Illinoisans know the names. Joseph Wallace, 3, hanged by his mother in 1993. Gizzell “Gizzy” Ford, 8, tortured to death by her grandmother in 2013. A.J. Freund, 5, murdered and buried in a shallow grave last year after a tortured life with abusive parents. So many more. They are children betrayed by those responsible for nurturing and safeguarding them.
Add to that list Kerrigan Rutherford, 6. “Kerri,” as family members called her. She was a kindergartner at Boulder Hill Elementary School in Montgomery.
Kerri enjoyed bubble baths, swimming, mermaids and unicorns, her obituary reads. Her mother, Courtny Davidson, 32, and her stepfather, James Davidson, 29, have been charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with her July 2 death, along with endangering the life or health of a child. Authorities in Kendall County allege the couple gave Kerri enough of a prescription drug to kill her, according to the NewsTribune of LaSalle, citing court records.
The drug, olanzapine, is prescribed as treatment for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Authorities say Kerri’s mother has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, the NewsTribune reported.
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, the state agency responsible for protecting children from abuse and neglect, had contact with Kerri and her family at their unincorporated Kendall County home as far back as December 2015, following a report of alleged abuse or neglect, according to a DCFS spokesperson.
Six agency investigations into allegations of abuse or neglect followed in 2017, 2018, 2019, and this year. The case was being treated as an “intact family case,” and an outside firm hired by DCFS provided intact family services to the Davidsons and their daughter. In such cases, DCFS provides services to a family to prevent further neglect or abuse, but does not remove the child from the household.
DCFS’ inspector general’s office is now investigating Kerri’s death, and the agency is helping the Kendall County sheriff’s department determine what happened.
Where did the money go?
There are a host of questions DCFS must answer about Kerri. Why did the agency first get involved with her family? How cooperative were the Davidsons with DCFS? Were there signs of abuse or neglect that investigators and contracted caseworkers missed, or failed to act on? What was the rationale for allowing Kerri to stay in the household?
Beyond those questions, however, Illinoisans should be incensed by yet another case of a child’s death at a household that DCFS had been scrutinizing. We’ve seen this script many times. A child under DCFS’ protection dies, agency chiefs pledge reform, and nothing changes. The result? More defenseless, vulnerable children die.
A report released last winter by the Office of the DCFS Inspector General found that 123 children died within a year of family contact with the agency. That marked the highest number of deaths after DCFS contact since the fiscal year ending in 2005, when the tally was 139 deaths.
The report covered the fiscal year between July 1, 2018, and June 30, 2019. Two dozen of those deaths were homicides, 13 of which involved victims 5 or younger. The report also listed 37 deaths that were accidental, seven suicides, 34 deaths due to natural causes and 21 deaths in which cause was undetermined.
Part of the problem: a turnstile of DCFS leadership that has seen 15 directors or interim directors take the helm since 2003. That’s a rate of a new director almost every year. An even bigger part of the problem — massive caseloads that overwhelm DCFS investigators.
The budget Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law in June sets aside an additional $151.7 million for DCFS. That’s in addition to an 11% spending increase that the agency received from Springfield in last year’s budget. Last September, DCFS officials said they would spend a chunk of the additional funding on a 5% rate increase for private social services agencies that contract with DCFS and handle about 85% of the agency’s intact family and foster care cases. The agency also said it would hire 301 more workers, including 71 more child protection investigators.
Pritzker spent $50,000 of his own money in 2019 for a nationwide search for a new director and selected Marc Smith from the south suburbs, an executive with Aunt Martha’s.
Pritzker, the agency and its heavily unionized workforce of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees cannot claim “lack of resources” as an excuse for failed policies and lack of accountability. Not anymore.
Remove more kids, save lives
Deciding whether to remove a child from a home mandates a careful, reasoned assessment of red flags. Illinois knows all too well cases of red flags missed, ignored or not acted on. Ja’hir Gibbons was 2 when he was beaten to death in Chicago last year, allegedly by his mother’s boyfriend. There were ample signs of prior abuse in the household, and yet no one rescued Ja’hir. Semaj Crosby, 17 months, was reported missing hours after a DCFS caseworker had left her trash-strewn Joliet Township home in 2017, and was later found dead under a couch. Both families had received intact family services.
And then there’s AJ Freund. DCFS had repeated contacts with the boy and his Crystal Lake family after he was born with opiates and other drugs in his system. In the two years before his death, evidence of A.J.’s abuse emerged repeatedly. People at church and the local hardware store saw him with bruises. Neighbors saw him trick-or-treating with clumps of hair missing. State Rep. Grant Wehrli, a Naperville Republican, sized up DCFS’ timeline of interactions with A.J. and his family as years of “failure after failure.”
Much more needs to be learned about Kerri Rutherford, her home life, and DCFS’ interaction with it. Illinoisans should expect nothing less from DCFS than a transparent, thorough examination of what went wrong, and a commitment to lasting change that protects Illinois’ most vulnerable children.
The list of young lives failed by this state is unconscionably long. No more new names. That’s a pledge Illinois should —and must — demand.
Editorials reflect the opinion of the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board.
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