Mom Arrested After Tot Dies in Motel Room

[Jolie Rouge]

Tot Dies in Motel; Maggots in Milk

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - A woman was arrested on child abuse charges Tuesday after her 3-year-old daughter was found dead in a filthy motel room where they lived with the woman's five other children, authorities said.

Deputies found dirty diapers and trash littering the room at the extended-stay motel, and baby bottles containing moldy milk and what could have been maggots, said Orange County sheriff's spokeswoman Barbara Miller.

Kenya Hill, 27, called 911 Monday and an emergency operator tried to give her CPR instructions for little Kai Gadison, but Hill told the operator it was too late, Miller said. ``She said, 'Oh, no, the baby's cold. I think she's dead' and started crying,'' Miller said.

Kai, whose body was found on a bed, may have been dead for a day or two, authorities said. The Orange-Osceola medical examiner was performing an autopsy.

According to county records, Hill was arrested in April 2002 for felony child neglect. Miller said she did not know the outcome of that case. Department of Children & Families officials did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment. The state agency has come under scrutiny since the disappearance of Rilya Wilson, a foster child who was in the state-approved care of a woman with a lengthy criminal record.

Hill and the five other children - three girls and two boys, all under the age of 5 - were taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center. Miller said Hill complained of stomach pains and investigators found bruising on some of the children.

Hill was charged early Tuesday with domestic related child abuse and was being held without bail. Neighbors said the children's father, Nathan Gadison, was in Tampa buying supplies for his tattoo business. Investigators had not yet spoken to him, Miller said.

According to motel records, the family checked into the motel on Aug. 9.



12/14/04 12:34


http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20041214%2F1235613572.htm

[sea-shell]

That poor baby - how could she have been dead for a day or two and the mother didn't know it !!!!!!!!!!

[Jaidness]

again, stupid, selfish self absorbed people!!! Please let karma smack her right between the eyes!

[Lora_1994]

again, stupid, selfish self absorbed people!!! Please let karma smack her right between the eyes!



I soooo agree with you. The baby could have been dead for 2 days?? I do believe these parents(and I use that term VERY loosely) had their heads stuck up their asses. Totally unbelievable.

The poor baby. She's in a much better place than that living hell she was in. :(

[caides_mom]

27 with 5 kids under 5? wow i wonder was the baby that passd number 6?

[DivineMsDi]

First it was Texas in every abuse story, now it's Florida...

Wherever this happens...it is a shame....

Losers unfit to have, let alone raise children. BIRTH CONTROL...a phrase these people should have explored.

No sympathy...lock them up (parents)....make them work to pay for the foster care for the other 5....

[Tasha405]

again, stupid, selfish self absorbed people!!! Please let karma smack her right between the eyes!
ITA! :mad:

That poor baby, may she rest in peace. :(

[TexasGal]

That is so sad. I can't believe that after being arrested on felony child neglect that the woman had no supervision.


First it was Texas in every abuse story, now it's Florida...


About a month ago in Plano, Texas, a woman cut off her babies arms because she claimed she was suffering from post partum depression. The baby bled to death.
Give me a break, post partum depression???

I'm majoring in social work in college and as a social worker, I would feel personally responsible if something happened to a child after I was made aware of an abusive or neglective parent.

[Damnifiknw]

According to county records, Hill was arrested in April 2002 for felony child neglect.

Proof the system isn't looking out for the walfare of children. And, another a child dies because of it.

Women who abuse their children. Should have the living @@@@ beat out of them, those who kill their children should put to death ASAP.

[Njean31]

About a month ago in Plano, Texas, a woman cut off her babies arms because she claimed she was suffering from post partum depression. The baby bled to death.
Give me a break, post partum depression???

I'm majoring in social work in college and as a social worker

how far are you into your studies because usually after one has taken abnormal psych and toured the mental facilities, they understand postpartum depression (not that there are alot of institutionalized postpartum sufferers but it's the psychosis issue, once it's there it don't matter what brought it on, it's all the same.......the person is grossly out of touch with reality). i work closely with several social workers at hospice.

this case though looks like it's pure neglect, poor child :mad:

[DAVESBABYDOLL]

Ok,so when will she be charged with murder? That little one is dead.I think state welfare officals who gave her back those kids after the first neglect charges,should also be charged *JMO

[laughsalot]

The baby could have been dead for two days? How did they not notice? Were drugs involved?

[lisarae]

Im sure she wasn't home. She couldn't have been to not notice, or strung out on drugs and didn't care.. Or more likely out getting pregnant again.

Sick, Sick people.

[PrincessArky]

Proof the system isn't looking out for the walfare of children. And, another a child dies because of it.


When are they going to do something to the people working in the system??? shouldn't they be somewhat responsible for NOT doing something???

[starlite763]

Ok guys,I am in no way defending this woman.I have a 3 year old whom I love very much.This makes me think about that thing that happened a long time ago in Texas(I BELIEVE) That woman putting her kids in the car and driving off a bridge with them.I think the babies drowned but the mother got out.I believe she had post partum depression.Some days my child can ALMOST make me understand why some of these women do these things,And I only have one kid.

[Lora_1994]

you talking about Susan Smith?? that woman just makes me so sick. I thought she did it because her "boyfriend" did want to be involved with someone that had kids.


I have 3 kids and I cant even begin to imagine wanting to hurt my children. And I tend to have some emotional problems. (depression,anxiety) Even before I was put on medication, that would have been the furthest thing from my mind.

[starlite763]

I can only remeber some of the story but it has always stuck in my mind.I have a freind with 5 kids who is a single mother and has just had child #6.I would always tell her if she could not find a better birht control she was going to end up like that lady.And when she would get stressed and all of her kids were getting on her nerves I would pick with her and tell her that some days it almost makes you understand how a woman could do that.I by no means condone any kind of abuse,but on those whiny day I am pushed to my limit.

