The worker's employer, MultiEthnic Behavioral Health, assured the city Department of Human Services in a report that the teen "remained safe," and that nothing unusual had happened to him.

But police tell a different story: During part of the time MultiEthnic claimed to be checking on the teen, Burke was a fugitive, wanted in a double slaying.

Burke was named in a murder warrant June 8. Three times over the next two months, police tried to catch him at his South Philadelphia home - they came armed, wearing body armor - but failed. They finally found him Oct. 4, hiding in a North Philadelphia home under construction.

MultiEthnic is a nonprofit agency that has been paid $3.6 million since 2001 to provide services to at-risk children. As The Inquirer reported last week, MultiEthnic was the company paid to check on Danieal Kelly, the 14-year-old girl, bedridden with cerebral palsy, who died of neglect in a stifling Mantua rowhouse.

Top city officials have acknowledged that her death, in August, reflects a failure on the part of DHS to do its job.

The Burke case is the latest example of questionable oversight by DHS, a $600 million agency that is supposed to serve at-risk children. Eighty-five percent of its budget, the bulk of which comes from federal and state funds, is spent on outside contractors.

An Inquirer investigation published Oct. 15 raised questions about whether DHS could have better protected children who were later killed by caregivers. The DHS commissioner and a deputy lost their jobs and a state official was demoted in the wake of the story and subsequent revelations.

On Friday, homicide detectives were astonished when told that a DHS contractor claimed to be providing services for Burke while they were trying to arrest him.

"That's ludicrous," said Detective Michael Walter.

Sgt. William Britt called the notion "incredible" and "bogus."

Britt said his squad descended on the teen's South Philadelphia house July 28, a day MultiEthnic claimed it was there for counseling, according to the company's report to DHS.

"I guess we must have just missed them," Britt said sarcastically.

A MultiEthnic quarterly report to the city, obtained last week by The Inquirer, lists a series of seven weekly "home visits" in June and July, after the slaying of two young men.

In a column DHS says was designed to list those who had been seen by a caseworker, MultiEthnic typed "Braheeim, Ms. Joan." Joan Burke is Braheem's mother.

In the view of DHS, that means the caseworker reported meeting personally with Braheem Burke, when in fact she had not, an agency source said.

A lawyer for MultiEthnic, Luther E. Weaver III, said Friday it was possible that the worker had indeed spoken with Braheem Burke, not realizing that the teen was a fugitive. Even if detectives couldn't find him, Burke might have shown up for meetings with his social worker, Weaver said.

"It just doesn't prove anything," Weaver said, referring to the teen's wanted status.

Weaver later called back to say that the caseworker did not remember reporting visits to the home after the murder warrant was issued. He asked a reporter to fax him MultiEthnic's document - which reports the seven visits.

The lawyer did not return subsequent phone calls.