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Fatal Beating Points Up a System in Crisis

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CELIA W. DUGGER

Randi Anderson, 5 years old and 3 feet 7 inches tall, scrawled on the walls of her foster home with lipstick. She stole money from her foster mother's purse. She broke all her toys. She hoarded food. She defecated on the floor.

Three New York City child-welfare workers concluded that Randi needed counseling, but, as one said, "Somehow it never happened."

Finally, Randi provoked her foster mother's 20-year-old son once too often. "She got on my nerves," Robert Murray told the police after the fatal beating. Randi's thigh bone was broken in two, her liver lacerated, her body battered. On July 7, Mr. Murray was convicted of criminally negligent homicide. A Systemic Failure

Randi did not fall through a small, isolated tear in the safety net. Although hers was an extreme case, it points up the failings of the city's child welfare system in caring for the thousands of emotionally troubled children from homes damaged by crack, AIDS and homelessness who have poured into foster care in recent years.

The system in New York, as in most major cities, often fails to identify the children's problems or to treat them. Even when it does, social workers and state officials say, there are simply not enough services available, and many foster parents are left to struggle alone with children who are depressed, anxious or violent.

In Randi's case, psychologists say her strange behavior provided the clues to her deep emotional distress. But the constantly changing cast of unseasoned caseworkers were unable to negotiate the vast child welfare bureaucracy, and she received no treatment. Randi's actions infuriated her foster family and appear to have contributed to her death from a beating in November 1990.

A panel of consultants hired by the city to review cases of children who die in foster care concluded that the agency used "poor judgment" in failing to have Randi psychologically evaluated.

It is impossible to know how many other children endured such an experience in foster care because the case files of the city's Child Welfare Administration are confidential. But records of the agency's internal investigation of the case were provided to The New York Times by an official who believed it illustrated problems the agency had in caring for troubled children.

Combined with trial testimony and interviews with Randi's relatives, these records allow a rare look inside the system that failed to help her. Born Into a Life Of Rage and Neglect

Randi was exposed to a hellish side of life virtually from birth. She was born on May 26, 1985. Her family lived in a Harlem tenement and survived on welfare. Records show that her natural parents were reported to the state child-abuse registry five times in the first four years of her life for domestic violence and for neglecting the children while they got high on crack, among other things.

Randi's father beat her mother in violent, frightening explosions, the parents said in recent interviews. Both were crack addicts. The children were somber and rarely played, neighbors say.

Because of their parents' crack addiction, Randi and her six brothers and sisters often went hungry and bedraggled. "We'd get a neck bone from the refrigerator and put it on the radiator to heat it up," said Randi's older brother Sherman. "We ate fried chicken fat."

Randi was almost 4 years old when the city removed her from the home. The night in March 1989 when Randi and her siblings -- two of them babies -- went into foster care, a caseworker found them asleep in one bed with no sheets, no blankets and no diapers. There was no food in the apartment, which was open to crack-starved strangers who wandered in and out getting high.

In foster care, the seven children were scattered to four different homes in Manhattan, Queens and Long Island. Randi and her 6-month-old sister went to a paternal aunt, Sandra Priester, on Long Island. The city paid Mrs. Priester about $400 a month for each child, the usual foster care rate. Records show that Randi stayed there 15 months.

Larry Sutton was the first caseworker assigned to monitor the Priester home, according to the records. He had a bachelor's degree in politics from SUNY Westbury and had started the job just three months earlier.

Mr. Sutton carried a heavy caseload of 44 children. To juggle the work, he needed to be sure the Priesters were home, so he gave 24 hours' notice before his monthly visits. The home was always clean and the children healthy, the records said, though Mrs. Priester had told him that she was having problems with Randi and was not sure she was the right person to care for her.

But Mr. Sutton, who said in a telephone interview that he had no other recollections of Randi, did not stay on the case long. No worker did.

On April 4, 1990, a year after Randi had been placed with Mrs. Priester, all the Anderson children had a rare reunion at a city office: all but Randi.

Mrs. Priester said the girl was home with a bad cold, but according to Mrs. Priester's mother, Esther Reed, who went to the reunion to see her grandchildren, the truth was uglier.