[chacha]

This just makes me sick!

I have 3 children myself...when my youngest was born, I already had an 18month old and a 3 year old at home and hubby was working full time and going to school full time...WOWSER!! I definately had some bad days in the house with them, but I NEVER thought of harming them in any way. I think I pulled out alot of my own hair though..LOL. But they are inocent "little people" that are trying to explore, learn and have their needs met.

I think that once you are charged with child abuse/neglect, the kids should be taken away and you should automatically be injected with some sort of long term birth control. JMO

[kelly12569]

So, did I read that correctly? The mother is the one who called and was trying to give CPR to the child?? And then said oh no she is cold I think she's dead ?? Like she didnt touch the child to begin with , before she made the call ? Like to try to wake her or something?? I mean come on.... she had to have known that baby was dead. Man, that just TURNS my stomach !! :mad: :( :mad:

And then the mother was taken to the hospital with stomach pains??? She'd be having alot more than stomach pains if I got ahold of her :mad: :mad:

I hope those children are now in a safe place , far away from her. :(

[melissar]

And when you feel pushed to those limits... What do you do? What are your techniques for dealing with this? I have three children of my own and they are ages 15 9 and 3 and i don't know which one is harder the 15 or the 3 year old....and I do understand your frustrations when you feel you are pushed to the limits, we have all been there, especially if dh is less than cooperative in taking his turn in dealing with them.... but I would never ever joke or even think about hurting one of them. My kids know when they have pushed me to my limit and my three year old will say, Mommy we live in a zoo! I deal with this by saying okay the two older children which are both boys need to go and watch something on t.v or play playstation. They give me 10 minutes to myself and I regain my composure....

So i guess what I am trying to say is you need to find an outlet for dealing with your anger and if you get to the point you think you could hurt one of your children, you need to find someone asap....

[Jolie Rouge]

Child's Welfare SHOULD BE Focus in Child Custody Cases

ANGELO ALL OVER AGAIN?

The most painful episode ever reported in this column -- for me and for many readers -- was the killing of little eight-month-old Angelo Marinda by his own father, two years ago. Little Angelo first came to the attention of the authorities when he was hospitalized with broken bones, just 12 days after he was born.

Instead of getting the baby out of that home and put up for adoption, the Child and Family Services of San Mateo, California put him in foster care. Then they kept sending him back home for visits, despite repeated evidence of abuse during those brief visits. Eventually, the agency sent him back to his death.

Now the same agency and the same judge seem to be repeating a similar pattern with Angelo's two-year-old sister, who has become the center of a child custody case.

A newspaper account puts it this way: "The mother of a murdered baby came close to losing her daughter Monday during a contentious hearing in San Mateo County juvenile court." The judge gave the mother "six months to get her life together with the help of Children and Family Services or risk losing her daughter."

Note how the focus is on the mother, not the child.

It is the mother's "risk" that the newspaper account features.

Somehow there has been built into the thinking, the laws and the practices of judges and social welfare agencies around the country the notion that there are "services" which can be provided by social workers that will turn parents of neglected or abused children into better people who can be trusted to take care of their children in the future.

This is called "family re-unification," so that children who have had to be removed from their homes and put into foster care can later be returned to their parents after an agency's "services" have worked their magic. It is a faith which passeth all understanding.

You might think that there would have to be a lot of hard evidence to convince the authorities to risk children's welfare and lives on this theory. But you would be wrong.

In California, the theory of family re-unification services was put forth by a Stanford professor many years ago and, when a study was commissioned a few years later, that study was done by the same professor -- and even he found the results inconclusive.

Yet children's well-being and even lives are still being gambled on an unsubstantiated notion.

It speaks volumes about the level of official irresponsibility that the authorities did not even try to get an objective evaluation of a policy with such profound consequences. Perhaps they feared what an objective evaluation might turn up.

Why such loyalty to an unsubstantiated theory?

That theory -- that faith -- enables judges and social workers to "do something" when confronted with tough and tragic family situations. Then, like Pontius Pilate, they can wash their hands -- and perhaps even look at themselves in the mirror.

The sad fact is that so much of what is called "expertise" is little more than political cover protecting decision-makers from accountability for their own actions. Whether in a social welfare agency, a university or a corporation, you can always say that you followed the advice of experts, in order to get yourself off the hook when things go wrong.

The tragic irony in the "family re-unification" gamble is that so many American families are so anxious to adopt children that they are going overseas to get them, in order to avoid the bureaucratic ordeals created by social welfare agencies here.

An agency called Children and Family Services has to provide services in order to justify its existence, regardless of whether those service are effective, ineffective or counterproductive. By maintaining "confidentiality," ostensibly to protect the privacy of children and families, the agency can insulate itself from public scrutiny and criticism.

What all this means is that everyone is protected -- except the children. The County Counsel's office in San Mateo has asked that the policy of holding court proceedings behind closed doors in child welfare cases be changed. The time is long overdue to let some light and some fresh air into these proceedings. It might even save some child's life.



Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.

http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=tso

[THEpouty1]

The stupidity of some people amazes me. Don't mean to sound mean, but I couldn't imagine... It makes me so sad :(

[BabyDolla]

Welcome to our society and how crappy and selfish it has become. You don't want a baby, keep your legs shut. Take birth control. get your tubes cut, burned, tied, rip them out!! Whatever, but don't take these innocent babies and make their life hell or end it. Why the baby died we don't know yet. However, there is no reason for the condition of the room or children. There is really no excuse, there are many programs out there to help.
This makes me so mad.

(Not saying she didn't want the children. Just my way of venting some.)