Thread: 9 charged in death of disabled Philly teen

Jul 31, 3:53 PM EDT


9 charged in death of disabled Philly teen

By KATHY MATHESON
Associated Press Writer.




PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- The parents of a disabled teen who authorities say wasted away from neglect were charged Thursday in her starvation death, as were two city employees assigned to monitor the girl's well-being.

Authorities also charged five other people who they say could have foreseen the horrific fate of Danieal Kelly, 14, whose 42-pound body was found in her mother's squalid house covered with bone-deep, maggot-infested bedsores in August 2006.

In releasing in a 258-page grand jury report recommending the charges, District Attorney Lynne Abraham had scathing words for the city's Department of Human Services, calling the agency's handling of the case "callous, indifferent, unconscionable" - and all too familiar.

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

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.

Andrea Kelly not only refused to get her daughter food, water and medical treatment, the grand jury report said, 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 had an attorney.

The report describes an incomprehensible situation in which two DHS workers, two workers from a private social services agency and three of Andrea Kelly's friends either saw or were told of what was happening to Danieal, yet did nothing until after she died. That's when they scrambled to cover-up their inaction, authorities said.

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.

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 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, the grand jury charged.

"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 comment Thursday.

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

Too many reports have repeatedly documented the same problems at the agency, which Abraham said has given only "lip service to halfhearted corrective action." At least 55 children have died under the agency's watch, she said.

"The DHS agency has been ... in total meltdown and free fall," Abraham said. "You can't continue to bury these children and say things are getting better when they're not."

Abraham stressed that the problems at DHS predate the current mayoral administration, which took office in January.

Department Human Services commissioner Anne Marie Ambrose scheduled an afternoon news conference to discuss the case.

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.


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/ ... TE=DEFAULT

Danieal Kelly

My God, how terribly sad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How horrible for this kid. And to think these are the people, the specialists, who are in charge of judging others and helping us. No thanks.

I just emailed the story to my Maine DHS friends.

I'm quite sure they will get sick from reading it.
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About 20 years ago we had the sort of same issue.
A crazy mom that was "checked" by a social worker many times, put her 2 young daughters in an oven and cooked them to death.
It was Lewiston Maine that it happened. She said they were had the devil in them.

And now all state agency run on a shoestring. That's why kids in the system are "lost."


I tried to Google the story and couldn't find it.