Mother of murdered Central Texas child calls for changes in foster-care system
Three years later, Mary Sweeney hasn’t stopped thinking about how close she believed she was to getting her 2-year-old daughter, Alex, back. Sweeney told a judge she had left her abusive boyfriend, remained drug- and seizure-free for months, and complied with orders to go to parenting classes and therapy.
But a few weeks later, Alex’s foster mother — a Rockdale woman — bashed the child’s head so hard into a carpeted floor that the girl died on July 31, 2013, in a Temple hospital.
“I didn’t have enough time,” Sweeney said through tears during a recent interview with the American-Statesman. Amid state reports that have highlighted child abuse deaths and scores of problems with the foster care system, Alex’s case is a prime example of what’s wrong with Child Protective Services, said Marty Cirkiel, Sweeney’s attorney. Agency shortcomings include failure to conduct proper background checks on foster parents and provide services for parents who want to regain custody
of their children, and missing signs of abuse, said Cirkiel, who was a social worker before becoming an attorney and represents another Central Texas family whose child died in foster care.
In April, Cirkiel updated a federal lawsuit against the Texas Department of Family
and Protective Services, the umbrella agency over CPS, accusing the agency of discriminating against Sweeney because she had a disability. The state removed Alex
and wouldn’t give her back to Sweeney because, among other reasons, Sweeney experienced seizures that the state argued would have put the child in danger, Cirkiel said.
“You can’t make having a seizure be a barrier to having your child,” Cirkiel said. “That issue had been addressed. She’s stable; she’s taking medication; she’s going to the doctor; she hasn’t had a seizure for six to eight months.”
Sweeney said she hasn’t had a seizure since the month before the state removed Alex.
State lawyers have denied the thrust of Sweeney’s claims, saying that seizures were not the sole reason Alex was removed. Court docu- ments show that Sweeney and Alex’s father, Joshua Hill, had a history of marijuana use and that doctors had diagnosed Sweeney with depression, bipolar disorder and anxiety.
Although Sweeney had never harmed Alex, state officials feared that Swee- ney’s emotional instability meant she could, according to court documents.
“I would never hurt my child,” Sweeney said.
Patrick Crimmins, spokes- man for the state’s protective agency, said the agency doesn’t typically comment on pending legal cases.
‘I wonder what she would be like?’
The state removed Alex from Sweeney and Hill’s home Nov. 1, 2012, first plac- ing her with Hill’s parents, then in a group foster home and finally with Sherill Small.
Sweeney said Alex’s behavior deteriorated the longer she stayed in foster care. She had bruises, was terrified of water, pulled out her hair and bit other children.
The last time she visited Alex before she was murdered, Sweeney said, the girl begged her mother not to leave her.
“She had that child glow, and it disappeared gradually, and at the time of the last visit with her, she threw a complete tantrum that she had never thrown before,” Sweeney said. “The last thing I told her was that I loved her so much.”
Small, 54 at the time, was sentenced to life in prison for Alex’s death.
A Statesman investigation shortly after Alex’s death showed that the Austin-based child placement agency Texas Mentor had approved Small as a foster mother, even though she was facing theft charges at the time. Small’s two adult daughters also had criminal records and regularly visited
their mother’s home. The Statesman also drew attention to the family’s unstable source of income.
Small worked temporary jobs; her husband ran a weekly karaoke show. State rules require a foster family to be financially stable.
Cirkiel said that CPS has inconsistent requirements
and that one of the reasons Alex wasn’t returned to Swee- ney was because Sweeney
didn’t have a job. “I should be able to hold her,” said Sweeney, who moved to Colorado for a fresh start. “I wonder what she would look like, what she would be saying now, how she would be enjoying school, what she would have grown up to be because she was so smart.”
More services for parents
After Alex’s death and the death of a Williamson County foster child — Orion Hamil- ton — three months later, the state increased the number of unannounced visits to all foster homes, limited the number of medically needy foster children who can be placed in one home
and issued quarterly trend reports on child deaths from abuse and neglect.
It also suspended place- ments with Texas Mentor.
Even with all the promised changes, child deaths have increased since 2013. In 2015, 171 children died of abuse and neglect, up from 151 in 2014, as investigators missed red flags and failed to analyze critical data during abuse investigations, the Statesman reported. There are 29,000 Texas foster children.
During a hearing last week before a Texas House committee, new Department of Family and Protective Services Commissioner Henry “Hank” Whitman said his agency will provide forensic training for abuse investigators and do criminal background checks on potentially abusive families before caseworkers visit.
Sweeney said that parents whose children are in the foster system should get better support, including more hands-on parenting classes.
Cirkiel recommended that the state appoint attorneys to parents who are fighting for custody of their children and that the state continue to pay for services for parents who need the help, particularly if their child dies in the foster care system.
Sweeney still suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression but can’t afford therapy in Colorado, she said.
“In this case, the state put money into foster families that failed. And it would be much, much better for the state to put money into (biological) families,” Cirkiel said.