How Could You? Hall of Shame-Alexandria Hill case-Child Death UPDATED and Mentor and Lawsuit

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Rockdale, Texas, 2-year-old foster child Alexandria Hill died on July 31, 2013 “from injuries police believe she sustained at the hands of her foster mother.”

” Alexandria Hill was pronounced dead Wednesday at Scott & White McClane Children’s Hospital in Temple after she was taken off live support.

A warrant for Sherill Small was issued and she was arrested Thursday—charged with murder.  Her bond was set by Judge Jerry Waggoner at $100,000.

Rockdale Police  Lt. J.D. Newlin said officers responded to a 911 call at approximately 7:06 p.m. July 29 for a two-year-old child who was not breathing and was unresponsive.

RPD, AMR an ambulance crew and firefighters were dispatched to the residence and CPR was performed on Hill.  She was transported to Richards Memorial Hospital and then airlifted to Temple.

“Once at Scott & White, it was determined that Hill had subdural hemorrhaging, subarachnoid hemorrhaging and retinal hemorrhaging in both eyes. She was then placed on life support,” Newlin said.

An investigation by Newlin, Ofc. Brandon Tess and Sgt. Stephen Goodrich was launched.  Due to inconsistencies in the suspect’s story and with the injuries found by doctors, Small was interviewed and later charged with the toddler’s murder, according to Newlin

Hill was placed into the foster care of Clemon and Sherill Small by Texas Children’s Protective Services and the Mentor Texas Program in January of this year, Newlin said.

An autopsy is being performed by the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office.”

Murder charged in death of two-year-old

[Rockdale Reporter 8/1/13]

Sherill Ann Small is a 54-year-old white female and is currently in the Milam County, Texas jail.

[VINElink search Milam County August 1, 2013]

REFORM Puzzle Pieces

Update: ” The child was taken first to Richards Memorial Hospital’s emergency room and then was flown to Scott & White.

Rockdale police said Small was the lone caregiver at the time of the child’s injury and said the explanation she offered was inconsistent with what doctors found, police said.

Texas Child Protective Services and the Mentor Texas Program placed the toddler with Small and her husband Clemon in January, police said.

Local Foster Mother Charged In Death Of 2-Year-Old

[KWTX 8/1/13 by Paul J. Gately]

“Police arrested her foster mother Sherill Small and charged her with murder. Police say Small called them on Monday and told them that Alex had stopped breathing. At the hospital, doctors discovered she had hemorrhaging in and around her brain and eyes. She fell into a coma and never woke up.

The Department of Family Protective Services is now investigating the agency that approved Small and her husband as foster parents. Texas MENTOR is required to perform background checks and monitor the foster home environment while a child is under the care of the foster parents.

“Residential Childcare Licensing will take a closer look at how Texas MENTOR made their decision to license the Smalls. So that means we’re going to take a closer look at the background checks that were done. Were all the background checks that are supposed to be done completed? Training? Was all the training done? Was everything done in the way it was supposed to be done?” explained DFPS spokesperson Julie Moody.

On Friday, Texas MENTOR acknowledged that it is reviewing the Small’s account.

“All of us at Texas MENTOR are terribly saddened by this tragedy. As an organization dedicated to protecting and caring for children, we are appalled by the allegations involving one of our foster parents,” said State Director of Texas MENTOR Wendy Bagwell in a written statement.

State records show 15 previous deficiencies at Texas MENTOR, including four cases of improper background checks. DFPS says there are no obvious signs that the Smalls were among those cases.

Sherill Small is in jail on a $100,000 bond. Another child who was in her care at the time Alex died was immediately removed from the home.”

DFPS investigating death of 2-year-old

[KHOU 8/2/13 by Jessica Vess and Michael Moore]

MENTOR is the organization behind the placement fo the child with uncle/nephew Merritt/Bayne in Maryland. See that case here.

Update 2: “The family of a child abuse victim will hold her funeral Monday in Pflugerville.

Last Wednesday, Alex Hill’s biological parents took her off life support.

 

Investigators say her foster mother, Sherill Small, admitted to killing the two-year-old. Small told investigators she became frustrated with Alex and slammed her into the ground.

 

The 54-year-old is in the Milam County Jail charged with murder.”

Funeral Monday for toddler killed in foster care

[KVUE 8/5/13]

“A foster care agency that placed a two-year-old girl in a home where she recently died, has a history of violating state child care standards.

The Department of Family and Protective Services hired Texas Mentor to match Alexandria Hill with Sherill Small in Rockdale.

“That means background checks, criminal background checks, home studies,” explained DFPS spokesperson Julie Moody, talking about the obligations of placement agencies.

Those background checks don’t always happen. According to records reviewed by the KVUE Defenders, the state found Texas Mentor in violation of child care standards 15 times since 2011.

Four of those involved background check issues. One inspection found “”a frequent caregiver of the children does not have an updated background check.”

Another inspection found “an infant and a toddler in care were left sleeping alone for about 15 minutes.”

Tracy Harting is an Austin attorney who specializes in child welfare law. She’s also a former foster parent.

“The background checks are a little bit concerning because that seems like it should be the easy thing for a foster agency to look at,” said Harting.

Before Hill’s final foster home, the state expressed concern with the first family Texas Mentor placed her with earlier this year.

The state removed her after her father, Joshua Hill, sent pictures of bruising on her legs and filthy clothes to a caseworker.

“That’s not common. I mean these kids are looked at on a regular basis by their workers, by their case managers for the child placing agency,” contends Harting.

“I applaud the department for responding to a father’s concerns. It’s just horrible that it went from a situation that was bad, to apparently one that was worse,” continued Harting.

Texas Mentor declined on-camera interviews, but in an emailed statement wrote, “All of us at Texas MENTOR are terribly saddened by the passing of Alexandria Hill, and we extend our condolences to her family and all those who loved her.  As an organization dedicated to protecting and caring for children, we are appalled by the allegations involving one of our foster parents.”

DFPS says another child under the care of the Smalls, prior to Hill, reportedly had bruising and lead poisoning, but investigators say they found no violations at the home.

Texas Mentor says the Smalls met all requirements to foster children and that its staff did monthly checks on them and Hill.

Its last checkup on Hill happened a few weeks ago.”

Foster agency had history of violations

[KVUE 8/2/13]

“A foster mother in Austin, Texas has been charged with beating a toddler to death after she was placed in her care because social services found her biological parents smoking pot.

Emergency services responded to a 911 call from Sherill Small, 54, on Monday 29th of July asking them to come to her house because two-year-old Alexandria Hill was not breathing.

The tragic tot later died in hospital from a brain hemorrhage and doctors told police that the explanation Small gave them for the child’s injuries were not consistent with her wounds.

The little girl’s life support machine was switched off on Wednesday 31st of July and Small was arrested and charged with murder the next day – allegedly admitting to authorities that she had thrown Alexandria to the ground.

Her distraught parents, Mary Sweeney and Joshua Hill are now working to file a suit against the state and foster agency, Texas Mentor for placing their child in the care of Small in the first place.

‘She was placed into foster care for neglectful supervision because her mother and I smoked pot at the time,’ explained Hill to KXAN.Com.

According to court records, Alexandria’s mother has a medical condition that does not allow her to be left alone with her own child and Hill’s marijuana use had become so bad he almost dropped his daughter down the stairs.

Foster mother beats toddler to death after she was taken from her biological parents because social services discovered them smoking pot

[Daily Mail 8/5/13 by James Nye]

Even Russia is reporting about this case!

“The girl’s biological father, Joshua Hill, told KVUE-TV that he and Alexandria’s mother lost full custody of their daughter last November after the DFPS accused them of “neglectful supervision.” Mr. Hill said the agency made that determination “because her mother and I smoked pot at the time.” According to the father, the parents only smoked while their daughter was asleep.

“We never hurt our daughter,” Mr. Hill told KVUE on Thursday. “She was never sick, she was never in the hospital, and she never had any issues until she went into state care.”

It was only then, Hill said, that things started to go wrong.

“She would come to visitation with bruises on her, and mold and mildew in her bag. It got to a point where I actually told CPS [Child Protective Services] that they would have to have me arrested because I wouldn’t let her go back,” he told KVUE.

Then seven months ago, Alexandria was placed into Small’s house in Rockdale, Texas, where her biological parents were allowed to make occasional visits. That all ended last week, though, after the girl died at an area hospital.

Hill told KVUE that he got a phone call Monday night telling him his daughter was on life support at the Scott and White Children’s Emergency Hospital in Temple, Texas.

“They wouldn’t tell me what condition she was in or what was wrong or what had happened. The only thing they would tell me is I needed to be there. When I got there, I found out that Alex was in a coma,” he said.

To make matters even more confusing, the adopted mother altered her story after Alexandria was admitted to the hospital. First Small told investigators during a routine police report that she had been spinning the girl around in circles when she accidentally let go of Alexandria’s hands, sending the child to the ground where she hit her head on the carpet. During a physical examination, however, doctors found three symptoms of traumatic brain injury and began asking more questions. The foster mom later admitted to being frustrated with the girl and swinging her over her head and down near the ground with a “lot of force” three times. On the third time, Alexandria’s head hit the floor.

Police arrested Small on Thursday after her foster child’s death and charged her with criminal homicide, a first-degree felony in Texas. An autopsy report released the following day concluded that blunt-force trauma to the head caused the girl’s death.

A spokesperson for the Texas DFPS told KXAN News that Small was previously accused of neglect after a child in her care was reportedly suffering from bruising and lead poisoning, “but no deficiencies were found.” A second foster child was removed from her care on Monday.”

Toddler killed after taken by Child Protective Services from her parents

[Russia Today 8/6/13]

Update 3:“Chief Harris says the story didn’t add up. Her story later changed to explain the severe head trauma that put Alex into a coma.

“In her statement what she said was she actually slammed the child on the ground and she claims it was an accident that she was swinging the child in a downward motion and dropped the child. So it went from the child was running backwards to, I was horse’n around,” Chief Harris said.

Shortly after Alex’ father held his child for the last time, she passed away.

Thursday, the foster mom, Sherill Small was charged with murder.

Small got into the state foster care program thru an agency called Texas Mentor. Managers with the organization, according to CPS spokesperson Julie Moody, are now being asked how Small got into the program and if anything was missed during the background check process.

“Is this child placing agency capable of licensing adults who are capable of caring for our children, that’s the bottom line this is a horrible devastating case,” said Moody.

Texas Mentor- over the past two years – has gone through 72 state inspections. The agency has self-reported 13 incidents … and responded to 47 other compliance reports. In all the cases, The agency has been talked to by CPS and the problems have been addressed, according to Moody.

The questions are not limited just to Sherill Small but also about her husband’s criminal past.

“Thank you very much there will be no statement, not until after I talk to our lawyer,” said a voice from the other side of the door after I stopped by to talk.

While Clemons Small refused to open his door – FOX7 got a look into his criminal record which dates back to 1987. The serious charges against him that we found include delivery of marijuana, forgery, and possession of cocaine. The last incident happened in 2001. In a recent court hearing, Small said he was clean – and the crimes according to state officials do not disqualify him or his wife from being in the foster care program. [Marijuana use was the reason she was taken from the biological parents and the foster dad was a DEALER who possessed COCAINE! The world has gone mad!]

