How Could You? Hall of Shame-Kenyon Slacks case-Child Death UPDATED
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 Hephzibah, Georgia, Foster mom Elizabeth Osei, age 52, “is charged with the murder of Kenyon Slacks, her 3-year-old foster child.”
“Kenyon Slacks died last June. A toxicology report delivered to a grand jury earlier in January showed that little Kenyon was “positive for morphine 0.27mg/L,” WRDW-TV reported.
The lethal range for the drug is between .2 and 2.3mg/L, according to the TV station.
Osei, who was arrested this week, was never prescribed morphine, but during a search of the house authorities found morphine pills, four medical syringes, and a bottle of morphine sulfate in Osei’s name, WRDW reported citing a search warrant.
The original incident report ruled Kenyon died from natural causes.
Kenyon Jakobian Slacks, who suffered from a health condition, died on June 24.
“Those who knew Kenyon always were amazed at the many obstacles he had to face in his young life. Each battle was faced head on with his everlasting determination to survive. At the tender age of three, God decided Kenyon would suffer no more and called him home to his loving arms,” his obituary in June said.
“He left behind thousands of wonderful memories and his love for those who helped care for him while he was on his journey,” his obituary said.
“Kenyon J. Slacks truly was a gift from God. There will not be a day that passes where Kenyon will not be in our thoughts.””
Foster mom killed 3-year-old boy with morphine dose, Augusta officials say[WBTW 1/16/15 by Rod Overton]
REFORM Puzzle Piece
Update:“A large corporation selected and paid foster mother Elizabeth Osei. Now she is in jail awaiting a murder trial in the morphine overdose death of the three-year-old boy that the company, The Mentor Network, placed in her care. Mentor paid a $500 fine for failing to “ensure adequate supervision” of the child who died.
Another foster parent with the nation’s leading for-profit foster care company, The Mentor Network, is facing criminal charges. Elizabeth Osei is in jail in Georgia, accused of murdering her three-year-old foster son. In 2014, another foster mother for the company was convicted of murder in Texas.
It has not previously been reported that Osei was a foster mother for Mentor’s Georgia operation, which goes by the name Georgia Mentor. Mentor is controlled by a giant private equity firm and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the name Civitas Solutions. As BuzzFeed News has previously reported in a series ofstories, Mentor turned privatized foster care for children into a cash cow across the country.
At its height, the politically influential corporation provided foster homes for about 4,000 children nationwide in 15 states. Since the first BuzzFeed News report on Mentor a year ago, the company has pulled out of the child foster care industry in seven states, but still runs foster care operations in eight. The company has said it pulled out of the states because of business decisions unrelated to the news coverage.
In 2013, 2-year-old Alexandria Hill was murdered in Texas by her Mentor foster mother, who violently swung her into the floor. In 2012, a 2-month-old baby died in a Massachusetts foster care home run by Mentor in a case that the state initially ruled to be neglect. The neglect finding was later overturned. In 2011, two Mentor foster fathers in Maryland were convicted of sexually abusing their foster sons. One of those foster fathers had for 10 years been molesting children Mentor placed in his care — and the company had continued sending children to his home despite repeated warnings.
Workers told BuzzFeed News that Mentor sacrificed child safety because it pushed so hard to meet profit goals, though Mentor has strongly denied this. States and local governments pay the firm to select, train, and hire foster parents, to place children with those parents, and even to hire the caseworkers who are supposed to look after the children’s welfare. More broadly, Mentor has been accused of overlooking criminal backgrounds of foster parents and ignoring warning signs. In Texas, the company ranked dead last among large foster care providers, based on the number of severe violations found by state inspectors. Investigators in Illinois found “a culture of incompetence” at the company.
After BuzzFeed News began reporting on Mentor, the powerful US Senate Finance Committee launched an investigation into the company and privatized foster care in general. To cope with that investigation, the company has hired lobbyists who used to work for the senators leading the probe and a high-powered Washington lawyer who specializes in handling Congressional investigations.
Sarah Magazine, the company spokesperson, said in a statement that “the unexpected death of a child is our worst nightmare.” She added, “We understand the challenges associated with foster care, and we also understand that while no agency will ever achieve perfection, we must strive for it every day in partnership with our public partners, our foster parents and our staff.””
Parent at Nations Leading For Profit Foster Care Firm Facing Murder Charges [Buzz Feed 2/23/16 by Tala Ansari and Aram Roston]
Update 2:”After 604 days in jail awaiting trial, Elizabeth Osei finally saw freedom Friday after a jury acquitted her of murder in the death of her foster child.[What?]
Osei, 54, cried in relief, as did her family members as the not-guilty verdict was read by the clerk in Richmond County Superior Court.
Osei was charged with murder and held without bond in the June 24, 2014, death of her severely disabled foster child, 3-year-old Kenyon Jay Slacks.
The prosecution contended that Osei intentionally gave Kenyon a fatal dose of morphine. But the sole defense witness, an expert in pharmacology, told the jury Thursday that the state laboratory’s finding that Kenyon had enough morphine in his system to kill a man was bogus.
“Y’all know the right thing to do,” defense attorney Pete Theodocion implored the jury in his closing statement. Osei was the one who truly loved Kenyon, cared for him 24/7 and fought to get him as much medical attention as possible to improve his life, he argued.
Osei, a licensed practical nurse, worked at Gracewood until retiring in 2009 after being attacked by a patient, Theodocion said. She became a foster mother, adopting the first medically fragile foster child she took into her home.
Like Kenyon, her son was severely disabled. By chance, Kenyon came to stay with her when his foster parents had to attend a funeral, Osei told detectives. The two boys bonded immediately and Osei asked to bring Kenyon and his sister into her care.
On June 23, 2014, Kenyon underwent an MRI. Osei had worried about the use of a sedative because of Kenyon’s fragile health, but because Kenyon had been awake much of the night before, she thought he had slept through the procedure without a sedative, she told investigators.
There was no mention of a sedative in the medical records, according to witnesses. But the defense’s pharmacology expert testified that it is not unusual to sedate children when they have to remain still for a procedure.
Kenyon’s death was presumed to be by natural causes, until the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s toxicology report revealed the presence of morphine in his system. The level was in the range of a lethal dose, a GBI scientist told the jury this week.
The level she referenced was from one study from 1974 of the morphine levels in 10 people who had died, testified Daniel Buffington, the defense’s forensic pharmacologist. A number of studies have shown that the level of morphine in a dead person can be inflated by as much as 10 percent because morphine becomes concentrated in the blood after death, he said.
In her closing argument, Assistant District Attorney Deshala Dixon brushed aside Buffington’s testimony as a smokescreen. Kenyon had morphine in his system, she said, and nowhere in the medical records did it indicate that he received the drug during the MRI or at the emergency room before his death. Also, Osei had a prescription for morphine that she didn’t disclose to Kenyon’s social workers, she said.
If Osei acted recklessly in mixing up the morphine with one of Kenyon’s medications, as she told a detective might have happened, it was still a crime, Dixon said.
Theodocion countered by saying medical professionals make mistakes all the time and aren’t charged with murder because it was unintentional. Why should Osei be held to a different standard, he asked. [what?
]She had no motive – there was no life insurance and no indication she was overwhelmed with the care the children needed, he said.”
Foster mother acquitted in boy’s death[The Augusta Chronicle 9/9/16 by Sandy Hodson]
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