No rescue: The case of Ricky Morales: If you don't follow up, howdo you know the child hasn't been sold into slavery or sent to axe murderersor the exact type of situation these kids ended up in?

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No rescue: The case of Ricky Morales

By PAIGE AUSTIN
The Press-Enterprise

Editor's note: Ricky Morales, 11, and Michael "Mikey" Vallejo-Seiber, 3,
were tortured and beaten to death. The people who were supposed to care
for them are charged with murder. Today, in the second of two parts, The
Press-Enterprise examines the role of social service agencies and other
authorities in protecting the boys.

Ricky Morales wore his red Power Rangers suit out to play even when it
grew too tight. The would-be hero with deep-set dimples told people his
mother would come for him after she got out of jail.

But she never did come for him.
Story continues below
Silvia Flores / The Press-Enterprise
Destinee Morales, 16, left, and Vanessa Gallardo, 23, mourn brothers
Conrad, left in photo, and Ricky Morales in Gallardo's apartment when
she lived in La Puente. Police say they believe the boys' uncle and
aunt, who briefly lived in Corona, killed them.

By the time he died at age 11 in the custody of his aunt and uncle,
Ricky was bone-thin.

His body was a map of bruises and scars, burn marks and cuts when he
died in Corona on Christmas Day 2005. He died locked in a feces-strewn
closet while his aunt and uncle, Raul and Cathy Sarinana, entertained
guests for dinner. The Sarinanas are in a Riverside County jail awaiting
trial on murder charges.

Ricky was killed three months after social workers in Washington state,
where the family had been living, cleared Raul Sarinana of child abuse
allegations. When the letter arrived telling Raul he was not suspected
of "negligent treatment or maltreatment," Ricky's 13-year-old brother,
Conrad, was already dead, his body entombed in a concrete-filled trash can.

The Sarinanas have pleaded not guilty in Ricky's death. Prosecutors in
Washington, where Conrad died, said they plan to charge the couple after
their Riverside County trial.

In Washington, child protective services dismissed without investigation
at least three reports of neglect, drugs and abuse -- physical, sexual
and emotional -- in the Sarinana home. None of the allegations warranted
investigations or home visits, officials decided.

In the final months of the boys' lives, authorities in Los Angeles
County as well as Washington received reports of abuse. However,
investigations were superficial, warning signs were not heeded and basic
protective procedures were not followed, according to records and
interviews with relatives, social service officials and child-welfare
experts.

Officials with the Washington stateDepartment of Social and Health
Services and the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family
Services have reviewed their handling of the case and concluded that
they did everything they are required to do.

The Los Angeles County Child Death Review Team, which studies child
deaths to better protect children, also reviewed the county's handling
of the case, said Cassandra Turner, the team's leader.

"Nothing had been done wrong," she said.

Not every child can be saved, even when social workers do everything in
their power to protect them, said Turner.

"We are put in a position where we are damned if we do and damned if we
don't," she said. "We have to respect the rights of the family while
helping them through very dark waters."

In Washington state, Lewis County Child Protective Services Supervisor
Juli Stewart said her social workers also did everything they should have.

But a California legislator familiar with the case said the lack of
intervention was indefensible.

"That's atrocious," said California State Assembly Majority Leader Karen
Bass, who chairs the Select Committee on Foster Care. "I don't see how
they can defend that."

The deaths of Ricky and Conrad reflect the problems with child
protective services, Bass said. While it's not helpful to attack social
services after every tragedy, it also does no good to defend substandard
work, she said.

"I think it would have been more honest to say, 'The social workers
needed to do better,' " she said.

Social workers throughout the state are overburdened with heavy
caseloads, and child protective agencies are often put on the defensive,
she said. But cases like this scream out for improvements, she said.

Stu Riskin, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County agency, said no
policy violations or systemic problems were exposed in this case.

The boys' deaths have not triggered changes in the system.

'The Dope House'

The brothers were born into danger.