Wendy Bagwell, with Texas Mentor, also addressed the issue of background checks in the following statement released late Friday:

“The on-going law enforcement investigation and privacy laws, as well as the fact that our own internal review is not complete, limit our ability to provide some of the specific information requested. However, we can inform you that Sherill Small and her husband met the requirements to foster children, including background checks in accordance with state regulation (Texas Department of Public Safety criminal history database check, Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Central Registry abuse/neglect database, Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI) criminal history and federal Office of Inspector General exclusion check). During each month since the Smalls began fostering Alexandria, our staff has met or exceeded the state requirement to visit their home monthly, including the most recent visit in mid-July.”

According to court documents, up until a few weeks before her death, Alex was reportedly “doing well in the placement” and there were notations that she was “healthy” and “playful.”

For Alex’s family that assessment rings hallow – as well as information that CPS officials were in the process of trying to move her out of foster care and place the child with relatives who currently live in Florida.”

Death of 2-year-old foster child under investigation

[My Fox Austin 8/2/13]

Update 4: “Two weeks after a 2-year-old died while living in her Rockdale home, police say county prosecutors are planning to seek a capital murder indictment against the child’s foster mom.

Sherill Small, 54, was arrested this month on a warrant charging murder and remained in the Milam County Jail in lieu of a $100,000 bond, jail records showed.

The child, Alexandria Hill, 2, died at Scott & White’s McLane Children’s Hospital after she was taken off life support.

Smalls’ arrest affidavit details that, “she became frustrated with Alexandria, picked her up, and in a downward motion with a lot of force came down toward the ground with her.”

The affidavit continues saying, “she did this twice and on the third time she lost her grip and the victim was thrown to the ground head first.”

Upon examination at McLane’s ER, the affidavit says Alexandria “was found to have subdural hemorrhaging, subarachnoid hemorrhaging, and retinal hemorrhaging in both eyes.”

Questions now surround Small’s past, Rockdale Police say they now have a statement from Small’s biological daughter who said she was neglected as a child and removed from Small’s custody by CPS.

“We were told by family members that CPS had been contacted sometime recently and were told they didn’t feel like Small would be suitable as a foster parent,” Rockdale Chief of Police Thomas Harris said.

But the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services claim to have no record of that phone call, or any record of a child being removed from Small’s care.

“We have no record of that phone call, and there are no documents at this time showing where CPS ever got involved with Mrs. Small and her biological daughter,” Texas DFPS Spokeswoman Julie Moody said.

Small became a foster parent through Texas Mentor, a state child placing agency with a dismal history.

State records show they’ve racked up 59 violations in the past two years. Some of those violations center around routine background checks that weren’t corrected after inspection.

However Texas Mentor told News 10 that, “Sherill Small and her husband met the requirements to foster children, including background checks in accordance with state regulation.”

Small has no criminal history, and according to police she was expected to foster up to six kids.

Chief Harris says he finds that information shocking as Small’s past regarding children remains unclear.

“It seems that there needs to be more scrutiny on where we place these children,” Harris said.

“They have to be put into a safe environment.”

Texas Mentor is currently being investigated by Residential Child Care Licensing.”

Jailed Foster Mom May Face Capital Murder Indictment

[KWTX 8/14/13]

Update 5: “The Milam County woman arrested earlier this month for the death of her foster child has been charged with capital murder. Alexandria Hill, 2, was found not breathing and unresponsive at 54-year-old Sherill Small’s Rockdale home. Once taken to the emergency room, doctors found bleeding around her brain and eyes. She died after being taken off life support. Small’s husband says Alexandria’s injuries came from being accidentally dropped. But police say the injuries aren’t consistent with being dropped and that’s why Small was charged. Small and her husband had one other foster child. That child has been taken away. Small faces the death penalty or life in prison if convicted. ”

Milam County Woman Charged With Capital Murder in Foster Child’s Death

[KEYE TV 8/15/13]

Update 6: “Texas DPS criminal data is shedding some light on the husband of a Rockdale foster mother who was recently indicted on a capital murder charge after a 2-year-old in her care died of severe injuries.

Sherill Small, 54, was arrested this month on a warrant charging murder and remains in the Milam County Jail in lieu of a $100,000 bond, jail records showed.

The child, Alexandria Hill, 2, died at Scott & White’s McLane Children’s Hospital after she was taken off life support.

Smalls’ arrest affidavit says, “She became frustrated with Alexandria, picked her up, and in a downward motion with a lot of force came down toward the ground with her.”

“She did this twice and on the third time she lost her grip and the victim was thrown to the ground head first,” the affidavit said.

At McLane’s emergency room, the affidavit says, doctors found that the toddler had “subdural hemorrhaging, subarachnoid hemorrhaging, and retinal hemorrhaging in both eyes,” the affidavit said.

Questions loom over Small’s past, she and her husband 52-year-old Clemon Small became foster parents through Texas Mentor, a state child placing agency.

Texas Mentor told News 10, “Sherill Small and her husband met the requirements to foster children, including background checks in accordance with state regulation.”

But it’s unclear if Texas Mentor was aware of Clemon Small’s criminal past.

DPS records show that Clemon Small was arrested four times since 1988, once on a delivery of marijuana charge in 1988, and three different times for driving with a suspended license in 1999, 2000, and 2001.

But a spokesperson from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services told News 10 that Clemon Small’s criminal history didn’t disqualify him from becoming a foster parent because his convictions were more than 10 years old.

News 10 went to Clemon Small’s home Sunday evening and he declined to comment.

However he issued us a handwritten statement drafted by himself and Sherill Small’s family, breaking their silence for the first time since Alexandria’s death.

The note reads, “we the family and friends suffer at the tragic loss of Alexandria and the incarceration of our loved one.”

“It’s sad such a tragic accident can be turned around to make a good person seem like a monster,” the note said.

According to police, Small was expected to foster as many as six children.

Texas Mentor is currently being investigated by Residential Child Care Licensing.”

Jailed Woman’s Husband Became Foster Parent Despite Past

[KWTX 8/18/13 by Matt Howerton]

Update 7: “Almost two dozen area foster homes will be randomly inspected this week by Child Protective Services caseworkers after a Rockdale foster mom was indicted on a capital murder charge in the death of a 2-year-old child in her care.

Sherill Small, 54, was arrested this month on a warrant charging murder and remains in the Milam County Jail in lieu of a $100,000 bond, jail records showed.

The child, Alexandria Hill, 2, died at Scott & White’s McLane Children’s Hospital after she was taken off life support.

Smalls’ arrest affidavit says, “She became frustrated with Alexandria, picked her up, and in a downward motion with a lot of force came down toward the ground with her.”

“She did this twice and on the third time she lost her grip and the victim was thrown to the ground head first,” the affidavit said.

At McLane’s emergency room, the affidavit says, doctors found that the toddler had “subdural hemorrhaging, subarachnoid hemorrhaging, and retinal hemorrhaging in both eyes,” the affidavit said.

Small became a foster parent through Texas Mentor, a state child placing agency with a dismal history.

State records show it has racked up 59 violations in the past two years.

Some of those violations center around routine background checks that weren’t corrected after inspection.

Residential Child Care Licensing has been investigating Texas Mentor since Small’s arrest.

All this week, random safety checks will be conducted at 23 of Texas Mentor’s 68 foster homes in Central Texas.

“Twenty-three homes have already been randomly chosen, and caseworkers will be going to those homes to ensure that the children there are safe,” Texas Department of Family and Protective Services spokeswoman Julie Moody said.

According to Moody, “the plan this week is to conduct all of our safety checks, and depending on the results of those checks, we will determine if more in Central Texas should be done.”

Texas Mentor sent News 10 a statement regarding the random inspections saying, “We are aware that the state has been in contact with several of our foster homes. Given the recent tragedy, we will cooperate fully.””

Two-Dozen Foster Homes To Be Inspected After Toddler’s Death

[KWTX 8/21/13 by Matt Howerton]

Update 8/September 21, 2013

“An investigation led by Residential Childcare Licensing into a Rockdale foster home is now complete, after a 2-year-old infant died from injuries she sustained there last month.

The foster mother living at the home, Sherill Small, 54, was arrested last month on a warrant charging murder and remains in the Milam County Jail in lieu of a $100,000 bond, jail records showed.

A Milam County Grand Jury later handed up a capital murder indictment against Small.

The child, Alexandria Hill, 2, died at Scott & White’s McLane Children’s Hospital after she was taken off life support.

Smalls’ arrest affidavit says, “She became frustrated with Alexandria, picked her up, and in a downward motion with a lot of force came down toward the ground with her.”

“She did this twice and on the third time she lost her grip and the victim was thrown to the ground head first,” the affidavit said.

At McLane’s emergency room, the affidavit says, doctors found that the toddler had “subdural hemorrhaging, subarachnoid hemorrhaging, and retinal hemorrhaging in both eyes,” the affidavit said.

Small became a foster parent through Texas Mentor, a state child placing agency with a dismal history.

The contractor has nearly 70 foster homes in Central Texas. State records show it has racked up 59 violations in the past two years.

Some of those violations center around routine background checks that weren’t corrected after inspection.

Residential Childcare Licensing began investigating Texas Mentor after Hill’s death.

Near the end of August, Texas Child Protective Services caseworkers randomly inspected 23 area foster homes operating under Texas Mentor.

Caseworkers interviewed a total of 59 children in the 23 homes and removed two children from one of the homes because of the use of inappropriate discipline.

In another case, caseworkers barred a frequent visitor from a foster home until a criminal background check was performed.

Residential Childcare Licensing’s investigation into Small’s home was released on Friday and cited the residence with 8 “deficiencies” or violations.

One violation said that there was a delay in calling first responders to Hill’s aid after she was initially hurt in August.

The violation reads, “The caregiver failed to use prudent judgment when she delayed calling 9-1-1 after realizing a young child in her care stopped breathing.”

It continues saying, “The caregiver called another person and waited at least 1-3 minutes before calling 9-1-1.”

A separate violation cited Small’s home for exceeding the total capacity of children she was allowed to care for on her home’s verification.

One violation says, “four times over the course of 8 months a person known to be a frequent visitor to the verified foster home needed a background check. The background check was not completed for this visitor.”

A similar violation was cited and reads, “An adult male was allowed to live in the home at the time there were children in care. The foster parents did not report the adult male to be living in the home; the adult male did not have a completed or current background check.”

Small’s home was also cited for allowing, “A sixteen year old to serve as a babysitter to children in care.” Furthermore, “the babysitter was not approved to babysit by the child placement management staff and did not have CPR training.”

The violation goes on to say that in one instance, “a 10-year-old served as babysitter while the foster parents drove to get fast food.”

For the fiscal year of 2013, 10 foster children have died under suspicious circumstances according to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

Texas Mentor was unavailable for comment Sunday, but sent News 10 a statement after the inspections were announced that said, “We are aware that the state has been in contact with several of our foster homes. Given the recent tragedy, we will cooperate fully.””

