Little Girl's Voice Lost in Bureaucratic Maze

Cheryl Romo

Sarah Angelina Chavez, a cute pig-tailed toddler who loved butterflies and flowers, might have turned 3 this month had Los Angeles County authorities entrusted with keeping her safe ever bothered to respond to her obvious distress. It appears that no one, including a part-time court referee and a court-appointed attorney charged with protecting Sarah during the 10 months she was a dependent of the Los Angeles Juvenile Court, took notice of changes in the toddler's behavior that should have raised a red flag that something had gone horribly wrong.

The child died from a terrifying catalog of injuries Oct. 11 following what appears to have been months of abuse in the home of a maternal uncle and aunt, Frances and Armando Abundis Sr., who will be arraigned on Dec. 21 in Pasadena Superior Court for her murder and related charges.

After Sarah's death, her outraged former foster parents, Corri Planck and Dianne Hardy-Garcia, decried the child welfare system's "absolute failure" to protect a vulnerable child. The couple demanded to know why a court-appointed attorney they say never bothered to meet Sarah and a juvenile court bench officer removed Sarah from their care last April, allegedly over the objections of the child's social worker, and returned Sarah to live with the relatives now on trial for killing her. They recounted the traumatized child's inability to sleep, her nightmares, and her fear of being returned to her maternal aunt and uncle. They also said a social worker vowed that she would never recommend returning Sarah to an abusive home.

In an effort to learn what really happened, IN Los Angeles magazine sent a reporter to examine confidential dependency court documents, hearing transcripts, and reports generated by the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) in a case called In re: Sarah C., CK57591. The examination was facilitated by Juvenile Court Presiding Judge Michael Nash, who approved a petition seeking access to records that are, by law, confidential.

Sarah's dependency case began on New Year's Day, 2005, when paramedics and police arrived at her maternal grandparents' home in Los Angeles and found her newborn half-sister dead in a toilet bowl. It was the second time Sarah's mother, Sophia Chavez, claimed to have been unaware that she was pregnant. An autopsy would later reveal that Sarah's sister, called "Baby Chavez" in court documents, died with Vicodin, a powerful barbiturate, in her system. Two years earlier, Sarah was also born with the same drug in her system. DCFS, which was alerted to Sarah's situation by hospital officials, took no action.

The day Baby Chavez's body was discovered in the toilet, law enforcement learned that Sarah was living in a nearby apartment with her aunt and uncle, who told investigators that they had been caring for Sarah because the child's mother was ill. DCFS immediately took the child into custody with "unexplained injuries" that included blackened eyes, a lacerated nose, and scratches all over her face. Sarah's family steadfastly maintained that her injuries were an accident caused when she ran into a toy fire truck while playing.

The DCFS detention report states that, "photos of Sarah's injuries were taken and are on a disc." But DCFS officials later told the court they could not locate those photographs and nothing in the documents indicated that she had been examined or treated by a medical doctor for those injuries.

For several weeks, the toddler lived in short-term shelter care before she was moved to the foster home of Planck and Hardy-Garcia, who are certified foster parents with the state-licensed Southern California Foster Family and Adoption Agency. Efforts to find Sarah's presumed father, according to DCFS reports, were unsuccessful. Other relatives were not considered suitable to care for Sarah for a variety of reasons, but her mother, aunt and uncle, and some relatives were allowed monitored visits.

Apparently Sarah was happy in Planck and Hardy-Garcia's home from late January until late April when she was inexplicably removed. Social worker reports and court documents described a child who enjoyed exploring and felt safe in her foster home. She had developed a great affection for both her foster mothers but had a particularly strong bond with Hardy-Garcia. One report noted that the 2-year-old had a big appetite, used utensils, was potty trained, showed affection, had minor tantrums, and demonstrated pride in her accomplishments.

Throughout court records, DCFS reports state that the child's social worker had expressed serious concerns about Sarah's safety if she were returned to the Abundis' home. There were repeated statements that evaluations of the aunt and uncle had not been completed before the child was sent to her relatives.

Sarah was ordered removed from the Planck and Hardy-Garcia foster home and returned to the Abundis' home by Joan Marie Carney, a part-time referee at the Children's Courthouse in Monterey Park. Carney, Judge Nash said, is a retired dependency court commissioner who, for several years, has worked on an as-needed basis. Records obtained from the State Bar of California indicate Carney became an attorney in 1961, but was suspended in 1981 for failure to pay bar dues. She was later reinstated, but her status since 1988 is listed as an "inactive" member of the bar.

