Dana Poindexter Failed Danieal Kelly
August 4, 2008 by Lizard
Danieal Kelly
Philadelphia, PA – Three months premature, Danieal Kelly weighed only 1 pound, 4 ounces at birth in January 1992. She was a miracle baby. She should have led a miraculous life. Instead, she lived and died in a nightmare.Â
When paramedics were called to the Philadelphia home that 14-year-old Danieal shared with her mother and siblings two years ago today (August 4, 2006), they found her fly-covered withered body on a filthy mattress amidst her own shit. At death, she weighed 42 pounds and was covered with maggot-infested bedsores, at least one so deep it went to the bone. A doctor later reported that the bone itself had gone soft from infection. When relieved of its slight burden, the mattress retained the shape of her body.
While Danieal had cerebral palsy, which impaired her physical and intellectual development, that’s not why she died. She died because her mother stopped giving her enough to eat. She died because her father left her with a woman who had already proven she couldn’t–or wouldn’t–provide her daughter with the care she needed. She died because other family members and friends of the family didn’t step in and help her. She died because people working in the system set up to protect children like her were lazy, and greedy, and selfish, and disinterested. Danieal’s death was the result of so many failures at so many decision points by so many people that I almost can’t get my head around it.
Thursday, a grand jury released a 250+ page report (warning: graphic) on Danieal’s life and death. Based on the grand jury’s recommendations, nine people are being charged in the case, eight of whom are described below:
- Mother Andrea Kelly, 39 (charged with murder). This is the woman who gave birth to Danieal (and, as of October 2006, 9 other children) but didn’t like touching her and was embarrassed to be seen in public with her. This is the woman who lied to people about her daughter’s condition while she starved to death in her own feces and refused her son’s pleas to call 911 in the hours before she died.
- Father Daniel Kelly, 37 (endangering the welfare of children). At the time of Danieal’s death, he blamed both the child’s mother and social service agencies for her death. “It’s a lot of finger-pointing between her and them,” he said. “This happened over a long period of time. Obviously, somebody didn’t care.” Obviously, the grand jury thought he was among those who didn’t care.
- Mother’s friend Andrea Miles, 18 (perjury). She lied to the grand jury under oath. In fact, she claimed to have witnessed Danieal being bathed by her mother on August 3rd. When asked about the condition of the child’s back, she said, “Like her back, like my back. It looked like a back. It didn’t have no sores, nothing. Her back was clear.â€
- Mother’s friend Marie Moses, 34 (perjury). Also lied to the grand jury under oath.
- Mother’s friend Diamond Brantley, 22 (perjury). Also lied to the grand jury under oath. She said on August 3, Danieal “smelled like soap and powder and stuff” and “had some meat on her bones.” Maggots don’t count as “meat,” you cunt.
- Caseworker for the now defunct MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Julius Murray, 51 (involuntary manslaughter). He was paid to visit the Kelly family twice weekly. He visited perhaps only once in the months before Danieal’s death–to have Andrea Kelly sign future-dated service forms–and there is no evidence he ever met Danieal.
- MultiEthnic cofounder and Murray’s supervisor Mickal Kamuvaka, 59 (involuntary manslaughter). Not only did she fail to ensure that her subordinate was doing the job he was paid to do, but the day Danieal died, she convened a “forgery fest” at MultiEthnic to cover up the agency’s repeated failures. Yeah, fuck the dead girl, let’s do what we can to make sure we get another $3.5 million from the taxpayers.
- Philadelphia Department of Human Services (DHS) worker Laura Sommerer, 33 (child endangerment, reckless endangerment). Sommerer’s job was to supervise the agencies that provide direct services to DHS clients: meaning, to make sure MultiEthnic provided services to Danieal. Ten months after Sommerer was assigned the case, Danieal was dead and not a single one of the goals that had been set regarding her had been met. Sommerer also visited the home in late June, yet did not even walk into the room in which Danieal lay to check on her.
Pick the person you’ve read about on the Dreamin’ Demon who has filled you with the most revulsion and disgust–each of these eight is at least equally worthy of your scorn. A separate–and long!–post could be written for each of them detailing how what they did or didn’t do paved the way to Danieal’s death, and each one of them would contribute to the development or worsening of your gastroesophageal reflux disease. However, I want to spend time on a particular player in this tragic game. Like Murray, Kamavuka, and Sommerer, he was paid money to ensure that Danieal stayed safe. And like them, he failed Danieal miserably.