Deficiencies Found In Local Foster Home Where Infant Died

[KWTX 9/15/13 by Matt Howerton]

Local Foster Mother Charged In Girl’s Death Had Troubled Past[Kwtx 11/26/13 by Matt Howerton]

Update 9/July 25,2014: “A home study conducted by a private child-placement agency reveals the troubled past of a Rockdale foster mother who was charged with capital murder, after a 2-year-old girl in her care died from injuries she sustained earlier this year.

Sherill Small, 54, was arrested in August and the Milam County Grand Jury later indicted her for capital murder in the death of Alexandria Hill, 2, who died earlier that month at Scott & White’s McLane Children’s Hospital after she was taken off life support.

Small remains in the Milam County Jail in lieu of a $100,000 bond, jail records show.

Doctors found that the toddler had “subdural hemorrhaging, subarachnoid hemorrhaging, and retinal hemorrhaging in both eyes,” an arrest warrant affidavit said.

The affidavit said Small, “became frustrated with Alexandria, picked her up, and in a downward motion with a lot of force came down toward the ground with her.”

“She did this twice and on the third time she lost her grip and the victim was thrown to the ground head first,” the affidavit said.

Both Small and her husband Clemon Small, 52, became foster parents through Texas Mentor, a state child placement agency.

A home study conducted by Texas Mentor in December of 2012 assessed whether the two were suitable to be licensed foster parents.

The study, released to News 10 on Tuesday, concluded that Small and her husband “were capable of providing a safe home environment.”

Both were approved to be licensed foster parents after the study.

However, both Sherill Small and Clemon Small admitted to past struggles, the study shows.

In the report, Clemon Small admitted that he was a recovering crack-cocaine addict, “and shared struggles with drug addiction, starting in 1980.”

He later admitted in the report that, “he and a former wife were both heavy crack-cocaine risers, eventually leading to their divorce.”

In August, News 10 reported that Clemon Small was arrested four times since 1988, once on a delivery of marijuana charge in 1988, and three different times for driving with a suspended license in 1999, 2000, and 2001.

However, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services told News 10 that the criminal history didn’t disqualify him from becoming a foster parent because his convictions were more than 10 years old.

Sherill Small admitted to Texas Mentor that she was placed into foster care at the age of 2, the report says.

In the report, Sherill Small admitted that, “her father was a heavy drinker, and when drinking was verbally abusive towards his mother.”

The study reported that Small had three children with two men and a 15-year marriage to a third man before she married Clemon Small in 2007.

Small later said in the report that the most traumatic memory of her childhood “was when one of her foster homes made her sit out in the dark, on the front porch, in the middle of winter in Missouri.”

Still Texas Mentor later found in the report that, “Mr. and Mrs. Small appear genuine in their motivation for providing foster care in their home.”

Wendy Bagwell from Texas Mentor sent News 10 a statement Tuesday afternoon saying, “The home study, while comprehensive, does not represent the totality of the screening process,” she said.

“Both Mr. and Mrs. Small were unusually candid in their level of disclosure related to both their upbringings, his past substance abuse issues and her experience in foster care.”

Bagwell continued saying, “their level of candor and self-awareness regarding their past challenges was viewed generally as a positive.”

State records show Texas Mentor has racked up 66 violations in the past two years.

In late September, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services stopped placing abused and neglected children with Texas Mentor.

Texas Mentor has nearly 70 foster homes in Central Texas and 400 statewide.

A statewide sweep of those homes revealed instances of substandard care, the agency said.

Eight foster children have died from abuse or neglect in 2013. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services have since released safety plans to combat the rising number of foster care deaths.”

Foster mother admits slamming 2-year-old on head[Kvue 5/24/14]

Update 10:”Health issues and scheduling conflicts with witnesses have forced a delay in the Milam County capital murder trial of Sherill Small, for the third time this month.

District Attorney Bill Torrey made the request in Judge John Youngblood’s courtroom. Jury selection is set to begin on Oct. 27. Small is charged with the July 2013, murder of 2-year-old Alexandria Hill.

Police say Small became frustrated with the girl, who was in foster care.  The say Small picked the little girl up, swung her over her head and brought her down near the ground with—what they describe as “a lot of force.” Small did this twice and on the third time, she lost her grip and the child’s head hit the floor.

Small was arrested Aug. 1, 2013, by Rockdale police, a day after Alexandria’s parents took her off life support in a Temple hospital. The capital murder trial was originally set to begin Sept. 2, but was delayed until Sept. 15, and pushed again to Sept. 29. Doug Kunkel, investigator for the district attorney’s office, said that a health issue with one of the state’s witnesses was the reason for the most recent delay. Kunkel said the trial shouldn’t take long once it begins.

Torrey has already announced his office isn’t seeking the death penalty.”

MILAM CO. MURDER TRIAL DELAYED AGAI[KWHI 9/26/14 by Ed Pothul]

Update 11:”The capital murder trial of a Rockdale woman accused of killing a 2-year-old foster child began Tuesday morning in a Milam district court.

District Attorney Bill Torry told the jury during his opening statement that evidence would show that Sherill Small, 55, murdered Alexandria Hill on July 29, 2013.

Defense attorney Norman Lanford responded by telling jurors that authorities rushed to judgment on his client and heard what they wanted to during their investigation.

Testimony began with prosecutors calling on two Rockdale volunteer firefighters who responded, as well as a Rockdale police officer who conducted the initial investigation.

Prosecutors will resume testimony after lunch, calling on a Rockdale emergency room doctor who treated Alexandria before she was air-lifted to McLane Children’s Hospital in Temple. Alexandria died two days later after being taken off of life support”

Milam County capital murder trial begins in case of foster child’s death[The Eagle 10/28/14 by Jordan Overturf]

“”Even if it was accidental, I would not shake a baby,” Sherill Small said during a July 31, 2013, interview with Rockdale police. “If I would have shook her, I would tell you.”

Fourteen jurors on Tuesday stared intently at a TV screen in the 20th District Court, watching an interview with Small the same day 2-year-old Alexandria Hill was taken off of life support in a Temple hospital.

Across the courtroom, Small, 55, went back-and-forth from watching the footage to crying and burying her face in her hands.

The first day of testimony featured video and audio clips of interviews conducted by two Rockdale police officers, as well as audio of a 911 call made by Small.

Milam County District Attorney Bill Torrey told jurors in his opening statement that the state’s evidence would show “Sherill Small murdered Alexandria Hill.”

Defense attorney Norman Lanford warned jurors not to rush to judgment as quickly as Rockdale investigators, whom he said “chased rabbit trails to find someone else responsible … and gave up the search after five days.”

The prosecution began its case with testimony from first responders and a Rockdale emergency room doctor who treated Alexandria on July 29, 2013.

Ward Roddam, chief of the Rockdale Volunteer Fire Department, said he was the first to arrive at the Smalls’ house. He described the scene as “unique” because no one from the family was waiting outside to flag down first responders. According to his testimony, when Roddam entered the home he saw Sherill Small and her husband, Clemon, standing in a living room where Alexandria lay on the floor. Roddam said he immediately began to check for a pulse and breathing. The whole process took about 20 seconds, he said, before an emergency medical technician arrived and decided to rush Alexandria to Little River Medical Center in Rockdale.

Later in the trial, Dr. Jason Nuremberg, an emergency room physician at the Rockdale hospital, described Alexandria’s arrival as “a very dire situation” because she had no pulse and was not breathing.

“Not very many people come back from asystole,” the doctor said.

Doctors were able to get the girl’s heart beating again, but were unequipped to treat a head trauma. So the child was life-flighted to McLane Children’s Hospital in Temple, where she died two days later.

Nuremberg highlighted some of the bruising found on Alex’s buttocks, arm and chin, during his testimony, saying that it was not possible for a young child to self-inflict these types of injuries.

“It’s hard for a child of her age to inflict enough force to cause a head injury,” he said.

Prosecutors on Tuesday focused a lot of attention on Small’s emotional state, which each of the five witnesses described as nonexistent or “blank.”

The defense, however, disagreed with the witness perceptions, pointing out nearly two dozen instances in the audio and video clips where Small could be heard crying while talking to police.

Rockdale Sgt. Steven Goodrich was heard on one of the clips telling another officer “I don’t know if I believe her,” to which the other officer responded, “She didn’t act like she was lying to you.”

Goodrich said his disbelief came from the lack of tears when Small was crying.

Tuesday’s proceedings concluded with an hour-long video clip of an interview between Rockdale Lt. J.D. Newlin, a CPS caseworker, and Small.

Newlin, who was present for questioning, was heard on the tape telling Small he had three doctors ready to testify that Alexandria was not injured the way Small was claiming.

“The only way to get those injuries was to shake her,” he said in the video.

“I was the only one in the house and I did not shake her … I do not shake babies,” Small said in response.

The trial will resume Wednesday morning with the defense to continue questioning Newlin on his interview and investigation.”

Trial into death of foster child Alexandria Hill begins in Cameron[The Eagle 10/29/14 by Jordan Overturf]

Update 12:“Mary Sweeney held her 2-year-old daughter, Alexandria Hill, for 15 minutes after she was taken off of life support on July 31, 2013, a medical specialist testified Wednesday during Sherill Small’s capital murder trial in a Milam County courtroom.

Dr. Lori Wick, a pediatric critical care specialist at McLane Children’s Hospital, was one of five witnesses to testify Wednesday in the trial, which resumed in Judge John Youngblood’s 20th District Court in Cameron.

Small is accused of dropping Alexandria on her head on July 29, 2013, while in foster care. Two days later, the toddler was taken off life support, and Small was arrested the following day. The 55-year-old grandmother could face life in prison if convicted of capital murder by the jury.

Wednesday’s testimony began with a cross-examination of Rockdale police Lt. J.D. Newlin by defense attorney Norman Lanford.

District Attorney Bill Torrey later called Wick and a Scott & White forensic nurse to the stand, both of whom treated Alexandria when she was flown by helicopter to McLane Children’s Hospital in Temple on July 29.

Wick told the jury that the bruises on Alexandria’s chin, arms and buttocks were similar to those obtained in a car accident.

Also taking the stand for the prosecution were two of Small’s sisters, who testified that Alexandria was put in time-out for nearly two hours on the day she was injured. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services recommends foster parents put children in time-out for “approximately one minute for every year of the child’s age.”

When questioned about the reason for the time-out, one of Small’s sisters said it was because Alex had gotten out of bed early to get some food and water before anyone in the house was awake.

A day before, the jury watched an interview between Newlin and Small in which she said Alex had only been in time-out for a few minutes when her sisters came to visit. She also said her sisters were only at the house for “maybe 45 minutes or an hour.”

A child abuse expert and the Dallas County medical examiner who performed Alexandria’s autopsy are expected to take the stand Thursday, after which the prosecution will rest its case. The defense is expected to begin presenting its case to jurors Friday morning,

“If we wind down early tomorrow, then we’re probably a little bit ahead of the curve,” Torrey said.

Lanford said he is reserving comment until after closing arguments, which should begin next week.”

