9 charged in death of disabled Philly teen

[dv8grl]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080801/ap_on_re_us/starvation_death_charges;_ylt=AnqKInrAD9Z195DNokx6 9H2s0NUE

PHILADELPHIA - Four social workers were among nine people charged Thursday in the death of a disabled 14-year-old girl who authorities say wasted away from neglect before dying at 42 pounds

Danieal Kelly's mother was charged with murder; counts against other defendants range from involuntary manslaughter to perjury. District Attorney Lynne Abraham said any of the nine could have foreseen the horrific fate of Danieal, whose emaciated body was found in her mother's squalid house covered with bone-deep, maggot-infested bedsores in August 2006.

Abraham had scathing words for the city's Department of Human Services, calling its handling of the case "callous, indifferent, unconscionable" — and all too familiar.

"Danieal did not fall through the cracks," she said. "It was a failure of institutional inclination. Saving Danieal was just too much trouble."

Two of the social workers are city employees; two others worked for a company hired by DHS. Department Commissioner Anne Marie Ambrose scheduled an afternoon news conference to discuss the case.

Warrants were issued for all nine defendants Thursday. Andrea Kelly, the mother of Danieal (pronounced "Danielle"), was charged with murder, and father Daniel Kelly, who did not live with the family, was charged with child endangerment.

A 258-page grand jury report recommending the charges said not only that Andrea Kelly refused to get her daughter food, water and medical treatment, but that she repeatedly prevented one of her other children from calling an ambulance "for his obviously dying sister."

A listing for Andrea Kelly's attorney, Vincent Giusini, rang unanswered Thursday. It was not immediately clear if Daniel Kelly, 37, of Darby, had an attorney; two phone numbers listed in his name were disconnected.

Two employees of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health, a now-defunct company that DHS hired to provide social services to Danieal, falsified documents to cover up the fact they rarely, if ever, checked on her, the grand jury said.

Julius Murray and Mickal Kamuvaka were charged with involuntary manslaughter and tampering with public records.

An e-mail sent to Kamuvaka was not immediately returned. Contact information for Murray could not immediately be located.

Murray's "fraudulent nonperformance of a job" — he seldom went to the Kelly house, which he was supposed to visit twice a week — allowed Andrea Kelly to starve her daughter over a period of months, the grand jury said.

After Danieal's death, Kamuvaka directed Murray to fabricate and backdate reports on the family, grand jurors said.

DHS social worker Dana Poindexter was charged with child endangerment for what the grand jury said were his "less than meager" efforts to look into several reports over three years that Danieal, who had cerebral palsy, was not receiving medical care, social services or schooling.

"He did not complete a single investigation or risk assessment," the report said. "Indeed, his file on the family was buried at the bottom of a filing-cabinet-sized box, beneath food wrappers and unopened envelopes relating to other children's cases."

A message left for Poindexter's attorney was not immediately returned Thursday.

Another DHS employee, Laura Sommerer, faces a child endangerment charge. As Danieal's social worker for 10 months, she didn't notice Danieal's deterioration, even after a visit June 29, 2006 — about five weeks before the teen died.

"The children appeared safe and comfortable in the home," Sommerer wrote in a report, according to grand jurors.

Sommerer's attorney, Lisa Dykstra, declined to comment Thursday.

Also charged were Andrea Miles, Marie Moses and Diamond Brantley, all of Philadelphia, who were friends with Andrea Kelly. The report accuses them of perjury for telling grand jurors that Danieal had been fine on Aug. 3, 2006, the day before her festering corpse was taken from the house.

It was not immediately clear if they had attorneys. A message left for Moses was not immediately returned; phone numbers could not found for Miles and Brantley.

The report should "outrage the entire Philadelphia community" and bring about "earth-shattering, cataclysmic changes" at the Department of Human Services, Abraham said.

Abraham said that although at least 55 children have died under the agency's watch, it has given only "lip service to halfhearted corrective action."

"You can't continue to bury these children and say things are getting better when they're not," she said.

[PrincessArky]

I hope they nail them to the wall

[cabby92]

They're not alone. We have to fight to get our kids seen by anyone. The first time we got kids we got a family of four and a single all in one night. No one checked on those kids for over two weeks. Brand new foster parents with five kids. We could have been doing anything to those kids and no one would have known.

Honestly, the systems disgusts me. After five+ years of fostering I get more disheartened each time.

[Jenefer3]

That is so sad, that poor child. I hope the other child(ren) in the house is/are doing better than she was.

[jbbarn]

This is disgusting! DHS is pretty much worthless across the board!



"Two employees of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health, a now-defunct company that DHS hired to provide social services to Danieal, falsified documents to cover up the fact they rarely, if ever, checked on her, the grand jury said."

Who the Hell are these people? Obviously some cute pc garbage!
This story makes me sick to my stomach!

[jbbarn]

They're not alone. We have to fight to get our kids seen by anyone. The first time we got kids we got a family of four and a single all in one night. No one checked on those kids for over two weeks. Brand new foster parents with five kids. We could have been doing anything to those kids and no one would have known.

Honestly, the systems disgusts me. After five+ years of fostering I get more disheartened each time.

cabby92,I have some close friends who foster.It is unbelievable what they(and the kids) go through! Nobody can convince me that a big,fat over-blown bureaucracy cares about "the children!" They just want to keep their jobs!They make it very painful for those like you who try to help these poor kids. Hats off to you!

[Jolie Rouge]

Starved, disabled girl was failed at every turn
By KATHY MATHESON, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 1 minute ago

PHILADELPHIA - For days before Danieal Kelly died in a fetid, airless room — made stifling hot by a midsummer heat wave — the bedridden teenager begged for something to drink until she could muster only one word: water. Unable to help herself because of her cerebral palsy, she wasted away from malnutrition and maggot-infested bedsores that ate her flesh.

She died alone on a putrid mattress in her mother's home, the floor covered in feces. She was 14 but weighed just 42 pounds.

The nightmare of forced starvation and infection that killed Danieal while she was under the protection of the city's human services agency is documented in a 258-page grand jury report released this week that charges nine people — her parents, four social workers and three family friends — in her ghastly death.

The report describes a mother, Andrea Kelly, who was embarrassed by her disabled daughter and didn't want to touch her, take her out in public, change her diapers or make sure she had enough fluids. It portrays Daniel Kelly, the father who once had custody of Danieal, as having no interest in raising them.

And it accuses the city Department of Human Services of being "uncaring and incompetent."

"It was this indifference that helped kill Danieal Kelly," an angry District Attorney Lynne Abraham said. "How is it possible for this to have happened?"

The report should "outrage the entire Philadelphia community" and bring about "earth-shattering, cataclysmic changes" at the Department of Human Services, Abraham said.

Andrea Kelly, 39, the only defendant charged with murder, was ordered held Friday without bail. The social workers — suspected of falsifying home visits and progress reports in the case — face charges ranging from child endangerment to involuntary manslaughter. The family friends are accused of lying to the grand jury about the girl's condition before her death.

None of the lawyers for any of the defendants had any immediate comment.

Human Services commissioner Anne Marie Ambrose, in office only a month, said Thursday that she is intent on improving child safety and worker accountability in an agency that has repeatedly been accused of failing to protect children.

The report on Danieal's death in August 2006 documents a downward spiral from the early years that she spent in Arizona with her father and his girlfriend.

Though Danieal attended special-needs classes only sporadically, a school report described her as an active learner and "one of the sweetest students ever enrolled in this program." But allegations of parental neglect soon surfaced, and following Daniel Kelly's breakup with his girlfriend in 2001, Danieal never again attended school.

Daniel Kelly and his children moved to Philadelphia in 2003. He eventually asked his estranged wife to move in, even though she had several other children and he knew she was incapable of caring for Danieal, authorities say. He then moved out. "Daniel Kelly was well aware what deserting his daughter meant to her safety and welfare," the grand jury report said. "He just did not care."

The Department of Human Services received at least five reports of Danieal being mistreated between 2003 and 2005. All described a "helpless child sitting unattended, unkempt and unwashed, in a small stroller in her own urine and feces," her screams ignored by her mother, the grand jury report said. The stroller, which served as a wheelchair, apparently never left the house.

Agency employee Dana Poindexter, assigned to investigate, also ignored Danieal, authorities say. Already having been suspended after a 3-week-old baby died on his watch in 2002, Poindexter continued his "slovenly, neglectful and dangerously reckless work habits" after being assigned the Kelly case, the grand jury said. He did not file a single report, authorities said.

The Kellys finally were assigned help from a private agency in 2005. Employee Julius Murray was required to visit the family twice a week, but authorities believe he may have come to the house only once — to have Andrea Kelly sign predated forms attesting to future visits.

The grand jury report said Laura Sommerer, a city social worker, failed to hold the now-defunct company accountable when, months later, Danieal still was not enrolled in school or receiving medical care.

And after Danieal died, authorities say, company director Mickal Kamuvaka held a "forgery fest" in her office where she had employees "concoct almost a year's worth of false progress reports."

But authorities say Andrea Kelly, whose other children are now in foster care, is primarily responsible for her daughter's death.

The report said she was confronted repeatedly by her own mother, uncle, friends and even two of her sons about Danieal's deteriorating health. She would lie or put them off by saying she would seek help, or banish them from the house, authorities say.

In the meantime, the report said, she entertained friends, attended classes and fed her other children. "This behavior indicates that Andrea Kelly did not merely allow Danieal to die," the report said. "She may have even wanted her disabled daughter to die."

When an ambulance responded to a 911 call for Danieal on Aug. 4, 2006, the girl had been dead for several hours. Authorities said she was so emaciated she looked like the victim of a concentration camp.

She had been lying on the filthy mattress for so long that her body outline was imprinted on it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080801/ap_on_re_us/starvation_death_charges;_ylt=Av5gcLtcGtHojhHY00_G 0Qys0NUE

[jbbarn]

The State makes a great nanny! Thank God we have them to raise our kids for us.
Poor little thing.May she rest in peace.It's a good thing I'm not God!

[4diego]

What can you even say? I wouldn't treat my worst enemy that way, much less my own daughter. What's really sad is that the other children weren't allowed to help their own sister & had to watch her die. Think of how horribly messed up they will be now too. And to think that at one point she was in classes, etc... she probably wondered why she was being punished like that. 14 years of misery & no one caring or loving you. The whole story is horrible.

[ilovecats]

This is so sickening that it seems more like a horror movie than anything that could have really happened.How could all those people do nothing??Even the relatives couldn't do anything?I don't understand what is wrong with people.

[jbbarn]

This is so sickening that it seems more like a horror movie than anything that could have really happened.How could all those people do nothing??Even the relatives couldn't do anything?I don't understand what is wrong with people.

Yeah,I don't get that either! Not even her Mother thought she should do anything????? If that was my Granddaughter,I would have called the cops,not DHS,and had my daughter locked up...a long time ago!

[dv8grl]

The mother wanted nothing to do with the daughter., but I'm sure cashed her checks without hesitation.
I pray for that little girl.

[dv8grl]

Pa. social workers charged after starvation death

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090501/ap_on_re_us/us_starvation_death_charges;_ylt=Au_s0ANF_2QpAd04n GgOXx1G2ocA

PHILADELPHIA – By all accounts, there is blame to go around for the 2006 starvation death of disabled teenager Danieal Kelly.

Her mother pleaded guilty to murder this week for criminally neglecting the once-vivacious girl. Her case worker and a supervisor are charged with involuntary manslaughter for alleged "ghost visits" to the family's squalid home.

On Friday, federal prosecutors took aim at their entire company, MultiEthnic Behavioral Services, which had a $1 million-a-year contract with the city to provide in-home services to needy families.

"At some point, they realized they could get paid for doing nothing," U.S. Attorney Laurie Magid said at a news conference.

Magid's office charged four company founders and four social workers of the now-defunct firm with fraud, and a ninth with perjury before a grand jury.

Company owners furiously forged documents before routine audits and in the panic that followed Danieal's death, the federal indictment charges. Worried supervisors tried to destroy computer evidence and client files, prosecutors said.

FBI agent Janice Fedarcyk called it "almost inconceivable" that the defendants would further risk the lives of needy children just to enrich themselves.

The defendants, including case worker Julius Murray and company co-founder Michal Kamuvaka, were expected to make initial appearances Friday afternoon in federal court.

Murray's lawyer recently said he insists he made the visits, a claim that Ed McCann, chief prosecutor in the city's homicide unit, calls "ludicrous."

Danieal, who used a wheelchair because of cerebral palsy, appeared chubby-cheeked and joyous in photos taken on school outings in Arizona, where she lived with her father and stepmother.

But after the couple split, Daniel Kelly returned with Danieal to Philadelphia and abandoned her at the chaotic home of her unfit mother, who eventually had nine children living there, a city grand jury found. The father was charged last year with child endangerment.

At her plea this week, Andrea Kelly said she wished she "could have done more to save" her daughter. She denied her food, water or medical care, even when her distressed son tried to intervene.

District Attorney Lynne Abraham called the girl's death slow and torturous.

Family members had long sounded alarms about Danieal's demise to Andrea Kelly.

Red flags were likewise raised about MultiEthnic.

The company was formed specifically to bid on the city contract — though prosecutors said one founder had a criminal record — and took in $3.7 million from 2003 to 2006, when it dissolved in the wake of Danieal's death. It had frequent staff turnover and sometimes relied on student interns to make the visits, McCann said.

As early as 2003, clients told the Department of Human Services that the visits weren't always made, McCann said. The DHS commissioner knew about the complaints. Yet the yearly contract kept getting renewed.

"It's not just MultiEthnic's fault. It's DHS' fault, too, for not doing what they were expected to do," Abraham said Friday.

The city's top two commissioners were ousted after Danieal's death, and the department is now being revamped under new leadership, she said. Authorities considered criminal charges against DHS officials but could not make a case for them, she said Friday. Two former city social workers are charged in state court with child endangerment.

Andrea Kelly, 38, was sentenced after her plea to 20 to 40 years in prison.

The MultiEthnic founders — Kamuvaka, 60; Solomon Manamela, 51; Earle McNeill, 69; and Manuelita Buenaflor, 65, all of Philadelphia — face about six to eight years in prison if convicted, and Murray and the other four employees about three to five years.

[gmyers]

If theres any justice when that so-called mom gets old someone will treat her the same way she treated her daughter. And all the others too.

[Njean31]

my heart breaks for that poor child. i do not understand how the mother could stand to open her mouth, insert food, swallow, and go to sleep at night knowing that her child was starving.

[Jolie Rouge]

At her plea this week, Andrea Kelly said she wished she "could have done more to save" her daughter. She denied her food, water or medical care, even when her distressed son tried to intervene.

"Wished she could have done more to save her" ? WTH ?? Like food, water, proper care ? Stupid, lazy, selfish, ignorant bi-otch .... put her in gen pop with the other inmates having full knowledge of her action...


Thank you dv8girl for this update... I know Danielle is in a better place now ... but it is such a tragic story.

[PrincessArky]

As early as 2003, clients told the Department of Human Services that the visits weren't always made, McCann said. The DHS commissioner knew about the complaints. Yet the yearly contract kept getting renewed.


so is the commissioner being charged with anything?

[gmyers]

I don't understand some of the people that work there. Don't they know that when they are lazy and don't do their job that a childs life is at stake. Its not like workng at a regular job where you can slack off. Its a matter of life and death. You would think the people that work there would actually care about children or why would they even work there.They use the excuse they're over worked but they have to realize that some child can be seriously harmed or killed. Where is their consciences? If I did that it would haunt me the rest of my life. Even if I had done everything I could for a child and they still died it would haunt me. Some of these people that work there are cold hearted .

[buglebe]

My curiosity is about how much time they spent lazing around and if they were actually overworked. I have had friends who were social workers who said they had to skimp on visits making them 5 min instead of 30. None of them ever admitted to falsifing records and I don't think they would. As a nurse I know there were many times when I felt I short changed patients because of the time factor. It's hard to believe people would study to get a degree in social work and then not do the work just because they didn't want to . Why wasn't she removed from the home when the first problems were seen and why on earth didn't the other family members do anything and I don't know how old the brothers were but surely they weren't prisoners in the home and this didn't happen over night. It's just disgusting to even know there are people like this on the earth.

[gmyers]

I agree. Every time I read something like this I wonder why didn't the other family members do anything. The grandparents, father, aunts, uncles, siblings. Somebody could have helped her. Why didn't they.