Meet Dana Poindexter (code name “Captain Sloth”). Poindexter has been at DHS 16 years. As a DHS intake worker, his job is to decide–within 60 days–whether a hotline report is substantiated and whether the child in question needs services. Apparently, Dana Poindexter couldn’t decide in 60 days whether it’s his head or his ass that’s attached to his neck.
Poindexter received a report in October 2002 about Andrea Kelly’s children living in a house with no gas, no water, no working toilets, and a collapsed roof. All he had to do was determine, by December 8, 2002, that the Kelly family needed services or that the children were not at risk. However, he did nothing. And this was crucial for Danieal, because whenever a case is not properly closed by the intake unit, any subsequent reports will go to the worker with the unclosed case: in this case, Dana Poindexter. Danieal’s family was hotlined four more times between October 2002 and April 2005. All four reports landed on the desk of Dana Poindexter. And every single time, he did nothing. NOTHING. According to the grand jury’s report, he “failed to complete a single investigative report, progress note, risk assessment, or any other document required by DHS.” It wasn’t until a September 2005 hotline call by a neighbor who didn’t provide the family’s name that Danieal got the attention of a different intake worker…one who immediately recognized that the family needed DHS services. I bet you’re asking yourself, “So, what the hell has this guy been doing while he’s on the clock?” Perhaps Andrea Kelly’s sister could tell us. According to her, “The man don’t do nothing but try to talk to women.”
In April 2007, a detective with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office searched Poindexter’s work area. In his cubicle, she found a cardboard box large enough to hold a file cabinet. It was filled to the top with case files, food wrappers, and unopened mail (some four years old). At the bottom of the box was the Kelly family file.
Sadly, Danieal Kelly was not the first child who suffered from Poindexter’s unwillingness to even spit in the direction of performing his job duties. He was assigned a case in September 2002 but never made the required home visit. In December of that year, DHS was notified that a three-week-old baby born to a 14-year-old in the home had died. He subsequently was suspended for 10 days and warned to improve…but he never did. Over the coming years, he was suspended again. And again. And, with the release of the grand jury’s report, yet again. But Dana Poindexter is at this moment still an employee of the Philadelphia Department of Human Services.
And yes, of course, the story becomes even worse when you consider that Poindexter’s immediate supervisor Janice Walker referred to his paperwork as “horrendous” yet gave him satisfactory and even superior ratings on his evaluations. Not enough for you? Janice Walker’s immediate supervisor Martha Poller falsified DHS records to conceal Poindexter’s nonperformance. Poller subsequently was promoted…to oversee child fatality reviews.
Current DHS Commissioner Anne Marie Ambrose said the department was finalizing plans on how to investigate the roles of other employees named in the report but not charged and that those plans would be made public today.
~
“Safely home,” Danieal’s funeral program read.”I am home in heaven.” Damn, I hope so.
6:58 am on August 4th, 2008
Great article Lizard.
it feels great to see people held responsible…even if it is too late.
7:06 am on August 4th, 2008
Better late than never– at least those bastards won’t be available for encore performances.
Thank you Lizard for getting this onto the front page!
7:21 am on August 4th, 2008
Damn Lizard, I dont know what to say. You did great research by the way. Poor beautiful little girl. I guess we have our answer to the question we always ask in these cases: “Why wasn’t anything done by Department of Children before?” What went wrong here???? How can so many incompetent people work for one place? One very IMPORTANT place??? Most of us could never get our boss to give us a break, much less cover for us like this, what the fuck is going on here????? Is this what happens when you have so many government run agencies and programs? Are they so doomed to fail this miserably???
7:45 am on August 4th, 2008
I hope the mom fries. How could you not want to touch your own child, no matter what. This case makes me sick.
7:48 am on August 4th, 2008
Although very very graphic, I think we should all look at the picture on page 18 of the report. It might give us a glimpse, a sliver, of what this poor little girl went through.
8:53 am on August 4th, 2008
And this why when I picking a career and I wanted to become a social worker, all my sisters sat me down and convinced me not to. My oldest sister was like, “Tracey, you’d want to bring every child home with you and you’d end up in prison for murder”.