Mrs. Reed said in a recent interview that Mrs. Priester had tied Randi up with rope in the basement to punish her, and that was how Mrs. Reed said she found the girl that morning. Randi stayed home because she had rope burns on her wrists. Mrs. Reed said she not mention the incident at the reunion because she didn't want to become involved.

Mrs. Priester could not be located for comment. None of her family know where she is. A Caseworker Sees a Child's Pain

A few days after the reunion, Randi's case was assigned to yet another new worker, Arpana Berry. Fresh out of college with a biology degree, she had no background in social work, and she said in an interview that the city did not give her the training she needed to help the 25 children in her caseload.

The two weeks of classroom training she had received from the city was more about filling out paperworkthan understanding family dynamics and child development, she said. Her supervisors did not have time to guide her.

"You felt you really weren't capable of handling the lives of these children," she said. "They'd already been through so much pain, you didn't want to make a mistake."

Ms. Berry said she knew Randi was hurting. The girl craved love. She always gave the worker hugs and kisses and promised to do whatever was asked. "She was very lovable," Ms. Berry said.

But the worker did not know how much to believe the 5-year-old girl. Randi told her that Mrs. Priester hit her with a belt and required her to sweep the kitchen, make the beds and wash the dishes. Was Randi a modern-day Cinderella, the worker wondered, or had she made it all up?

In June 1990, Ms. Berry visited the foster home after Mrs. Priester complained that Randi had stolen some money.

The caseworker took Randi to a bedroom to talk privately. The girl admitted to taking the money from her aunt's coat pocket. She also admitted that she had urinated and defecated in the closet, broken all her toys and poured dye on her cousin's shoes.

Ms. Berry told Randi she shouldn't touch things that didn't belong to her and advised Mrs. Priester to hide her money, or give Randi some loose change of her own. But Mrs. Priester did not like the advice. She felt stealing should be punished.

Mrs. Priester told the worker she had spanked Randi and locked her in a room for a night, removing the doorknob. Ms. Berry, alarmed that Randi would have trapped had there been a fire, reported the incident to the child-abuse registry and searched for a new placement.

A week later, Mrs. Priester called Ms. Berry to tell her that Randi had written all over the bedroom walls with lipstick and told other children sex stories.

Ms. Berry promised to seek professional help for Randi. But everywhere she looked there were waiting lists, she said.

"The places were booked," she said. "They'd tell us there were waiting lists. You knew a child needed counseling, but it was so hard to get the services. Meanwhile the child was suffering." New Home, Last Stop

Mrs. Priester was not home when city workers came to take Randi and her sister away on June 15, 1990.

Randi sobbed as she and her sister were separated. Randi was sent to live with another aunt, Sophillia Murray, who was already caring for Randi's two little brothers, Eddie and Ramel. Ms. Murray's 20-year-old son, Robert Murray, took care of the children while his mother was at work as a telephone operator.

Randi lived with the Murrays less than five months before she was killed. No caseworker ever saw her in the Murray home at a housing project in Harlem.

Ms. Berry, frustrated by her job, had transferred to a different unit. Another caseworker, Melodye Grissom, took over. She had a B.A. in international politics and had been on the job about a year.

Ms. Grissom declined to comment on the case to a reporter, but she told city investigators that she had believed Ms. Murray was a wonderful foster mother, "funny, open, honest and very patient."

But not long after Randi's arrival, the foster mother's attitude hardened. A friend, Helen Lewis, testified in court that she saw Ms. Murray hit Randi in the face. "It was like she had a hatred for the child all of a sudden," Ms. Lewis said.

Barbara Strayhorn, who cut the Anderson children's hair at her Harlem barbershop, said Ms. Murray doted on the two boys, but despised Randi. "She told me, 'Randi is sneaky and mean,' " Ms. Strayhorn recalled.

Ms. Murray, who is now in prison, did not respond to a written request for an interview.

In August, Ms. Grissom phoned the Murrays to say she was just a block away and wanted to stop by. Mr. Murray answered the phone. When Ms. Grissom arrived minutes later, no one was home. She left a note. She tried again in September, but again no one answered.

