N.J. WOMAN CHARGED IN DEATH OF FOSTER CHILD FROM PHILA.

Philadelphia Daily News

Neighbors of Colleen Chavez said there was nothing about the pregnant Phillipsburg, N.J., woman that would have indicated she was capable of child abuse and murder.

But yesterday first-degree murder was added to the charges against Chavez in the death Wednesday of a 2-year-old foster child in her care.Beryl Blake, who lives next door to the family, said Chavez occasionally came to her house to play with her baby granddaughter.

"She loved babies," Blake said. "She was a nice woman, nice and friendly."

The foster child, Gladys Campbell, died at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia after being flown there by helicopter from a Phillipsburg hospital and immediately put on life support systems.

According to an autopsy performed on the child yesterday, the cause of death was a blow to the head from a blunt instrument.

Chavez, 24 and three months' pregnant, was charged with first-degree murder, aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a minor, said Warren County Prosecutor Richard Hare. She was being held in the Warren County Correctional Facility after bail was set at $150,000 at her arraignment yesterday before New Jersey Superior Court Judge John Kingfield.

Her husband, Artemio Chavez, 29, was at work at the time of the incident and has not been charged in the child's death, Hare said. Chavez works as a signal repairman for the state Department of Transportation in Bedminster.

The child was placed in the Chavez home four months ago by Children's Home of Easton, a Northampton County foster care agency under contract with the Philadelphia Department of Human Services.

The badly beaten child had been on a life support system since she was brought to Warren Hospital in Phillipsburg on Tuesday, authorities said. Phillipsburg police were called to the Chavez home by the foster mother shortly after noon Tuesday, Hare said.

Police found Gladys unconscious with injuries to her face and the right side of the head, bruises on her back and an apparently fractured skull, the prosecutor's office said.

A search of the scene revealed a hole in the wall in the child's room. The incident is under joint investigation by New Jersey and Pennsylvania police and youth services and welfare agenicies, Hare said.

Chavez and her husband applied to be foster parents in late 1987 for Children's Home of Easton, agency director Michael Danjczek said.

Following the "standard interview process with reference checks" the couple, who have a 3-year-old daughter, were approved in January, Danjczek said.

Danjczek said the agency met the minimum standards for visiting the home monthly to check on the child. The agency's records show that a visit took place as recently as May 23 and "indicated nothing abnormal."

Chavez is the second foster mother this year - and the third in 19 months - to face criminal charges in connection with the death of a foster child placed by the city's Department of Human Services.