When Alayiah Turman was beaten to death last month, DHS had been investigating an abuse allegation. The agency said it had not detected any injury; Alayiah's grandmother said she had seen bruises on the child, and the medical examiner found a healed arm fracture during the autopsy.

A video game unplugged

Police say Alayiah's father, Tyrone Spellman, confessed to killing his daughter after she pulled the plug while he was playing Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, a violent combat video game.

Ransom-Garner told The Inquirer on Sept. 13 - before the newspaper launched its inquiry into child deaths - that the agency had been investigating the family.

A few weeks before Alayiah was killed, the commissioner said, an anonymous caller reported that an adult was yelling at a 2-year-old, and that there were holes in the floor of the home. The next day, she said, a caseworker interviewed Alayiah's mother, Mia Turman, and inspected the child. There were no bruises, Ransom-Garner said, and the toddler appeared happy and playful. She said there had been no other complaints.

The agency made another surprise visit a few days later. The caseworker asked Turman whether anyone else lived in the house, in order to perform a background check on each adult. The caseworker took Turman's word that no men lived there, Ransom-Garner said.

Neighbors and relatives told The Inquirer, however, that Spellman had been born at the Brewerytown rowhouse where Alayiah was killed. He was living there with his brother and another relative, Keith Walker.

Turman had moved to Spellman's house only recently, said neighbors, many of whom say he is innocent.

Walker told The Inquirer that he had tried to revive the little girl when he arrived home that night. Detectives later told him that there were obvious signs of past abuse, he said. Alayiah's grandmother Marvine Turman told The Inquirer that she remembered seeing bruises.