On August 16, 2006, he was beaten and burned while in state custody for "care". Its promoter, Charlsie Adams-Rogers, 59, was responsible for his death, had a history of complaints alleging mistreatment of children in her home. Though Child Protective Services never substantiated any of the nine complaints, people familiar with the child welfare system say the allegations should have raised red flags about what was going on in the brick home on Greenlawn in northwest Detroit.
ADAMS-ROGERS, FOSTER MOM GUILTY IN DEATH OF 2-YEAR-OLD ISAAC LETHBRIDGE.
Isaac and his 4-year-old sister entered Michigan's foster care system in September 2005 after being found by Westland police in a dangerously filthy home rented by their parents, Matt and Jennifer Lethbridge. The Lethbridges had previously lost permanent custody of seven other foster children in Washtenaw County due to environmental and medical neglect.
But because Isaac and his sister were in Wayne County, they were placed in foster care through the Wayne County Department of Human Services, which mostly contracts with private, nonprofit foster care agencies to provide supervision for thousands of children removed from their parents' care because of abuse or neglect.
Foster children entering care in Wayne County are assigned to the private agencies on a rotating basis. On the day Isaac and his sister needed foster care, it was the Lula Belle Stewart Center's turn to accept children.
An investigation by the Free Press that began after Isaac was found beaten to death in Adams-Rogers' northwest Detroit home on Aug. 16, 2006, showed that the Lula Belle agency had placed him and his sister in three troubled foster homes in 11 months. None of the foster homes appeared to be suitable, according to records obtained by the Free Press.
After their first foster mother closed her home to move out of state, Isaac and his sister were sent to the licensed foster home of Patricia Kennedy in Detroit, where other young children or teenagers often supervised them. While at the home, Isaac's sister tested positive for hepatitis B, a disease commonly spread through sexual contact or intravenous drug abuse.
On June 29, 2006, Isaac and his sister were removed from Kennedy's foster home based on the suspicion that someone there had sexually abused the girl.
That same day, Lula Belle foster care worker Karl Troy took the children to Adams-Rogers' home on Greenlawn in northwest Detroit. According to testimony, Troy handed over the Lethbridge children to Adams-Rogers in the driveway of her home and did not go inside to see the condition of the home or how many people were living there.
Troy testified that he was told by licensing workers at Lula Belle to place the children with Adams-Rogers because there were available beds. But the Free Press found there already were several people living in Adams-Rogers' 3-bedroom home, including two teenaged foster girls, a 1-year-old girl she was adopting and 18-year-old and 12-year-old girls that she already had adopted.
The 12-year-old, now 13, is an emotionally disturbed child whom Adams-Rogers herself had reported as violent and acting out sexually. In intake papers for a 2003 psychiatric hospitalization for the girl, Adams-Rogers said the girl had spoken of injuring or killing other children. The girl, who has not been charged with any crime, is suspected of causing Isaac's fatal injuries. She told investigators that she was playing with Isaac, tossing him on a mattress, when he missed and landed on the floor.
According to his autopsy, Isaac had brain hemorrhaging, a broken right collarbone and many bruises and abrasions. Medical experts testified during the trial that the second-degree burns on Isaac's torso could have come from a hot iron and the internal bleeding was likely caused by being struck by a fist, kicked or hit with an object. He was 3 feet tall and weighed 21 pounds.
Friends, relatives and other foster children testified that Adams-Rogers gave the responsibility of caring for Isaac and his sister to the 13-year-old who, witnesses said, had forced the children to sit on a toilet seat after they soiled themselves and hit them with her hands, a belt and a television remote control. After Isaac's killing, Adams-Rogers lost her parental rights to that girl and the 1-year-old.
Isaac's parents had complained that Troy did not monitor their children well in the three foster homes and that they frequently had trouble getting him to return their phone calls.
Troy, who no longer works at Lula Belle, testified under a grant of immunity, meaning the prosecutor's office has promised he will not be prosecuted for failing to report suspected child abuse to Child Protective Services, a 93-day misdemeanor.
Nearly two weeks before Isaac's death, Troy said he saw bruises on the boy, but that he believed Adams-Rogers when she said a doctor had determined that the bruises were not caused by abuse. Troy admitted he did not call the doctor to verify Adams-Rogers' story.
Adams-Rogers' attorney, Warren Harris, said during his closing comments that Troy and the doctors who examined Isaac had slanted their testimony against Adams-Rogers because they may be culpable in a civil lawsuit filed by the Lethbridges.
But Harris spoke more about himself than Adams-Rogers in his closing statements, even telling a joke about lawyers, remarking that he didn't know his son was violent as a child until he happened to see a fight one day and saying that as a grandfather he carefully.
THE NEGLECT OF CPS:
CPS caseworker neglect (to investigate and/or intervene due to allegations of abuse in foster homes) is typical of other cases of children killed in state custody foster care. Even though Child Protective Services caseworkers were notified that foster children were being abused, reports were minimized or ignored. (Example: Dominic James, age 2, Missouri, killed by his foster parent in 2002.)
Federal funding streams for Child Protective Services start when a child is removed from his natural family home and placed in foster care. There is no monetary advantage to removing a child from a foster home, so apparently many of these complaints are covered up and ignored, sometimes resulting in the subsequent death of a foster child.
WHY THE SOCIAL WORKERS OF CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES ARE NOT PROCESSED:
It should be noted that no Child Protective Services caseworkers were charged or convicted of child neglect or any other crime in the death of Isaac Lethbridge. Perhaps if that were a consequence for caseworkers these reports of child abuse in foster homes would be taken more seriously rather than pushed under the rug. CPS social workers remove children from a perhaps marginal home where they are loved, and allow them to be placed in dangerous foster homes. This is not “child protection” and it should be made a criminal offense.