"The first time I saw them was during a drug raid," said West Covina
police Detective Dan Nalian. "In the middle of it, (their mother) was
sitting on the couch breast-feeding one of them. My partner and I knew
it then. These kids never had a chance."

Ricky and Conrad were the youngest of six children. The two oldest
siblings died of sudden infant death syndrome, family members said. The
boys lived in West Covina with two sisters and their parents, Rosa and
Conrad Morales.

"Our house was the dope house, and everyone knew it," said sister
Vanessa Gallardo, 23, of Baldwin Park.

"I hated it so much. I always cried, and all the police knew me as the
crybaby," she said. Police told her and other children in the family
they would grow up to be troubled like her parents, she said.

"That's why I tried so hard to be different, to show my brothers and
sister another way of life. ... I used to dream I would get a job and my
own place so my brothers and sister could come live with me."

Gallardo earned a technical degree and works in a pharmacy but was never
able to adopt her brothers.

Conrad was 1 when social services first entered his life. His arm broke
in a fall from a second-story window on the same day his 4-year-old
sister ingested PCP and had to be hospitalized. The children were placed
in foster care for months before returning to their mother. Over the
years, Los Angeles County social workers would investigate at least five
more allegations of abuse or neglect involving the children and various
relatives.

The family was well known to local police, said Nalian, who made
multiple drug raids at the home where the children lived during the '90s.

According to court records, the children repeatedly were traumatized by
exposure to drug deals and SWAT team raids when officers blasted locks
and broke down doors.

"These people should never have these children," Nalian and his partner
wrote to a judge overseeing custody of the young boys. "The only hope is
to remove these children from this environment."

When child protective services intervened, Rosa Morales took classes and
submitted to drug tests to get her children back. She gave up her boys
for the last time in 2004, when her parole for a drug violation was revoked.

She left Conrad and Ricky with her mom in La Puente. But within a few
months, Morales let Conrad move to Washington to live with her brother
and sister-in-law.

'A Safe Home'

It was then, around Halloween 2004, when Ricky acted out in school. The
10-year-old wrote "Die, Ricky, die" on his arm.

"You just don't know what is going on at my house," he told a teacher.
"My life is not worth living."

Fearing that he was suicidal, authorities admitted Ricky to a
psychiatric hospital. Los Angeles County Department of Children and
Family Services social worker Elia Godinez began investigating
allegations that his grandmother beat Ricky and Conrad.

In a report to her boss, Godinez wrote that she substantiated the abuse
allegations.

Ricky's maternal grandmother, Estella Sarinana, denies hitting her
grandchildren.

By then, Rosa Morales was out of jail, but she couldn't support Ricky.

The social worker gave her an ultimatum, Morales said. "She said,
'Conrad seems to be doing fine in Washington, so why don't you send
Ricky to Washington, too? You've got one week to send him to Washington
or I'm going back to court, and your kids are going back into foster
care.' "

Morales sent Ricky to his Uncle Raul.

Through a county spokesman, Godinez declined to be interviewed for this
story.

A follow-up plan devised by Godinez's supervisors directed her to call
social services in Washington to make sure Ricky received therapy and to
make sure the boys were living in a safe home. She also was supposed to
interview Conrad by phone at his school so he could talk freely about
conditions in the home. That never happened, according to Los Angeles
County records.

In a report to her boss, Godinez wrote that she contacted child
protective services in Washington to "ensure their safety." She noted
the first name of the person she spoke to.

Washington social service officials said they have no record of such a
call, and no one there checked on the boys.

In closing her case, Godinez wrote that the boys had been removed from
the abuse and that their mother had made living arrangements for her
children and would provide "a safe home" with their uncle.

But Raul Sarinana was a felony drug offender who later told police he
took medication for anger management and was plagued by voices. If
Godinez had taken her abuse findings to a judge to have the boys made
wards of the court, the felony conviction would have disqualified
Sarinana as a guardian under California law.

