More investigations launched into starved teen's death: 'Our children need protecting'
The Iowa Citizens Aide Ombudsman and the Child Death Review Team of the state Medical Examiner's Office have both opened investigations into the Oct. 24 starvation death of 16-year-old Natalie Finn.
The reviews, coupled with the Iowa Department of Human Services' own internal examination, mark perhaps the most intense scrutiny of a child's death in Iowa since Spirit Lake toddler Shelby Duis died in 2000.
In a letter Friday to state Sen. Matt McCoy, State Medical Examiner Dennis Klein said the review team, a large panel of experts coordinated by his office, will examine the teen's death as part of a retrospective review of 2016 child deaths.
Natalie's adoptive parents, Nicole and Joseph Finn, have pleaded not guilty to multiple felony charges in her death and the alleged torture of two younger siblings, 14 and 15, who had to be hospitalized when discovered by authorities.
Klein said he will not assemble a special ad hoc committee to investigate Natalie's death, as McCoy requested, because most of the work promises to be done by the ombudsman.
"After careful consideration and desire for obtaining the highest quality of information and guidance to help prevent child deaths in the future, I have determined it is best not to convene an ad hoc committee at this time," Klein wrote.
Ombudswoman Kristie Hirschman said investigators in her office will look at the case with an eye toward possible improvements in services and processes "to make sure this doesn't happen again."
But it's too early to say whether any findings will be made public, she said. Numerous laws and regulations have changed in the 16 years since Shelby Duis died, she said.
Hirschman's office subpoenaed records and began an initial inquiry in the Finn case not long after Watchdog revealed in December at least one neighbor had reported abuse five months before the teen died. That neighbor, Becca Gordon, said DHS never called her about her concerns.
Two Department of Human Services workers lost their jobs in the wake of the case, McCoy previously told Watchdog.
Hirschman said she does not know how long her office's probe will take.
"The number of complaints we are getting are up overall," she said.
Several states — Michigan, Colorado and Montana among them — have created special ombudsman positions to review children's cases, Hirschman said. Most were spurred by high-profile child deaths.
"It's an important topic," she said. "Our children need protecting. Quite clearly, some of them are not."
McCoy, a Democrat from West Des Moines, asked for reviews of Finn's death by both the ombudsman and the medical examiner's office after learning numerous reports of abuse had been made to Iowa's Department of Human Services.
He pushed again after receiving a confidential briefing on how those reports were handled by Human Services chief Charles Palmer.
Iowa law provides for Klein to convene a special ad hoc committee of specific experts to review one child's death. But after reviewing Iowa Code, the medical examiner concluded a panel made up of a law enforcement, pediatric and forensic specialist was not what the case required.
"These three committee members would not be knowledgeable about the specific laws, policies, manuals, protocols and procedures of the Department of Human Services, nor would they have experience in investigating the actions and omissions of a state agency."
Klein said the review team will determine "causative factors" in the Finn case as it looks at other 2016 deaths.
McCoy, a ranking Democrat on the Government Oversight Committee, told Watchdog he learned in a confidential briefing that the principal and school nurse at the West Des Moines alternative high school where Finn begged for food reported abuse months before she died.
But he said school officials and police both had difficulty getting child-protective workers to take their concerns seriously — until late last summer, when a worker and police pushed their way into the Finn house Aug. 16, McCoy said.
McCoy says Palmer told him the child-protective worker and supervisor in the case did not give appropriate weight to the concerns voiced by the officials at Natalie's school, who were mandated by law to report suspected abuse.
The state workers also failed to make sure the Finn case was being monitored during a critical time last summer when a worker was out of the office and another was on medical leave, he said.
Human Services officials said the agency has made some changes and initiated new training since the girl's death.
Complaints about child abuse and children deemed in need of assistance by the state make up the bulk of complaints to the ombudsman's office about human services.
Shelby Duis died Jan. 4, 2000, of numerous injuries. Her mother, Heidi Watkins, was convicted of child endangerment. Both Watkins and her live-in lover, Jesse Wendelsdorf, were acquitted of first-degree murder. Watkins was paroled in 2013. Wendelsdorf died last year.
In a detailed 10-month investigation of Shelby's death, the ombudsman's office found the Iowa Department of Human Services — and specifically one child-protective worker — failed the 2-year-old that several people had reported was being abused.
On several occasions, the worker accepted Watkins' explanation for injuries Shelby suffered, failed to interview other witnesses or visit the home, and did not immediately return calls to people who reported abuse or neglect.
The report yielded 23 recommendations to state leaders focusing on how abuse calls were taken by the agency. One recommendation — creating a centralized intake system for alleged abuse — took more than a decade to create.
Editor's note: A previous version of this story misrepresented the affiliation between the Iowa Citizens Aide Ombudsman and the Child Death Review Team. The team is under the state Medical Examiner's Office.