he died, Jimmy had argued with another child in a foster
home that had previously been cited for leaving children "in their
rooms with the doors closed for extended periods of time."
Jimmy went to his bedroom, saying he wanted to be alone. His foster
mother, Lanell Ruiz, said she went shopping, returned to look in on
Jimmy - and saw his body had turned purple.
A state investigator determined Ruiz was neglectful after concluding
that she left chloral hydrate, a powerful sedative, within his reach
and falsified logs of how much of the drug she gave him.
Ruiz, who is no longer a foster parent, denied falsifying anything.
She said Jimmy's psychiatrist prescribed increasing doses of the drug
even though it wasn't helping him sleep. To this day, she feels
unfairly blamed for his death.
"I loved Jimmy. He wanted me to adopt him," she said. "They don't know
(how he died), we don't know, so they blame it on us. They're trying
to cover their butts."
Jimmy's biological parents, Judi Moreno and Johnny Moon, said they
never received a satisfactory explanation of their son's death. That
angers Moreno, who said Jimmy somehow "was poisoned and overdosed with
the chloral hydrate" in a state-supervised foster home.
"He was a great kid," Moon said. "He never got a chance."
A fatal dose within easy reach
On Nov. 18, 2000, five days after Jimmy died, Mollie Gonzalez climbed
out of bed in a Jefferson County foster home during the night and
opened the small refrigerator in her room.
"She was found dead early the next morning" from an overdose of
Tegratol, the state fatality team reported. "Mollie's medications
(Tegratol, Prozac and chloral hydrate) were in the refrigerator as
were her roommate's."
Mollie, who was developmentally disabled, lived in a home supervised
by Synthesis, a state-licensed agency that places foster children with
special needs.
When she died, Jefferson County social services found no evidence of
neglect because the 10-year-old had not been getting out of bed at
night and her foster parents did not expect she would.
The state fatality team ultimately disagreed. Its report concluded
that "medication and food were both stored in the same refrigerator,"
that Synthesis and foster parents Yolanda and Jorge Rojas should have
ensured that "the medications were inaccessible," and that Mollie's
foster parents should have been cited for neglect.
That report was released in response to a records request more than
two years after Mollie died. Asked about its conclusions, Synthesis
director Pam Hoggins said she had not received it and didn't know it
existed.
Mollie's foster parents declined to comment. Hoggins said Mollie "had
never tried to get out of her hospital bed" before. Her death "was a
real tragedy," she said, "but not a result of abuse or neglect."
A foster mother unable to help
Talitha Brooks died in 1998 in a foster home that police described as
intolerably hot.
A one-page Department of Human Services draft report, also obtained
through a public records request, concluded that Talitha's foster
mother "showed she didn't know how to assess illness" as the baby
became sick and died in that heat.
The draft report also questioned why Denver was placing infants in a
Thornton home where a 75-year-old foster mother had refused to submit
to a health exam and where its records indicated children were not
stimulated sufficiently. "Shouldn't the foster care workers make more
frequent contacts in cases like these?" it asked.
Denver's investigation of the case is confidential. But Sue Cobb, a
spokeswoman for its human services department, said the agency has
improved its support and supervision of foster parents.
Thornton police learned of Talitha's death in a 2:35 a.m. call. "It's
been so hot, and she was feverish," foster mother Ethelynn Nelson told
them.
In a July heat wave, police found the 1-year-old's body in a home with
a broken air conditioner and all but one window closed. An officer
measured the temperature upstairs, where Talitha died, at 92 degrees.
An autopsy concluded she died of dehydration and a collapsed
circulatory system due to extreme body temperatures.
Pat Long, a Thornton detective, concluded that "the death of Talitha
Brooks is obviously a tragedy that, through hindsight, we know, could
have been avoided."
Jill-Ellyn Straus, an Adams County prosecutor, decided no charges were
warranted.
But "it was so sad," she said. Talitha was entrusted to "a woman who
had been a foster mother forever," and "they were still giving her
little, little kids, and she was clearly unable to take care of them."
Straus said Talitha "died of heat."
Her foster mother disagreed. "It wasn't heatstroke," Nelson said.
Talitha "wasn't feeling right, and she stopped eating."
But after caring for more than 50 foster children, Nelson took no
more. "I quit. I resigned," she said. "That ended it."
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