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American Morning
Attorney, Foster Mother Discuss Florida's Missing Children
Aired May 03, 2002 - 09:10 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: To Florida now and the latest on the tragic case of little girl lost despite being protected by the state's child welfare system. Five-year-old Rilya Wilson hasn't been seen for the past 16 months but it wasn't until last week that welfare workers even discovered she was missing. Now her mother and people nationwide are asking how something like this could happen.
Here is Susan Candiotti.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The mother whose drug use cost her her parental rights...
GLORIA WILSON, MISSING GIRL'S MOTHER: I know that I haven't been the mother that I should have been.
CANDIOTTI: ... recognizes the irony of her case. The agency who took charge of her daughter admits it failed, just like she did.
KATHLEEN KEARNEY, SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN And FAMILIES: The case work, there is no doubt, was abysmal. For that, I take full responsibility.
WILSON: Obviously, they can't take care of her because if they could, she wouldn't be gone.
CANDIOTTI: Florida detectives are in Ohio taking two DNA samples from Rilya's mother, one for them, one for Kansas City police, who want to compare it to the murdered child known as Precious Doe, unidentified for over a year. Rilya Wilson's mother appeared surprised when a reporter showed her an account describing a birthmark on the victim in Kansas City.
WILSON: This is my daughter's birthmark. It has to be. I just pray to god it's not the wrong one. Please don't let it be her.
CANDIOTTI: Police say the state has now taken into protective custody Rilya's sister and a young teen also living with the woman believed to be Rilya's grandmother. Florida is investigating how she continued to accept $350 monthly payments after Rilya was removed. The caretaker reportedly insists she never kept it a secret from the state.
Also under investigation, Rilya's case worker, for possibly falsifying paperwork.
KEARNEY: Not only did the worker not visit the child, the worker also was putting in mileage requests to get paid to visit the child. She received money.
CANDIOTTI: Among the charges and counter charges, a child no one knew was missing for over a year is nowhere to be found, the trail getting even colder with each passing day.
Susan Candiotti, CNN, Miami.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: Now on to the "Big Question." Where are all of Florida's missing children? Well, while the Rilya Wilson case is disturbing, in Florida some say her story is not the exception. According to the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, there is no place in the United States where it is worse to be a foster child than Florida. And on the heads -- or the tails of that the "Miami Herald" this week reported that 374 children in the state's care are currently unaccounted for. But Florida officials deny that claim saying, "there is only one child missing and unaccounted for, Riyla Wilson. The 374 children in the Herald story are runaways."
David Bazerman is a Florida legal aid attorney. He's joining us now from Miami. Along with him is Natalye James, who has two children in Florida's foster care. We should mention that we contacted Florida's Department of Children and Families and the agency declined our request for an interview.
Welcome to the two of you, thanks for joining us.
DAVID BAZERMAN, LEGAL AID ATTORNEY: Good morning. Thank you.
ZAHN: Dave, why does Florida have such a problem?
BAZERMAN: Florida, historically, has had a very deficient and dangerous foster care system for the children that it's supposed to protect. I've been in this system as an attorney for children since 1996, and during that time working with other attorneys and advocates for children. We've uncovered what can only be described as a systemic failure of the department that provide for children. The system is under funded. There are management problems. I think that there's been a failure of the department to bring in national experts who could point the department in the correct direction to solve these problems.
This is not -- Rilya's case is not an isolated incident. And I really take exception both as an advocate for children on -- also on behalf of Rilya that a tragedy such as this is portrayed as failure just of a caseworker or of a supervisor. If we believe half the reports that are coming out, this child as simply abandoned by the department. Abandoned systemically. There should have been safeguards. This child was -- her parental rights were terminated, which means she should have been in an adoption unit. There should have been constant oversight. None of that happened. This problem squarely has to be laid at the feet of Tallahassee. We can't just say that it's a local problem due to one bad worker or one bad supervisor.
ZAHN: So you're saying, sir, that the department completely coping out here?
BAZERMAN: I believe that they are. Yes. I think that what they're doing, once again, is laying the blame on a single individual. And I certainly don't excuse what Miss Muscaly (ph) did if that turns out to be true. And I understand she denies these allegations.