Cracks in the System

An outside expert who reviewed the case for The Press-Enterprise said
the system failed the boys because social workers didn't follow basic
policies standard among child-protective agencies nationwide.

Division 31 of California's Child Welfare Services Manual lists detailed
policies to make sure children are safe when a parent voluntarily
removes them from an abusive situation. In such cases where abuse is
substantiated, social workers are required to establish a written
agreement with the parent and a case plan for ongoing protection of the
children.

Child protective services is then responsible for assessing the
suitability of the voluntary guardian and the safety of the home and for
conducting follow-up visits to make sure the children remain safe. When
the children are sent out of state, as in Ricky's case, child protective
services workers are supposed to first approve their placement and
develop a written contract with out-of-state social workers to continue
to monitor the children's safety. It is the California social worker's
responsibility to provide a follow-up plan and make sure the
out-of-state social worker follows it.

Riskin, the Los Angeles County child protective services spokesman, and
representatives of other child-protective agencies said it is standard
for social workers to take abuse findings to court. The judge can
require oversight including background checks on guardians and regular
follow-up visits.

Godinez never took her abuse findings to court, nor did she carry out
the voluntary placement process. Because Ricky's case was never
officially opened in court, the state's policies didn't apply, Riskin said.

With the boys removed from the house, it wasn't necessary to open a
court case, Riskin said. "We can't open a case if the child is not here.
.... (Morales) was still their mother and responsible for where they were
placed."

However, the social worker still had the same responsibility to protect
the children with or without a court case, said Bobby Parnell, a retired
social worker of 20 years. Now he works with Justice For Children, a
national nonprofit group that represents children in civil suits and
works toward child protective reform.

The social worker could have done a background check on the Sarinanas
and arranged for a home visit and monthly follow-ups, Parnell said.

"You've already discovered that the mother's decision to place the kids
with the grandmother was inappropriate, so you have to scrutinize her
second choice -- the uncle," he said.

"With an open investigation, they may not have been able to stop the
mother from sending (Ricky) to his uncle. However, they did have an
obligation to make sure the child was safe with whomever she placed
him," he said.

"If you don't follow up, how do you know the child hasn't been sold into
slavery or sent to axe murderers or the exact type of situation these
kids ended up in? It's not just policy, it's common sense."

In Riverside County, physical abuse findings are automatically taken to
court, said Jennie Pettet, the county's deputy director of children's
services.
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Raul Sarinana and his wife, Cathy, are accused of murder in the death of
Ricky Morales in Riverside County. Authorities in Washington state say
they plan to try the Sarinanas in Conrad's death, but they have not been
charged. The Sarinanas have denied killing Ricky.

"If the kids were living with the grandmother, and we substantiated
physical abuse in the home of the grandmother, we would have removed the
kids from the custody of the mother," Pettet said. "You can't just
assume the next place she sends them will be any safer."

Riverside protocol also requires regular follow-up visits to ensure the
children's safety in their new home, along with proof of medical care
and school enrollment, Pettet added. Any notification to social workers
in another state would have been made in writing, she said.

'Case Closed'

Even before Ricky was sent to Washington, records show that officials
there received reports of emotional abuse and neglect in the home where
the Sarinanas lived with their two young children and Conrad.

In the months after Ricky arrived, neighbors, police, the boys' sister
in California and a therapist working with Cathy Sarinana reported
domestic violence, drug use and physical and sexual abuse.

Ricky was never enrolled in school in Washington, and few in the
community even knew of him.

Friends and neighbors noticed Conrad wearing make-up to hide black eyes
and bruises. Conrad told a girl in his seventh-grade class that his aunt
and uncle were hitting him and that his uncle was cutting him and
molesting him.

Washington social workers did not investigate a neighbor's report of
neglect and emotional abuse in January 2005. They did not open an
investigation again a month later when a sheriff's deputy relayed more
abuse allegations.

The boys' sister, Gallardo, had called from California to report drug
use and physical abuse to deputies based on strange phone calls she was
receiving from Raul Sarinana and Conrad.

