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Even a DHS overhaul failed to save this life
An addicted mother. A new policy. A baby still lost.
Two months after she was born to an uncooperative, drug-addicted mother with a past allegation of medical neglect, Ciani had not been seen by anyone at DHS or its contractor.
Contact staff writer John Sullivan
If she had, someone might have noticed what was clear from medical reports: She was severely jaundiced and malnourished.
Just a day or two before Ciani died, Hargrove said, she called DHS and urged the case supervisor to go out and check on her adopted daughter.
Hargrove would realize only later that her calls to the DHS worker were not treated the same way as if she had called the child-abuse hot line. Calls received there must be acted on within 48 hours. There is no time limit to respond to calls to a social worker.
Finally on Friday, Dec. 9, 2005, one year after DHS became involved and five months after the agency first noted that Davis was not cooperating, a DHS worker gave Davis an ultimatum during a phone conversation.
He needed to check on the safety of the children no later than Dec. 12, and if Davis did not cooperate, DHS would file a dependency petition to take her children away.
On Sunday night, police were called to the Marston Street address. A paramedic had called the child-abuse hot line because the child was cold and malnourished, records show.
In an interview, Davis said she had been living in the basement since Ciani was 2 weeks old.
Davis had not fed the baby for 16 hours, she told police, even though the baby was supposed to be fed every two to three hours. Ciani weighed 71/2 pounds at the time of death.
A normally developing baby her size would have been about three pounds heavier.
"It's a mystery how she died, a mystery to me," Davis said during an interview in December. She was sitting in the basement of her mother's home, holding an empty photo album, mulling the artifacts of an unlived life.
"These are her little booties," she said, holding up a pair of baby shoes still tethered to a cardboard tag.
She lifted a handprint kit sealed in plastic and examined the box. Inside it read:
"I'll be grown up someday and all those tiny handprints will surely fade away."
Read The Inquirer's report on the city's handling of child-abuse deaths and other recent articles at http://go.philly.com/dhs
Contact staff writer John Sullivan
at 215-854-2473 or johnsullivan@phillynews.com.