If caseworkers cannot guarantee that a child will be safer in state custody they have no business taking them out of their homes. A study done by a MIT professor has proven the ultimate outcomes for children left in the homes of their parents, however marginal, are better than those for children placed in foster care: Study Concludes That Kids Are Better Off In Troubled Homes Than In Foster Care.
LAWSUITS FILED BY THE PARENTS OF ISAAC LETHBRIDGE
The parents of Isaac Lethbridge, Matthew Lethbridge and Jennifer Lethbridge, sued the private foster care agency, the Lula Belle Stewart Center, and its employees, Karl Troy, Gracie Robinson, Edna Walker and Janet Burch. Lethbridge v. Lula Belle Stewart Center.
The Lethbridge’s also sued CPS. Lethbridge v. Forrest. That case was dismissed in an order written by District Judge, Nancy Edmunds.
According to news reports and these court cases, before his death, Isaac’s foster care caseworker was aware of bruises inflicted while he was in custody, but did nothing to move children from this dangerous foster home or protect Isaac from further injury. His sister, who lived in the same home, also bore signs of injuries at the time of her younger brother’s death. She had what appeared to be cigarette burns on her, as did Isaac Lethbridge at the time of his passing.
Who really killed Isaac Lethbridge?
Charlsie Adams-Rogers may not have been the one who inflicted the fatal blows. Her twelve-year-old daughter, one of three children Adams-Rogers adopted from foster care, stands accused of inflicting the final injury.
There were at least seven children in the home at the time of Isaac’s death. It is typical of Child Protective Services in some areas of the country to allow foster homes and adoptive homes to be crowded with more children than a foster parent can reasonably be expected to supervise. People who take on more children than they can watch safely can be called child collectors. (Example: The Paddock fost-adopt home in which Sean Ford, age 4, was killed by his adoptive mother.)
The Michigan judge decided that Charlsie Adams-Rogers was guilty in Isaac’s death, even if the 12-year-old adopted child was the one who struck the fatal blow. The judge thought the foster parent should have stopped Isaac from crying, supervised the children more, and prevented the older child from harming him, according to her decision. She sentenced Charlsie Adams-Rogers to 5+1/2 to 15 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter and second-degree child abuse.
WHEN THE SPC INTERVENES, IT ONLY DESTROYS EACH FAMILY THAT SERVES.
According to an article published by the Detroit Free Press, Isaac was the third child to die violently in a Michigan foster home within an 18 month period. Ricky Holland, age 7, was adopted out of foster care then killed by his fost-adopters in July 2005. Allison Newman, age 2, died from blunt-force trauma injuries in her foster home in September 2006. Apparently someone suggested she was “accidentally flung over a 12-foot balcony onto a hardwood floor.” Who, I ask, “accidentally” throws a 2-year-old over a balcony? Allison’s licensed foster ‘mother’ was convicted of second-degree murder, manslaughter and first-degree child abuse.
FAMILY'S TIMELINE:
Matt and Jennifer Lethbridge's nine children became state wards. The two youngest remain in foster care. Here is a brief history of the family's struggles:
April 1997: Washtenaw County receives first of many reports that the Lethbridges are neglecting their four children.
April 1998: Washtenaw Department of Human Services places the children in foster care.
May 17, 1998: Jennifer Lethbridge gives birth to a fifth child, a boy. Days later, he's placed in foster care in Washtenaw County.
April 25, 2001: Washtenaw County family judge orders termination of the couple's rights to their five children.
Sept. 15, 2001: The Lethbridges have another child, a boy, in Windsor. A hospital social worker, suspicious of their explanation for why they came across the border, calls child welfare officials. They take temporary custody of the baby for his protection after checking with child protection workers in Washtenaw County. Eventually, he is returned to Michigan and placed in foster care.
Aug. 14, 2002: Living in Lucas County, Ohio, near Toledo, the Lethbridges give birth to a daughter. They don't register the birth and flee when child protection officials try to take her.
Aug. 21, 2002: A Washtenaw County judge ends their parental rights to the son born in Windsor.
Nov. 7, 2003: Isaac Lethbridge is born at home in Wisconsin, where the family went after leaving Ohio. They register his birth but move again in summer 2004 after a complaint that their home lacks running water.
Sept. 19, 2005: Isaac and his 3-year-old sister are removed from filthy conditions in the family's Westland home. During the next 11 months, the Lula Belle Stewart Center in Detroit sends them to three foster homes.
Feb. 23, 2006: The Lethbridges' first child, Ashleigh, who has multiple disabilities, dies after a seizure in her adoptive home in Detroit at age 12.
April 10, 2006: The ninth child, a girl, is born at home in Whitmore Lake. Her birth isn't registered. She is placed in foster care later that month.
Aug. 16, 2006: Isaac is fatally beaten and burned in a Detroit foster home. His sister is moved to a Washtenaw County foster home with her sister.
Mismanagement
After Isaac Lethbridge's beating death Aug. 16, 2006, Michigan Department of Human Services foster care licensing workers reviewed files of the Lula Belle Stewart Center, the Detroit nonprofit agency that handled Isaac's care. The review found several instances of mismanagement and deficiencies, including:
More than a third of Lula Belle's 84 foster homes had expired licenses.
Lula Belle failed to investigate at least five allegations of child abuse or neglect.
Lula Belle's records were lax and the agency was often late in reevaluating homes.
Workers sometimes falsified visitation records, skipping monthly visits. Some foster parents didn't see workers for months.
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