The report was second-hand, and a call to a counselor at Conrad's school
revealed no evidence of abuse, said Stewart, the child-protective
supervisor in Lewis County, Wash. That wasn't enough to warrant
investigation, she said.

A counselor working with Cathy Sarinana called Lewis County's child
protective services in July 2005 to report that, according to the
Sarinanas, Conrad had molested Ricky. The couple told the counselor they
sent Conrad back to California.

The department assumed Ricky was no longer in danger because Conrad was
gone.

"When you've got a professional in the home working with the family,
there is less of a safety concern," Stewart said. "The other big thing
was that Conrad was no longer there."

Police believe Conrad was never sent away.

According to Corona police, Raul Sarinana later confessed that he beat
Conrad severely on Aug. 22 and placed the boy in the bunk bed he shared
with Ricky. By morning, Conrad was dead.

Three days later, Cathy Sarinana called the county about an at-risk
youth program for her out-of-control nephew Conrad. In response, a Lewis
County social worker interviewed the family for the first time.

Unable to reach them at home, social worker Bob Cordell interviewed the
family in the parking lot of an am/pm minimart on Aug. 30.

The Sarinanas told Cordell they sent Conrad to relatives. Cordell's
written report doesn't indicate he made an effort to confirm the boy's
whereabouts.

When the social worker asked about the earlier report of sexual abuse by
Conrad, Cathy Sarinana recanted.

"Some of this seems suspicious, but the CPS issue is still unfounded,"
Cordell wrote in his report. "Case Closed."

He never pulled Ricky aside to talk about the alleged abuse without the
Sarinanas listening.

While it is policy and generally "good practice" to take those steps,
it's not always possible, said Kathleen Spears, Lewis County's CPS
spokeswoman.

The social worker simply wasn't in a position to interview Ricky alone
or track down Conrad, said Spears. The family said they were moving to
California, and this seemed like his last chance to interview them, she
said.

Cordell's supervisor did not allow him to be interviewed for this story.

Even though Conrad had been accused of molesting Ricky, the department
sent a letter Sept. 2 clearing Raul Sarinana of abuse allegations. When
one child molests another, it can be a sign that a sexually abusive
adult is in the picture, Spears said. The social worker cleared Raul
Sarinana because the Sarinanas had recanted their claims of sexual abuse
in the home, she said.

The family reported Conrad a runaway in October, saying he had fled with
an elderly gay lover. Three days later, the family moved to Corona. Once
again, Ricky was not enrolled in school.

Neighbors and servers at a Corona restaurant saw Ricky with black eyes,
bruises and cuts. A grocery store employee in Norco reported seeing Raul
Sarinana kicking Ricky.

Neighbors on Belle Avenue pitied the child, who sold his toys at weekend
yard sales.

During the family's two-month stay in Corona, the trash can that held
Conrad's body was stored in the carport, and Ricky lived in a closet.

After his death, investigators said Ricky's body showed signs of months
of abuse. Scars hinted that he had been whipped with electrical cords
and burned with cigarettes. Wounds on his thighs and bottom were so
infected, they could have killed the child, Mark Fajardo, a forensic
pathologist for the Riverside County coroner's office, testified in
court. Because the wounds were so infected, it is difficult to say what
caused them, he added.

Police say Raul Sarinana confessed to kicking Ricky on Christmas Day
because the boy was too slow in cleaning the bathroom. He told police he
carried the injured child by his belt to the closet. He said he kicked
the boy one last time when he caught Ricky reaching for the doorknob as
if to escape.

Common Danger

"I felt bad for the kids, but I wasn't surprised," said Nalian, the
detective who intervened when the boys were babies.

Though the violence was extreme, the dangers they faced are not uncommon
among the children who police and social workers help every day, he said.

The Sarinanas moved between states -- one of the many challenges social
workers face when abusers try to hide, said Turner, of the Los Angeles
County death review team.

