Kathy Marie Garcia
23 months old
Died from child abuse
I'm leaving this story intact
even though it's quite lengthy as it shows yet another case of "the system"
failing our children.
In July 1997, Oregon's child
protective agency gave 11-month-old Kathy Marie Garcia back to her mother.
The agency knew Tammy Hyslop could not be trusted alone with a child. The
North Portland woman had lost custody of four other children, regularly
brawled with her boyfriend, was retarded and had trouble controlling her
anger. Yet the State Office for Services to Children and Families determined
that with the help of the boyfriend, more parenting classes and a team
of social workers, Hyslop could raise the little girl.
A year later, Kathy was
battered to death in her mother's North Portland home. Hyslop is charged
with the murder.
Kathy's story -- beginning
as a newborn in the arms of state caseworkers, sheltered for a year in
foster care, ending when she was killed in July -- appears to be one of
best intentions and grave mistakes. More than a dozen caseworkers, health
and respite care workers and others trailed the child through her days,
offering services, debating her future and checking her for signs of abuse.
Yet the safety net failed her.
A juvenile court referee
and others who knew the quiet, brown-eyed toddler said SCF workers made
unreasonable decisions and ignored serious and repeated cries for help
after she was returned to Hyslop. "If we had made all the right decisions,
then we would have a child still alive," said Kay Toran, the agency's director.
But returning Kathy home "was not a reckless, isolated decision made by
the agency." Instead, Toran said, it was a "thoughtful, purposeful decision"
made by many different agencies involved.
The State Office for Services
to Children and Families daily makes fateful choices for 17,630 children
living in their own homes and 7,038 living in shelter or foster care and
often can't investigate all calls for help. What makes Kathy's case a painful
standout is that she died even though dozens of people knew she was in
danger.
"There were all kinds of
red flags in the air," said Tracy Ming, the Sandy foster mother who cared
for Kathy during the first year of her life and argued against sending
her back to Hyslop. "The support network fell apart."
Kathy was born on Aug. 2,
1996, and spent the first three weeks of her life enduring operations to
mend respiratory and heart problems. When Kathy was ready to leave the
hospital, a foster mother drove her to a suburban Sandy home and tucked
her under flannel covers in a little white crib. Hyslop didn't protest.
She knew why the state didn't trust her.
Hyslop couldn't read or
write and was confused by such simple tasks as making a sandwich or turning
on a washing machine. She was mentally retarded and could never improve
her parenting skills or parent alone, according to a psychological exam
summary in court records. These problems were the same ones that prompted
the agency to remove four other children from her care.
So the little girl, called
"Katie" by her foster mother, learned to crawl and sit in her new foster
home. Her 3-year-old brother moved from another placement to join her.
"Katie was a very happy, smiley baby, and very easygoing as long as she
was here," Ming said.
During the first year, Kathy
and her brother spent one hour, supervised visits with Hyslop and their
father, Pedro Santiago-Garcia. Hyslop's three older children have a different
father. When the couple met with caseworkers, they spoke of their dream
of bringing their two children home and vowed to do everything necessary
to make that possible. Santiago promised to move in and help Hyslop care
for the children.
When Hyslop took parenting
classes and went into domestic violence counseling provided by Volunteers
of America, Santiago did the same at Neighborhood House, a nonprofit group
offering services to Spanish speakers.
When the SCF stated that
the couple also would need to find a two bedroom home for the children,
Hyslop won the sympathy of a North Portland landlord. Despite her calls
asking basic questions such as how to turn on the heat, she earnestly seemed
to love her children, and "what I was hearing from her heart convinced
me that she deserved a chance," said the landlord, Walter Pozarycki.
By February 1997, it appears,
that Hyslop also won the confidence of east Multnomah County branch caseworkers.
She now had a two bedroom apartment, a father in the home, and had fulfilled
much of the court ordered classes and counseling. Hyslop's caseworker,
who was then handling 15 other cases, in February 1997 wrote of the agency's
plan to return the children in six months: "Although Tammy is clearly devoted
to her children, her handicaps severely limit her ability to successfully
parent her children. It is hopeful that where Tammy lacks that Pedro Santiago-Garcia
may be able to make up for that and together they may parent their children."
The decision might have
been different if the agency had suspected that Hyslop would ever have
been violent toward a child, said John Barr, director of the agency's St.
Johns branch, which is now handling the case.
"The concern about Tammy
was that she might be neglectful because of her lack of capacity," Barr
said. "Nobody would ever have thought that she would be physically abusive
(to children). That was not in her history."
