Mykeeda Hampton

In May of 1987, District of Columbia social workers removed four of Debra Hampton's children from her home placing them in foster care. According to the testimony of a social worker, the children were removed because Mrs. Hampton had left them alone and was not properly supervising them. Her home was said to be "generally uninhabitable," on one occasion containing no edible food.

The foster mother, Geraldine Stevenson, objected to Mykeeda being placed with her "from the beginning" because during the family visits at DHS she had seen that Mykeeda would not talk to anyone, was not toilet-trained, and "would walk around with her head to the floor . . . [and] looked sad all the time." According to Mrs. Stevenson, a DHS official told her that because she had a "vacancy" in her home, she had to take Mykeeda.

Three months later, the foster mother left two-year-old Mykeeda Hampton at home for over ten hours. While she was out running errands, Mykeeda was beaten to death by the foster mothers' twelve-year-old son.An autopsy later established that the two-year-old died of "blunt force injuries to the head, abdomen, and back, with internal hemorrhaging."

As of September 1995, several years after the incident, the case was still under litigation.