Contra Costa Social Workers, Antioch Police Failed To Prevent Parents’ Deadly Abuse Of Toddler

[Sugar Cookie]

In a case that echoes the tragic child deaths of Sophia Mason of Hayward and Phoenix Castro of San Jose, a federal lawsuit accuses Contra Costa County social services authorities and Antioch police of failing to protect an 18-month-old girl from the alleged deadly abuse and neglect of her parents.

The lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco and identifies the baby girl only by the initials O.Y. for the protection of two living siblings, said she arrived at a hospital in August 2022 with her face and body covered in bruises, numerous head injuries, a severed pancreas and bleeding in her abdomen and brain.

She died soon after, with a doctor ruling it a homicide, according to the lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of the siblings’ adoptive parent against Contra Costa County, Antioch Police, a Pittsburg Health Center pediatrician and the girl’s mother and father, Jessika Fulcher and Worren Young.

“All of her injuries were inflicted as a result of tremendous force,” the lawsuit said, adding that the girl “suffered unrelenting torture and abuse at the hands of her parents, while those responsible for her protection failed to intervene at every step of the way.”

Contra Costa County declined to comment on the lawsuit or make social worker Colleen Sullivan, also named as a defendant, available for an interview on Friday.

According to the lawsuit, the child’s death is under investigation by Antioch Police. The department’s interim chief, Brian Addington, declined to comment on the case, citing the lawsuit.

The baby girl’s parents, who haven’t been criminally charged in her death but who both had active criminal arrest warrants from Georgia according to the lawsuit, could not be reached for comment.

The child’s death highlights the potential pitfalls of well-intentioned attempts by authorities to keep children with their families in troubled homes – Sophia Mason, 8, was found decomposing in a bathtub in 2022 after Alameda County social workers ignored multiple reports of abuse.

O.Y. was born February 25, 2021 with methamphetamine in her system, and her mother also tested positive, according to the lawsuit.

Contra Costa County Children & Family Services, acting on a report from the hospital, seized baby O.Y. and a sibling, then 16 months old, from their parents in March 2021 after determining O.Y. was being neglected and the older child, identified as W.Y., was at risk of abuse, the lawsuit said.

The adoptive parent of siblings W.Y., now 4 and also allegedly beaten and neglected by the couple, and another sibling, A.Y., now 2, is identified in court filings as “Jane Doe,” and according to her lawyer, Brett Schreiber, had no connection to the family before O.Y.’s death.

Over the year following seizure of the kids, Children & Family Services employees repeatedly deceived the juvenile court, saying the parents were complying with court orders when the agency’s own records showed the parents were missing half their drug tests and not addressing the arrest warrants, the lawsuit alleged.

“How can you allow multiple missed tests which everyone knows is code for a positive test and still proceed to reunite?” Schreiber said. “No one at the county, no one at the city, no one at any of these care providers wanted this outcome . . . but they so consciously disregarded their own rules that it was inevitable.”

Despite the parents’ failure to comply with the court orders, Sullivan and other Children & Family Services employees in June 2021 allowed them unsupervised overnight visitation with O.Y. Within three months, the parents had physical custody, the lawsuit said.

Between late 2021 and March 2022, Sullivan and other county social workers visited the home several times, and twice noted scratches and bruises on O.Y.’s head, but never informed the court of the injuries, the lawsuit said.

In April 2022, at a juvenile court hearing, Sullivan and other social workers said the girl’s parents had met the objectives of their court-ordered case plan and addressed their drug abuse issues and that she should be reunified with them, according to the lawsuit. The social workers never told the court they had not obtained O.Y.’s medical records, which documented signs of abuse and neglect, the lawsuit alleged.

Two months later, the girl’s father took a video of her, a year old at the time, sitting in a booster chair motionless, with a nose-to-lip cut and blood on her face, according to the lawsuit. Young is seen screaming at her and flinging her onto a bed, the lawsuit claimed. About a year after O.Y.’s death, he was arrested in what the lawsuit described as a domestic violence case. He was found guilty of mayhem and is serving two years in prison.

On August 25, 2022, Antioch police and paramedics responded to a 911 call from the girl’s mother saying the child was having trouble breathing. She was taken to UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland for surgery.