"You'd be surprised how often we are left holding a piece of paper
saying here are allegations of abuse, and we can't find the family, and
we can't find the kids," Turner said. "They're ghosts in the night."

A national database to share information among states could help fill
cracks in the system and save lives, she said.

Ten children died of abuse in Los Angeles County in 2005 despite the
intervention of social workers. Ricky and Conrad are not included in the
statistic because they were killed elsewhere.

Nationwide, 40 percent to 50 percent of abuse fatalities involve
children who received child protective services, said James Shields,
director of Justice for Children.

"That's just too many," he said.

The California legislature has identified overworked social workers as
the major problem. Los Angeles County, the nation's largest child
protective agency, has 3,000 case workers responding to roughly 9,400 to
13,500 reports of abuse monthly. The average Los Angeles County
emergency response caseworker handles 21 cases each month compared with
Riverside County's average of 18.5 cases each month.

The Los Angeles County caseload is down significantly from two years ago
when the department was last involved with Ricky and Conrad, said
Riskin, the department's spokesman.

The county is also hiring 500 people in an ambitious effort to reduce
caseloads even further, he said.

Assemblywoman Bass spearheaded an ongoing $50 million statewide hiring
effort to reduce workloads. California also is seeking federal funding
to further reduce caseloads, she said.

The Washington Division of Children and Family Services is reforming its
procedure for handling abuse cases after audits that showed
inconsistencies in the quality of investigations around the state. The
department has focused on reducing response times and plans to adopt the
same standardized case methods being used in California and several
other states.

But for Gallardo, the boys' oldest sister, there are no excuses. After
her brothers were killed, she covered the walls of her apartment with
mementos -- baby pictures and grinning class photos.

"I don't want this to happen to any other kids," she said. "It's so
frustrating, because I could tell something was wrong, and I called
police, and I tried to get help, but no one would do anything. No one
would help my brothers."

Gallardo said she blames child protective services for not checking to
make sure Ricky was safe in Washington.

"If they did their jobs, I don't think my brothers would be dead," she said.

'Violence Happens'

Raul Sarinana has a buzz cut, salt-and-pepper stubble and watery brown
eyes. Tattoos peeking out from his jail-issue jumpsuit identify him as a
member of Big Hazard, a gang from his native Ramona Gardens housing
project in East Los Angeles.

Violence, he said with a shrug, is inevitable and child abuse is part of
growing up in the Sarinana family. In a jail interview, he said he
accepted custody of his sister's boys to save them from the violent
childhood he experienced.

When he talked about the abuse, his body shook.

"They use you and abuse you in whatever way, shape and form that they
can," he said. "It's just the way that not only I grew up, but others,
too. It's just the way society has it, and there is nothing any social
worker can do about it."

The youngest of five children, Sarinana said he had no one to save him
when he was a child.

In Conrad and Ricky's case, social workers didn't do much, but it
wouldn't have made a difference if they had investigated, he concluded.
They would have seen good things -- a happy family that took trips to
the river to have barbecues and water gun fights, he said.

Violence is unpredictable, he added.

"You're sitting at dinner, and -- Bam! Violence happens," he said.
"You're watching football, and -- Bam! Violence. You're at a barbecue --
Bam! Violence."

Sarinana recanted the confession he made to Corona police. He insisted
that he tried to save Conrad and Ricky.

"I loved my nephews. I would have done anything for them, but my hands
were tied," he said. "My hands were tied even before they came to live
with me. ... All Ricky ever wanted was to be loved.

"I tried to help him."

Corona Detective Jeff Edwards paints a different picture. On the day of
his arrest, Sarinana described his nephews as a burden, Edwards said
during a court hearing.

According to Edwards, Sarinana asked, "Who cares about these kids?
Nobody cared about them when they were dumped on me."

Reach Paige Austin at 951-893-2106 or




CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A
DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NSA/CIA
WIRETAPING PROGRAM....

BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF
REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES
TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEIR
"FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION...