How Could You? Hall of Shame-Crystal Magee and Donald Magee UPDATED

Despite the Department of Children and Families mandate to carefully assess all potential foster homes and to closely monitor the placements, it took other relatives to recognize that the boy was malnourished, and had broken bones and burn marks. He was immediately removed from the home and hospitalized. Groton police began a criminal investigation that led to the arrest of Crystal Magee, 32, who already had a 16-year-old child with highly complex needs and a husband who was sick with a brain tumor. There was also financial pressure in the household. Magee is the sister of the boy’s mother.

Thursday, two DCF employees closely involved with the Groton case, social worker Theodore Parmalee and Elizabeth Duarte, a supervisor, were suspended from their jobs and escorted out of DCF offices, sources said.

Duarte earned $101,440 in salary and had $22,763 in fringe benefits in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2015. Parmalee had a salary of $72,320 and $31,606 in fringe benefits.

Sources said at least two more senior DCF officials face discipline and have been summoned to speak with internal DCF investigators.

DCF Commissioner Joette Katz on Friday acknowledged the abhorrent nature of this case and confirmed that three levels of DCF employees are under investigation.

“Anyone hearing of the condition of this infant will be extremely offended, and I personally am very disturbed that the department may have failed to timely identify the risk to his safety and respond accordingly,” Katz said in response to an inquiry from The Courant.

“While I am relieved that the baby has recovered and is doing well, we have serious questions about key decisions made in this case, including how we assessed the suitability of the home and the level of supervision of the child during his time there,” Katz said.

She said DCF’s human-resources division “is conducting an ongoing investigation of how this case was handled by … managers, supervisors and workers.”

Katz said she would not identify staff members who face discipline until the investigation is complete.

State employees have the right to a hearing before any discipline is imposed.

In April, two DCF managers were fired for failing to remove two young children placed with a couple in Plainfield – a husband convicted in the 1990s of raping a child, and a wife who was on the child-abuse registry for a previous DCF case.

Both those managers appealed their firings and the state agreed to give them their jobs back. They are working in DCF’s central office and are no longer involved in child-protection cases.

In January, in another troubling foster-care case, a Watertown couple was arrested and charged with abusing several of their five adopted children after police alleged in court documents that they had banished them to the bathroom for extended periods and isolated them from other family members. One child told police that she had spent almost four months mainly confined to the bathroom as punishment, according to court documents unsealed when the couple was arraigned.

In the Groton case, the police investigation lays out another foster-care placement gone wrong.

During the five months that the little boy lived with Crystal and Donald Magee on Mather Avenue in Groton, from June to November 2015, DCF caseworkers were told by the child’s biological mother and employees from two other agencies about concerns over the child’s health, or Crystal Magee’s ability to properly care for the child.

DCF had approved the child’s placement with the Magees.

Magee has pleaded not guilty to felony charges of risk of injury to a minor and cruelty to a child. She is free on a $100,000 bond and is due back at Superior Court in New London on Oct. 6.

The warrant affidavit paints a grim picture of the child upon his hospital admission.

“The 18-month-old is unable to talk, walk, or feed himself … [He] could not extend his left arm at the elbow … [He] also had a scar on his right wrist, possibly a burn. [He] had several scars to his chest and neck … [He] was emaciated and his ribs were visible. He had loose skin to his arms and legs … His eyes were sunken and the muscles in his temples were wasted. …”

On June 12, 2015, four children were removed from the home of Magee’s sister by DCF because of poor conditions inside the house, according to the warrant affidavit from Bobby Harris, the Groton police youth officer. Three of the siblings were placed with another family.

Crystal Magee told Groton police investigators that she reluctantly agreed to a request from other family members to take the child. She said she told DCF she could only care for the boy for a month because she has severe COPD and her husband has a brain tumor. In the warrant, Harris mentions that Donald Magee had “very poor motor skills” because of the tumor.

“Crystal stated that when [the child] arrived, all she was given was a car seat and the clothes [the child] had on,” the affidavit states.

Magee told police that on June 21, 2015, “DCF arrived for her to sign papers for temporary custody” of the child.

Magee also claimed that she never received any money from DCF to help care for the boy, but police determined that Magee was given $3,690 plus debit cards totaling another $335 for food, diapers, a car seat and a crib.

The arrangement called for the boy’s biological mother to continue to make doctor’s appointments for the child. However, police would later learn that of the five medical appointments made for the child, Magee either canceled them or failed to show up.

Also, out of the eight home visits that were scheduled by caseworkers with the Birth to Three developmental program, Crystal Magee allowed only four of the visits to go forward between June and September 2015.

“Birth to Three Social Worker Anna Johnson … said that she stressed her concerns to DCF’s Ted Parmalee that Crystal Magee had missed several of her scheduled appointments,” the warrant affidavit states.

Parmalee, the DCF worker assigned to the case,was one of the social workerssuspended Thursday.

Magee insisted to police that she fed and bathed the child regularly. But medical records showed the toddler lost about 3 pounds, about 15 percent of his weight, and was extremely undernourished.

“The victim showed signs of chronic malnutrition, contrary to [Magee’s] claim that the victim lost weight only in the two weeks prior to [hospital] admission, which is implausible,” the warrant affidavit states.

After his hospital admission, the child quickly began to thrive. He gained weight, his development accelerated, he began to vocalize sounds, to scoot and pull himself up to standing position and to smile responsively, according to the affidavit.

Crystal Magee also has a 16-year-old son with special needs. Police interviewed a caseworker with the Family Support Center of Groton, which had worked with the Magee family. The support center’s Diane Schrage told officers that Magee appeared “extremely stressed” when the toddler came to live with her in June 2015. Schrage told DCF’s Parmalee “that Crystal appeared to be overwhelmed,” the affidavit states.