Five testify in foster mom’s murder trial [The Eagle 10/30/14 by Jordan Overturf]

Update 13:“A pediatric abuse investigator testified Thursday that none of the claims made by Alexandria Hill’s foster mother can explain what caused fatal injuries to the toddler in 2013.

Dr. George Edwards, a board certified expert from Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin, told the jury that there was substantial evidence from Alexandria’s medical records that showed she was physically abused before she died on July 31, 2013.

The capital murder trial of foster mom Sherill Small, 55, continued in the 20th District Court in Cameron, with the prosecutors wrapping up their case just before noon Thursday. Edwards and Dallas County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Jeffrey Barnard both reviewed the results of Alex’s autopsy, revealing several signs of severe trauma, including two lacerations to her liver that caused massive internal bleeding.

Barnard said Alexandria lost about one-third of her total blood volume from the injury. Edwards said the internal bleeding complicated Alexandria’s head injury by preventing blood from carrying oxygen to her swollen and hemorrhaging brain.

Both concluded that the blunt force trauma to her head was the cause of death.

On Tuesday, a video of an interview by Rockdale Police Lt. J.D. Newlin showed Small saying that she was playing with Alexandria, lifting the toddler high over her head and bringing her down between her legs with a lot of force. Small said on the third time, she lost her grip on Alexandria and dropped her on the carpeted floor, which sits on a concrete slab. Small said she heard a loud thud when Alex hit the ground.

Edwards said he was certain Alexandria’s injuries were inflicted. When asked by Assistant District Attorney John Reddington what the injuries were similar to, Edwards said it was like a large TV fell on her head and her injuries were consistent with a child that was shaken.

Defense Attorney Norman Lanford asked Edwards about a 2001 medical study that concluded that a child could die of a fatal fall only a few inches from the ground. Edwards said that study found less than .5 percent of fatalities were from small heights.

The defense is expected to call its first witness Friday morning.”

Child abuse expert says foster mother’s story doesn’t match injuries [The Eagle 10/30/14 by Jordan Overturf]

“Clemon Small testified Friday morning that his wife only said those words to him in a phone call about 7 p.m. July 29, 2013. He rushed home to find 2-year-old Alexandria Hill lying on the floor of his family’s Rockdale home. She was unconscious and not responding to pleas from his wife, Small said.

Small was one of six witnesses called Friday by defense attorney Norman Lanford in the capital murder trial of foster mother Sherill Small in the 20th District Court. Friday’s testimony revealed a little more detail about the few minutes after Alexandria was fatally injured.

It also brought problems to the defense when the expertise of its key medical witness was called into question by the prosecution. Judge John Youngblood ruled to restrict some of Dr. Steven Yount’s testimony to only his personal experience as a general practitioner.

The defense began its case Friday morning with two jailers, who provided brief testimony about the booking and correspondence monitoring practices at the Milam County Jail.

A friend of the family testified that he’d always seen Sherill Small be jovial with his children and the foster children when they gathered for parties or karaoke events.

Sherill Small’s 17-year-old granddaughter Alicia Lotfi told jurors that she had spent most of her life in her grandmother’s care and she was never abused. She also said she never saw her grandmother be abusive toward the foster children under her care, outside of a quick smack on the hand.

Alicia said her grandmother would often play with Alexandria on the floor and the 8-month-old infant in her foster care. In the nearly eight months Alexandria was staying with the Smalls, Alicia said, she would see the young girl pull her hair out and fall to the ground throwing tantrums.

Prosecutors focused on Alicia’s interview with a CPS investigator after Alexandria died July 31, 2013. When questioned about who was staying in the house, she said it was just the foster kids and her grandparents. However, a summary of her interview showed that Alicia admitted to the CPS investigator that her mother’s boyfriend, a man by the nickname of “Trigger,” would spend the night sometimes. She confirmed that Clemon and Sherill Small said he was “staying there on the down-low.”

The majority of Friday’s testimony was spent questioning Clemon Small and Yount.

Clemon Small described his wife’s actions the night Alexandria was injured as hysterical. When he arrived home July 29, the former certified nursing assistant said he started chest compressions on the toddler. About five minutes later, volunteer firefighters arrived and took Alexandria to the hospital.

It wasn’t until the grand jury was convened that Clemon learned he was under investigation by officials. Rather than testify, his court-appointed legal counsel suggested he plead the fifth.

On Friday, though, he told Judge Youngblood that he was testifying in the trial without consulting his attorney.

For more than an hour, he described his background, how he and his wife became foster parents and the events leading up to Alexandria’s death.

Clemon gave conflicting descriptions of his wife’s account of the events on July 29, first saying she was tossing the child in the air, then playing ring-around-the-rosie, then back to tossing her up in the air.

“She told me she was playing with Alex, tossing her over her head and dropped her,” Clemon told District Attorney Bill Torrey.

The afternoon testimony was completely focused around Yount’s physical examination of Sherill Small, especially results of two MRIs showing she showed signs of white matter lesions that can cause loss in motor function and cognitive processes. The scans also showed atrophy in her brain and test results showed her brain function was one point away from being classified as dementia.

Lanford questioned Yount about the surgeries performed on Sherill Small’s wrist tendons, which had become rigid. According to Yount, Small’s medical records revealed that her surgery was a success, but a staph infection set back her recovery. He noted that by the time he examined her in February of this year, Small had lost significant grip-strength in her left hand and was experiencing weakness in the arm.

Yount agreed that this could account for Small’s statement to police that she lost her grip while playing with Alexandria.

Lanford began to review Alex’s autopsy records and medical studies on retinal hemorrhaging, but was deterred when Torrey called into question the validity of Yount’s experience as a general practitioner and former board member for the Children’s Advocacy Center in Bastrop. The judge ruled in favor of prosecution. Lanford later stated for the record his objection on the grounds of his client’s Fifth Amendment rights.

Testimony was wrapped early Friday afternoon and will pick up Monday morning.”

Defense testifies in Milam County foster mom trial [The Eagle 11/1/14 by Jordan Overturf]

Update 14:”A Rockdale foster mother charged with the July 2013 capital murder of a 2-year-old girl in her care told jurors Monday morning that she was scared and worried about the little girl when she lied to Rockdale police about how the child was injured.

Sherill Small, 55, took the witness stand in the 20th District Court in Cameron, giving her version of the events July 29, 2013, when Alexandria Hill, 2, suffered a fatal head injury.

“First, I couldn’t believe I dropped her. Then I got scared. I just wanted to make sure she was OK,” Small said, answering questions from  defense attorney Norman Lanford.

Small reiterated her statement to police that she was lifting Alexandria over her head when she lost her grip and dropped her head-first on a step in the family’s den.

“It happened how I explained,” Small told District Attorney Bill Torrey during cross-examination.

“Look at the jury,” Torrey prompted, “Do you think the jury can figure out what happened?”

“I’m sure they can,” she replied.

The defense rested its case after Small’s testimony.

Prosecutors called Denise Gutierrez, a mother in Austin who testified that her 2-year-old daughter had received mysterious bruises while Sherill Small was babysitting in the fall of 2012.

Gutierrez also said that she brought her daughter, who is now 4, back to Small to be watched in 2013, after she had noticed and questioned the bruising on her daughter’s arm.

The attorneys Monday afternoon will work out the official charge to be presented to the jury Tuesday morning after closing statements. Judge John Youngblood told the jury he expects deliberations to begin Tuesday morning or early afternoon.”

Foster mom testifies she was scared after dropping toddler[The Eagle 11/3/14 by Jordan Overturf]

Update 15:”Sherill Small was found guilty Tuesday of capital murder after a week-long trial in connection with the 2013 death of a two-year-old she was fostering.

A 20th District Court jury deliberated a little more than four hours before returning their verdict Tuesday afternoon.

Small was automatically sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after the district attorney announced he would not seek the death penalty.

Small, 55, was convicted in the beating death of Alexandria Hill who was found unconscious on July 13, 2013.

The trial started in Judge John Youngblood’s court last week after several delays and the state rested its case on Thursday.

The defense rested on Monday and following summations Tuesday, the jury was charged with deliberating three counts, including capital murder, criminally negligent homicide and injury to a child, court records showed.

The 2-year-old died in August 2013 at Scott & White’s McLane Children’s Hospital after she was taken off life support.

Doctors found that the toddler had “subdural hemorrhaging, subarachnoid hemorrhaging, and retinal hemorrhaging in both eyes,” an arrest warrant affidavit said.

An arrest affidavit issued at the time said Small, “became frustrated with Alexandria, picked her up, and in a downward motion with a lot of force came down toward the ground with her.”

“She did this twice and on the third time she lost her grip and the victim was thrown to the ground head first,” the affidavit said.

Both Small and her husband Clemon Small, 52, became foster parents through Texas Mentor, a state child placement agency.

A home study conducted by Texas Mentor in December of 2012 assessed whether the two were suitable to be licensed foster parents.
The study, released to News 10 on Tuesday, concluded that Small and her husband “were capable of providing a safe home environment.”

Both were approved to be licensed foster parents after the study.

However, both Sherill Small and Clemon Small admitted to past struggles, the study shows.

In the report, Clemon Small admitted that he was a recovering crack-cocaine addict, “and shared struggles with drug addiction, starting in 1980.”

He later admitted in the report that, “he and a former wife were both heavy crack-cocaine risers, eventually leading to their divorce.”

In August, News 10 reported that Clemon Small was arrested four times since 1988, once on a delivery of marijuana charge in 1988, and three different times for driving with a suspended license in 1999, 2000, and 2001.

However, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services told News 10 that the criminal history didn’t disqualify him from becoming a foster parent because his convictions were more than 10 years old.

Sherill Small admitted to Texas Mentor that she was placed into foster care at the age of 2, the report says.

In the report, Sherill Small admitted that, “her father was a heavy drinker, and when drinking was verbally abusive towards his mother.”

The study reported that Sherill Small had three children with two men and a 15-year marriage to a third man before she married Clemon Small in 2007.

Small later said in the report that the most traumatic memory of her childhood “was when one of her foster homes made her sit out in the dark, on the front porch, in the middle of winter in Missouri.”

Still Texas Mentor later found in the report that, “Mr. and Mrs. Small appear genuine in their motivation for providing foster care in their home.”

Wendy Bagwell from Texas Mentor sent News 10 a statement Tuesday afternoon saying, “The home study, while comprehensive, does not represent the totality of the screening process,” she said.

“Both Mr. and Mrs. Small were unusually candid in their level of disclosure related to both their upbringings, his past substance abuse issues and her experience in foster care.”

Bagwell continued saying, “their level of candor and self-awareness regarding their past challenges was viewed generally as a positive.”

State records show Texas Mentor has racked up 66 violations in the past two years.

In late September, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services stopped placing abused and neglected children with Texas Mentor.

Texas Mentor has nearly 70 foster homes in Central Texas and 400 statewide.

A statewide sweep of those homes revealed instances of substandard care, the agency said.”