[dv8grl]

Most Americans today have absolutely no work ethic.

[tsquared]

Most Americans today have absolutely no work ethic.

But they sure want that check like clockwork!!!!!!!!!

[dv8grl]

But they sure want that check like clockwork!!!!!!!!!

...and do as little as possible to recieve it!

[dv8grl]

Case worker for starved Pa. teenager gets 11 years

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100611/ap_on_re_us/us_starvation_death_charges;_ylt=Av5tj0jVXaqwipVGe 6EjPC9G2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTMxNTJyMTJoBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwM TAwNjExL3VzX3N0YXJ2YXRpb25fZGVhdGhfY2hhcmdlcwRwb3M DNARzZWMDeW5fcGFnaW5hdGVfc3VtbWFyeV9saXN0BHNsawNjY XNld29ya2VyZm8-

PHILADELPHIA – The morals of social workers who routinely skipped home visits to Philadelphia's most troubled families, leading to a disabled girl's starvation death, reminded a federal judge Friday of the "banality of evil" seen in Europe during the Holocaust.

U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell sentenced the family's case worker and another employee of a social-services contractor to 11 years each for fraud and obstruction.

Witnesses this week called the pair and their seven convicted co-defendants — who include a former missionary nun and doctoral-level social worker — good people for whom the charges are anomalies.

The comments reminded Dalzell of Nazi Party members who were kind to neighbors and dogs.

"'The banality of evil.' Isn't that what's going on here?" Dalzell asked, citing a phrase coined by political theorist Hannah Arendt. Arendt, a German Jew, argued that the great evils in human history are committed not by psychopaths, but by ordinary people who accept the status quo.

Dalzell presided over a harrowing five-week trial this year that laboriously detailed the slow, painful demise of 14-year-old Danieal Kelly. She had cerebral palsy but had once thrived in the care of her father and his attentive girlfriend in Phoenix. A photograph from that era taken on a class trip shows a bright-eyed girl in pigtails grinning broadly for the camera.

But when his relationship failed, Daniel Kelly left Danieal with her unfit mother in Philadelphia, who was raising eight children in a squalid two-bedroom home.

By the time Danieal died in August 2006, starved and dehydrated, she weighed 42 pounds and had maggots crawling in her deep bedsores. She had not been to school or seen a doctor in the previous 10 months, despite being on the city's radar.

The city was paying a startup firm called MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc. $1 million a year to focus on its neediest social-work cases.

But the politically connected firm — led by experienced, Ph.D.-level social worker Michal Kamuvaka — frequently skipped home visits, assigned student interns to the Kellys and other complex cases, and furiously forged documents to try to cover their tracks after Danieal died.

"'Dr. K' had a dozen people who just think she's a saint. But we know just the contrary. We heard it over five weeks," Dalzell said Friday. A day earlier, he had sentenced the 61-year-old Kamuvaka to 17 1/2 years in prison, despite pleas from friends and proteges.

Case worker Julius Juma Murray, 52, of Upper Darby, was supposed to be the final safety net for the long list of people who failed Danieal. But Murray — hired despite his lack of social work training — skipped visits as Danieal wasted away.

Andrea Kelly is serving 10 to 20 years for third-degree murder, and Daniel Kelly is charged with endangerment for allegedly abandoning her.

In all, nine MultiEthnic workers were convicted in the case, including case worker Mariam Coulibaly, sentenced Friday to 135 months. Coulibaly, 41, a mother of three from Brookhaven, had no role in Danieal's death but helped forge documents, lied to the FBI and hid $50,000 after the verdict to shield it from the court-ordered restitution.

[gmyers]

I believe the case workers should be charged because they're the only hope when a child is being seriously abused and if they don't do their job what hope does the child have. They're as guilty as the people abusing the child.

[Jolie Rouge]

U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell sentenced the family's case worker and another employee of a social-services contractor to 11 years each for fraud and obstruction.

:clapping: :clapping:


Witnesses this week called the pair and their seven convicted co-defendants — who include a former missionary nun and doctoral-level social worker — good people for whom the charges are anomalies.

They put on a good face for those who "deserved" it. Character is identified in two ways : what you do when no one is watching; how you treat people who are in no position to help you or in a "inferior" position.