CINCINNATI — Marcus
Fiesel has gotten a lot more attention in death than
he did in life.
The 3-year-old,
developmentally disabled former Middletown boy
triggered a massive search, drawing hundreds of
volunteers, after his foster parents reported him
missing from a suburban park Aug. 15.
And, since the Union Twp. couple were
charged Aug. 28 in his death, there has been a flurry of official
responses amid public outcry and mourning of the child's alleged
treatment.
"This little boy has touched so many
people," said state Sen. Gary Cates, R-West Chester Twp., who said
he will introduce legislation that would require any changes
recommended by state authorities probing the case.
Foster parents Liz and David Carroll
Jr. are accused of causing the boy's death by leaving him bound up
in a blanket inside a closet for two days while they went to family
reunion in Williamstown, Ky., then concocting the story of his
disappearance.
Meanwhile, the attorneys for Marcus'
biological mother, Donna Trevino, said they plan to file a wrongful
death lawsuit in Butler County Common Pleas Court this week on
Trevino's behalf. In April, authorities removed three of Trevino's
children — Michael, 10, Marcus, 3, and Peaches, 13 months — from her
Middletown home after Marcus was found wandering the streets and
police found "very bad living conditions."
If there is any good to come out of
the case, it would be a thorough review of the foster care system
that leads to improvements, said Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe
Deters.
"Unfortunately, it almost always
takes a tragedy to get change in the system," Deters said.
National child advocates agree,
saying highly publicized abuse cases or legal action usually are
catalysts, such as lawsuits that led to reforms to the Alabama and
Illinois child welfare systems.
An American Civil Liberties Union
attorney in Chicago involved in the Illinois lawsuit cautioned that
child-protection efforts are complex, with strong training,
oversight and risk assessment systems needed to determine what's
best for a neglected or abused child.
"Sometimes, those high-profile cases
will lead to superficial, quick fixes," said attorney Benjamin Wolf.
"You really need changes down to the level of the people who are
involved in the system every day."
The Ohio Department of Job and Family
Services has launched an investigation of the boy's case, and the
agency's director on Friday sent a message to all 88 county
children's services boards telling them to check on all children
placed in foster homes through Lifeway for Youth, the private
organization used to place Marcus.
"In this instance, the system
failed," Barbara Riley, head of the state agency, said in a
statement. "We will conduct an investigation to figure out why, and
determine whether any changes in state law or regulation should be
recommended. Marcus deserves nothing less."
Adoption reforms came following a
similar investigation last year of a Huron County case in which the
adoptive parents of 11 special-needs children used cage-like beds.
Among the changes are increased scrutiny of multiple adoptions and
more information-sharing among agencies.
Butler County Children Services,
which removed Marcus from his Middletown home because of reported
neglect, had already begun visiting all 116 county children placed
through Lifeway. Statewide, at least 18 counties have used Lifeway,
with 383 licensed homes.
Butler County commissioners on
Thursday said they will form an independent commission to probe the
case and the county agency, and also press for full public
disclosure of the handling of Marcus.
"The only time the public gets an
opportunity to look inside the system and see how it works is when
you have a tragedy like this," said Commissioner Michael Fox, a
longtime critic of child-protection agencies.
Marcus was removed from his
Middletown home, where he lived with Trevino, about four months
before his death. Middletown police had responded to the home twice
before his removal, once after the boy fell from a roof after he
climbed through a second-floor window.
On Friday, Butler County Probate
Court Judge Randy Rogers approved paperwork naming Trevino the
administrator of the slain toddler's estate, paving the way for a
wrongful death lawsuit expected to be filed this week.
The lawsuit will seek an as-yet
undetermined amount of punitive and compensatory damages against
Butler County Commissioners, Butler County Children Services,
Lifeway and the Carrolls, said Jennifer Coatney, Trevino's
co-counsel.
"The elephant in the room" in the
child-protection debate is often whether the child could have been
kept with his family in the first place through stepped-up
intervention and help to the home, said Richard Wexler, executive
director of the Virginia-based National Coalition for Child
Protection Reform.
Agencies "take away far too many
children, needlessly," he said, thereby overwhelming foster care
systems and child-protection efforts and leading to tragedies like
this one.
State records showed that on Aug. 4,
the day Marcus was allegedly left in the closet, he was one of
10,601 Ohio children in foster homes, and among 19,135 children in
various stages of placement away from their family homes. State
records show the numbers of children in placement have been about
the same each year since 1999.
Wexler and Fox both said Butler
County's agency has made improvements in recent years. But Fox said
the child-protection system has a culture of secrecy and resisting
change.
While businesses can closely monitor
their shipments electronically, children in the system can go long
periods of time without checks on their welfare, he said.
"We place more value on tracking
packages than protecting children," Fox said.
He and Deters said information
databases like those used by law enforcement agencies could be used
to update the backgrounds of foster parents and raise warning flags
after incidents such as a June domestic violence allegation against
the boy's foster father.
Prosecutors this week plan to go
before a Clermont County grand jury to seek murder charges against
the Carrolls, who pleaded not guilty last week to involuntary
manslaughter charges.
Michael Berner, executive director of
Lifeway for Youth, lashed out at critics Friday and said the
Carrolls had lied and misled his organization about everything from
their living arrangements to employment.
"The foster care system is not
perfect, but no system will ever be perfect," he said. "You will not
find a legitimate scapegoat here. I'm afraid we're all in this
together."
Staff Writer Mary Lolli
contributed to this report.
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