Juvenile Court Referee Nan
Waller of the Multnomah County Juvenile Court disagreed in a hearing after
Kathy's death. She criticized SCF workers and told them that the history
of domestic violence between Hyslop and Santiago and Hyslop's psychological
evaluation showed that she indeed was a risk of becoming abusive to children.
In her history of domestic violence with Santiago, she was usually, but
not always, the victim, a deputy district attorney said.
The plan to return Kathy
home was approved in March 1997 by a three person Citizens Review Board,
a panel of volunteers appointed by the court to review cases of children
in foster care. Word of the board's finding never reached the court, although
the State Office for Services to Children and Families is supposed to notify
the court when a child is sent home, according to Louise Palmer, Kathy's
attorney. Waller, the referee who took Kathy out of care, never learned
of her return to Hyslop. Nobody involved in the case will say what went
wrong. SCF officials have insisted that the court is supposed to automatically
review board decisions.
The person closest to Kathy
also said the SCF excluded her in making the decision. "I would have been
more comfortable leaving the children with my 10-year-old daughter," said
Ming, a registered nurse. When the caseworker, the child's attorney and
others met in June to talk about the imminent reunion, Ming said she was
turned away. Barr, of the St. Johns branch, said Ming might not have been
invited because "it often isn't appropriate for foster parents to be in
the same meeting with the parents." Ming said she ought to have had a chance
to say, "I don't think this is a good idea. We shouldn't be in a hurry
about this." After six months, Hyslop had complied with all of the state
agency's requirements. Ming was heartsick the day she drove the children
there for the last time in July.
The cramped home on North
Amherst Street wasn't peaceful for long.
In the month after the children
returned, August 1997, police arrived to arrest Santiago on suspicion of
domestic violence. Hyslop refused to sign police documents about the incident,
and Santiago was never charged. Often, domestic violence cases are dismissed
if the victim refuses to admit the incident occurred.
Still, when the SCF learned
about the incident the agency told Santiago to leave the home. That left
Hyslop alone to care for the children. Despite the psychological exam,
the understanding that the children might not be safe alone with their
mother and the arrest earlier that day, the caseworker who visited Hyslop
that day -- and her supervisor -- thought the children would be safe.
The caseworker and her supervisor
also decided that "it would be too painful to remove the children at that
time," said Leslie Abraham, the deputy district attorney prosecuting Hyslop.
"The caseworker's philosophy was: Even though the co-parent is out of the
house, the kids look OK."
The caseworkers involved
declined to comment, and their supervisors said details of the decision
were confidential.
The agency did try to bolster
Hyslop with outside help. Nearly a dozen health and social workers were
visiting to make sure Hyslop and her children were getting the services
they needed. In the months that followed, many of those who worked with
Hyslop reported she was doing well. But the branch began receiving worried
calls.
One anonymous caller told
a hot line worker that Hyslop was dangerously jealous of her daughter.
Two calls came from Hyslop's landlord, to say that Hyslop kept the children
inside, with the shades drawn for weeks at a time. Hyslop's mother, Margaret
Zamora, called to report that Kathy had cuts and bruises on her body. It
was clear to a community nurse and other health care workers who sometimes
visited Hyslop that she was very isolated, according to court testimony.
An SCF report says no visible
evidence existed to confirm allegations in the hot line call warning of
Hyslop's jealousy. The caseworker who visited Hyslop after receiving the
call wrote that she "found children appropriately groomed and dressed.
(The brother) and Kathy appeared happy and in good health."
Many workers involved in
the case would not comment about the concerns raised, and the SCF would
not release many documents regarding the case because of the ongoing criminal
investigation. The Oregonian obtained some court and SCF documents through
a legal challenge and through Kathy's family members.
By spring, SCF was concerned
enough to step up services.
A different caseworker and
a newly assigned four person health team began visiting her at different
times weekly, said Barr, of the St. Johns branch.
The caseworker was different
because six months after the children went home, Hyslop's case had been
transferred from the east Multnomah branch to the St. Johns branch, which
was closer to her home. The SCF would not say how familiar the new caseworker
was with Hyslop's case.
The team included a Multnomah
County Health Department community nurse, to see that the children were
well nourished, not abused, that their clothing was appropriate, that they
made their medical appointments and to counsel Hyslop, now pregnant with
her sixth child, on pre-natal care. The county also provided a developmental
disabilities specialist to help Hyslop with Social Security paperwork,
to figure out transportation to her appointments and to make sure she took
advantage of other available services.
