9 charged in death of disabled Philly teen

[Contrary1]

PHILADELPHIA - Four social workers were among nine people charged Thursday in the death of a disabled 14-year-old girl who authorities say wasted away from neglect before dying at 42 pounds.

Danieal Kelly's mother was charged with murder; counts against other defendants range from involuntary manslaughter to perjury. District Attorney Lynne Abraham said any of the nine could have foreseen the horrific fate of Danieal, whose emaciated body was found in her mother's squalid house covered with bone-deep, maggot-infested bedsores in August 2006.

Abraham had scathing words for the city's Department of Human Services, calling its handling of the case "callous, indifferent, unconscionable" — and all too familiar.

"Danieal did not fall through the cracks," she said. "It was a failure of institutional inclination. Saving Danieal was just too much trouble."

More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080731/ap_on_re_us/starvation_death_charges

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[MikeNearMcChord]

2. There isn't a hell hot enough for these bastards!

[MadrasT]

3. Lovely. Just f'ing lovely.

And here in the city of "brotherly love", we have PSPCA running amok with film crews from Animal Planet, doing nighttime raids to take down cockfighting rings, cat shelters, and puppy mills (makes for great footage for their "Animal Cops: Philadelphia").

Meanwhile, this is allowed to happen to a human being? :grr:

Brotherly love, my ass.

[bonito]

4. "Danieal did not fall through the cracks,"

It's where priorities lie, the sad state of the nation.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

5. It looks like the social workers NEVER visited the girl and covered it up.

Not to defend them in any way, but I'm wondering if these agencies were just terribly overstretched and the girl really did fall through the cracks but the people were so worried about getting in trouble they chose to cover their own asses. We have big problems with CPS here in AZ. Granted, there are some incompentent and mendacious caseworkers (like the one who ignored abuse of 2 children because she was dating their father, who eventually killed one of them) but OTOH there are a lot of really good people who get burned out because they have way too many cases assigned to them and make $28000 a year, despite having post-graduate degrees. I think what happened in Philly probably indicates a systemic failure in addition to the personal ones.

[MonkeyFunk]

6. gah

I just saw this story and came to post it - checked to see if it was already here.


Some things in life just make you shake your head. I just can't comprehend this.