FOSTER CHILD'S DEATH PROBED

CHRISTINE DEMPSEY

The Hartford Courant

It might take at least a month to determine what killed a 7-month-old foster child who died while in the custody of a worker at a state agency charged with protecting children.

Authorities are waiting for the results of toxicology tests, which take four to six weeks to get back from the laboratory, a spokeswoman from the state medical examiner's office said Thursday.

Michael Brown Jr. was reported to be unresponsive about 8 p.m. Monday at a licensed foster home on Stearns Road in Mansfield, police said. The state Department of Children and Families said that the child was being cared for in the home of a foster parent who also works at the state agency.

Public records and other sources identify the foster parent as Suzanne Listro. Listro could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The baby was pronounced dead about 10 p.m. at Hartford Hospital.

The baby's biological father, Michael Anthony Brown, said he was told that the boy had hit his head after falling off a bed. DCF had taken custody of the child on May 9, he said, citing inadequate supervision.

Police have not said whether the baby died from an accident, an intentional act or natural causes. Tuesday's autopsy was inconclusive.

"The cause and manner of death is the focal point of the investigation at this point, and that will be the determining factor in which direction the investigation moves forward," Trooper William Tate, a state police spokesman, said Thursday.

DCF and the state child advocate, Jeanne Milstein, are investigating. Milstein said that the baby's death raises the question of whether DCF treats its employees who are foster parents the same as others.

Josh Howroyd, an agency spokesman, said that whether other children in a home are removed when an investigation begins "depends on the situation." A neighbor said that Listro had adopted an older boy from Russia.

Employees of the state agency are treated the same way as everyone else when it comes to their applications to become foster parents, he said. There are protocols in place to be sure that there is no favoritism when it comes to processing employees' foster parent applications, he said.

Once a DCF employee is approved to be a foster parent, the child's case worker conducts follow-up visits as with any other new foster parent, he said.

Information about Listro's status with DCF was not available Thursday.

Contact Christine Dempsey at cdempsey@courant.com.