In the interview with police, Schrage also said that Parmalee told her in October 2015 “that [Parmalee] believed something was going on at the Magees’ home and he may have to remove the child.”

In November 2015, the boy was placed with an aunt in Groton. The aunt took the child to a health clinic and the clinic called police and reported suspected child abuse.”

Two DCF Workers Suspended, Others Face Probe, in Groton Child-Abuse Case[Hartford Courant 9/2/16 by Josh Kovner]

Update 2:“The state Department of Children and Families recently handled a child abuse and starvation case so poorly that the child nearly died, which led an advocate to say that “the institutional failures and omissions in this case are staggering and raise grave concern.”

Now 2-year-old Dylan C., not the child’s real name, needed extensive treatment for malnutrition and physical abuse after he was removed from the care of foster parents, Crystal and Donald Magee. In their backgrounds, the two either had prior criminal records or child protective violations, according to a scathing 73-page report on the case from the state Office of the Child Advocate.

Crystal is a cousin of Dylan C.’s biological mother, and he and his three siblings were removed from their mother’s care and placed with the Magees in the summer of 2015 “due to concerns about chronic and escalating neglect.”

Yet according to the report, Dylan C.’s care at the hands of the Magees was worse. And by the time he was removed from the foster home in Groton in November 2015, doctors found his condition to be shocking:

Dylan was described by doctors as “significantly emaciated.” He was so undernourished that he had
poor muscle tone and head control. Health care providers told the DCF Careline that day that at
nineteen months old, Dylan was “unable to walk, talk or feed himself.” He had loose skin on his body,
his ribs were very prominent, his eyes were sunken in and his temple muscles appeared wasted. He
had swelling in his face and hands. His left elbow was swollen, and he could not extend his arm
completely. His right wrist was swollen, and he had an old scar that appeared to be from a burn. His
hair and skin were extremely dry from malnutrition and low protein, and he had developed a fine hair
over his body that grows when a child is starving. At nineteen months of age he weighed only
seventeen pounds, less than he weighed when he was last seen by his pediatrician, seven months earlier.
Doctors noted that Dylan was so underdeveloped and delayed that he had to be treated as an infant.
Dylan was described as very weak, preferring to be held, and records note that while in the hospital
he would rest his head on whoever would hold him.

He had only been with the Magees for five months, and the list of these and other ailments he suffered from, such as broken bones, easily should have been detected by DCF employees.

In fact, according to the advocate’s report, “more than a dozen DCF employees across four different DCF units were responsible for ensuring Dylan’s safety and well-being in foster care” during those five months, but they all systematically failed the child on an epic scale.

Red flag after red flag was ignored or dismissed in the case, and welfare checks on the child were handled cavalierly or not at all, the report makes clear. Even Dylan’s state-appointed legal counsel, a requirement in such cases, neglected to conduct an adequate investigation into the child’s situation and well-being.

Crystal Magee was eventually arrested on charges of felony risk of injury to a child and intentional cruelty to a child, and only then did DCF investigate the circumstances surrounding the neglect and abuse, it but held no one sufficiently accountable, according to the report.

“Dylan’s near-death from starvation and abuse—a stunning event in a state-monitored placement for a child—could occur only as a result of the utter collapse of all safeguards,” the report states, adding later:

The case investigation presents a concerning dynamic of adaptation to the abnormal—working day after day in a world of neglect and abuse, the risk is that a professional’s measurement, judgment, perception and evaluation of what is acceptable shifts. That so many eyes were on Dylan’s case and none pressed the alarm strongly to halt this tragic trajectory is a cultural warning sign that bears urgent attention by the public. The repeated failure to follow agency protocols, almost leading to the death of this child, raises concerns about the underlying reasons for these failures, how workload concerns or staffing may affect the quality of work, and how well agency protocols and expectations are monitored and enforced. As concerning are the repeated assertions regarding who has what job at the agency and with whom the buck stops regarding protecting the safety and well-being of children.

In a Hartford Courant story about the case, DCF Commissioner Joette Katz says that the department and those who worked on the case have taken responsibility for their failings, and that some employees have been disciplined.

However, though one employee who was involved in the case has since retired, no other workers have had their employment terminated, and state Senate Minority Leader Sen. Leonard Fasano, a Republican from North Haven, has called for Katz to resign.

“Anybody who has children will find this report chilling. This case provides a window into an agency that fails to follow the law and properly protect children. This is a problem of agency culture, and Commissioner Joette Katz must take full responsibility for this environment and the pattern of disturbing failures throughout multiple levels of her agency,” said Fasano in a statement.

He added, “We all know DCF handles some of the most challenging and sensitive situations involving vulnerable children in difficult family situations. But enough is enough. How many more tragedies have to happen before Connecticut realizes that Commissioner Katz has failed? She has no control over the department. The agency’s inability to follow laws meant to protect children, the practice of knowingly placing children with foster parents who have a history of abuse, and the complete failure to monitor and enforce agency protocols show a lack of leadership throughout the agency. Commissioner Katz is ultimately responsible for these failures, as are the Democrat legislative leaders who have stood with the commissioner in rejecting calls for agency reform.”

Click here to read the full report from the state Office of the Child Advocate, and click here to read the full story on the Hartford Courant website.”

-Year-Old Child Abused and Nearly Starved to Death, but State Department of Children and Families Did Nothing: Report[Patch 10/5/16 by Alfred Branch]

Update 3:“Crystal Magee was charged in February 2019 with risk of injury to a minor and cruelty to persons. She pleaded no contest to the charges and was sentenced in May 2019 to five years in prison, fully suspended, followed by three years of probation, meaning she served no prison time.”
State admits liability in case of Groton foster care abuse
[The Day 8/28/21 by Taylor Hartz]