Chandlers Story

A federal judge in Denver will allow a wrongful-death lawsuit to go forward against two Denver social service workers for failing to prevent the starvation death of a 7-year-old boy in 2007.

Chandler Grafner was sealed in a closet and left to starve in his own urine and feces by his foster parents, Jon Phillips, 26, and his 22-year-old live-in girlfriend Sarah Berry.

Both were convicted in Chandler’s death and are currently in prison.

Two months before Chandler died, a school aide alerted authorities to suspected abuse. But an ensuing investigation by the Denver Department of Human Services found the allegation unfounded.

U.S. District Judge William J. Martínez stated in a ruling Tuesday that while the agencies are entitled to legal immunity, the two employees — Margaret Booker, the head of investigations for the Denver County Department of Human Services, and case supervisor Mary Peagler — were not entitled to immunity because their failure to take action “shocked the conscience” and abused the child’s civil rights.

Martínez stated the lawyers for Chandler’s family had proven a link between the failure by defendants and the child’s death.

“Chandler died from starvation and dehydration and, at the time of his death, was twenty pounds underweight for his age,” the judge stated in his ruling.

“These injuries, by their nature, occur over a period of time. Had Defendants properly exercised their professional judgment in response to the April 17, 2007 referral, these injuries may well have been avoided.”

The Jefferson County Department of Human Services had placed Chandler in Phillips’ custody. The Denver agency had been tasked with investigating the allegation after Phillips and Berry moved the boy there.

The lawsuit was filed by Chandler’s mother, Christina Grafner, and his father, Joshua Norris. Christina Grafner lost custody of the boy after she was charged with neglect one year before his death. Phillips was Grafner’s former boyfriend, and Chandler was the half-brother of Phillips’ son, Dominick.

In 2008, Phillips was sentenced to life in prison without parole after being convicted of first-degree murder. Berry agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder and received a 48-year sentence with a possibility of parole after 32 years.

Neither testified or have otherwise explained their actions.

In March 2007, two months before he died, a teacher’s aide reported that Chandler had a swollen ear and other bruises. The child told the aide that Phillips had put him in a shower and slapped him repeatedly. She reported it to a school administrator who called police.

An ensuing investigation by the two employees named in the lawsuit found the abuse allegation unfounded.

The Denver County Department of Human Services had received at least four other written complaints about abuse or neglect involving Chandler since January of that year.

Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com

Read more: Judge allows lawsuit against 2 Denver social workers in Chandler Grafner’s starvation death – The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_19494273#ixzz1fyP1ZCj4
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Are you kidding me????

I suppose Caylee duct taped herself and stuffed herself in the bag and then threw herself into the woods…

(CNN) — The answers are starting to emerge. It is hard to imagine them being any more heartbreaking.

On May 22, I began a column by asking the questions:

“Why did no one miss him? Why didn’t anyone seem to even notice he wasn’t around?”

The body of a boy named Christian Choate, 13, had been found encased in cement and buried in a shallow grave in Lake County, Indiana. Police and prosecutors there alleged that he had been forced to live in a dog cage, and was kept naked except for a diaper. They alleged that his father, Riley Lowell Choate, 39, and his stepmother, Kimberly Leona Kubina, 45, had regularly beaten and kicked the boy, deprived him of food, and chained his hands to the top of the cage. They have been charged with murder, battery, neglect of a dependent and criminal confinement. They have pleaded not guilty; Riley Choate is scheduled to be back in court on Tuesday.

One of the most saddening aspects of the case is that Christian was killed more than two years before his body was found in May, yet during all that time, according to police investigators, there is no indication that anyone was looking for him.

He had been pulled out of school long ago, so there were no teachers who wondered where he might be. The state of Indiana did not have an investigation of his family open at the time of his death and disappearance; the state’s child protective agency had no idea he was gone. According to police, his father had “punched him with full force several times in the front, side and back of his head” in April of 2009 because the boy was too ill to eat; when Christian, back in the cage, stopped breathing, police said, he was put into a garbage bag, covered with cement and hidden beneath the ground.

When his body was discovered this spring, the Indiana Department of Child Services said it could not disclose whether caseworkers had ever been called to the home, maintaining that confidentiality provisions in state law prohibited the release of such information. But a court in Lake County in recent days has released records compiled by investigators about Christian’s family, and the boy’s agonizing life.

