By 11:58 a.m. Bryanna was dead.

Ian Hood, a Philadelphia deputy medical examiner, testified that the toddler had died of an injury more severe than all but one or two he had seen in his career.

In a statement to detectives, Viola Redmond said she had punished Bryanna for having a temper tantrum by punching her in the stomach.

On the day Bryanna died, a DHS caseworker named Lekisha Harvey tried to investigate the sister's abuse complaint. But somehow the address had gotten garbled.

It took DHS three days to search a public-assistance database, which turned up Viola's former address on Reach Street in the Northeast.

The judge in the case, Benjamin Lerner, commented from the bench that the case raised questions about the agency.

"Who is in charge, who gives little children to people who are so obviously, absolutely completely incapable of taking care of them?" Lerner wondered.

From the bench

Lerner, who has been dealing with DHS for decades, as a public defender and then a jurist, argues that the agency is not aggressive enough in removing children from potentially abusive homes.

"I don't think the system has changed at all" since Porchia Bennett's death, he said in a recent interview. "I believe that we have to be more forceful earlier in children's lives when we see that they are simply not being taken care of. I believe that we have to be more accepting of the fact that good motives are not sufficient in parenting, and that many people lack either the will or the ability to raise children in a safe and healthy environment."