As they knew i’d never be able to leave a child like that, i’d probably kill the parents and everyone else that was to blame too. They told me my heart was too soft when it came to children.
I still regret that decision, but at least I can help by voluteering at at women and children shelters, but still, it’s not the same…..
God bless this girl, and yes I believe she is “home now”….
9:06 am on August 4th, 2008
I read the report and saw the pictures. I am disgusted and crying at my desk. HOW THE FUCK CAN THESE ASSHOLES LIVE WITH THEMSELVES? Not ONE person saw that she was in danger???? That corpose looks like a 3 week old corpse, not a “new” one. SHE WAS DECOMPOSING WHILE ALIVE!
I am completely disgusted.
9:32 am on August 4th, 2008
PeeperAnn, I know what you mean.. when I informed my husband I was going back to school, to become a social worker.. He was apprehensive… “Honey, you’ll kill someone!” to which I answered, “if I do, you’ll know they deserved it.”
This website and stories like this are motivation for me.. because it sure won’t be the paycheck.
I sure hope that the state prosecutors are on the ball with this — and that full justice is served.
9:42 am on August 4th, 2008
How totally fucking infuriating. My jaw dropped more and more as I read this. The magnitude of this clusterfuck of incompetence, neglect, and EVIL, is just staggering.
Poor Danieal. Not that it’s much consolation, really, but at least you are no longer in pain.
10:43 am on August 4th, 2008
Look at the language this woman uses. It’s like the “Dick and Jane” books I read when I was six. “Like her back. Like my back. It looked like a back.” This child’s whole social network seems to be of the lowest mental order.
We need to open up some old-fashioned orphanages and give up on this family-reunification junk. That little girl could have grown up safely and with care in a permanent living situation instead of being passed back and forth between ignorant parents who only wanted her check.
And as for MultEthnic Behavioral Health — the name screams scam. It reeks of “give me money for having a politically correct title.”
I lived in Philly many years and ran across many of the type in this story — people who care only for their personal comfort and profit and feel that life owes them an easy living.
And may God damn every one of them.
11:07 am on August 4th, 2008
There wasn’t room in the story to highlight the people who tried to do right by Danieal. There aren’t many of them, but they exist. Between 1997 and 2001, Danieal lived what was the closest thing she’d ever see to a “normal” life, thanks to his father’s live-in girlfriend at the time Kathleen John. She went to school, she got medical care, she got physical therapy…and she thrived. She spoke beautifully, sang beautifully, could feed herself, and could stand with the help of leg braces. All because Kathleen John sometimes found it in herself to get Danieal ready and to school, to the doctor, and to therapy.
SoUncool commented in the forums, and I agree–the barrettes in her hair will just kill you.
12:03 pm on August 4th, 2008
And that’s not enough — just can’t push these kids into their horrible personal world and hope that BabyDaddy will hook up with a decent woman. I am not niave enough to believe that an institution can substitute for a loving home, but at least it’s ONE place to visit and monitor instead 18 or 28 or 58 families’ constantly shifting locations. We need to realize that the old ways had their faults but were not all bad and perhaps could be made to work well — orphanages, long-term residential care for the mentally ill, work houses (which could be job training houses), and so forth instead of tossing frail people out into the world of predators and the uncaring.
I saw too many homeless die in Philadelphia to care much about their “right” to sign themselves out of treatment and into filth, drunken helplessness, and panhandling until they died on a grate in winter. It got to be two or three homeless panhandlers on every block. I did what I could, but it was nothing compared to what was needed — a place to live, a place that forced them to stop drinking and take their medications, a place that didn’t patch them up and toss them out.
Well, it must be soapbox day for me. Sorry.
12:18 pm on August 4th, 2008
I could hardly stand to read the entire report. The picture after death left me feeling ill and terribly sad for this innocent young child who suffered in such a heinous way.
As a mother I cannot even begin to understand how you just decide to let your child suffer. The mother most certainly deserves to die a slow, horrible death. I do believe all of these bastards will get their due 10X fold. Hell is waiting and till then, just maybe, they’ll get some of it her on earth in the filthy little cells they will call home.
