Child dies in foster home"

Caregivers tell police of seizure

Apr. 17--ANOTHER WAYNE COUNTY FOSTER CHILD -- the third in eight months -- died of trauma incurred at a state-licensed foster home, officials said Monday.

On April 8, 3-year-old James Earl Bradley Jr. of Detroit had seizures and a possible head injury in the master bedroom of his foster parents' home in Van Buren Township.

After being taken first to Annapolis Hospital in Wayne around 9:30 p.m. on April 8, the child was transferred by medical helicopter to Mott Children's Hospital at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

He remained on life support there until he died Friday evening, Township Police Detective Bob Greene said Monday.

Greene said results from an autopsy in Washtenaw County were not yet available, though doctors at U-M thought James might have been shaken, received a blunt-force injury to the head or both.

"We know that something happened to him, but we don't know what yet," Greene said.

The foster parents, identified through court records as Christine Woodward and Lasana Karva, were questioned by police after Woodward reported that she and her 15-year-old daughter had found James in distress on the floor of the master suite in the family's home on Sadie Lane outside Belleville, officials said.

Woodward reported that she had the flu and that James had watched television with her 10-year-old son before going to bed around 9 p.m. She and her daughter said they heard crying from the bedroom, went upstairs and found James having a seizure, Greene said.

Officials said Woodward has been a licensed day-care provider for the state for about 10 years.

In November, she and her husband, Karva, became licensed foster parents through the Ennis Center for Children, based in Flint, Waterford and Detroit.

James was their first foster child, state records show.

Woodward was licensed to have as many as four children in day care and two foster children at a time, state records say.

Only James, the foster parents and their 15-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son were at home the night of April 8, Greene said.

On Friday, the Michigan Department of Human Services' Office of Children and Adult Licensing summarily suspended Woodward's day-care license and the couple's foster-care provider license, the DHS said in a news release.

The release said the actions "resulted from a recent investigation of a complaint" at the home.

The couple could not be reached Monday.

Bob Ennis, president and CEO of the Ennis Center, said "the death of this youngster is affecting all of us."

"We're devastated that this happened," Ennis said.

"We reviewed all of our records, and the state has been there to review our records, and we don't believe that we could have done anything to prevent this. We want the investigation to be completed and to find where the responsibility lies."

James and his seven siblings were placed in foster care in April 2006 after allegations that some of them had been sexually abused in their home, court records show.

The biological family had a history with Child Protective Services dating to January 2005, the records say.

Two other young foster children have been killed in licensed foster homes in recent months.

Isaac Lethbridge, 2, of Westland was fatally beaten in a Detroit foster home on Aug. 16, 2006.

His foster mother is charged with involuntary manslaughter and child abuse.

Allison Newman, also 2, died Sept. 22 after being injured in the Canton Township home of her foster mother, who is jailed on charges of first-degree murder and child abuse.

Contact JACK KRESNAK at 313- 223-4544 or jkresnak@freepress.com.