Rockdale Woman Convicted Of Capital Murder In Toddler’s Death [Kwtx 11/4/14 by Paul Gately]

Update 16: “THE SUN WAS BEATING down on Rockdale, Texas, when Donna Winkler arrived at her sister’s ranch-style, clapboard house on the afternoon of July 29, 2013. Winkler was concerned about Sherill. At the age of 54, she had lost her job as a school bus driver after falling and injuring her wrist. Her husband, Clemon Small, a former crack addict, only worked a few days a week as a karaoke DJ. Recently, the Smalls had moved from nearby Austin to Rockdale, population 5,400, to cut costs.

Winkler knew her sister helped support herself by fostering children for Texas Mentor, a private agency that finds homes for children who have been removed from their parents’ custody. She had taken in an infant and a two-year-old girl named Alexandria Hill. Texas Mentor paid the Smalls $44.30 a day to care for both kids. The company earned $34.74 daily on top of that to monitor the Smalls. Winkler thought Sherill was in it for the money.

That July day, Winkler walked into the living room to find Alexandria standing, facing the wall, in a dark room everyone called the man cave. With blond hair and blue eyes, Alexandria stood 32 inches tall and weighed just 30 pounds. She liked kitties and the color purple. Alexandria turned around and smiled at Winkler.

“Hi, Alex,” Winkler said.

“No, you turn around,” Sherill Small barked at the girl.

A squat woman with stringy brown hair and a prominent mole on her cheek, Small seemed on edge. She told Winkler that Alexandria had been getting in trouble all day. Among her offenses: waking up before Small and taking some food and water from the kitchen.

Winkler stayed at Small’s house for two hours that afternoon. Two-year-old Alexandria stood in timeout in that dark room the whole time, she said.

At about a quarter to seven that evening, Clemon Small woke from a nap and left for a meeting at a nearby restaurant, leaving Sherill alone with Alexandria and the infant. About 15 minutes later, Sherill dialed his number, then 911.

First at the scene was Ward Roddam, the chief of the Rockdale Volunteer Fire Department, who was so surprised to find no one in the front yard waving him down that he called dispatch to make sure he had the right address. Inside, he encountered what he would describe as one of the strangest scenes in his 25-year career: Alexandria’s limp body lay on the floor while Clemon sat on the couch and Sherill talked to 911. Roddam found mucus on Alexandria’s mouth, suggesting that CPR, which foster parents are trained to administer, had never been attempted.

On the witness stand 15 months later, Roddam was asked if the Smalls seemed panicked. “‘Panic’ does not describe it at all,” he said. They seemed “very calm.”
WHAT HAPPENED IN Rockdale that night would be the subject of a weeklong trial in the fall of 2014, focusing on the care of Alexandria. But it also opened a window into the vast and opaque world of private foster care agencies—for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations that are increasingly taking on the role of monitoring the nation’s most vulnerable children. The agency involved in Small’s case was the Lone Star branch of the Mentor Network, a $1.2 billion company headquartered in Boston that specializes in finding caretakers, or “mentors,” for a range of populations, from adults with brain injuries to foster children. With 4,000 children in its care in 14 states, Mentor is one of the largest players in the business of private foster care, a fragmented industry of mostly local and regional providers that collect hundreds of millions in tax dollars annually while receiving little scrutiny from government authorities.

Squeezed by high caseloads and tight budgets, state and local child welfare agencies are increasingly leaving the task of recruiting, screening, training, and monitoring foster parents to these private agencies. In many places, this arrangement has created a troubling reality in which the government can seize your children, but then outsource the duty of keeping them safe—and duck responsibility when something goes wrong.

Nationally, no one tracks how many children are in private foster homes, or how these homes perform compared to those vetted directly by the government. As part of an 18-month investigation, I asked every state whether it at least knew how many children in its foster system had been placed in privately screened homes. Very few could tell me. For the eight states that did, the total came to at least 72,000 children in 2011. Not one of the states had a statistically valid dataset comparing costs, or rates of abuse or neglect, in privately versus publicly vetted homes.

“It’s troubling,” says Christina Riehl, senior staff attorney for the Children’s Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego School of Law. “There are so many places where the government puts money to fix a problem without adequately checking to see if the money is actually fixing the problem.” Good data would make the system more accountable, Riehl says, but “data is a low priority because it’s difficult. How do you measure child safety?”

Mentor and other private foster care agencies say they are committed to children’s well-being, and that nothing can prevent the occasional tragic incident. But in my investigation, I found evidence of widespread problems in the industry—failed monitoring, missed warning signs, and, in some cases, horrific abuse. In Los Angeles, a two-year-old girl was beaten to death by her foster mother, who was cleared by a private agency despite a criminal record and seven prior child abuse and neglect complaints filed against her. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, prosecutors alleged that foster parents screened by a private agency beat their foster son so badly that he suffered brain damage and went blind. (A grand jury refused to return an indictment in the case.)

In Chattanooga, Tennessee, a foster father vetted by a private agency induced his 16-year-old foster daughter to have sex with him and a neighbor. In Riverview, Florida, a 10-year-old girl with autismdrowned in a pond behind a foster home. The private agency that inspected the home had previously identified the pond as a safety hazard but had not required a fence. In Duluth, Minnesota, a private agency failed to discover that a foster mother’s adult son had moved back into her home. The son, who had a criminal record for burglary that would have disqualified him from being around foster children, went on to sexually abuse a 10-year-old foster girl. In Texas, at least nine children living in private agency homes died of abuse or neglect between 2011 and 2013.

Roland Zullo, a researcher at the University of Michigan who has studied foster care privatization, believes tragedies like these may be linked to the financial incentives of the industry, which he says are not aligned with child welfare. “This is just the kind of service where the market approach doesn’t work,” he says.

The bottom line for private foster care agencies—whether large, for-profit corporations or small, local nonprofits—is tied to the number of foster parents on their roster, and thus their ability to place children quickly. Given that every foster parent represents potential revenue, Zullo says, an agency may be more likely to overlook sketchy personal histories or potential safety hazards. There’s little incentive, he adds, to seek out reasons to reject a family, to investigate problems after children are placed, or to do anything else that could result in a child leaving the agency’s program. And as tough as the margins are for nonprofit agencies, the perverse incentives are exacerbated at for-profit agencies that need to make money for owners or shareholders.

“What happens,” Zullo says, “is the lives of these children become commodities.”
ALEXANDRIA’S GRANDMOTHER, DIANN HILL, has graying hair and a world-weary way about her. Over plates of fried catfish and okra at a diner in Lexington, Texas, she told me how her granddaughter ended up in foster care.

It was November 2012, three months after Alexandria and her parents—Diann’s son, Joshua Hill, and his girlfriend, Mary Sweeney—moved from Florida to Austin to be closer to Joshua’s family. Mary and Joshua, both in their early 20s, had problems. Mary suffered from grand mal seizures that prevented her from being alone with Alexandria. Joshua, who according to state records had served time behind bars as a juvenile, struggled with anger issues. They argued over their daughter. They smoked pot. Child protection got involved after receiving a couple of calls about Mary and Joshua, including a report that Joshua nearly dropped Alexandria down a flight of stairs (an incident Joshua denies). “Mary and Josh weren’t perfect,” Diann said. “They popped dirty for marijuana. No other drugs. Just marijuana. It’s not like they were getting Alex high, smoking in front of her. They waited until she went to bed; she was safe in the crib. They didn’t leave her alone in the house. She was never sick a day in her life. They fought. What couple doesn’t fight?”

In early November, Joshua told child protection he was going to move, with Alexandria, into his parents’ home near Lexington, a plan the agency approved. But he didn’t follow through; he and Mary remained in Austin while Alexandria lived with his parents. The state didn’t like this arrangement, in part because Joshua’s dad had been convicted in the 1990s for having sex with Diann’s then-16-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. (Diann says she called the police on him and divorced him while he was serving time, but later remarried him.)

In late November 2012, a state investigator signed an affidavit requesting foster care for Alexandria, citing “serious safety concerns” about Mary and Joshua’s “limited parenting skills.” Alexandria was placed with a foster family. But Joshua complained about the girl’s care in January 2013, according to Diann, and she was transferred to Sherill and Clemon Small.

By this time, there had already been warning signs about Sherill’s capability as a foster parent. She’d reported to the company that she was stressed out by fostering children, something that might have set off alarms for someone familiar with her background.

She had told her Mentor screener that she had been a foster child herself, entering the system at age two, when her mother could no longer provide for her and six siblings, and that her experiences had been “good and bad.” Once, a foster parent made her sit outside in the dark on a cold Missouri night for punishment.

Mentor’s assessment also revealed that Sherill didn’t raise one of her three daughters, Jennie Langley. Instead, the assessment said that Jennie was raised by her paternal grandmother and that Sherill had a “despondent” relationship with her daughter. The Mentor screener explained this by noting that Jennie was a defiant child who as an adult didn’t approve of Sherill marrying a black man. The assessment says that Mentor officials spoke with Sherill’s other daughters but gives no indication that Jennie or her grandparents were ever contacted. (Mentor later said it tried to contact Jennie, but was unsuccessful.)

I tracked down Jennie Langley in rural southeastern Texas. Leroy Langley, her grandfather, answered the phone. Leroy said that he and his wife had formally adopted Jennie when she was about seven. In fact, he said, they once had custody of all three of Sherill’s daughters because Sherill was “wild, a street woman.” One of Sherill’s sisters and a daughter confirmed the story to me, saying that the daughters lived with the Langleys for several years in the mid-1980s.

It took me just a few phone calls to get this information. There’s no indication that Mentor went to the same effort.

AMERICANS HAVE BEEN HORRIFIED by the foster care system for as long as there’s been foster care—about a century and a half. In the 1850s, the abolitionist Charles Loring Brace founded the Children’s Aid Society of New York, which began removing poor and neglected children from the city and shipping them, by train, to new homes in rural communities. Before long, critics of the “orphan trains” were accusing the society of recklessly placing little thieves and liars into good, upstanding homes. Child protection in general remained in the hands of private charitable organizations for decades, although state legislatures sometimes allocated them money. But in the late 1800s and early 1900s, states began to take the lead, and by the middle of the 20th century, foster care had become entirely a government function.

Today, some 250,000 American children enter this struggling system each year, and child welfare agencies are in perpetual need of more foster parents to handle the influx. Against this backdrop, the private sector’s promise of more-efficient services at a lower cost has been hard to resist. A couple of states (Kansas and Florida) are entirely dependent on private foster care agencies. Texas, where 90 percent of foster children are housed in private agency homes, is seeking to privatize the rest of the system—even as child advocates warn that quality of care is slipping. “Texas has chronically underfunded the child protection system,” said Ashley Harris, a former CPS caseworker who now works for the advocacy groupTexans Care for Children. “I don’t think we can expand privatization until some of these basic issues are addressed.”

Private foster care agencies generally eschew media scrutiny, but I found one in Sacramento, California, that was willing to give me an inside view. Positive Option Family Services, a small nonprofit with just 15 employees, is based on the east side of town in a strip mall with stained carpets and scuffed walls. I was somewhat surprised that the agency’s CEO, Jody Kovill, let me hang around the office, because Positive Option has a checkered record: Since 2008, two children in its care have died, one of appendicitis and the other in a mysterious house fire. The agency oversees only about 70 children, yet state investigators have found more than 190 deficiencies in its operations since 2009, including several failures to screen the criminal records of adults with access to foster children. In May 2013, the state threatened legal action if the agency didn’t clean up its act (though no charges were brought).

