FILICIDE: New York: Carlotta Brett-Pierce: Two ACS Workers Charged With Homicide In Child's Death, Grandmother Faces Manslaughter Charges

Last year, severely malnourished four-year-old Marcella Pierce died in her Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment weighing a scant 18 pounds and showing signs of other traumas. Her mother, Carlotta Brett-Pierce, was arrested and charged with murder, manslaughter and assault, but yesterday prosecutors charged three more people, including two Administration for Children's Services case workers and the girl's own grandmother, with contributing to her death. "Baby Marchella might be alive today had these ACS workers attended to her case with the basic levels of care it deserved, or had her grandmother stepped in and put a stop to the shocking abuse she is charged with facilitating," said Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes.

Two former ACS employees were indicted on charges of criminally negligent homicide—it's believed to be the first time in the city’s history that child welfare workers had been charged with homicide in a child’s death—and Marcella's grandmother, Loretta Brett, was also indicted on manslaughter and other charges. Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes said, “I said at the time we announced the indictment of Marchella’s mother that this was not going to be an investigation that was going away. We are going to find out at long last what they’re doing at ACS to make sure there are no more child fatalities."

The indictment charges that the grandmother witnessed the little girl being tied to a bed and her crib many, many times. The indictment also charges that former ACS caseworker Damon Adams failed to make nearly all of the mandated biweekly visits to the Bedford-Stuyvesant home, and falsified ACS records to show he did; Chereece Bell, his former ACS supervisor, is accused of failing to properly oversee and monitor Adams' work with Marchella and her family.

In the wake of Marcella's death, a blame war ensued between ACS and nonprofit organization Child Development Support Corporation (CDSC) over who was more to blame for the death. Hynes said that he was convening a special grand jury to investigate “evidence of alleged systemic failures” at ACS. Among the cases they may be reviewing are: Major Gonzalez, an 11-month-old who died of viral pneumonia in Dec. 2009, and whose parents spent six months in jail for neglect; Jashya Brown a two-year-old victim of battered child syndrome who was found dead in August 2008; and Nixzmary Brown, another severely malnourished seven-year-old whose parents are both serving long sentences in jail for her death.

http://gothamist.com/2011/03/24/two_acs_workers_and_grandmother_cha.php

FILICIDE: Ontario: Starved to death by grandparents Elva Bottineau and Norman Kidman

March 25 2011An inquest will be held into the death of a five-year-old boy who died of starvation in his grandparents’ Toronto home.
Ontario Chief Coroner Dr. Andrew McCallum says an inquest can be held now that all court proceedings in Jeffrey Baldwin’s death have been completed.
McCallum says the inquest jury will hear evidence regarding the circumstances of the boy’s death on Nov. 30, 2002.
McCallum says the date, location and presiding coroner will be announced at a later date.
Jeffrey weighed only 21 pounds and was covered in sores when he died from complications due to chronic starvation.
Elva Bottineau and Norman Kidman were convicted of second-degree murder in Jeffrey’s death and their appeal was rejected earlier this month.
Bottineau and Kidman were convicted in 2006 and sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 22 and 20 years, respectively.
Kidman and Bottineau were designated as legal guardians for Jeffrey and his sister, who had suffered abuse at the hands of their birth parents.
Bottineau and Kidman used the children as a source of income, collecting government support cheques in their names while they confined them to a dark, unheated room that reeked of urine and feces.
Bottineau’s lawyer James Stribopoulos had argued his client’s conviction should be overturned because the trial judge “swept away evidence of Bottineau’s highly incapacitated mental state.”
Justice David Doherty, one of the three judges who heard the appeal, said the trial judge had taken Bottineau’s IQ of 69 — borderline mental retardation — into account when sentencing her to life in prison.
“He finds that she’s of limited intellect, but she’s also a lying, manipulative person,” Doherty said in rejecting the appeal.
The judges also dismissed arguments that Kidman played no part in Jeffrey’s abuse.
“He’s there every day, his room is next to the dungeon that these kids were being tortured in,” Doherty said. “There’s all kinds of evidence that he knocked this kid around.”
Although Jeffrey and his sister lived in squalor, the rest of the house was normal, including the living quarters of other children in the home.
Richard Litkowski, the lawyer for Kidman, had asked court to quash Kidman’s murder conviction and instead send him to prison for manslaughter.
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/962145--inquest-called-into-starvation-death-of-jeffrey-baldwin