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Child's death in foster care probed

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John Ellement and Heather Allen,

Boston Globe

Just 10 days after the state Department Social Services placed him in a foster home, 4-year-old Dontell Jeffers died, devastating relatives who had been fighting since last May to bring the child back into their Dorchester home, where they said he had lived for most of his short life.

Boston police, the Suffolk district attorney, and DSS are investigating the death Dontell, who was placed with a foster mother on Ballou Avenue in Dorchester on Feb. 24 and was rushed Sunday to Carney Hospital, where he went into cardiac arrest and died.

"As we understand it, the child's heart had stopped; that was the immediate cause of death," DSS Commissioner Harry Spence said during a press conference yesterday.

"The questions behind that are now, 'What led to that heart failure?' "

An autopsy is scheduled for today, said David Procopio, spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley. The case is now a death investigation; the results of the autopsy and other information will determine whether it becomes a criminal investigation, Procopio said.

Grieving relatives said yesterday they had been told by DSS staff members that Dontell was jumping on a bed and hit his head sometime Saturday. On Sunday, the foster mother found him unresponsive and called for an ambulance, Spence said.

Relatives also said they were told that Dontell had bruises on his ribcage that were not consistent with child's play.

"This is wracking my soul," Phillipa A. Jeffers, Dontell's aunt, said yesterday outside the Ellington Street apartment where the child's extended family lives and where they said he had lived with his father until last spring. "I didn't know they were going to send him to a foster home.

It's not like he was in a situation where nobody wanted him."

According to relatives and court records, Agatha Jeffers went to court last May and asked for custody of her grandchild after the child's father, Ellery, was arrested on a domestic violence charge and deported to St. Kitts and Nevis, a Caribbean island, because of a 1993 drug conviction.

According to the relatives and DSS, Dontell's mother, identified in court records as Christal Claiborne of Charlestown, was given custody. The child lived with his mother for most of last year, until DSS removed Dontell and his younger half-sister last December, officials and relatives said.

Dontell's relatives said DSS removed the children because Claiborne had substance abuse problems and had outstanding arrest warrants. Claiborne could not be reached for comment yesterday.

DSS officials visited her Charlestown apartment Sunday night to tell her of her son's death.

From December until Feb. 24, Dontell stayed at the Bridge Home, a residential assessment center for children run by the St.

Mary's Women and Children's Center in Dorchester. Dontell's relatives frequently visited and took him home on weekends.

On Feb. 27, Dontell's relatives said they returned to the Bridge Home and were told by a staff member that Dontell was not there and that the center could not, because of confidentiality laws, tell them where he had been moved.

"Certainly they were visiting the child a great deal," Spence said. "They raised some very legitimate concerns about our failure to communicate as a department within a point of transition of the child moved to therapeutic foster care."

Spence and DSS spokeswoman Denise Monteiro said Bridge Home staff members recommended that Dontell be placed with a foster family specially trained to deal with children who need therapeutic care, including those with medical or emotional problems.

DSS officials would not comment on Dontell's medical history.

Monteiro said Dontell was placed with a foster mother, but did not know whether any other children lived in the house. She said the foster mother was approved to have just one foster child in her care.

The foster mother, whose name was not released by DSS, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Neighbors on Ballou Avenue said the woman had recently moved into the third-floor apartment of a three-family house and had little contact with others in the neighborhood. Monteiro said she did not know how long the foster mother had been living on Ballou Avenue.

Dontell was matched with his foster mother by Massachusetts Mentor, a private DSS contractor that Spence called "very reputable."

Mentor director Paul Cataldo issued a statement expressing condolences to Dontell's family. "We care deeply about those we serve and strive every day to ensure their safety and well-being," the statement said.

On Ellington Street yesterday, the Rev. Dr. Thomas W.O. Mayers, rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Dorchester, was on hand when Agatha Jeffers was told about the death of her grandson.

"They have lost a child they were close to without any reason," said Mayers, who said the Jeffers family has lost "trust in the system."

Phillipa Jeffers said the child's grandmother was due back in family court March 15 to prove that any lead in her apartment had been made safe, the last step they hoped before they brought Dontell back to his family.

"I hope that this doesn't happen to any one else," she said.

Monteiro said another child in DSS care died this weekend, but the death was deemed medical because of the child's severe health condition. In 2003, 36 children under DSS supervision, including in foster care, died. Thirteen died from homicide, suicide, or unintentional injury, DSS records show. The remainder died from natural causes such as congenital conditions, terminal illness, or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The total of 36 deaths in 2003 was up slightly from the 32 in 2002, the lowest number since DSS started tracking the figures in 1989.

2005 Mar 8