An early childhood specialist
from the Multnomah County Department of Community and Family Services checked
the children for signs of developmental delay and provided physical and
speech therapy. A parenting mentor from Community Partners, a private nonprofit
group, acted as a role model in performing basic housekeeping for Hyslop
and provided intensive in-home family counseling.
With all this help, the
picture that emerges through available documents and interviews shows that
all the information coming in from calls and gathered by various workers
did not reach those who might have made a difference.
Palmer, the court appointed
attorney who represented Kathy throughout her life as a ward of the state,
told the court referee in a September court appearance that she didn't
have all the information she needed. In light of her review of the entire
case file after Kathy's death, the attorney said she might have responded
with more urgency if she had seen all the information.
The caseworker and the caseworker's
supervisor are responsible for making sure that all parties involved in
an SCF case have all the information they need to make their own decisions,
Abraham of the district attorney's office said. But considering that the
average caseworker juggles dozens of cases, a child's attorney should aggressively
seek out information from other parties, Abraham said.
By summer, Kathy's grandmother
could tell pressure was mounting in her daughter's home. Santiago, who
visited occasionally, said and did things that fed Hyslop's jealousy and
paranoia, Margaret Zamora said. "He would sit in a chair and be clinging
and loving on Kathy, and then look over at Tammy and say 'How did you make
this beautiful little girl? You're such a fat slob. You are ugly. You are
a retard.' "She took all the anger and torture that he was giving her and
turned around and gave it to Kathy," said Sandy Hyslop, Tammy Hyslop's
sister.
"She would call me up and
say, 'Why can't Pedro love me like he loves Kathy?' "Zamora said she received
a phone call from Hyslop on the night before Kathy died. Hyslop was crying
and Santiago was yelling in the background, she said. Hyslop told her mother
that she was giving Kathy a bath when Santiago had kicked in the bathroom
door and yanked the crying baby out of the tub. The father was screaming
at Hyslop that she didn't even know how to wash a baby without doing damage,
Zamora said.
"Pedro is so mean to me
and I take it out on Kathy," Zamora said Hyslop told her mother. "I pinched
her and pushed her down. Now he won't let me wash the soap out of her hair.
What should I do?" The phone went dead.
Zamora didn't then go to
help Hyslop because she didn't want to cause problems between Hyslop and
Santiago, Zamora said.
The next morning, Zamora
answered a hysterical call from her daughter at the hospital. "Oh, God,
I don't want Kathy to die," Hyslop wailed, according to Zamora. Zamora
went to Legacy Emanuel Hospital and Health Center. Her granddaughter was
dying of blunt trauma to the head and spinal cord.
"When I got there, when
I saw that little girl with a tube down her throat, I was mad." Not at
her daughter. Zamora was angry to see Hyslop surrounded by ranks of police
officers and social workers. With all their involvement, she said, they
hadn't saved Kathy.
A brief memorial service
was held July 29 for Kathy at the Gateway Little Chapel of the Chimes.
The spare sanctuary was decorated with a few bouquets of tiny pink roses
and baby's breath. There was no picture of Kathy at the service. Hyslop
wasn't allowed to be there. One caseworker attended.
"It was very short and kind
of impersonal, but it gave us some closure," Ming said. Now Ming cares
for Kathy's 3-year-old brother, as well as Hyslop's infant daughter, born
after Hyslop was arrested. Hyslop gave the infant the name of her deceased
sister, but Hyslop calls her "Hope."
Santiago, who declined an
interview, plans to seek custody of the children but admitted in court
that his current problems with alcohol, violence, employment and homelessness
would prevent him from being a good parent and that the state should have
custody of his 3-year-old son and the new baby for now.
Carolyn Graf, the east branch
supervisor of the caseworker who worked with Hyslop before her children
were returned, called the death "devastating." She said SCF workers are
awaiting the results of a death investigation to see what they can do differently
to "make sure this never happens to another child."
Tammy Hyslop is now in the
Oregon State Hospital for mental health treatment to see whether she can
help in her own defense. In a phone interview, Hyslop said she often called
the SCF in the final days of Kathy's life, but they never sent anyone to
help her. SCF caseworkers say she was seeking permission for Santiago to
babysit, but they would not allow that without meeting with him first.
No other respite care was arranged.
"I was looking for a break,"
she sobbed during the phone call. "I was sad. I knew I needed a break.
I found out when this happened." She admits she was there when the 23-month-old
child died. They were standing together in the bedroom, she recalled. "I
smacked her on the hand and she went back and hit the door and quit breathing
on me," she said.
Now, she says, "I don't
want to die. But I want to go to heaven and be with Kathy where Kathy is."
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