Latest news with #DFCS
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Yahoo
Report reveals new details in Savannah kidnapping case
SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV) — An incident report from Savannah Police Department (SPD) revealed new details related to the Thursday kidnapping of a toddler. Three-year-old Leilani Elliot was reported 'found and safe' by SPD Friday morning. She was reported missing and in extreme danger Thursday morning. Police told News 3, her mother, Jessy Elliot, took her without permission following a supervised visit at Bright House on Wheaton Street. The 32-year-old was arrested Friday morning in Camden County. The toddler is in the foster care system. According to the report, the visit Thursday morning at the family support center was supervised. An employee was in a separate room of the home and was watching the mother and daughter through surveillance cameras, the report reads. The employee told police they saw Jessy pick up her daughter in the living room, peak around the corner at the front door and walk out onto the porch. Jessy was then seen running with her daughter towards East Broad Street, according to SPD Sgt. Aaron Washington. '[Jessy Elliot] had been speaking on what she was going to do, from neighbors and individuals that she had associated with,' Sgt. Washington said. 'You could tell she wanted to seize that opportunity and she did.' The child was believed to be in extreme danger. Sgt. Washington says the Amber Alert was delayed due to the department not having the tag number of Elliot's Nissan Altima. That alert was sent out late Thursday afternoon. Jail records show that Elliot has a criminal history with charges ranging from cruelty to children and drug possession. Police were able to return the child to her foster parents. Washington is grateful for this outcome. 'It's a big relief,' Sgt. Washington said. News 3 was told Friday that the spokesperson for Brightside Child and Family Advocacy is out of town. Our staff reached out to the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS). We were sent the following statement, 'DHS/DFCS is bound by both state and federal law to protect the privacy of the people we serve. As such, we are unable to comment on the specifics of any child welfare cases.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Mothers Are Losing Custody of Their Babies After Hospitals Report Inaccurate Drug Test Results
A Georgia mother claims that she lost custody of her newborn daughter due to faulty drug tests from a lab with a documented history of inaccurate results. When a drug court and her OB-GYN ran tests on Kristen Clark-Hassell, her results were clean. But the tests from Georgia's Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) came back positive, and so the government took her youngest child. "They literally took her off my breast in the hallway with her screaming after the court hearing," Clark-Hassell told the Savannah-based outlet The Current. "For her to just be ripped like that just cut a hole in our hearts." In a 2021 whistleblower complaint, a former lab director for Avertest—the company that processed Clark-Hassell's drug tests—claimed that as many as 30 percent of the lab's test results were inaccurate. She further alleged that "meeting deadlines for test results is more important to Avertest than accuracy" and that the company manipulated data and set arbitrary detection cutoffs, increasing false positives. Avertest settled the Justice Department lawsuit relating to these claims in 2024, paying a $1.3 million settlement. Clark-Hassell's legal battle began with a DFCS-ordered Avertest drug screening in 2020. According to documents obtained by The Current, that test was taken on August 5, and it came back positive. Then a test from her OB-GYN taken on August 11 was negative. In September, a court-ordered drug test came back negative, but the DFCS ordered another round of testing in October. That time, her urine sample came back clean, but her hair follicle test was positive—raising serious concerns about the reliability of the results. While it's still possible that the sporadic positives Clark-Hassell experienced were the result of drug use, this exact circumstance is why accurate testing matters when deciding whether or not to take the drastic step of removing children from their parents' care. Clark-Hassell's case is not unique. Last year, The Marshall Project published two investigations revealing that CPS removed children based on unreliable drug tests. Some mothers tested positive after consuming over-the-counter drugs or poppy seeds. In other cases, hospitals reported women for testing positive for drugs that were given to them during labor. Separating kids from their parents can be devastating. To do it on the basis of a dubious test result is even worse. The post Mothers Are Losing Custody Over Sketchy Drug Tests appeared first on
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Yahoo
Dire warnings didn't stop a Spalding County couple from adopting the boy they almost starved to death