Rest in peace sweet Danieal
12:25 pm on August 4th, 2008
What gets me, especially after reading the report, is that if these people had done their jobs, it DOES work. I am shocked to hear that these social services people aren’t as overworked as they want people to think. Like the report states, they are just the decision makers. They only have 18 families per caseworker, and 5 caseworkers per supervisor. According to this, they are well staffed and damn well funded. It makes me angry that I work my ass off, and pay up the ass in taxes, so that these sloths than get my paycheck for doing NOTHING. Think of all the stories we hear about Department of Children failing a child, and we are quick to brush it off as people who are overworked and can’t attend to everyone. It is obviously a farse. Why isn’t anyone doing anything??? How can these people get away with this??????
12:29 pm on August 4th, 2008
I can’t imagine how much pain this little girl was in. I too, had a real hard time reading the report. And the audacity of the mother to ask if she is okay–so sad
12:42 pm on August 4th, 2008
Me too, PeeperAnn! My mom told me the same thing during my college orientation, “Honey, you can’t cry everytime you see the news and be a Social Worker.” Well, I was young then, I’d rather kick their stupid asses now, than shed a tear!!!
12:50 pm on August 4th, 2008
Although I hate to read stories like this, this little girl is a martyr, bravely suffering through unimaginable hell with the result of blowing the fucking TOP off these social “services” that often act like no more than leeches, sucking off the generous funding provided to them by tax payers.
In every jurisdiction across the country, 3rd party audits should be conducted every quarter, at the very least. I don’t care how much it costs, and I’m a fucking libertarian. How much MORE does it cost when the city, county, state gets sued for failing these children?
I hope all these people are found guilty and sentenced to the full extent of the law. I only wish that the mother’s friends had been charged with something more significant than perjury.
It’s absolutely disgusting to see how wide this puddle of depravity spread. I hope these people lose everything that was ever dear to them.
1:08 pm on August 4th, 2008
OMG! It looks like her flesh was stuck to the mattress.
1:31 pm on August 4th, 2008
Given my experience working for a government agency this whole story doesn’t surprise me one bit. Government entities are set up for failure because the are not run like private enterprises. By private enterprise I mean subject to termination as consequence for incompetence or laziness. Once you make your probation in a gov’t agency you could (just short of) kill someone and keep your job. Unions have set contracts in place that make it impossible to terminate someone without a lengthy costly process. Therefore, if you look at the workforce in public services (i.e. Dana fuckin retard poindexter and his supervisors) you will see that they are just system riding scum collecting a paycheck.
****NOTE *** Not to piss of any public servants*** I know some good hard working people but they are FEW and far between.
If the Gov’t services were run sans union and more like a private firm that forces you to do your job or hit the bricks, this kind of situation could be avoided.
2:02 pm on August 4th, 2008
Yeah, I’d like to have a conversation with this guy:
What about the work they don’t do, Mr. Boles? Should they go to jail for that?
2:34 pm on August 4th, 2008
Thanks for front-paging this Liz. I had posted her case over in the forums. Danieal deserves for everyone to know that the bastards that failed her are being punished. Rest in peace sweet thing.
2:43 pm on August 4th, 2008
Who is this fucking asshole? Get rid of him, NOW! Get rid of every single fucking moron in control of these agencies, NOW. I don’t care how democratic of a country we say we are, I feel powerless when it comes to things like this. No matter what elected official you get, the same shit does or doesn’t get done. And this is supposed to be by the people, for the people???????
2:44 pm on August 4th, 2008
Hi everyone, I got lost in the “newbie vortex” of the original Caylee Anthony thread for a while, but I found my way out and hopefully I’m here to stay!
This case makes me fucking sick. It’s as if all of DHS was staffed by Casey Anthonys. Uncaring, selfish, greedy, duplicitous, cunty Casey Anthonys. Have you all seen that movie Being John Malkovich? All I can imagine is a DHS office filled with hundreds of Casey Anthonys all saying “Anthony? Anthony!” I hope you all have seen that movie, otherwise this would make absolutely no sense to you. And maybe I’ve just read waaayyy too much on the Caylee Anthony case!
I agree with Solange…I am so tired of the stock excuse that is always thrown out for every incompetent social worker the world over — “But they are so overworked!” No, I’m sorry, that doesn’t fly. Not only are they often NOT overworked (as with this case), but it would seem that anyone “compassionate” enough to become a social worker could pinpoint the really dire cases like that of Danieal Kelly and take some goddamned action.
