Couple Are Charged in Death of Foster Child

Kurt Streeter

June 20, 2001

A Gardena couple were charged Tuesday with murder in the weekend death of their 2-year-old foster child–who was rushed to the hospital a day before she was to be legally adopted by a relative.

Manuel Garay, 22, pleaded not guilty Tuesday afternoon at his arraignment to charges that he killed Jasmine Garcia, who was pronounced dead at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center on Saturday morning after she was found unconscious by paramedics in the couple’s two-bedroom apartment late Thursday.

LAPD detectives said the girl died of catastrophic injury to her head. Garay, a security guard, and his wife, Cookie Smith, 21, have been charged with murder, assault and child abuse, the district attorney’s office said.

Smith was arrested Tuesday afternoon in the downtown Los Angeles Criminal Courts Building as Garay’s arraignment was about to begin. She was taken into custody as she sat on a bench waiting for the proceedings to begin.

Smith is to be arraigned today Both are being held on $1-million bail, said district attorney’s spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons.

“In the course of our investigation, we have found sufficient evidence to charge them both with murder,” said LAPD Det. Steve Hales of the department’s Abused Child Unit.

Xenthe Garcia, Jasmine’s maternal aunt, described her family as crestfallen and discouraged Tuesday. “That little girl was so vibrant, so full of life,” Garcia said. “We’ve been trying to help her, but nobody would listen.”

The aunt blamed government bureaucracy for Jasmine’s death, saying she believes her family’s concerns were not heard as the girl’s fate was being decided by county children’s welfare officials and the courts.

“There was a lot of negligence, that’s what I think,” she said.

The death of Jasmine Garcia provided yet another jolt to the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, the agency that oversees foster and adoptive care and is responsible for children’s welfare.

This year, three children cared for by the agency also have died in instances investigated as homicides, said agency Director Anita Bock.

And in December, two children overseen by the agency were murdered by their mother, who threw them from the top of the civil courthouse in downtown Los Angeles before she jumped.

After reviewing some of the recent cases, Bock has said her employees could have done more to prevent the deaths. But Bock said Tuesday that she found no immediate problems with the way social workers handled Jasmine’s case. In fact, she commended the oversight of Jasmine by social workers as exemplary.

“But still, this is really terrible stuff,” said Bock, referring to Jasmine. “Particularly when you realize all this little girl has gone through and that she was about to go to a home that really wanted her.”

Jasmine, who was born to a drug-addicted mother and was in foster care since she was 10 days old, had been living with Garay and Smith since March, Bock said.

The two were licensed foster parents, and were part of a network of homes run by the Los Angeles-based Bright Future Foster Family Agency. The private firm contracts with the Department of Children and Family Services to run homes for youths considered, because of their behavior or backgrounds, to be among the most difficult in the county’s children’s welfare system.

Calls to Bright Future were unanswered Tuesday, but Bock said the agency has a solid record.

Foster homes run by agencies that contract to care for children–also known as FFA’s, or foster family agencies–are generally considered to be well run.

Such homes have the benefit of two levels of scrutiny: Private agencies have their own social workers, who work in tandem with county social workers from the Department of Children and Family Services.

“There was no hint of trouble,” said Bock, who after reviewing the case, said her workers could not have known Jasmine was in trouble.

Bock did say, however, that she was investigating the fact Jasmine was taken to a hospital May 27, with a sprained arm. Jasmine’s foster parents said the child’s arm was injured when she fell off a park slide.

Bock said two doctors examined the girl–whose arm was placed in a cast–and determined the parents’ story to be accurate.

Bock said she felt an extra dose of sadness because Jasmine was one day away from adoption. The young girl lived in foster care with a woman Bock described as a second cousin for most of her life.

The department, after the girl’s father challenged the next-of-kin placement, asked that formal adoption papers be filed.

The process was to conclude last Friday, Bock said.

But Jasmine was rushed to the hospital the previous evening.