Doctors found more than two dozen bruises on O.Y.’s head, and bruising from the previous week on her torso, arms and thighs. Along with brain bleeds and a severed pancreas, she bore signs of previous harm to her abdomen, the lawsuit said. The medical director of the hospital’s Center for Child Protection noted that “tremendous force would have been inflicted to O.Y.’s stomach or groin area to sever her pancreas,” the lawsuit said.

The doctor estimated the fatal brain and pancreas injuries happened within three days of her death, the lawsuit said. O.Y., the doctor testified, “suffered intense and horrible pain before her death,” according to the lawsuit. “She lingered for many hours.”

The girl’s mother admitted to causing some of O.Y.’s bruises but claimed they were accidental, the lawsuit claimed.

When Antioch police executed a search warrant at the parents’ home that day, they seized meth and meth paraphernalia, the lawsuit said.

At the hospital that night, the girl’s parents went out to smoke cigarettes but never returned. When her death appeared imminent, hospital staff called the parents to no avail. Just after 6 a.m., the girl died, the lawsuit said, “alone and without any family near her.”

Lawsuit claims tiny O.Y. abused to death because Contra Costa social workers, Antioch police failed to protect her from parents

The child’s death highlights the potential pitfalls of well-intentioned attempts by authorities to keep children with their families in troubled homes, and recalls two notorioius Bay Area cases.

www.mercurynews.com

 

[the cat did it]

The oldest was adopted what about the 2 year old? I hate thinking of them being separated, growing up never knowing each other, breaks my heart. Poor baby O.Y. CPS failed that baby miserably. I find that CPS is either over zealous in removal of kids or they completely drop the ball and don't do anything about the ones truly being abused instead they deliver them right back to be abused and or killed. There is no good middle ground with this agency. The whole thing needs to be completely overhauled nation wide.
Those parents need to be arrested for murder, why have they not done so yet?!

RIP baby O.Y. fly with the angels

 

[Sugar Cookie]

 

[Sugar Cookie]

Baby O.Y. was only 18 months old when she was brought to a San Francisco hospital with dozens of bruises, a brain hemorrhage, internal bleeding and a pancreas “torn in two” — horrific injuries that could only have been caused by violent force, a doctor said.

Her parents, Worren Young Sr. and Jessika Fulcher, disappeared to smoke cigarettes and never returned, according to a federal court order. Their daughter died alone the next morning.

Her doctor called her death a murder. A juvenile court found in 2023 that one or both parents were responsible for Baby O.Y.’s injuries and death. Yet three years later, Young and Fulcher have never been arrested or charged.

Young even took video of his children during beatings — one showing Baby O.Y. “covered in blood” and flung onto a bed by her father, according to a Jan. 29 court order.

Baby O.Y. and her two siblings had been returned to their parents’ care despite twenty-eight positive drug tests and thirty-one missed drug tests.

Now, an ex-federal law enforcement official is leading the fight for justice — calling out not just Baby O.Y.’s parents, but a system that failed her.

“We have a baby — an 18-month-old who was beaten over the course of time and ultimately murdered — and no one has been held accountable,” Maria, who adopted the toddler’s two siblings and asked to use a pseudonym, told The Post.

“It’s been identified as a homicide and it’s been over three years,” she said.

Maria adopted the young siblings, who are now ages 6 and 3, after they were removed from their parents’ care. A juvenile court found in 2023 that Young, Fulcher, or both parents were responsible for Baby O.Y.’s injuries and death.

Deeply moved by the tragedy, the former law enforcement officer — a single mom with two older children— applied to foster, then adopt the young siblings.

She’s now leading an unprecedented civil rights lawsuit accusing Antioch police, Child Protective Services, two law enforcement officers and Baby O.Y.’s day care for ignoring signs the child was in grave danger — including at least three domestic violence calls to the family home, dozens of failed or skipped drug tests, serious injuries, and even video of a deranged Young abusing his children.

Her parents’ horrific abuse and neglect was “enabled” by police officers, her pediatrician, and day care provider who failed to report signs of abuse, the lawsuit claims — as well county social workers, who recommended reunifying the children with Young and Fulcher after Baby O.Y. tested positive for meth at birth.

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A baby girl was beaten to death in California — her alleged killers still walk free

Her doctor called her death a murder. A juvenile court found in 2023 that one or both parents were responsible for Baby O.Y.’s injuries and death.

nypost.com

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