It turns out that child-protection workers had investigated the family numerous times for more than a decade, beginning even before Christian was born. They had received repeated telephoned complaints — presumably from neighbors and acquaintances — about what was being done to the children in that home, according to the records. Many of the allegations were judged to be “unsubstantiated”; others were followed up on. But in all those years of home visits, there is no indication that anyone did a thing to help Christian.

According to the court-released documents, the last time child-protection workers had contact with him was on June 30, 2008. They had received a call alleging that a 12-year-old boy was being kept “on house arrest.” This was during the period in which Christian was locked in the dog cage. A worker had gone to the home and had “observed all children and stated they appeared to be doing well” and that there was “not a 12-year-old-boy on house arrest.” The allegation that had come in was deemed “unsubstantiated.”

The almost unbearable part of the reports released by the court late last month is an account of letters that investigators say Christian had written while in the cage. While other children in the family were outside playing, he allegedly was told to write his thoughts down. The records indicate that his stepmother, in ordering him to do this, seemed especially sadistic; the topics she assigned him included “Why do you still want to see your mom?” and “Why can’t you let the past go?”

Here, according to the court-released documents, is some of what Christian wrote about:

• “Christian often stated he was hungry or thirsty.”

• “Christian wrote of why nobody liked him and how he just wanted to be liked by his family.”

• “Christian stated that he wanted to die because nobody liked the way he ‘acted.’ ”

• “Christian wrote of how many times he had to steal food or use the bathroom in his place of confinement.”

• “Christian wrote of how he was ‘let out’ to clean or vacuum but then had to go back to his ‘place’ (the dog cage) immediately afterwards.”

• “Christian wrote of how he had nothing to do and if he asked for something to do he was given a piece of paper and a pencil.”

• “Christian wrote of how everybody else was outside playing but he was not.”

The report concluded: “The writings go on and on of how isolated and sad Christian was on a daily basis.”

In perhaps the most haunting sentence in the report, investigators said:

“Christian’s writings detail a very sad, depressed child who often wondered when someone, anyone, was going to come check on him and give him food or liquid.”

He never knew it, but the letters to no one that he wrote while locked in the dog cage, fearing that he was forgotten by the outside world, may turn out to be his most powerful and far-reaching legacy. His words are like a prayer. His words should be a reminder that when there are allegations that a child is being confined and tortured, extra, maximum, tireless effort must be exerted before those claims are permitted to be checked off as “unsubstantiated.”

A child who is beaten and caged is likely to be terrified of his so-called guardians; if a caseworker comes into the home, the child likely knows that if he says the wrong thing, he will face more brutality when the caseworker leaves and he is alone to face his tormentors once again.

Christian was “a very sad, depressed child who often wondered when someone, anyone, was going to come check on him….”

His prayers had a chance of being answered. Someone did come to check on him — repeatedly.

And, in the end, reported with confidence that all the children in the home “appeared to be doing well.”

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bob Greene.

Casey Anthony Closing Arguments start today…..Goodbye Casey

In opening arguments, prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick said that the mother, Casey Anthony, 25, used duct tape to cover the mouth and nose of Caylee Marie Anthony in the summer of 2008.

But the defense contended that the child drowned in a pool and efforts to cover up the accident spiraled out of control.

The duct tape found with Caylee’s remains was placed there by her mother with the intention of ending her child’s life, Burdick said. Caylee’s body was wrapped in a Winnie the Pooh blanket, placed in several plastic bags and tossed into the swampy woods “like a piece of trash,” Burdick said in her opening statement.

“Caylee’s death allowed Casey Anthony to live a good life. At least for those 31 days” in which Caylee was missing, Burdick said.

More info http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-casey-anthony-20110525,0,1610944.story

IN ALL THIS REMEMBER CAYLEE ANTHONY – THE VICTIM

Help where you can…..

Its still happening all over http://childabuseheadlines.com/

JEFFERSON COUNTY

9 News….Matt Clough  Deborah Sherman  

Officials say two parents will appear in court on Thursday for allegedly beating their adoptive son and starving him to the point that the 6-year-old only weighed 30 pounds.

An affidavit released by the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office says on Sept. 17, Littleton firefighters responded to the family’s home at 6500 block of South Reed Way on a report of a young child who fell down the stairs and was unresponsive.

Investigators say Christine Arnold reported she was cooking dinner when the boy fell.

An EMT examining the boy observed bruises and abrasions all over his body, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit says the medical staff at Littleton Hospital Emergency Room determined the boy had blood on his brain and his brain was swelling.

