Foster brother held in death

Girl 3rd to die in home selected by agency under state scrutiny

HOLLY YAN, ROBERT T. GARRETT and MICHAEL GRABELL

The Dallas Morning News

Police say a 6-year-old girl died Tuesday after being repeatedly body-slammed by a teenager in her DeSoto foster-care home, which until recently was overseen by Mesa Family Services – a private foster agency already under scrutiny after two children died in its homes.

That teenager, the foster parents' 14-year-old son, has been arrested on suspicion of murder in Katherine Frances' death, and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services is promising a review of the welfare and well-being of every child formerly with Mesa.

Katherine Frances "What we have done is launch an unprecedented intervention effort to address the deaths in homes formerly overseen by Mesa," said Patrick Crimmins, a department spokesman. "The plan is designed to ensure the safety of more than 300 children in foster homes in more than 20 Texas counties."

Earlier this year, the state suspended placement of children in Mesa's homes after a 16-month-old died of head injuries on Labor Day in Corsicana and a 3-year-old girl died of head injuries in August 2005 in Arlington.

Last month, the state moved to revoke Mesa's child-placing agency license.

A woman who answered Mesa's main number Wednesday said no one from the agency would comment and referred calls to an attorney for Therapeutic Family Life, which has taken over 140 of the firm's foster homes, including the one where the child died Tuesday.

"We don't have a lot of information on what happened," said Eli Bell, attorney for Therapeutic Family Life. "We were working very closely with ... [state child welfare services] and monitoring that home and the children very closely, and it looked like the children were properly placed and in a safe environment."

Katherine and her three siblings had been living in the foster home since July, when child-welfare workers removed them from their birth mother's Plano home because of an allegation of neglect.

"We had reports they were locked in the home, left home alone and didn't have access to food," said Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marissa Gonzales. "There was no food or electricity in the home."

The children ranged in age from 5 to 11, she said.

The DeSoto foster home is a 4,000-square-foot brick house owned by the foster parents, who have two children.

On Sunday, Katherine was taken by helicopter to Children's Medical Center Dallas after suffering severe head trauma, said Capt. Ron Smith of the DeSoto police.

"She was picked up and body-slammed to the floor four times," he said.

The foster parents' son is now being held at the Henry Wade Juvenile Justice Center.

Officials declined to identify the boy because he is a minor. The names of the foster parents are being withheld because they share the same last name as the minor.

Capt. Smith said police have received conflicting reports on what led to Katherine being body-slammed. The teenager told detectives that his mother was not home, but the woman told them she was.

The foster parents couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday. But the teenager's aunt, who declined to give her name, defended her family and said she lacked confidence in authorities.

"My family will be vindicated," she said in an interview outside the DeSoto home. "A lot of people dropped the ball here."

Police were contacted Nov. 25 after the children had been fighting, and the foster mother brought Katherine and her 8-year-old sister to a Lancaster hospital with bruises.

Police also noticed a bruise on Katherine's 11-year-old brother's face, but authorities don't know when that injury occurred.

"We're checking into the bruising as well," Capt. Smith said. "There may be additional charges."

Mr. Bell said that the fight was between Katherine and one of her siblings and that the 14-year-old wasn't involved.

All four siblings were removed from the home and put in temporary foster care while Therapeutic and CPS investigated, he said. But Therapeutic and CPS determined that the living conditions in DeSoto were safe and returned the children to the foster home Thursday, Mr. Bell said.

Workers kept a close eye on the children until Friday afternoon, and everything appeared fine before for the weekend, he said.

But the children's mother, who saw the children Nov. 29, was skeptical.

"When I saw my kids, they had big bruises," Marbella Frances said. "It didn't look like something little girls would do."

Ms. Frances said she wishes her children hadn't been taken from her. She said she left the children in the care of her father, but her father left for work while the children were home.

She added that her Plano home didn't have electricity because she mistakenly thought her brother was paying the electric bill. And she said there was little food because she usually buys groceries every day and doesn't keep food stocked.

Katherine was the third foster child in Mesa's care to die in the last 16 months and the first child to die in a Mesa home since Therapeutic took over.

After toddler Christian Nieto died of head injuries in a Mesa-managed foster home in Corsicana on Labor Day, the state dispatched CPS caseworkers to visit each Mesa foster home that had children under 5 years old.

Mr. Bell said Therapeutic caseworkers have updated the Mesa home studies, looking at the quality of the living environment, the foster parents and anyone else living in the home.

Starting today, the CPS workers will conduct safety checks on all children in former Mesa homes.

"If they find any unacceptable risk in any of the homes, they are going to remove children immediately," Mr. Crimmins said.

The caseworkers and colleagues from CPS' sister agency, Child Care Licensing, then will start "team reviews" of the former Mesa foster homes starting Tuesday, he said.

"They're going to conduct more in-depth, face-to-face interviews, reviews and visits to all of the foster homes," he said. Those reviews will be completed by Dec. 22.

CPS child safety specialists will conduct a third inspection, "to make sure nothing is missed – at all," Mr. Crimmins said.

Finally, on an "as necessary" basis, state workers will interview physicians, nurses, teachers, school counselors and child-care providers to guarantee Mesa's former charges are "receiving proper care and to identify potential problems," he said.

The state on Tuesday suspended any additional placement of children with any foster homes run by Therapeutic.

He said the state will repeat the Texas criminal background checks and checks for child abuse and neglect that have been done on foster parents recruited by Mesa.

It also will conduct national checks on all people 14 years old and older who live in former Mesa foster homes.

Mr. Crimmins has said Mesa had few violations until weeks before the August 2005 death of 3-year-old Sierra Odom.

Her Arlington foster father is in jail in Tarrant County awaiting trial on charges of injury to a child and evidence tampering. Authorities allege that he lost his temper with Sierra, slammed her head into a bookshelf and then faked a car accident before delivering her, already dead, to a local emergency room.

Since Christian Nieto's death, the state has scrutinized Mesa, which voluntarily quit its foster-care contract in late September. However, it still has a $750,000 contract with the protective services department to run an emergency shelter in Central Texas.

If Mesa's child-placing license is revoked, co-founders Mike Williams of Goldthwaite and Artie Hilliard of Mullin and other principals could not reapply for at least five years.

Staff writer Reese Dunklin contributed to this report.

E-mail hyan@dallasnews.com , rtgarrett@dallasnews.com and mgrabell@dallasnews.com