Positive Option staffers frequently grumbled about their treatment at the hands of county regulators. But other than that I found them to be affable, earnest people who seemed genuinely concerned about the welfare of foster children. Every month, Positive Option hosts a two-hour continuing education class for foster parents in a room with crayon-streaked tables and secondhand chairs. I attended several over a period of months, and each time I was struck by the reunionlike atmosphere, where foster parents hugged their hellos and agency social workers were on a friendly, first-name basis with everyone.

Kovill, the cofounder, is an energetic 82-year-old with a white beard who continues to manage the organization on a day-to-day basis. Kovill feels a special kinship with the foster children he serves: He says he was abandoned by his father when he was about seven and given to a shoemaker as a laborer. “Foster care is a good system,” Kovill said. “I wish it had been there when I was a kid.” (Kovill told me he changed his name long ago to break from the family that abandoned him. He wouldn’t tell me what his old name was.)

Kovill told me the margins are tight in private foster care, especially if child welfare is your top priority. He said he once had to sell land he owned in Arizona to keep Positive Option, which has annual revenues of about $1.2 million, afloat. Some of his employees report taking 10 percent pay cuts several years ago for the same reason, cuts that remain in effect today. “I’m still a businessman, and I still try to stay in the black as best I can,” Kovill told me one day in the cramped office he shares with his wife, Luan, who works at the agency for free. “But if it meant a car seat for a baby, if it meant diapers for a baby, if it meant safety for a child, the bottom line is gone.”

Kovill took responsibility for Positive Option’s problems, saying they came about in part because he was distracted by the agency’s financial struggles during the recession. “I just trusted everybody to do what I do—I work hard,” Kovill said, referring to some former employees he eventually fired. “I figured they did too. Well, you can’t do that.”

The state of California pays private foster care agencies like Positive Option a monthly fee for each child in one of their homes. That fee ran from $1,714 to $1,977 (depending on age) per child per month in fiscal year 2013. Under state regulations, roughly half of that money is required to go directly to foster parents, but agencies can elect to give more; Positive Option, for example, rewards outstanding foster parents with more money. Whatever is left over after paying the foster parents goes to the agencies—up to $968 per child per month. In 2013, California paid a total of $308 million to private foster care agencies.
JOSHUA HILL SAYS he knew Alexandria wasn’t going to make it the moment he laid eyes on her in the hospital. She was hooked up to a ventilator, tubes snaking from every part of her body, a brace on her neck. “There’s no way she was going to wake up from that,” he said. “Her eyes were swollen. There was no chance.”

It was Halloween when we met at a park in Lexington, Texas, near where his parents live. As we talked, children roamed the small town’s main streets, trick-or-treating in the late afternoon light. Joshua wore an olive Army T-shirt over camo pants, a backward cap concealing his long hair, his long, wispy goatee bobbing up and down as he spoke. He and Alexandria’s mother had signed a settlement with Mentor, the terms of which he was not allowed to disclose. But the 25-year-old, who made ends meet delivering pizzas for Domino’s when Alexandria was in foster care, pulled up in a late-model Scion tC with a throaty engine and told me he owns property just outside of town.

Joshua said he got the call at around 9:30 p.m., which would have been about two and a half hours after Small dialed 911. “They just said it was something with Alex,” he said. “She had an accident. That’s all they would say.” Joshua was broke, and the hospital was an hour away, but a friend gave him $40 for gas. “I bought a pack of cigarettes and hauled ass,” he said.

Joshua showed little emotion when we talked, until he described seeing his daughter in the hospital. Then his voice dropped and his eyes grew wet. “I asked the doctor flat out: ‘Is there any chance at all that she could wake up even a little bit?’ He said no. There was too much damage inside of her.”

Alexandria was kept on life support until July 31 so her mother’s family could drive in from Florida to say goodbye. After the plug was pulled, a doctor allowed Alexandria’s mother to hold her for 15 minutes before declaring her dead. A subsequent autopsy found the little girl had bruising on her right cheek, left ear, left knee, right ankle, chin, back, and buttocks; multiple blunt-force injuries to her head; subdural hemorrhaging; and two tears in her liver. A third of her blood was found pooled in her abdomen.

Sherill Small was indicted for capital murder—but it was far from a clear-cut case. Small was the only person who really knew what happened, and she claimed it was just a terrible accident.
FOSTER CARE CASEWORKERS are expected to intimately know the parents to whom they entrust vulnerable children. A good caseworker will know the stressors in a foster parent’s life and will carefully monitor the home to ensure the parent doesn’t become overburdened. The job requires vigilance and experience, because a missed warning sign can lead to tragedy. “The radar, in my opinion, always needs to be up,” says Sheila Van Vleck, a longtime caseworker who has worked for both private foster care agencies and the government in California. “The stakes are very high.”

When screening foster parents, the obvious danger is missing a criminal conviction or a child abuse charge. But there are many other issues that can interfere with a foster parent’s ability to care for children. In 2006, a two-year-old girl in Victorville, California, drowned in the bathtub when her privately vetted foster mother temporarily forgot about her, according to a lawsuit against the private agency. The lawsuit claimed the foster mother suffered from impaired memory and walked very slowly, using a cane. In another case, in 2008, a private agency in rural California placed a nine-year-old boy with the same family as a 17-year-old foster boy with a history of aggressive actions, inappropriate sexual behavior, and hallucinations. In a lawsuit, the younger boy later claimed that the older boy crept into his bedroom and sexually assaulted him.

Private agencies have also been sanctioned in some cases for failing to educate foster parents on relevant laws or even basic parenting skills. In December 2010, a six-month-old boy was found dead in a crib littered with stuffed animals, clothes, an adult pillow, and an unsecured blanket, according to lawsuits against Los Angeles County and the private agency that vetted the child’s foster mother. The county investigator concluded that the young foster mother didn’t understand safe sleep practices.

Heather Lamie was caring for five young children when her inexperienced caseworker at The Baby Fold, a regional nonprofit foster agency in Illinois, recommended that she take another foster kid. It was December 2010, and the mother of Lamie’s three foster children had just given birth to a fourth. Twenty-seven years old, Lamie also had two children of her own, ages eight and five. Her husband, Joshua, worked overnight shifts an hour away from their home in rural Illinois. Joshua’s schedule effectively made Heather the sole caretaker for the six kids, all eight or younger.

The Lamies’ oldest foster child was four-year-old Kianna Rudesill, a mischievous kid with long black hair who liked SpongeBob and having her nails painted. Kianna and her siblings had been removed from their biological mother, Tawnee Jones; the children’s father, James Rudesill, had tried to obtain custody but says the authorities refused because he had served time for a marijuana offense.

Shortly after receiving her fourth foster child, Heather Lamie started asking The Baby Fold for help. She requested time off from caring for the children and assistance driving them to their many mandated appointments. The Baby Fold maintains it gave Lamie all that she asked for. But state investigators later foundthat the agency denied her requests, and that it didn’t recognize the growing stress on Lamie.

Lamie also complained that Kianna was having behavioral problems. She told social workers that the little girl was violent with her siblings and routinely injured herself. A therapist observed bruises on Kianna’s face and ear, but she accepted Lamie’s story, even though state investigators now say those injuries are consistent with abuse.

On May 3, 2011, Lamie called 911, reporting that Kianna had had a seizure. At the hospital, she was found to have severe head injuries, bleeding in the brain, and dozens of bruises in various stages of healing all over her body.

More than three years later, Lamie was found guilty of first-degree murder. The prosecutor argued that Lamie snapped under the “overwhelming” pressure of caring for so many young children.

Investigators with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services found that The Baby Fold provided inadequate monitoring and recommended that the supervisor overseeing the case be disciplined. But the agency refused, saying it was an isolated incident.

Mitchell Frazen, The Baby Fold’s lawyer, told me the agency was duped by a manipulative foster parent. He notes that the state had originally vetted the Lamies and placed the first three foster children with them before handing management of the case over to The Baby Fold. Frazen says his agency bears no blame for Kianna’s death, even though The Baby Fold was responsible for monitoring the home. “It’s not going to come as a blinding revelation that [the state] is trying to cover its own ass,” he said.
SIXTEEN DAYS AFTER Alexandria Hill was taken off life support, in August 2013, the Mentor Network held an earnings call. Nothing was said about Alexandria’s death, but Bruce Nardella, Mentor’s president, did tell analysts that the company’s foster care business was doing well. “During the last year we have focused intensely on recruiting more Mentor foster parents who can provide caring, nurturing environments for children,” Nardella said, and that had led to increased revenue. Mentor generated $1.2 billion in net revenue in fiscal year 2013, with $218 million coming from its “at risk youth” services, which include foster care.

Around that time, a woman I’ll call Amanda quit Pennsylvania Mentor in disgust. She had previously worked in a women’s prison, where “I saw a lot,” she told me. “Nothing could have prepared me for Pennsylvania Mentor.”

Amanda (who didn’t want her identity revealed for fear of being blackballed from the social-services industry) said she was hired to supervise other Mentor social workers. Early on she observed her new charges conduct foster parent training. The social workers, she told me, were overworked and hadn’t had time to prepare; they read slides from an overhead projector and used decade-old material as foster parents dozed off. (Mentor says it has started rolling out a new training program that is interactive and engaging.)

Amanda said Mentor expected a lot of its social workers—too much, in her opinion. Everyone was working 50 to 60 hours a week, she says. Every night, Amanda said, she’d go home to feed her kids, then get on the computer and work until midnight, only to be back at the office by seven the next morning. “It was such a negative environment because you’re under so much pressure,” she said.

But what bothered Amanda most was Mentor’s focus on the bottom line. One child, she says, set his foster parents’ bedroom on fire. Amanda’s bosses wanted to keep the child in the home. She said she had to fight to get him transferred to an institution where he could be watched more closely. Another time, Amanda said she wanted to get rid of a foster father who wouldn’t follow the agency’s directions with a mentally ill child. She wanted to hold him accountable, but she said her bosses told her: “We need to keep every foster parent we can.” (After this story appeared in print, Buzzfeed’s Aram Roston has also detailed a range of abuses in Mentor foster homes, including a case in which the company continued placing children with a foster family where a child had reported being sexually abused.)

The only time Amanda remembers Mentor reprimanding anyone was when a foster mother took a child to a doctor’s appointment while drunk—and even then, she said, there was a “huge debate” within the company before the mother was dismissed.

After just a few months on the job, Amanda decided she couldn’t take it anymore. “That’s not where my values lie,” she told me.

