Children Protective Services approved these children placement.

Children Protective Services have failed these children. Are there more? Of course there are. We just haven't learned their names or seen their faces.

There is a story behind each picture, real story about one short life....

More stories...... Do You Remember Us?

If you suspect child abuse or neglect please call Child Protective Services. Failure to report suspected child abuse can result in criminal liability.....

Cop called child abuse hot line in Amanda Runyon case; DCFS failed to intervene

Despite a sheriff's deputy's call to the state child abuse hot line a year and a half ago about squalid living conditions where a 10-month-old girl was living with her mother and the mother's registered sex offender brother, the Department of Children and Family Services failed to intervene.

That baby girl was Amanda Runyon, now 2 years old, who remains in critical but stable condition at a St. Louis hospital, where she is being treated for injuries from a severe beating that may require her to remain on a feeding tube for life. She was airlifted to the hospital on March 1.

The hot line case launched by a Randolph County sheriff's deputy was the first of two prior instances in two years where DCFS was notified of danger to Amanda. One was in 2008, and the other was in February. In both cases, officials from the agency either failed to ensure that child safety measures were carried out or decided they were not needed.
Now, her mother's boyfriend, Kraig Monroe, 24, of Princeton Drive near Belleville, is being held in the St. Clair County Jail, charged with repeatedly punching Amanda in the stomach because she wouldn't stop crying. As in 2008, the family had been living in a home with unsanitary conditions -- this time a Belleville trailer. The trailer has since been condemned, or found unfit for human occupation.

On Feb. 23, DCFS was notified by a hospital staffer that Amanda had a broken leg and a healing but apparently undetected arm fracture. State child protection workers were notified. A DCFS investigator went to Belleville Police to obtain the mother's name and address, but did not remove the child.

Standard procedure for the agency is to assign workers to assess the situation and institute a plan to ensure that the child is safe from danger. This often means placing the child in temporary foster care. Parents are usually then required to take parenting classes or are visited by social workers.

Spokesmen for DCFS gave contradictory statements this week as to whether the agency even investigated when Randolph County Deputy Rick Kennedy made the hot line call on July 29, 2008, about living conditions at a home in Coulterville.

Kendall Marlowe said no investigation occurred. Jimmie Whitelow said a limited inquiry was conducted. Both spokesmen said the matter involved a private custody issue and that the agency could not get involved. Neither mentioned anything about a registered sex offender.

In a copy of a Randolph County Sheriff's Department report obtained by the News-Democrat, child safety issues were reported, including unsanitary conditions and the presence of the sex offender.

Police in St. Clair County have not released the identity of Amanda's mother, who was jailed and then released regarding the current injuries to her daughter, because she has not been charged.

However, in the Randolph County sheriff's report she is listed as now 25-year-old Dawn Obptande. She could not be reached for comment.

Her brother, Billy Obptande, who was living in the Randolph County trailer, was convicted in St. Clair County of aggravated sexual abuse for having sex with a girl who was younger than 17. He was 22 when charged. Billy Obptande was the biological father of 9-week-old Jason Smith, who was shot in the face with his mother Nicole Willyard and two of her friends by Willyard's boyfriend, Jason Smith, who is serving a life sentence for those 2005 murders in Belleville.

Whatever the DCFS investigator found at the Coulterville trailer, if anything, will never be known because the agency purges its files of all cases where child neglect is not officially determined, said Whitelow.

"By law, any investigation that is unfounded is expunged from our system," Whitelow said. "The referenced investigation in July 2008 by deputy sheriff Rick Kennedy was an unfounded one and therefore has been removed from our system."

However, Kennedy wrote in his report that he had learned that Amanda was in "deplorable" condition after Dawn Obptande dropped her off with her father, Eddie Runyon. The sheriff's department report stated that Dawn Obptande told Runyon, "I can't take care of her anymore. You keep her."

Dawn Obptande showed up a few days later on July 31 demanding the return of her daughter. Runyon refused.

The incident came to the attention of deputies after Dawn Obptande called the sheriff's department and said Runyon would not return Amanda, according to the Randolph County Sheriff's Department report.

Runyon told the officer that Amanda was dirty and didn't have any clothes or diapers with her.