The Brief Last week, a judge sentenced Krista and Tyler Schindley to 40 years in prison, followed by 20 years on probation, in the horrific abuse and attempted murder of their 10-year-old adopted son. But before their guilty pleas, more disturbing details emerged in court, with a school counselor testifying she told the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services not to allow the adoption, saying, "I don't think they love him." Extraordinarily, the foster care agency that recruited the Schindleys as foster parents says it also told the state the couple shouldn't adopt children. The agency pulled their foster care license in 2020, the director told the FOX 5 I-Team. Why or how the Schindleys were able to adopt the boy and his four younger siblings remains a mystery, as state law allows adoption and DFCS records to be kept closed. GRIFFIN, Ga. - The child abuse case against Krista and Tyler Schindley could have easily been a death case, Spalding County's district attorney told the FOX 5 I-Team. But serious questions have come up about why the couple ever had an adoption case through the state. Not even the prosecutors who put the Schindleys away last week have the answers, as both adoption records and records of abuse complaints remain sealed. The adoption records and abuse records involving the Schindleys' 10-year-old victim are so locked down, the prosecutors who put the couple away last week haven't seen the files either, they told the FOX 5 I-Team. From right are Griffin Judicial Circuit District Attorney Marie Broder and Administrative Chief Assistant DA Kathryn Lenhard. (FOX 5) A victim's escape The backstory In May 2023, a neighbor found an emaciated 10-year-old boy wandering on Westminster Circle in Spalding County, barefoot and searching for food. At the time, he weighed just 37 pounds and suffered from severe malnourishment. According to an account provided by Griffin Judicial Circuit District Attorney Marie Broder, the boy had just made a daring escape from a house of horrors. Left home alone, he made his way to a privacy fence gate which another child in the home apparently hadn't properly locked. He managed to climb up and open the lock on the other side of the gate. "It's a tale of human resiliency and just that sheer will to live," Broder said. Thus began a series of horrific discoveries by police and prosecutors. Authorities say the family kept the child locked in his room, the windows screwed shut and covered with film. In his bathroom, the handles on the hot water faucets were removed so he could only use cold water. The parents withheld food, sometimes giving him rotten onions and avocadoes. They forced him to eat outside while the family ate inside. He was struck with the end of a belt. The parents even encouraged the boy's own biological siblings, who were three and four years younger, to take part in abuse with them, the DA said. "There was one incident that the children recounted," Broder said, "that they threw a hot dog in the pool, and (the boy) couldn't swim very well, and so he was fighting, drowning to try to get to that hot dog. "And they all stood by the pool laughing at him." Broder said the Schindleys' ultimate goal was to kill the boy, then move on as if he never existed. "They had cultivated these kids to just think that he didn't matter," she said. "We had evidence that they were planning to move back to Ohio at some point." "The neighbors didn't even know he existed," Administrative Chief Assistant DA Kathryn Lenhard, the lead prosecutor on the case, said. "The people that lived next door to them didn't know that they had another son." Families 4 Families is a faith-based foster care agency that contracts with the state to recruit and support foster families. It recruited Krista and Tyler Schindley from their church, its director said. (FOX 5) An adoption proceeds, despite protests What we know Three years before his escape, the Schindleys had been allowed to adopt the boy and his four younger siblings, who are two sets of twins. Before a judge sentenced Krista and Tyler Schindley to 40 years in prison last week, court testimony raised questions about why that adoption ever went forward. A Henry County school counselor told the trial judge, she didn't think the Schindleys should be allowed adopt the boy. And she said she told that to DFCS, the state's child welfare agency which oversaw the adoption. "She only wanted the kids – the sisters, the twins – and he was being forced on her," Rock Spring Elementary School counselor Sophia Gutierrez said. "I emailed the caseworker and I said, 'Please do not allow them to adopt him. I don't think they love him.'" A major concern: The boy coming to school with only scraps for lunch, forbidden to eat school lunch. But Gutierrez said there was "a lot of pushback from DFCS" over her and other teachers' concerns about him. But even more extraordinary, the faith-based foster care agency that recruited the Schindleys to be foster parents, then paired them up with the children, says it also told DFCS the Schindleys weren't fit to adopt the boy, or any children. Families 4 Families contracts with the state to recruit and support foster families. "The Schindleys actually came to our attention from their church," founder and CEO Wayne Naugle told the I-Team. "They passed all of the background checks. We got references on the family, talked to as many people as we could. They went through everything, and everything looked good on paper." But Naugle said the agency eventually walked away from the adoption, pulling the family's foster home license. "There were some concerns from the child that maybe he didn't feel safe," Naugle said. "There were just some concerns that he brought up, that we thought were significant enough that could not be overlooked." Naugle said after Families 4 Families exited the case, "the state basically just reopened the home underneath their name." After his daring escape from a house of horrors in May 2023, the 10-year-old victim told police in a bodycam video, "I don't want to be there." A neighbor had found him wandering the street, severely emaciated, barefoot, and searching for food. Unanswered questions What they're saying Naugle suspects one reason the state forged ahead is because of the dearth of families willing to foster and adopt children, especially sibling groups. That, and a desire to keep the siblings together. "When we had to make that call to the state, I wish I would have had another family that wanted all five of those kids," he said. "Because I would have pushed a lot harder if I did. And the bottom line is, we didn't." His account, and what came out in court last week, begs the question of how the Schindleys were allowed to adopt the boy, or any of the children for that