I found Amanda and several other former Mentor employees on LinkedIn, and a couple of others through court records. Many told similar stories. A woman who worked for Mentor Maryland told me the company repeatedly let foster parents slide if their homes weren’t up to regulations. Several former Mentor employees said supervisors offered $100 bonuses for every new foster parent they could sign up. (Mentor denies this.) “Executives only care about the money and it is all they talk about,” a current Mentor employee wrote in an anonymous April 2014 review of the company on the website Glassdoor.com. In all, 173 current and former employees had posted reviews of Mentor on Glassdoor as of mid-January. Only 29 percent would recommend the company to a friend. (The average recommendation rate on Glassdoor is 58 percent.)
DWIGHT ROBSON, a senior executive at the Mentor Network, told me that of course the company is concerned with profits—and that’s exactly what keeps it focused on children’s well-being. “If you don’t do your job, your bottom line is going to be in a lot of trouble,” he said. “And if you do do your job, you’re going to grow and you’re going to have a healthy bottom line.”

But Rachel Wingo, who used to work in Mentor’s office in Hendersonville, North Carolina, says it seemed to her that children were lost in Mentor’s push for profits. “The success of the program is defined by how many heads are in bed at midnight,” the 34-year-old told me. If children were bouncing around from home to home, Mentor supervisors didn’t seem to care, she said, as long as they continued moving from one Mentor home to another. (Mentor says foster children in North Carolina who left its care in fiscal year 2014 changed homes an average of 1.5 times during their time in its program, with an average stay of 7.8 months.)

Wingo, who quit Mentor in the spring of 2013 to work in a bicycle shop, chose her words carefully when we spoke. Mentor has powerful attorneys, she said, and when you leave the company, “you sign things”—nondisclosure agreements. Speaking out, she said, could hinder her future ability to find work in the field. But Wingo said she has no interest in working in private foster care ever again. “The bottom line is a dollar, not a child’s well-being,” she said.

Shameela Keshavjee, who once worked for Mentor in Garland, Texas, and is now in private practice as a licensed marriage and family therapist, also told me she and her colleagues were under constant pressure to keep up the number of heads in beds. “‘We need more kids. We need more placements. We need, we need, we need,'” she said, describing the attitude of her supervisors. “It was all about churning out more numbers.”

Keshavjee recalled a time when Mentor approved a foster mother she and the other case managers didn’t trust. The woman’s only income came from caring for special-needs foster children; she didn’t have a phone and was difficult to reach. “It was borderline unsafe,” Keshavjee said, but Mentor ignored the concerns. (Keshavjee says she’s heard Mentor has since closed the foster home.) “The management was so clearly concerned about keeping the business going they would open homes that the clinical coordinators didn’t believe should be opened,” she said.

Keshavjee said no one at the company ever directly talked about money, but the message was clear nonetheless. “At the end of the day, it felt very profit-driven,” she said.

 

APPROACHABLE FOSTER FAMILY AGENCY, a small nonprofit in Merced, California, was a solid business proposition for Franklyn and Cynthia Vincent, the couple who established the agency in 2004. Cynthia’s counseling business contracted with the agency while Approachable also paid both her and Franklyn six-figure salaries. By 2009, the Vincents and Cynthia’s business combined were making half a million dollars from Approachable, more than 10 percent of the nonprofit’s annual revenue.

But in the spring of 2010, Approachable faced a challenge: One of its foster mothers was demanding that the agency find a new home for three difficult children. The Dixon siblings—D.J., age eight; Dexter, four; and Shalea, one—had come from a volatile family that struggled with drug and mental-health issues. Both D.J. and Dexter had developmental disabilities; Shalea had respiratory problems. Approachable stood to lose as much as $2,600 in monthly revenue if it couldn’t find them a new home.

The Vincents turned to Wendy Ford, a 42-year-old mother of eight who was already fostering an additional child through Approachable. The agency had inspected her four-bedroom house in Merced, but Ford told me the review was perfunctory. Several potential safety issues were left unaddressed, including the backyard swimming pool, which did not have a cover, and the fencing around the pool, which had no locks.

Ford says her foster parent certification only permitted her to house three foster children. But, she figured, if Approachable wanted her to take four, it must be okay. On March 31, 2010, the three Dixon kids moved into her home. Dexter made an immediate impression on her. “He had quite a personality,” she told me. “He was just full of life.”

Five days later, Ford’s sister, who was also staying at the home, found Dexter floating facedown in the pool. He’d wandered out of sight for just a few minutes and apparently ridden a plastic toy right into the water.

First responders found Ford performing CPR on Dexter, both of them covered in his pink vomit. Miraculously, the child survived cardiac arrest and multiple organ failure. But he suffered such severe brain damage that he’s not expected to be able to hold an entry-level job as an adult. Now nine years old, Dexter is a shell of his former self. “He has the frown lines of a 50-year-old,” says his mother, Shalea Dixon, who regained custody of her children.

One afternoon last spring I watched Dexter and his little sister play outside in their cul-de-sac. While the little girl zipped about on a scooter, giggling and shouting, Dexter rode his bicycle in slow, careful circles, his face drawn and sad.

Ford, who was charged with felony child abuse for letting the boy wander away, ended up pleading no contest to misdemeanor child endangerment and got three years’ probation. Approachable paid $825,000, without admitting liability, to help settle a civil suit brought on Dexter’s behalf by a court-appointed attorney. (The money is now in a fund set up for his care.) Franklyn Vincent, Approachable’s CEO, declined to comment.

The state, meanwhile, fined Approachable all of $500—not for the near-drowning or the cursory home inspection, but for failing to criminally screen Ford’s sister. Subsequent inspections by the state of California found six Approachable homes that were over capacity and at least three with fencing or pool problems.

Michael Weston, a spokesman for the California Department of Social Services, bristled when I asked why the state didn’t penalize Approachable more. “Can we shut down agencies? Of course we can. But it’s not necessarily always in the best interest of everyone involved.” Why not? “There’s not a huge group of people trying to be foster parents right now, and that’s a challenge—finding enough homes.”
DWIGHT ROBSON, the chief public strategy and marketing officer at Mentor, comes from the public sector—before joining the company in 2003, he held several positions in Massachusetts state government and worked on Democratic campaigns, including John Kerry’s Senate reelection bid. He told me that Mentor is a “mission-driven organization,” its goal to help individuals—foster children and adults with disabilities or severe brain injuries—live in residential settings. He stressed that providing quality services to clients was the company’s No. 1 priority, and he noted that in fiscal year 2014 alone, it closed 869 foster homes over concerns about their “fitness” to care for children.

Robson dismissed the complaints of the former employees I spoke with, saying that Mentor employs about 22,000 people nationwide, many of whom have had long tenures with the company. Incidents like the death of Alexandria Hill, he said, are tragic but “extremely rare.”

William Grimm, a senior attorney at the California-based National Center for Youth Law in Oakland, agreed that it’s virtually impossible to prevent the occasional incident. “I don’t think you could have a perfect system,” he said. “Unfortunately, there’s going to be a few people that squeak through.”

Robson told me that Mentor implemented new policies in response to Alexandria’s death, and that Texas Mentor voluntarily stopped taking new foster children until the case could be reviewed by authorities. Robson said Mentor staff “misjudged the character and commitment” of Sherill Small; the company has also admitted to missing that Small had an outstanding warrant for passing a bad check and failing to background-check her daughters, who frequented the home and had criminal rec­ords of their own. “Clearly, we didn’t do our job,” Robson said. “That’s a fact, and one that we’re not going to run from.”

I attended Small’s trial last fall, in the high-ceilinged old courthouse in Cameron, Texas. The proceedings were repeatedly interrupted by the piercing sounds of a train whistle from tracks less than a block away. The three male attorneys wore cowboy boots; the one female, pink high heels. Small slumped before a box of tissues, occasionally pushing up her glasses to dab her eyes.

For the jury, Milam County District Attorney Bill Torrey displayed a blown-up photograph of Alexandria, taken just days before the incident. In it, the little girl wears a canary yellow tank top, her pale skin ghostly in contrast to the brown puppy she’s clutching. Alexandria looks into the camera without smiling. “We are here because on July 29, 2013, Sherill Small murdered Alexandria—I’ll call her Alex—Hill,” he intoned.

Over the next week, the jury would learn that Small changed her story about what happened several times, first claiming that the child simply fell, then saying that she was running backward and fell, finally saying that she let go while swinging Alexandria by the arms. Jurors then watched an interrogation video where Small said she had been lying the whole time, that the real story was that she had been swinging the child over her head and accidentally dropped her on the floor. Several medical experts testified that Alexandria’s injuries were inconsistent with that story or any of the other ones, but were indicative of abuse. A police officer and an emergency room doctor also reported that Small didn’t inquire about the girl after she was rushed to the hospital. Witnesses repeatedly said they didn’t see Small cry.

But the most damning testimony for Small—and Mentor—came directly from Small’s family. Small’s sisters testified that Small didn’t seem to like Alexandria. Police photos showed that Alexandria’s room was devoid of toys or decorations, while a room used by Small’s teenage granddaughter was decked out with pictures, a zebra-striped blanket, and a Pikachu doll.

The jury also heard that Small hit one of her own daughters when the girl was just two years old, giving her a black eye and a knot on the head when she fell. Meanwhile, Small’s granddaughter admitted that Sherill and Clemon concealed from Mentor that a family friend, who had not been screened, sometimes stayed in the house. Clemon testified that he didn’t know Mentor’s guidelines on timeouts—no more than one minute for every year of age. Under Mentor’s own rules, Alexandria shouldn’t have been in timeout longer than two minutes. Taken together, the testimony suggested that Mentor didn’t really know the Smalls or what was going on in their home—or, for that matter, what had happened to Sherill herself when she was in foster care.

A psychological assessment painted a grim picture of what Sherill described as a “very sad” childhood. It said she was frequently spanked or put into isolation for things she hadn’t done. It got so bad that in her early teens, Sherill ran away from her foster home to live with a man who repeatedly raped her. Sherill told the psychologist that she preferred living with the man because she was “actually treated better and not beaten or left outside.” Sherill reported feeling depressed most of her life and attempting to kill herself once. She also testified that she had a son whom she gave up for adoption “because I was real young, I didn’t have a place to live, and I wasn’t going to have him live on the street.” Mentor’s background screening never found out about him either.

In early November, the jury found Small guilty of capital murder, sentencing her to life without parole. The verdict was the biggest legal victory in the career of assistant district attorney John Redington, but he told me afterward that the win felt hollow. “We get vengeance on these people and it makes us feel better temporarily,” he said. “But true justice would be making real change in the system so no kid is ever put through this kind of nightmare again.””

The Brief Life and Private Death of Alexandria Hill[Mother Jones 2/26/15 by Brian Joseph]

Update 17:“A Senate committee is investigating Mentor, a giant for-profit foster care firm. Now, the firm has hired lobbyists who used to work for the leaders of the very committee conducting the investigation. The company has also hired a former White House lawyer famous for handling Congressional probes.

A company under investigation by the powerful Senate Finance Committee for its practices in privatized for-profit child foster care has hired a phalanx of expensive and high-powered lobbyists and lawyers, including former staffers for the senators leading the probe.

One of the lobbyists, Josh Kardon, used to serve as chief of staff for Democratic Senator Ron Wyden (Oregon), the ranking member of the finance committee. Another lobbyist, Makan Delrahim, used to advise Republican Senator Orrin Hatch (Utah), the committee chairman.

