IT WAS THE hair weave that got to me.

Someone in Charlenni Ferreira's life had used it to hide the head gash that Charlenni had suffered. The wound had been stuffed with gauze, then hidden beneath the weave. The injury was old enough that skin had begun to grow aross the gauze.

There was other abuse, of course. We've heard about the broken ribs that caused the infection that killed Charlenni. The broken hip that made her limp. The sexual acts that would have been a horror for a 10-year-old.

Hearing of those assaults, I felt too numb to cry. I wondered if last year's banner child-abuse news - the release of the 2008 grand jury report into the slow, sadistic and fatal neglect of little Danieal Kelly - had deadened me to feeling any more grief over the monstrous ways that grown-ups can betray the babies they're supposed to protect.

But, oh, the hair weave.

Anyone who knows little girls knows how much they love to have their hair made pretty - whether bent into curls or blown smooth, gathered into sweet pigtails or styled big-girl elegant with a glittery clip or weave. When the work is done, and they behold themselves in a salon mirror, or the mirror held in a smiling mama's hand, they beam with pride so unabashed, it can bring tears to your eyes.

And that's what finally brought tears to mine - the image of Charlenni, in agony, having her terrible wound yanked by a weave meant to hide from the world just how little her contemptible parents cared whether she lived or died.

Last Wednesday, Charlenni's father, Domingo Ferreira, and stepmother, Margarita Garabito, were arrested and charged with murder following Charlenni's death from what police described as the "ongoing torture" of her life.

Four days later, Ferreira, coward to the end, hanged himself in his jail cell. Garabito's preliminary hearing is scheduled for tomorrow. Neighbors from C Street, in Feltonville, where the family lived, have vowed to pack the courtroom.

"I want to look her in the eye," one neighbor told me. "I want to tell her to rot in hell with Satan."

The neighbor told me how she'd watched Charlenni "lose her spirit" in the last year."

Another neighbor, Charles Bednarczyk, told the Daily News that something might've been wrong because Charlenni always appeared "sort of frozen. But as soon as she would be allowed to go down the street and play with her friends, it was almost like she blossomed."

Others noted how she seemed to shiver with pain or dread.

No one, apparently, thought to contact the Department of Human Services, the way a school nurse had, in 2006 and 2007, when she suspected that Charlenni was in immediate danger.

But why would they? Overall, neighbors say, they rarely saw Charlenni. Besides, every parent sees "deprived" children of one kind or another all the time - you know, kids being raised in a way we wouldn't necessarily raise our own.

We also know that to suggest placing a child under state supervision is to suggest interfering with what we consider a basic right in this society, which is to raise our children as we see fit.

So we may regard a call to DHS as an act requiring more than just a feeling that something isn't quite right.

If Charlenni's painful life and excruciating death teaches us anything, my hope is that it will make us dial DHS anyway, to err more on a child's right to well-being than on a parent's right to be boss.

I say this, I realize, not knowing whether the investigation into Charlenni's death will eventually implicate DHS itself.

But for better or worse, DHS is the best we have.

Besides, it's not like we citizens are expected to wait for solid proof before acting in other matters in which safety is paramount. Right after 9/11, when the nation was desperate to prevent more attacks, we were implored to contact the Department of Homeland Security if we suspected terrorist activity among us.

"If you see something, say something," the slogan went.

If we can enlist America's eyes and ears for matters concerning national security, surely we can do the same when it comes to acts of domestic terrorism - the insidious kind that occurs behind closed doors, waged against those too vulnerable to dial the phone themselves.

To report suspected abuse to DHS, call (215) 683-6100. All calls are confidential.

E-mail polaner@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2217. For recent columns: http://go.philly.com/polaneczky. Read Ronnie's blog at http://go.philly.com/ronnieblog.