It was about this time, the fall of 1990, that the Murrays began to abuse Randi, Mr. Murray told the police. Sometimes in the middle of the night, Randi took food from the refrigerator. Furious that the girl was "stealing," her aunt beat Randi with a belt, Mr. Murray said. An autopsy later found scars on her legs and face consistent with the marks left by a looped-over belt.

On Oct. 27, Ms. Murray called Ms. Grissom to complain that Randi had put a new bedspread on the floor and defecated on it. Ms. Grissom advised Ms. Murray to reward Randi with candy or fruit when she used the bathroom correctly.

Randi was, by then, sad and desperate, relatives say. She ran into the middle of the street and almost got hit by a limousine. Mr. Murray said she was screaming, "I want to get hit. I want to die."

"So I grabbed her and I smacked her," he said.

Randi sidled up to her invalid grandmother, Johnnie Mae Burton, one afternoon. Ms. Burton remembers the child saying, "Grandma, I love you. I wish somebody loved me."

On Nov. 7, 1990, Mr. Murray was baby-sitting as usual. In the afternoon, he and Randi's two brothers were watching television, but Mr. Murray would not let Randi watch because she had been "stealing" food and "messing with the VCR."

"I pushed her out of the room," he said. "I put my hands on her chest and shoved her out." Randi screamed in protest, and Mr. Murray said he picked her up and threw her down hard on the couch. "I kicked her and I told her to shut up and lay down," he said. "She went into a ball. I don't know if she was trying to protect herself."

Eddie, Randi's 4-year-old brother, was watching. He testified at the trial that Robert not only kicked his sister but also jumped up and down on her back.

About 6 P.M., Ms. Murray got home from work. She asked what was wrong with Randi, who was lying on the couch. Mr. Murray told her Randi had misbehaved. A little later, Ms. Murray said she smelled something. Randi, lying motionless on the couch, had soiled herself.

"Go get me a belt," Mr. Murray recalled his mother as saying.

Ms. Murray washed Randi off in the bathtub. The 38-pound girl was lying naked on the floor when Ms. Murray grabbed her by the ankles and began to beat her with a green leather belt, Mr. Murray said. He did nothing to stop the whipping.

"I heard Randi screaming, 'I'll be good. I'll be good. I'll stop going to the bathroom,' " he said.

Mr. Murray said he later went to his girlfriend's and returned at about 11:30. Ms. Murray and Eddie were watching "The Honeymooners." Randi was still on the couch. Mr. Murray said that sometime after midnight, Randi started crying that her stomach hurt. She asked to go to the hospital. Ms. Murray was downstairs talking to her boyfriend, a cabdriver.

"She kept screaming, hollering," Mr. Murray recalled. "So I smacked her. I said, be quiet." Randi moaned. "She kept making lots of noise. Noises. Noises."

When Ms. Murray saw the girl, she panicked. She scooped Randi up, caught a cab and got to the hospital at 3:15 A.M. The little girl was already dead. Trying to Learn From a Tragedy

Last year, a panel of consultants appointed by Barbara J. Sabol, Commissioner of the Human Resources Administration, reviewed Randi's case. It recommended that workers be trained to recognize damaged children whose behavior is inappropriate.

In July 1991, Robert L. Little, who heads the Child Welfare Administration within the Human Resources Administration, said the agency would offer training on normal childhood development for some of its foster-care workers.

On May 19, Sophillia Murray pleaded guilty to attempted manslaughter for failing to seek medical attention promptly after Randi's beating. She was sentenced to one and a half to four and a half years. On July 7, a jury convicted her son, and he was given one and a third to four years.

The caseworkers are still scarred by Randi's death. "It made me even more scared of the job," said Ms. Berry, who left the agency to study social work. "We thought we had made the right decision to place her in that home. There's guilt, shock."

Randi's brothers and sisters remain in foster homes. Her father is in a drug-treatment program and visits his children twice a month. Her mother is still using crack. Last month she gave birth to a baby girl, who is now living in a foster home.

1992 Sep 9