GIST: "Sometime the previous night, Dave had gone downstairs and returned with two handguns. He put one to the right side of his sleeping wife's face and shot her twice. Then he stuck both guns in his mouth and pulled the triggers. That very day, 15 miles away, a doctor at Children's Hospital Colorado in Aurora detected an illness in Alyssa that others at the same hospital had not. Something in her muscles: She was 3 months old and could not lift her head. Her tiny hands turned inward. Dr. Joyce Oleszek ordered genetic testing. A week later, the results came back. Alyssa had spinal muscular atrophy, a debilitating genetic disease in a young child, lethal in a newborn. Two weeks before, on June 17, 2008, Adams County child protection workers had taken Alyssa and handed her to a foster mother. They did so after a hospital found 11 broken bones in Alyssa's 3-month-old legs, but no bruises or other signs of abuse. Dave and Tiffany had been allowed to see their daughter just once in those two weeks. Tiffany's lawyer was advising her to divorce her husband if she ever wanted her baby back. Clouds of suspicion swirled around Dave. Police were about to arrest him, he thought, for felony child abuse. He had grown more despondent day by day. Nobody seemed to hear the family's pleas that there must be some other explanation for all those broken bones..........Gov. John Hickenlooper and his human services director have responded with reforms intended to save the next little Gabriel from agency inattention. Paul Cuin sees these reforms as a double-edged sword. While all eyes are now focused on cases in which social services agencies failed to save children in danger, there are others "where the departments become overzealous," he said, with tragic results. He said he thought child protection agencies tried to reunite families whenever possible. But "they didn't in this case. They literally tore the family apart," he said. "And you have no recourse. You have to prove you're innocent to get your child back."
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
I am monitoring this case. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments.
The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html
Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