Information gleaned from court documents suggests that Carney was determined from the time she began presiding over Sarah's case to send a child she had never seen back to relatives. Transcripts indicate she brooked no dissent in her courtroom and, during a hearing held in April, Carney said she was "tired of excuses for why this child hasn't been released." When county counsel's explanation proved unsatisfactory to the bench officer, Carney said she was releasing Sarah to her mother's custody. When other attorneys asked if she meant the maternal aunt's custody, Carney corrected herself. At the same time, Carney ordered liberal visitation for Sarah's mother, who was present in court with Frances Abundis. "OK, you're going to pick the baby up," Carney told the two women. When county counsel objected, saying DCFS had not completed the proper paperwork, Carney told the attorney to fix it "because I said so."

Court records and transcripts indicate that Sarah's court-appointed attorney, Josephanie Ackman of the Children's Law Center of Los Angeles, rarely spoke during the proceedings. There was no indication Ackman had ever met her client or that she had sent representatives of her law firm to investigate the child's living conditions.

In the end, Jontuluanne Butler, the DCFS social worker who said she would never allow the child to be returned to the Abundis' home, was apparently overruled. Deputy County Counsel Rene Gilbertson, according to a transcript from a hearing five days before Sarah was sent to the Abundis' home, said she had spoken to the concerned social worker that previously investigated the uncle and aunt. "It's been a number of months since that time and she would be OK with the child being placed in the home with that aunt," Gilbertson told Carney.

Court documents indicated that Sarah was sent to the Abundises a full two months before a DCFS investigation of them was completed. The DCFS assessment, dated July 9 and signed by Children's Social Worker Leticia Brosnan, stated that the Abundises had been "cleared and assessed as able to care for and supervise the child" and noted the home was "clean, safe, sanitary and in good repair."

Butler continued to regularly visit Sarah. Three days after the child was returned to the Abundis' home, she made an unannounced visit and was stunned to find a menacing pit bull in the living room of the Alhambra apartment. "No visible marks or bruises" on Sarah, she wrote. In August, Butler reported that Frances Abundis told her that Sarah was "hurting herself, scratches her arms, pulls on her ear, becomes angry, and isn't speaking." On Sept. 9, Sarah was taken for a mental health screening that concluded the child was having adjustment problems. On Sept. 28, Butler reported Sarah looked "so tired" and wanted to know where her mother was

By the time she died, Sarah, who months earlier was reported to have been speaking in complete sentences, could hardly string two words together. Her world was falling apart. Adding to her pain, Sarah's mother, a troubled woman with a history of drug and personal problems, had reportedly stopped visiting her daughter.

On the evening of Oct. 10, Sarah was driven to an emergency room with an unexplained broken arm and other injuries. When hospital officials wanted to conduct extensive tests, Frances Abundis left the facility against medical advice with Sarah's arm in a splint but otherwise untreated. The aunt and child returned to the Abundis' apartment where Sarah died the next morning.

Sarah's final autopsy results, according to the Department of Coroner, have been placed on "security hold" at the request of law enforcement. However, a preliminary autopsy report in dependency court documents indicated Sarah died of "blunt force trauma" and suffered multiple injuries before her death. Those injuries included a broken upper arm that was completely disconnected from the rest of her arm, a broken finger on the opposite hand, bruising to her lungs and spleen, and a partially healed perforation of her liver.

The preliminary autopsy report and allegations in court documents based on the child's unusual behavior also suggest that Sarah may have been sexually abused. Following Sarah's death, a DCFS "critical incident" report to the court stated, "the coroner has determined Sarah had been physically abused on an ongoing basis and possibly sexually abused."

During the investigation, police found two pounds of marijuana in the Abundis' two-bedroom apartment. When confronted, Frances Abundis, a homemaker, allegedly told police that the family needed money "and had to sell drugs." Armando Abundis' occupation was listed as an unemployed truck driver. Upon their arrest, the Abundis' 5-year-old son was detained and placed in foster care.

After Sarah died, Butler called Ackman at the Children's Law Center and learned that Ackman was no longer Sarah's attorney. The child had a new court-appointed attorney.

The dependency court records end with DCFS and law enforcement reports detailing Sarah's brutal death. On Oct. 27, a hearing was held at the Children's Courthouse to officially declare the case of Sarah Angelina Chavez, not quite 3, closed.

When a reporter informed the child's former foster parents that their initial allegations appeared to have been substantiated by court documents, Planck and Hardy-Garcia both said they were discouraged that Sarah's New Year's Day injuries seemed not to have been taken seriously. "Sarah's attorney didn't advocate forcefully for her safety," Planck said. "Her attorney was the key. Her lawyer was her only voice in the court." Added Hardy-Garcia: "She was failed from the moment she entered the system. The decision to return her [to relatives] was a death sentence."

- Cheryl Romo is a freelance journalist.