But what can't be denied is this child has had no supervision, no visitation, no oversight by the department. She was allegedly or ostensibly being cared for by a section of department, which by today's newspaper is reported to have less than a 60 percent visitation report. How can the administration allow a unit of the Department of Children and Families to operate with such an abysmal performance rate? No industry would tolerate that. No other agency that I know of tolerates it. And yet in the most critical area of welfare in our state, the protection of vulnerable children, we allow or the state allows or the department allows these egregious abuses to go on.
ZAHN: Natalye ...
BAZERMAN: And ...
ZAHN: Oh.
BAZERMAN: I'm sorry.
ZAHN: Sorry, I just wanted to quickly bring Natalye into the discussion. What happened to your children when they were under Florida's child protective services?
NATALYE JAMES: In September my daughter ran away and the department made it sound like she was just another runaway with a 16- year-old and she was -- has the mentality of eight to 10-year-old. And they did nothing to try to find her. I had to go on national TV to find to her.
ZAHN: And where was she?
JAMES: Some lady picked her up. She was on the street. She had been raped twice, while out on the street. Some lady picked her up, took her into her home. And the department left her there for 24-48 hours without investigating the person that she was with.
ZAHN: And just so people will better understand your story. Why are your children in Florida's protective services to begin with?
JAMES: Their father had sexually molested them, and I was unable to give them the support that they needed and they -- they told me that the only way they could get help was to be able put them into the foster care system to get them the treatment they needed. ZAHN: And what happened to your other child?
JAMES: My son is also -- was sexually molested by his father.
ZAHN: And he also was under the care of Florida's supervisors. Did he fair OK or did bad things happen to him as well?
JAMES: Bad things happened to him. He was in Lipton House (ph) in Fort Lauderdale when he first was removed from the home, sand he was molested there, also.
ZAHN: One of the things, Natalye, that Florida is considering is changing some of the rules to better address the issues of these runaway teens. Is that going to make any difference?
JAMES: I think they need to make a lot of changes, because each person is an individual. And they have just a standard runaway form. It doesn't list if there are medications, if they have birthmarks or anything. It's just a standard procedure they go through. And each child is an individual and needs to be treated as an individual.
ZAHN: So just on -- on a motherly level, you gave up your kids to be protected by the state and how are you feeling about that decision you made?
JAMES: Very upset because they're not getting what they needed. They've been abused. They've been neglected. They've been moved away from home area where they should be close to the family and they've been moved far away. And it's just very disturbing.
ZAHN: Dave Bazerman, just a final thought and what Natalye and her family's been through.
BAZERMAN: Well, unfortunately, what Natalye and her family have been through is what many families go through. And what I'd would like to just address quickly is the whole issue of the 374 children that the department claims are on runaway. Many of these children are out on the street because the department can't provide for them. And they feel safer and they feel more cared for on the street than they do in foster care.
And what's really startling is last night I went to the two Web sites that the department uses to report missing children so that people can look at the Web site to see what children are out there. And according to the department's own report, there is 69 children who are unaccounted for on runaway, whatever term they want to use, in Broward County and yet between the two Web sites there are only 31 children listed.
In Dade County, they say there are 89 children missing and yet there are only 42 children on the Web site. So before they even come up with a new procedure, maybe they should try following the procedures that they in place. And again, it's a systemic problem. This has to go to the feet of the secretary in Tallahassee and the governor has to seriously look at how children are being cared for. It's one thing to say we care about children. It's another thing to say that we're able to care for the children. I think what the secretary has shown is that she cares about them but her running the department, we see that she cannot care for them. And I think it's time for a change.
ZAHN: David Bazerman, thank you for your time this morning.
BAZERMAN: Thank you.
ZAHN: And Natalye James, thank you for sharing your story with us. We need to mention again that we did ask the Florida Department of Children and Families to provide someone for us to talk with us today. They declined that request. Good luck to both of you. Thanks again for your time.
BAZERMAN: Thank you very much, Paula.
JAMES: Thank you.
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