Long Chain of Alarms Preceded Death of Girl, 7
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By ALAN FEUER and THOMAS J. LUECK
Published: January 13, 2006
A day after the bruised body of a 7-year-old girl was discovered in a blood-stained Brooklyn apartment, city officials revealed new and harrowing details of her short life yesterday, as well as repeated missed opportunities to save it. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg declared, "We, as a city, have failed this child."
The body of the girl, Nixzmary Brown, was found Wednesday at her mother's home in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Investigators said that the girl's stepfather, Cesar Rodriguez, had banged her head against a faucet in the bathtub and that they were trying to determine whether that was what killed her.
Nixzmary was the fourth child in two months to die while in the custody of parents who had had contact with the city's Administration for Children's Services. "It is obvious they did not pursue this case with the intensity that they should have," Mr. Bloomberg said of the agency.
Agency officials said it would immediately begin a review of every open case involving a child who is the subject of an abuse or neglect complaint, roughly 8,000 to 10,000 cases.
Interviews with school and child welfare officials revealed just how close Nixzmary had been to getting help.
Education and teachers' union officials said that school staff members had noticed that the girl was missing classes, appeared malnourished and suffered an eye injury, and that the staff members had notified state and city child welfare officials repeatedly. In response, the city agency workers talked with Nixzmary and her parents, visited her home and took her to a doctor, who said her injuries were consistent with falling down.
Finally, in the crucial weeks before her death, child welfare workers were unable to get into her home and did not take the necessary steps to get a warrant.
"We considered asking the family court for a warrant to have the police come with us to make sure we gained entry, but at no time did we get the warrant," said John B. Mattingly, the commissioner of children's services. "People made judgments about whether this was an emergency, and those judgments turn out to be wrong."
Mr. Rodriguez was arraigned yesterday with the girl's mother, Nixzaliz Santiago, in Criminal Court in Brooklyn. Mr. Rodriguez was charged with murder and endangering the welfare of a child. The mother was charged with manslaughter, reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child. Neither entered a plea.
In the hearing, a prosecutor described a frightful sequence of abuse, saying that the girl had been "systematically tortured" for several weeks.
The girl was not quite four feet tall and weighed 36 pounds when she died, the officials said.
The girl had been tied up by her stepfather, she was denied food and her head was submerged under water, the prosecutor said. The final, fatal beating apparently came after she took yogurt from the refrigerator, the prosecutor said.
"There was barely a spot on this child that was not marked by her parents," said the prosecutor, Cathy Dagonese, of the Brooklyn district attorney's office. Describing the moments before Nixzmary died, Ms. Dagonese said Nixzmary had been lying on the floor, naked and unconscious, as Ms. Santiago stood by.
Officials of the Administration for Children's Services said they had visited Ms. Santiago at home in May and in December after officials at the girl's school, Public School 256, had complained. In May, they reported that she was missing classes, and in December that she had bruises around her eye.
After their first visit, caseworkers decided that Ms. Santiago was overwhelmed by her six children. They believed they had persuaded her to return Nixzmary to school and closed the case, Mr. Mattingly said.
An official of the United Federation of Teachers said a union staff member at the school faxed a report to the child welfare agency saying that Nixzmary was malnourished. Child welfare officials said they were aware of concerns about the girl's health and had discussed them with her mother.
On Dec. 1, the child welfare agency received the report of bruises around the girl's eye. At that point, Mr. Mattingly said, a team including two police detectives was sent to the home. A doctor was also called to examine Nixzmary's black eye. Mr. Mattingly said that the family told the team Nixzmary had hurt herself in a fall and that the doctor "confirmed for us that the injuries appeared to have occurred the way the child and her parents had said it had happened."
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It was then that the child welfare agency officials began "encountering difficulties" with the family, Mr. Mattingly said. Agency workers made repeated attempts to call and to visit the home in person, but were constantly rebuffed, he said. The agency considered asking a Family Court judge to issue a warrant that would let officials enter the house, but did not.
Nixzmary returned to school on Dec. 6, 8 and 12, education officials said. Dec. 12 was the last day she or any of her siblings were at school.
Nonetheless, school officials continued to try reaching out to the family, officials said. Michele Cahill, a top adviser to the chancellor, said that school attendance teachers visited the family's home on Dec. 15 and Dec. 21, but that nobody answered. School staff members also tried to contact the family by letter and telephone, education officials said, and were in touch with child welfare workers throughout December and January.
Nixzmary and her siblings enrolled at P.S. 256 in January 2004. Since January 2005, three long-term absentee reports were generated for Nixzmary: two during the last school year and one this year. While school officials are obligated to report evidence of "educational neglect" to the state, persistent absenteeism does not necessarily constitute neglect.
At the arraignment, Ms. Santiago's lawyer, Laura Saft, said her client was an overwhelmed mother who had suffered a miscarriage in November and was in no shape to stave off what she said was Mr. Rodriguez's abuse. Judge Robert Allman ordered the two held without bail and issued a restraining order barring them from having contact with Nixzmary's five siblings, who are now in city custody.
One law-enforcement official said investigators searching the apartment found what appeared to be human tissue in a jar, which the mother said had been given to her by hospital staff members after she had a miscarriage, possibly last year.
"There was something there, whether it was a fetus or not, there was something in a jar that came out of her from a miscarriage," the official said. "They kept it."
Mayor Bloomberg, at a news conference, defended the city's policy of trying to keep troubled families together but criticized the child welfare agency for having not moved with "sufficient urgency."
"In retrospect, had they pushed harder, perhaps they could have - although we'll never know - prevented this from happening," Mr. Bloomberg said.
Asked if the city's policy of keeping families together when possible needed to be rethought, the mayor said, "It is best if families stay together," adding that "when you have a dysfunctional family, there are myriad problems." and that if they are kept together, the city can "marshal resources" to help.
At the same time, a grim picture of Nixzmary's life arose in interviews with law-enforcement officials and several of her relatives. Investigators said the girl had become the target of her stepfather's anger and was sometimes bound to a chair in her room and forced to eat cat food. Because she was often held in isolation, she was sometimes made to use a litter box, they said.
They also said that Mr. Rodriguez would sometimes punish Nixzmary and her siblings by dunking their heads in a water-filled sink.
Nixzmary's grandmother, Maria Gonzalez, said Mr. Rodriguez was at times abusive. "I didn't like the way he scolded them," she said. "All children act up, it's no excuse."
Mr. Rodriguez's younger brother, Miguel, said that he had served in the Army, mainly at Ford Hood, Tex., but was discharged four or five years ago. At one point, Miguel Rodriguez said, his brother had taken the city police exam, but had never tried to join the force.
"There was no arguing," Miguel Rodriguez said of his brother's apartment at 571 Greene Avenue. Nonetheless, asked if his brother had a temper, he went on to say: "I'm not going to say no, but it was not into extremes."
The police said Cesar Rodriguez had been arrested before, on March 10, 2003, after getting into a fight with a man in Manhattan. Mr. Rodriguez was arraigned on March 11, 2003. Then, three days later, on March 14, Mr. Rodriguez pleaded guilty to harassment as a violation, the case was conditionally discharged, and he received a sentence of two days of community service.
Mr. Rodriguez met Ms. Santiago about two years ago when he was working as a security guard at her Brooklyn apartment building, said Caridad Ramos, Ms. Santiago's aunt. She had come to the United States from Puerto Rico in 1995, Ms. Ramos said.