Kennedy then called DCFS caseworker Ken Beams, who told him to return Amanda to Dawn Obptande, the report stated.

Kennedy went to the house in Coulterville and learned Dawn Obptande lived with her brother, Billy Obptande, a sexual predator listed on the Illinois State Police sex offender web site.

Kennedy again called Beams, who then said a case would be started and a caseworker would call the family in 24 hours, according to the police report. Two days later, Kennedy wrote that he received a call from DCFS caseworker Richard Fulton, who said an investigation had been done and no threat to the child was found.

Randolph County Sheriff Fred Frederking said that he sent a copy of the report to DCFS last week, at the agency's request.

Frederking stated his deputy called the hot line in 2008 because he was concerned about Amanda's safety.

"There was a well-being of the child issue," Frederking said. "That's why we called the DFCS. The welfare of the child."

Obptande took Amanda to Memorial Hospital in Belleville on March 1. Police said Monroe, an unemployed roofer, punched Amanda in the stomach over a four-day period including when she sat in an Elmo baby chair. A quarter of Amanda's intestines was removed to repair the damage.

St. Clair County Sheriff's Department Capt. Steve Johnson, who headed the investigation, said the trailer where Monroe, Dawn Obptande, Amanda and three other children were living was filthy to the point that he tried to avoid touching anything inside. Amanda and her two siblings slept on the floor.

Drug paraphernalia and a large pit bull were found inside the trailer, where the couple was living without a required occupancy permit.

DCFS was contacted by Memorial Hospital on Feb. 23 concerning the girl's broken leg. The call to the agency came a week before she suffered her critical stomach injuries. The St. Clair County Sheriff's Department was not contacted.

St. Clair County Sheriff Mearl Justus said the child protection agency should have acted earlier, even as far back as 2008, to protect Amanda.

"I think it shows that DCFS knew about this. The (Randolph County) report confirms that," Justus said. "They should have reacted to it."

BY BETH HUNDSDORFER AND GEORGE PAWLACZYK - News-Democrat

Contact reporter Beth Hundsdorfer at bhundsdorfer@bnd.com or 239-2570. Contact reporter George Pawlaczyk at gpawlaczyk@bnd.com or 239-2625.

Don't let DYFS go into hiding

The Division of Youth and Family Services has decided to step back into the shadows. It must not be allowed to do so.

In an outrageous change of policy, DYFS announced last week it will no longer publicly disclose the details of its actions when a child under its supervision dies from abuse or neglect. The arrogance involved in that policy boggles the mind.

DYFS officials say that revealing the circumstances behind the death of a child who was in the agency's care isn't useful. They contend it is better to release reports of "trends" in the agency's failures than to focus on individual cases. They also argue that publicizing details could hurt the victims' families and that a federal monitor assigned to oversee the agency eliminates the need to inform the public.

When it comes to accountability and transparency in the public arena, truth should trump utility. Naturally, DYFS would not find it "useful" to have its possibly fatal mistakes and missed calls exposed to the light of day. So what? The public, whose tax dollars pay for DYFS to make life-and-death decisions, has every right to demand to know what has happened.

The public airing of the misjudgments that cost a child's life could be painful for some of the families of the victims. But it's hard to imagine anything could make them more grief-stricken than the loss of their child and the knowledge that the system failed them. They also might be among the loudest voices in support of disclosure, as one way of helping to ensure that it doesn't happen to some other son or daughter.

When the competence of an agency or its employees is in question, it should not be left to that agency to decide how much information to release to the public. The governor and the Legislature must override this disastrous policy switch.

DYFS has a difficult, sometimes impossible, job. And they often do a fine job. But when they get it wrong, we need to hear about it.

ASBURY PARK PRESS EDITORIAL -- July 28, 2009

We urge legislators to take a closer look at funding child protection issues and authorities to use wisdom in investigating abuse cases.

Is there someone to speak for children so that their unfinished lives do not slip silently away?

If hundreds and hundreds of predictably and preventably dead children is not enough to inspire action, what is? If you choose not to act, who will? If not now, when?

  Those children's voices call out from small graves to those who truly care about child welfare.

                          Learn more about them.....Read their stories.