What I want to know is, what exactly WAS mouth-breathing, self-centered idiot extraordinaire Dana Pointdexter doing while he sat in his cubicle? Alternating disposing of pesky case files and eating McDonald’s cheeseburgers?
And most infuriating of all IMO? If any of these so-called supervisors and administrators had put a FRACTION of the energy they put into covering up their own incompetence and negligence into actually doing their jobs in the first damn place, Danieal would still be alive!
Sometimes the only way I can deal with shit like this is imagining taking these people’s heads and repeatedly bashing them into a brick wall until it is a bloody pulp. However, I make an exception for Danieal’s “mother.” For her I’d use a hammer–the claw end to rip her entire face off in one fell swoop, and then get to work with some hydrochloric acid. My husband is a chemist, what do you all say? He can hook us up.
2:57 pm on August 4th, 2008
I just went to a doctor’s appointment a couple of hours ago, and while I was driving, listening to music, the sun shining, I started crying, because I was thinking all these years that the rest of us were living our lives, Danieal was dying and suffering, all alone, in a dark hot room. I admit reading all these stories affect me, but this is the only one that has made me actually cry as I thought about it later in the day. It’s not fair, it’s just not fair
3:07 pm on August 4th, 2008
I’m totally with you, Solange. I started this story and aborted it, because I didn’t think I could write it without it being way too long. I thought maybe someone else should try to tackle it it. But I couldn’t stop thinking about her, about her potential, about her few short years of getting at least some of what she needed, and about her completely senseless suffering. There’s so many people I just want to stomp to death. [insert scream of frustration and grief]
3:28 pm on August 4th, 2008
I’m so glad you wrote it. I had NO idea that any of this had gone on until I read this. I am shocked that this hasn’t got nationwide attention. Unless it has and I missed it.
3:49 pm on August 4th, 2008
Solange, I keep thinking that same thing. And what’s even sadder is there are children suffering like that somewhere in this world right now too. Just heart breaking and devastating. I don’t know how any of these people can live with themselves.
I haven’t worked up the courage to read the full report yet. I guess I am a little too scared of what I’ll see and read. The lack of compassion from all angles in this case is just overwhelming and makes me sick to my stomach.
3:58 pm on August 4th, 2008
DHS has suspended 7 more employees: Pamela Mayo, Children and Youth Division Operations Director; Wesley Brown, a social service program director; Janice Walker, a supervisor; Martha Poller; Shawn Davis, a supervisor; Ingrid Hawke, a social work supervisor, and Valerie Mond, a supervisor.
4:07 pm on August 4th, 2008
Lizard, any chance of us getting some mugshots of these wastes of space? Especially the mother and father.
4:20 pm on August 4th, 2008
Veronica, mugshots of most of them are in the forum coverage of this case: http://www.dreamindemon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6777
4:20 pm on August 4th, 2008
Please, please read the report. I think every single person should read that report. This is the ending:
Otherwise, it is only a matter of time before the next such tragedy occurs.
Next time, as before, photographs of a child full of life and promise and hope will present a stark contrast with the gruesome photographs from the city morgue. Next time, as before, a cast of characters will offer excuses for unconscionable neglect and unspeakable mistreatment. Next time, as before, investigations will be mounted, reports prepared, and reforms promised, and the public outcry will then recede until the next death occurs.
All this will happen, with virtual certainty, unless the story of a disabled 14-year-old who perished alone of starvation and neglect in a filthy bedroom in West Philadelphia does more than shock the community’s conscience, unless it also provokes sufficient determination to enforce from now on a simple pledge: no more deaths like Danieal’s. No more.
4:24 pm on August 4th, 2008
Here is an excerpt from the report about Danieal from one of her former teachers:
Ms. Levin said that when she first met Danieal, she “fell in love:â€
“She was a really nicely put together little gal. Her hair was always combed nicely and she wore cute little dresses and she had a huge smile. And she loved music and she loved to sing. She didn’t generate a lot of spontaneous conversation, but she was very articulate when she did speak. She had beautiful language. And . . . put on a record or a CD or a tape and she was there; she’d sing every single word. And she actually had a beautiful voice. One of the music teachers who was always impressed with her actually said something in regards that she had almost perfect pitch. . . .
