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WOMAN CHARGED IN DEATH TOOK IN 14 KIDS

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Miami Herald, The (FL)

Author: ASSOCIATED PRESS

Albert Smith complained of being hit with a flat board for misbehaving and asked to leave his foster home in November, state records show.

But in January, the 5-year-old died before a new home was found.

Police say his skull was fractured when he was bashed in the head with a board for refusing to kneel to say his prayers.

Rosa Lee Jones, 40, was charged Wednesday with second- degree murder and aggravated child abuse in the child's Jan. 8 death.

Over eight years, Jones was a foster mother to 14 children. In 1986 and in 1987, she asked the state if she could take a break as a foster mother, saying at one point she was "stressed out," records of the state Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services show.

Before licensing Jones, a state worker had only one reservation -- about the woman's membership in the Holiness faith. Licensing analyst Salley Caro was concerned Jones might be too rigid in applying her religious beliefs.

"Mrs. Jones' religion is obviously very important to her and she might border on being somewhat fanatical," Caro wrote in her licensing study, The Tampa Tribune reported Friday.

"She may tend to be a little rigid in some areas because she is a devout member of a fundamentalist religion. However, I do not feel that she will be unreasonable in her expectations of the children."

The first placement in February 1980, a 13-year-old girl, left seven months later after she complained of being whipped with a belt.

After a warning about corporal punishment, which is against HRS rules, the Joneses took 13 more children into their home over the next seven years.

Jones redeemed herself in the eyes of social workers by nursing the sores of a neglected boy; adopting three foster children; and accepting as many as seven children in her home at once, including mentally impaired children.

HRS workers reported no problems in annual reviews of the Joneses' home, which was once called "the cleanest home that has ever been seen" by one worker.

By January 1986, Jones told state workers she needed a break from foster parenting and asked that no more children be placed in her home, HRS records show. She had three adopted children and was caring for two foster children.

Two more were placed but by June 1987 the home was returned to its scheduled capacity of five.

Three months later, a caller reportedly said Jones was abusing Albert Smith.

The boy tearfully told social workers that he had been spanked with a board or a belt. But no marks were found on the boy, making it more a discipline problem than abuse, said Joseph Tagliarini, HRS administrator for Hillsborough County.

Albert's school bus driver told HRS workers the child had started crying when he got close to Jones' home.

Jones denied she had hit Albert, but admitted she was "stressed out" and asked to have her foster home closed.

Social workers were working hard to keep Albert Smith with his little brother together. They had no other foster homes available when he asked to leave the Jones home in November, records show.

Jones agreed to care for the children just a little longer.

"We try to preserve a (foster care) placement," said Tagliarini. "Maybe sometimes we try to preserve too much."

1988 Apr 2