Parents of drowned foster twins settle with Sacramento County
The birth parents of twin toddlers who drowned while in foster care have settled with Sacramento County after filing a lawsuit last month accusing the county of negligence.
The terms of the settlement are a $6 million payment, said Wyatt Vespermann, the parents’ attorney.
In 2023, Legend and Sincere Strong drowned in a swimming pool at their foster home in Roseville. The twins’ birth parents, Alize Strong and Jaqwan McClure allege the pool did not meet county safety standards and were originally suing for negligence and wrongful death.
The lawsuit also was originally filed against Sacramento County, which sent social workers to the property, for wrongful death among other complaints for damages. The lawsuit was filed Oct. 16. Vespermann said because the twins were taken from their parents in Sacramento County, its Department of Child, Family and Adult Services had jurisdiction over the twins.
The lawsuit alleges the twins’ foster mother, Schitara Page, and the pool landscaping companies, Epic Pools & Landscapes and Life Saver Pool Fence of San Ramon, were complicit in the twins’ death. They are also listed as defendants in the lawsuit.
“They completely left this pool unsecured. They knew it was unsecured. They failed to follow up. And the completely foreseeable happened,” Vespermann said. “These poor little boys were given access to the pool area, and one went in and the other went in after, and we all know what the result is.”
The parents are still suing the landscaping companies and Page, Vespermann said.
Epic Pools & Landscapes and Life Saver Pool Fence did not respond to comment.
Around 7 a.m. Oct. 9, 2023, Page was on a video call with a friend that lasted four hours, which left the toddlers unattended, according to the lawsuit. At approximately 11:20 a.m. the call ended. She noticed the two toddlers floating in pool 10 minutes later. According to the Roseville police report, Page said she called 911 and performed CPR on the twins. The twins were declared dead the same day.
Pool was accessible
The lawsuit states that at around 9 a.m., Legend and Sincere Strong had exited through the pet door and within that time frame, and were able to enter the pool because “the pool barrier at the foster home did not render the pool inaccessible” and the fence was unsecured, the lawsuit alleges.
In the police report released in 2024, Page told the Roseville Police Department she “looked away for five minutes” before finding the twins in the pool. Page later told law enforcement she was working upstairs at the time, believing the twins were asleep.
Page was arrested in June 2024 on two counts of child abuse and neglect. She pleaded not guilty during her arraignment within the same month, and a judge released her under the condition that she wear a GPS ankle monitor. A hearing for Page will be held in November to hear felony assault charges, according to Placer County court records.
Upon investigation, the lawsuit states, the pool barrier had a large gap beyond the 2-inch limit, which could allow a child to enter. The gate was not self-closing or self-latching and the pool could be entered from the yard and was “reachable by toddlers,” the lawsuit alleges.
Barriers allowed ‘a child to pass through’
According to the DCFS safety assessment checklist, a pool must be inaccessible to children younger than 10 years old. After the pool was constructed, the lawsuit states Page commissioned to build a raised concrete curb or planter edge, which created a ground-to-fence gap along the line of the fence.
“Here, this is no meaningful dispute that the foster home’s pool barrier was non-compliant with the Written Directives and Health and Safety Code,” the lawsuit states. “The barrier included a large gap well over the two-inch limit, allowing a child to pass through.”
Page, who has a “familial relationship with the twin’s half sister” according to the lawsuit, reached out the Department of Child, Family and Adult Services in October 2022, saying she wanted to be a “resource parent” to the brothers.
A month later, a social worker with the Department of Child, Family and Adult Services created a safety plan which “acknowledged a non-complaint backyard pool barrier” at Page’s home. The plan stated the pool-arm gate must be locked with a key away from a child’s reach, there must be sliding doors and active sound alarms.
After agreeing to the safety plan, it was mandatory that the fence be fixed in two weeks after its installment, the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit alleges Page and social workers with DCFS did not enforce a safety plan, neglected to fix the barrier before placing the twins in the home and did not conduct in-home checks that would show non-compliance.
DCFS visited the foster home again in February 2023, where there was allegedly “no indication that (they) followed up on the Safety Plan or otherwise ensured that the unsecured condition of the pool had been fixed,” the lawsuit states.
“Despite that knowledge, (Page) failed to timely repair, replace, secure, cordon off, or otherwise make safe the pool area; failed to maintain a code-compliant enclosure and gate; failed to implement interim protective measures; and failed to warn of or prevent child access to the hazard,” the lawsuit states.
Sacramento County did not respond to a request for comment.
