CPS

The 14-year-old girl whose stepfather, mother and twin siblings were killed Monday in a suspected murder-suicide kept an inch-thick, handwritten journal describing the abuse she had endured at the hands of her stepfather, her teachers told The Bee today.

A Sacramento-area mother accused of felony child endangerment in the February death of her 3-year-old daughter, Valeeya Brazile, will not get her $75,000 bail reduced, a Superior Court judge ruled Thursday.

Two Sacramento-area mothers whose children were killed this year, allegedly by their live-in boyfriends, are facing criminal charges of their own in the slayings.

Sacramento Bee reporter Marjie Lundstrom was commended for a "lifelong commitment to the public's right to know" by the California Newspaper Publishers Association, which is honoring her with its 2008 Freedom of Information award.

A neighbor could hear him screaming at the little girl while she was in the bathtub. A family friend saw him backhand the 3-year-old in the stomach when she interrupted his video game. A social worker assigned to protect her saw she had a broken arm and a mysterious burn, but the worker still recommended that the girl remain in the home.
Previous coverage of The Bee's CPS investigation

Complaining that its investigation of Child Protective Services is being stonewalled, the Sacramento County grand jury has warned all CPS employees and its leaders that they must cooperate with the panel's probe.
Complete coverege of CPS issues

A 3-year-old Fair Oaks girl beaten to death in her home this year had suffered previous injuries never divulged by Sacramento County's Child Protective Services to the court or attorneys overseeing her welfare, The Bee has learned.
Read The Bee's investigative series on CPS

Sacramento's Child Protective Services, under its most intense scrutiny in more than a decade, got a public pep talk and a critical slap Tuesday before the county's Board of Supervisors.
CPS investigation: Complete coverage

A Sacramento mother convicted earlier this year of killing her 3-year-old son wanted a do-over, but a judge ruled Friday that once was enough.

A top manager with Sacramento County's Child Protective Services admitted in an internal document that a dead child's file had been altered before it was publicly released but she insisted there was no "cover-up" and blamed "lack of work of one long-time poor performing (social worker)."
CPS problems chronicled

Bee staff writer Marjie Lundstrom has won an award from the Children's Advocacy Institute for her two-part series "Unprotected," about Sacramento County's child protection system.

Under fire for a string of children's deaths, Sacramento County officials said Wednesday they have hired a Florida firm for $100,000 to review the policies and procedures of the county's Child Protective Services agency.

In the 16 days between the time 4-year-old Jahmaurae Allen was beaten to death and Sacramento Child Protective Services publicly released portions of its records, the case file was altered to change the original finding in the case, The Bee has learned.

Sacramento County's grand jury quietly began an investigation this week of Child Protective Services following a string of seven children's deaths, even as county officials announced plans for their own independent review of the troubled agency.

Nearly five weeks before the beating death of Jahmaurae Allen, his doctor's call to Child Protective Services about a suspicious, fist-sized swelling and bruise on the 4-year-old's chest led the agency to call for an "immediate response."

Seven children who were known to Sacramento County Child Protective Services have died since September, leading one county supervisor, Don Nottoli, to promise closer scrutiny of the agency and another child advocate to call for a grand jury investigation.
Investigative series and related stories

Jonathan Lamar Perry was arraigned on murder and child endangerment charges Friday as a leading children's advocate called for a grand jury investigation into Sacramento County's Child Protective Services and its handling of four recent cases that ended in children's deaths.

Sacramento County's Child Protective Services "could have – and should have – done more" to protect a 4-year-old boy, beaten to death this week despite the agency's attempts to intervene, a top county official acknowledged Thursday.

A 26-year-old former security guard has been arrested in the violent death of his girlfriend's 4-year-old son, the fourth time this year a child known to Sacramento County's Child Protective Services has died.

A 3-year-old Fair Oaks girl beaten to death this year had been monitored by Sacramento County's Child Protective Services, which recorded her injuries and chronic medical problems before the case was closed fewer than six months before her death, according to records released Thursday to The Bee under a new state disclosure law.

Senate Bill 39 by Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, which became law this year, mandates public disclosure of information about children who die of abuse and neglect, in an effort to improve child welfare policy.

The plan was complex, but the idea was simple: Hold California's counties responsible for what happens to kids in their care.

Online exclusive: Imprisoned abusive mother says she has new evidence
Interactive graphic: Justice for K.C. Balbuena
Photo gallery: Faces of the unprotected
He was 3 years old, a little boy who wanted a toy train for Christmas. A month before the holiday, Keith Carl "K.C." Balbuena was beaten to death. The case unfolded this year in a Sacramento courtroom, where two juries weighed the fate of the boy's mother and her male roommate, accused of murdering the child.

He died in poverty and torment, a little boy buried in a new suit donated by a department store.

Twelve years after the death of Adrian Conway, whose murder exposed a risky Child Protective Services policy and forced massive reform within the agency, Sacramento's most vulnerable children still are being failed at the most basic level, a five-month Bee investigation found.
Changes help Sacramento County's 'medically fragile' kids
How system changed after 3-year-old's sad death
Abuse case overwhelmed novice social worker
Interactive graphic: Justice for K.C Balbuena
Gallery: Faces of the unprotected

11/95: Sacramento County's Child Protective Services closes its six-month investigation into the household of Tammy Holycross, a Del Paso Heights mother of two girls, ages 11 and 6, and a 3-year-old boy, Adrian Conway. The agency determines the children's risk to be "moderate"; Yolo County officials had worked with the mother in 1993 before she moved to Sacramento.

The call was anonymous: A 14-year-old boy with a blood disorder wasn't getting his meds.

It was a perfect storm: A drug-abusing dad with more than 30 prior convictions, an inexperienced social worker and an 11-year-old girl, buffeted in the middle.