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Police, CPS continue child death probe
Preliminary autopsy
report indicates blunt force trauma cause of death
By Janet Jacobs
September 6, 2006
Preliminary autopsy
results in the case of a 16-month-old child who died Monday while in
foster care in Corsicana indicate the cause of death to be blunt
force trauma.
Police are still investigating the death of a 16-month-old North
Texas boy who died Monday afternoon in the care of a foster family
in Corsicana.
The case is also under investigation by Child Protective Services, a
division of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
“We’ve got someone down there in the Mesa office in Harker Heights,
going over their files, and of course one of our investigators is
working on the death, trying to talk to the foster parent,” said
Marissa Gonzales, spokeswoman for CPS out of Fort Worth.
Navarro County Justice of the Peace Connie Mayfield ordered the
autopsy. Any child younger than six who dies of unnatural causes has
to have an autopsy, she explained.
“I went to the hospital and viewed the child’s body there,” Mayfield
said. “There was no open wound trauma, but it was obviously a lot of
trauma. I saw different stages of bruises; some old bruising and
some new bruising.”
The toddler and his 3-year-old brother were placed into foster care
last Wednesday by Denton County.
Meanwhile, doors were locked and lights off at the Corsicana offices
of Mesa Family Services, the foster care agency that placed the
child and approved the home. No calls were returned, and neither the
local director or the case manager were answering their cell phones.
The offices are located at Navarro Center, the former Navarro Mall.
Officials at Mesa’s financial headquarters in Harker Heights said
they were referring all questions to CPS.
The investigations began with a call to emergency services at 12:46
p.m. Labor Day from the foster home in the 3500 block of Northpark
Drive, just off the Emhouse Road. When EMS workers were unable to
revive the infant, he was taken to the emergency room at Navarro
Regional Hospital.
The boy was one of five foster care children in the home, all under
the age of four. The boy’s 3-year-old brother was one of those. The
other children have since been removed from the home.
Mesa is a statewide agency, and the agency’s license was approved in
July 1994. Between July 1994, and July 2006, the agency had placed
353 children in foster homes statewide, and 26 in Navarro County.
Child Protective Services has records of only two children killed in
Navarro County in the last five years.
“Neither were in foster homes,” Gonzales said.
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Janet Jacobs may be contacted via e-mail at jacobs@corsicanadailysun.com
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