“Some of the children who come into the program have a certain affect, you know. How it is that they look and sound might seem a little bit kind of hollow, kind of vacant, like you’re never really sure if they’re getting it. It’s difficult for them to express their emotions. Or they just might be very negative and resistive about things, depending on what their symptoms are. Danieal was always eager to learn, always. She was always smiling. Never one time, never one time did she ever say, I can’t do this, ever.”
4:27 pm on August 4th, 2008
Yes, a system will work if the people in it do their part. This system seems to have been riddled with slothful check-takers who were waiting for their fat retirement benefits.
I think it would be easier to monitor the potential sloth-workers at a few orphanages. And, yes, once someone has gov’t work, they are set for life in many cases. Just sit there and wait for retirement.
4:32 pm on August 4th, 2008
Lizard, why suspended ? Are they working on getting all these people fired?
4:38 pm on August 4th, 2008
I think part of the problem might also be illustrated in some of the comments above. Those who care about kids can’t take those jobs, because they know what would result for them emotionally. The only people that are able to handle these jobs are those who really don’t give a fuck. You have someone who doesn’t have a compassionate bone in their body, and couple that with no oversight or consequences for failure, and this is what you get. A beautiful little girl, dead.
4:39 pm on August 4th, 2008
I fucking hope so. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the report came at the perfect time–DHS has a brand-new commissioner. Anne Marie Ambrose has been at her position for just over a month. I hope she’s up to doing what needs to be done. A pretty good article on her came out today: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/26233229.html
4:45 pm on August 4th, 2008
I don’t know about that, Solange. Caring and being able to handle it are not mutually exclusive. I’ve known a lot of very passionate DHS workers, just as I’ve known passionate homicide detectives, etc.
But, you’re likely mostly right in that most of the people who fill those spots happen to not care. Most people, no matter what field they’re in, aren’t passionate about their work. It’s especially dangerous, though, when people’s lives depend on that work.
5:15 pm on August 4th, 2008
“suspended” Is the typical word used to give the impression that something will be done about it! The are probably “suspended” with pay or like I call it “taxpayer sponsored vacation”. You will see that nothing will be done–> except maybe to the ones that are going to prison. They can’t have the union fight for their job when they are in prison.
I guarantee you that when this blows over in a couple months, you could call over there and speak to any of the folks listed above. I also guarantee you that they won’t hold a conversation with you above 5th grade level.
Mark my words… Sad but true : (
5:19 pm on August 4th, 2008
Jesus, this is absolutely heartbreaking Solange! This just makes it even more clear that even as she deteriorated and lost her ability to communicate, in her mind she was wondering why her own mother was doing this to her and probably realizing she was slowly dying. In a way I’m glad she didn’t know there were so many other people involved who also didn’t give a shit.
I checked out the mugshots on the forum and almost vomited all over my computer screen. I hope every last one of those people never experiences another moment of pleasure in their entire worthless lives. Better yet, the whole lot of 9 will just drop dead immediately. Except for the “mother,” like I said before, claw hammer to rip her entire face off, followed by hydrochloric acid. Something about this bitch is inspiring me to get really creative. Who’s with me?
5:27 pm on August 4th, 2008
I’ll admit, you mentioned your husband, so I thought of mine, as he is researching invasive Asian carps. These fish grow very quickly and can get up to 100 pounds. I was thinking about using one as a blunt instrument or jamming it in some bodily orifice.
6:10 pm on August 4th, 2008
I hope this story gets major national press coverage soon. Like Solange said, this is something everyone should be aware of!!! Unfortunately, this is not just a problem in Philadelphia. So sickened by this.
6:46 pm on August 4th, 2008
I’m a 49 year old, 6 foot, 290 pond guy with a shaved head and the old devil beard/mustache deal. I’ve got a couple of tattoos and piercings. Most people say I look pretty scary.