matter. It's hard to determine, because adoption records are sealed. The I-Team tried to talking to DFCS about the case, but the agency wouldn't comment, citing state and federal privacy laws. DFCS did confirm that no employee faces disciplinary action over the Schindley case. The I-Team also reached out to the now-retired Superior Court judge who signed off on the adoption, but didn't hear back. District Attorney Broder and ADA Lenhard said they haven't seen the adoption records, either, nor DFCS's investigation records into complaints from the school. They said they're aware of three DFCS investigations, all ruled unfounded. Asked if the judge in the adoption was aware of the past complaints or that Families 4 Families had backed away from the Schindleys, the district attorney said, "It's sealed. So we don't know. That's something we tried to look into." Wayne Naugle, founder and CEO of Families 4 Families, said his foster care agency pulled the Schindleys' foster home license over concerns about their treatment of the oldest boy. (FOX 5) A call for help Big picture view Naugle, of Families 4 Families, said while he has the ability to turn down cases, DFCS doesn't. "I never want to throw mud at DFCS," he said. "I think they have one of the most difficult jobs in the world." Naugle said the Schindley case should be a wake-up call for churches and communities. "If any good can come out of this, I would hope that families will look around and see all the children in Georgia that need help," he said. "How good would it be that if one family came up, and there was a concern about the family adopting, and the state had five other people that wanted to adopt five kids?" Naugle said anyone interested in becoming foster parents, or lending support to foster parents, can contact him through the Families 4 Families website. SEE ALSO: The Source FOX 5 Atlanta has been covering the Schindley case since the couple's 2023 arrest and had a reporter in court last week for their sentencing. For this story, I-Team reporter Johnny Edwards spoke with the district attorney and the lead prosecutor on the case, as well as the founder and CEO of Families 4 Families. He tried in vain to obtain the criminal case file, which the DA's office withheld, saying the Schindleys might appeal their sentence. DFCS would not discuss details of the case. The Source:
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Yahoo
Metro Atlanta preschool teacher pinched, locked children in bathroom for misbehavior, parents say
A beloved preschool teacher in Decatur is under investigation after multiple parents accused her of getting physical with their children and locking them in a bathroom when they misbehaved. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] The allegations came from parents with children at East Lake Early Learning Academy, which has a partnership with the YMCA and serves as a feeder school to Drew Charter School. Multiple sources told Channel 2′s Michael Seiden that the accused teacher 'grabbed' and 'pinched' their arms and locked them in a bathroom when they didn't listen to her. Channel 2 Action News isn't identifying the teacher because she hasn't been charged with a crime. A spokesman for the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning confirmed that the academy filed a report with the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services on Tuesday. 'The center just entered a required report to DFCS about an email from a parent in the 3-year-old classroom,' wrote Reg Griffin, Chief Communications Officer for DECAL. 'The parent advised the program that her child had a scratch on her arm and that her child advised her that the teacher grabbed her child by the arm, causing a scratch.' Griffin added that the report will be screened by DFCS and it will follow through to determine if an investigation by DECAL is warranted. TRENDING STORIES: Caught on video: Man accused of murder attacked in court by victim's family members GA care home employee knocked down 82-year-old patient who later died in the hospital Conservative groups hold own 'Latino Day' at State Capitol, support ICE operations around GA Channel 2 Action News reached out to the YMCA of Metro Atlanta and it issued the following statement: 'Yesterday, the YMCA of Metro Atlanta was made aware of a potential situation involving a teacher at the East Lake Early Learning Academy. As soon as we were informed, we followed standard protocols by promptly contacting the Bright from the Start state agency overseeing the program to ensure the matter was reviewed appropriately. Child safety remains our top priority at the Y, and we are committed to providing the East Lake community youth with a safe and supportive environment to learn.' Channel 2 Action News reviewed state records that show the school is in 'good standing.' But there have been problems in the past. Records show that the school was ordered to pay fines to the state following investigations in 2020, 2021 and 2022, which were all self-reported. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] On January 16, 2020, an investigation revealed that a two-year-old child was strapped into a wooden chair while crying. 'The teacher was observed to place a knee on the back of the chair, causing the child's chest to be pressed against the table,' wrote the investigator. 'The staff member asked the child,' Want to go cry in the bathroom?' The child was then locked in the restroom while being strapped to the chair for 26 minutes. The child was allowed out of the restroom, but remained strapped in the chair.' Investigators also reviewed video footage from a Jan. 17 incident that showed another staff member's misconduct. 'A staff member took another child's open hand and hit a two-year-old child in the face twice and on the back multiple times,' wrote the investigator.' The current director was not in charge of the school when it was investigated in 2020.