A doctor at the hospital says the boy suffered from “serious bodily injury” and “severe malnutrition.” The boy also suffered from various straight line, u-shaped and horseshoe type markings across his body consistent with the buckle of a belt found at the house, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit reports the Arnolds took custody of the boy on a foster-to-adopt program when he was two and a half years old. That adoption was completed in 2006, according to the affidavit.

According to Jefferson County Social Services, the boy was examined prior to his adoption and was measured and weighed. In 2006, the boy was in the fifty to seventy five percentiles for his height and weight. At age 3, he weighed 31 pounds. On September 17, 2010, the boy weighed 30 pounds at the age of 6, according to the affidavit.

A check on Wednesday afternoon showed that the Arnolds were not being held at the Jefferson County Jail.

The district attorney’s office says Christine and Randall Arnold will appear in courtroom 1B on Thursday. Charges will be filed at that time.

New York (CNN) — The mother of a 4-year-old girl found dead in her Brooklyn home Thursday morning was charged Friday with second-degree assault, reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child, according to police.

Marchella Pierce weighed just 15 pounds and had marks on her hands and ankles when police found her unconscious in her family’s apartment, according to CNN affiliate WABC-TV.

Her mother, Carlotta Brett-Pierce, was also charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance, criminal uses of drug paraphernalia and unlawful possession of marijuana after a small quantity of controlled substance and marijuana were recovered from the apartment, authorities said.

WABC said the girl was hospitalized following her premature birth and nourished with a feeding tube. She came home in February, the station said. The New York Times said detectives were trying to determine whether the girl had been bound to a bed after they found marks on her ankles that appeared consistent with twine that was found tied to the head- and foot-boards of a small bed.

Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office, said that Friday’s autopsy was inconclusive and that further investigation was required

Chandler would have celebrated his 10th birthday on April 11th.

Take a momentthis month and remember all the Chandlers out there and help where you can. You really can make a difference. We all celebrate Chandlers short life, but let us not forget what this is all about.

Leave a few flowers on the site where Chandler rests if you get a chance.
Mt Olivet Cemetary, ask at the gate.

How can child abuse best be prevented in Colorado? Officials disagree…

Chandler Grafner, seven, died of starvation at the hands of his caregivers in 2007.

​The debate over how to serve the state’s neediest citizens, including abused children, has come to a head in the weeks since a governor-appointed committee recommended that the state should take over county responsibilities for child welfare and services such as Medicaid and food stamps — an idea that the counties don’t like one bit.

The Child Welfare Action Committee has made a total of 29 recommendations to Gov. Bill Ritter, who formed the committee in 2008 after thirteen Colorado children died of abuse in 2007, including seven-year-old Chandler Grafner, who was starved to death by his mother’s ex-boyfriend and his girlfriend.

A recent federal review critical of Colorado’s system, in which services are delivered by the counties instead of by the state, underscores the need for reform, some say.

The committee’s most controversial suggestion has been to hand power to the state, a move Ritter called “bold” but “exactly the kinds of things we put this committee in place to do.”

Today, the counties responded with a plan for a series of meetings to be held all over the state that would bring together county law enforcement agencies, educators and non-profit organizations to “suggest ways in which child welfare and all social services can be improved,” according to a press release.

Susan Beckman, an Arapahoe County commissioner and chairwoman of the Colorado Counties, Inc. Health and Human Services Steering Committee, says the meetings are not a defensive move — although she vehemently opposes the plan for centralized services. Instead, she says, they’re meant to “diagram what’s currently happening in the counties and make recommendations of how it should be better.”

Some of the questions she’s hoping to answer include: What happens when child abuse is reported? What resources do we have? What resources do we need? Are there duplicate services? What does the research show?

“We’re going to be working in these communities, around tables, trying to figure out how we can better provide services within the structure we have,” she says.

The meetings are slated to start in January, though Beckman says an exact schedule hasn’t been finalized. Also scheduled to begin in January: a new, statewide Child Welfare Training Academy for caseworkers, which was recommended by the governor’s committee.

Ritter has said he plans to study the proposal to transfer human-service responsibilities from counties to the state for a year. He’s asked for county input — and that’s exactly what Beckman hopes to give him.

“There’s no defensiveness here,” she says. “We’re ready to roll up our sleeves and work.”

Tags: Bill Ritter, Child Welfare Action Committee, Melanie Asmar, Susan Beckman