And right now I’m crying……
Damn
7:12 pm on August 4th, 2008
So I sat here and opened up the pdf. I read and I read, and I stopped reading when I came across the picture. I sat there and looked away then I looked back at my screen. I squinted and brought my face closer to the screen because I didn’t believe what I was seeing. It looked like a picture off of rotten.com and not of some child. I noticed her poor legs and feet… I looked away and I would look back. It took a good 10 minutes for it to set in that this wasn’t some casualty of a 3rd world country, or war, or a natural disaster… this was a little girl isolated on her bed to die because she obviously to her mother, wasn’t good enough to be her baby, her daughter.
I choose not to have children not because I don’t know how to love and care, but because health issues. I think some people need to sit down and really think if they are having a kid to have one, or to share their life experiences and love onto someone who needs them..
I still can’t believe that little mound, is that of a little girl…
I’m disgusted with the world right now.
8:59 pm on August 4th, 2008
I just wanted to point out that although I’ve been saying “little girl”, I am fully aware that she was 14. To me that is still an innocent little girl, but I wanted to remind everyone that the tiny little body in the morgue is supposed to be that of a 14 year old. THAT is how uncared for she was, that she is half the size of an average 14 year old. She should have been experimenting with makeup, flirting with boys, playing with her siblings (although she had cerebral palsy, it is obvious that if she had been in a loving home in her early years, she would have been able to do all those things). Instead she sat almost half her life in a room by herself, existing instead of living. People give more attention to their PLANTS than this slut gave to her daughter. I guess it’s hard to care for a disabled baby when you are fucking enough to get knocked up 9 times.
9:09 pm on August 4th, 2008
Max (by the way, that’s the name of one of my cats), you are more proof that you can’t judge a book by its cover.
Thank you for your honesty.
10:08 pm on August 4th, 2008
This tragedy has struck me so deeply that it led me to my first ever comment here. I tend to be a quiet lurker.
As someone who has worked her entire life in the social services, I can’t even fathom this. Sure, I get tired, frustrated, burned out…But never in a million years could I imagine someone being that lazy and irresponsible with the life of anyone, let alone a child. But I’ve seen it. I don’t work in children’s case management because my mother was, and still is, a foster parent. I’ve had foster brothers and sisters who come into my mother’s house that would break your heart. Some were so neglected and abused they were terrified of any attention, including affection and care. To see a child scream bloody murder when all you do is make eye contact will truely break the heart of anyone who has a fiber of conscience.
Hopefully media attention remains on this case until reformations are made to a broken and abused system.
10:30 pm on August 4th, 2008
Thank you for posting, Cordelia. I’m glad you “de-lurked” for Danieal. My research on this case suggests people have known the Philly DHS is broken for quite a while, but “reforms” have not addressed the key underlying problems. Who gives a fuck if you have a shitty form if no one in the organization will fill it out anyway? I’m hopeful something meaningful will happen this time around…but I’m no means certain it will. Until there’s some evidence that DHS leadership is willing to move the organization toward transparency and accountability…well, then they’re just blowing smoke out of their collective ass, IMHO.
10:38 pm on August 4th, 2008
I agree. I was shocked to read (I cant remember if it was in the report itself or in some articles I found) that even as they were testifying, these DHS people didn’t seem to fully understand the magnitude of what they had done. They didn’t even pretend to care that Danieal had died. Something is very very wrong with these places. I just don’t get how this could be allowed to continue over and over. How many times does a story like this surface, we all get riled up, you hear about some lame “disciplinary action”, and then all quiets down. Until it happens again. And again. And again. What the fuck is it going to take? Judging from past experience, I am doubtful that even this shocking death will change anything.
10:47 pm on August 4th, 2008
Solange, I will say, kudos to the grand jury. That report just vibrates with their outrage and fury. Today, I thought, “There’s no one to file a civil suit for Danieal. Every single person who might be in a position to do that failed her horrendously when she was alive.” (There are a few who tried, as detailed in the report.) It’s so sad that the she finally gets her champion–the grand jury–years after she wasted away in pain and loneliness in a dark room during a heat wave.
You know why she had a fan in her room? Because her brother worried about her, so he put a fan in her room. Not her mother. Not her mother’s friends. In that house, the only people trying to do right by her were other children. And Andrea Kelly blocked them.
10:57 pm on August 4th, 2008
Maybe the picture of Danieal should be prominently featured in the DHS office. Perhaps as a background on computers and a plaque in every cubicle/office. Gruesome yes and not at all respectful of the deceased, but a constant reminder of what happens when the system fails.
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