The for-profit firm markets itself as “The Mentor Network,” though it trades on the New York stock exchange under the name Civitas Solutions.

Senate staffers said the investigation is moving ahead and that the company’s lobbying blitz won’t affect it. Still, one staffer acknowledged that lobbying on this scale, though routine in fields such as defense contracting or banking, is rare in foster care, which few people realize is a profitable business to companies such as Mentor. “For this industry, this is an abnormal level of lobbying,” he said.

Hatch and Wyden first signed a letter demanding information from Mentor in June 2015. That came after a BuzzFeed News series on a string of child deaths and abusesat the foster homes run by Mentor. The series disclosed how the firm has turned the business of foster care into a cash cow, with double digit profits in some states. It’s paid by states to place children, recruit and train foster parents, and even hire the social workers who are supposed to work with children and monitor foster parents.

In one grisly case in Texas, Mentor had received multiple warnings that Sherrill Small should not be a foster mother. Yet Mentor placed two-year-old Alexandria Hill in her care. Small swung her by her feet into the floor, killing the little girl. In Maryland, at a grim Mentor foster home compound called “Last Chance Farm,” foster children were serially abused by their Mentor foster father for over a decade, while the company allegedly ignored repeated red flags.

Sarah Magazine, the company spokesperson, emailed BuzzFeed News a statement that read in part, “We appreciate the interest of the Senate Finance Committee in the important work done every day by our nation’s foster care systems.”

However, the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show worries about the Senate investigation. “It is both costly and time consuming for us to comply with these inquiries,” according to the most recent Civitas Solutions annual report. “It is possible that the inquiries could result in negative publicity or other negative action that could harm our reputation.”

A firm named Capitol Counsel registered in November to lobby for Mentor, and listed Kardon, who worked with Wyden for 17 years, as one of the two lobbyists who would work on ‘Issues related to Title IV-E foster care contracts.” (Title IV-E foster care is federally subsidized.) Kardon is considered so close to Wyden that when he left Wyden’s office in 2011 to move to K street, the Oregonian said he had been thesenator’s “alter-ego.”

Kardon wrote in an email to BuzzFeed News that “when Mentor called I jumped at the opportunity to work with an organization dedicated to the cause of providing the best possible care for all foster kids.”

Samantha Offerdahl, a spokesperson for Wyden, said Kardon would not be able to influence the probe. “It doesn’t change anything from the committee’s standpoint. Senator Wyden worked with Senator Hatch to initiate the investigation and he’s continuing to doggedly pursue the facts until the investigation is complete.”

The company also brought in a lobbyist with a past connection to Senator Hatch. It retained the lobbying firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck in July, shortly after the senators began their investigation. As a registered lobbyist for Mentor, the firm listed Delrahim, a former Justice Department official who also once worked as staff director of the Senate Judiciary Committee under then-chairman Hatch. Delrahim’s bio says he was a “principal legal and policy advisor” on judiciary matters to Hatch.

These services are not cheap: For one three-month period, Mentor paid Brownstein Hyatt $100,000 for the services of Delrahim and another lobbyist.

“I am proud of my and our firm’s relationship with MENTOR,” Delrahim said in an emailed statement to BuzzFeed News. “Like foster care agencies of all types, MENTOR has on rare occasions experienced serious incidents.”

In her statement, Mentor spokeswoman Magazine wrote “We retained Josh Kardon and Makan Delrahim, both of whom have significant experience working with Congress—including the Senate Finance Committee—to help us communicate with the Committee.”

A spokesman for the committee emailed a statement for both senators: “The Chairman and Ranking Member are determined to get to the bottom of what happened in a number of questionable cases where the health and safety of children in the foster care program might have been compromised by Mentor.”

Among the elite lawyers Mentor has brought in to deal with the Senate, Magazine emailed, is Reginald Brown, who was an Associate White House Counsel under President George W. Bush. He is now a partner at WilmerHale, where he oversees the firm’s “congressional investigations practice.” Brown declined to comment.

Although Mentor got its start as a for-profit foster care company in the 1980s, it has expanded into other lines of business, such as group homes and caring for the developmentally disabled, and it uses the umbrella term “human services” to describe its business.

And while the former Hatch and Wyden staffers were brought on board after Hatch and Wyden announced their investigation, federal lobbying is nothing new for the company. It has spent $1.6 million on lobbyists since 2006.

The firm’s filings with the SEC emphasize that almost all of its revenue for “human services” comes from state, local, and federal agencies.

“To facilitate our ability to procure or retain government-sponsored contracts,” the firm wrote, “we rely in part on establishing and maintaining relationships with officials of various government agencies, primarily at the state and local level but also including federal agencies.”

In 2014, the firm announced it was giving an award called the “Ripple of Hope” to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the independent who then chaired the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, and is now running for for president. A spokesman says Sanders does not know Mentor and doesn’t remember receiving the award. Mentor has been doing some work with the VA, in a business where it tends to veterans with Traumatic Brain Injury.”

Foster Care Company’s “Abnormal Level Of Lobbying” [Buzz Feed 1/12/16 by Aram Roston]

Update 18: “The 14th Court of Appeals in Houston has affirmed the capital murder conviction of a former Rockdale woman accused of beating her 2-year-old foster child to death in 2013.

Sherrill Ann Small, 55, was convicted in November 2014 in the beating death of Alexandria Hill who was found unconscious on July 13, 2013 and was automatically sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The 2-year-old died in August 2013 at McLane Children’s Hospital in Temple after she was taken off life support.

Doctors found that the toddler had “subdural hemorrhaging, subarachnoid hemorrhaging, and retinal hemorrhaging in both eyes,” an arrest warrant affidavit said.

An arrest affidavit issued at the time said Small, “became frustrated with Alexandria, picked her up, and in a downward motion with a lot of force came down toward the ground with her.”

“She did this twice and on the third time she lost her grip and the victim was thrown to the ground head first,” the affidavit said.”

Court affirms conviction of local woman in foster child’s death [KWTX 5/19/16]

Update 19:”Three years later, Mary Sweeney hasn’t stopped thinking about how close she believed she was to getting her 2-year-old daughter, Alex, back. Sweeney told a judge she had left her abusive boyfriend, remained drug- and seizure-free for months, and complied with orders to go to parenting classes and therapy.

But a few weeks later, Alex’s foster mother — a Rockdale woman — bashed the child’s head so hard into a carpeted floor that the girl died on July 31, 2013, in a Temple hospital.

“I didn’t have enough time,” Sweeney said through tears during a recent interview with the American-Statesman.

Amid state reports that have highlighted child abuse deaths and scores of problems with the foster care system, Alex’s case is a prime example of what’s wrong with Child Protective Services, said Marty Cirkiel, Sweeney’s attorney. Agency shortcomings include failure to conduct proper background checks on foster parents and provide services for parents who want to regain custody of their children, and missing signs of abuse, said Cirkiel, who was a social worker before becoming an attorney and represents another Central Texas family whose child died in foster care.

In April, Cirkiel updated a federal lawsuit against the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, the umbrella agency over CPS, accusing the agency of discriminating against Sweeney because she had a disability. The state removed Alex and wouldn’t give her back to Sweeney because, among other reasons, Sweeney experienced seizures that the state argued would have put the child in danger, Cirkiel said.

“You can’t make having a seizure be a barrier to having your child,” Cirkiel said. “That issue had been addressed. She’s stable; she’s taking medication; she’s going to the doctor; she hasn’t had a seizure for six to eight months.”

Sweeney said she hasn’t had a seizure since the month before the state removed Alex.

State lawyers have denied the thrust of Sweeney’s claims, saying that seizures were not the sole reason Alex was removed. Court documents show that Sweeney and Alex’s father, Joshua Hill, had a history of marijuana use and that doctors had diagnosed Sweeney with depression, bipolar disorder and anxiety.

Although Sweeney had never harmed Alex, state officials feared that Sweeney’s emotional instability meant she could, according to court documents.

“I would never hurt my child,” Sweeney said.

Patrick Crimmins, spokesman for the state’s protective agency, said the agency doesn’t typically comment on pending legal cases.

‘I wonder what she would be like?’

The state removed Alex from Sweeney and Hill’s home Nov. 1, 2012, first placing her with Hill’s parents, then in a group foster home and finally with Sherill Small.

Sweeney said Alex’s behavior deteriorated the longer she stayed in foster care. She had bruises, was terrified of water, pulled out her hair and bit other children.

The last time she visited Alex before she was murdered, Sweeney said the girl begged her mother not to leave her.

“She had that child glow, and it disappeared gradually, and at the time of the last visit with her, she threw a complete tantrum that she had never thrown before,” Sweeney said. “The last thing I told her was that I loved her so much.”

Small, 54 at the time, was sentenced to life in prison for Alex’s death.

A Statesman investigation shortly after Alex’s death showed that the Austin-based child placement agency Texas Mentor had approved Small as a foster mother, even though she was facing theft charges at the time. Small’s two adult daughters also had criminal records and regularly visited their mother’s home.

The Statesman also drew attention to the family’s unstable source of income. Small worked temporary jobs; her husband ran a weekly karaoke show. State rules require a foster family to be financially stable.

Cirkiel said that CPS has inconsistent requirements and that one of the reasons Alex wasn’t returned to Sweeney was because Sweeney didn’t have a job.

“I should be able to hold her,” said Sweeney, who moved to Colorado for a fresh start. “I wonder what she would look like, what she would be saying now, how she would be enjoying school, what she would have grown up to be because she was so smart.”

More services for parents

After Alex’s death and the death of a Williamson County foster child — Orion Hamilton — three months later, the state increased the number of unannounced visits to all foster homes, limited the number of medically needy foster children who can be placed in one home and issued quarterly trend reports on child deaths from abuse and neglect.

It also suspended placements with Texas Mentor.

Even with all the promised changes, child deaths have increased since 2013.In 2015, 171 children died of abuse and neglect, up from 151 in 2014, as investigators missed red flags and failed to analyze critical data during abuse investigations, the Statesman reported. There are 29,000 Texas foster children.

During a hearing last week before a Texas House committee, new Department of Family and Protective Services Commissioner Henry “Hank” Whitman said his agency will provide forensic training for abuse investigators and do criminal background checks on potentially abusive families before caseworkers visit.

Sweeney said that parents whose children are in the foster system should get better support, including more hands-on parenting classes.

Cirkiel recommended that the state appoint attorneys to parents who are fighting for custody of their children and that the state continue to pay for services for parents who need the help, particularly if their child dies in the foster care system.

Sweeney still suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression but can’t afford therapy in Colorado, she said.

“In this case, the state put money into foster families that failed. And it would be much, much better for the state to put money into (biological) families,” Cirkiel said.”

Mother of murdered Central Texas foster child calls for changes [Austin Statesman 7/21/16 by Julie Chang]

Update 19:“A Rockdale woman who was convicted of capital murder in 2014 for the death of her 2-year-old foster child has died in prison, officials said Friday.

Milam County authorities said Sherill Small died Thursday of natural causes at the Carol Young Complex Prison in Dickinson. She was 57.