ATLANTA -- A relative of a 2-year-old girl who died in the care of her foster parents is speaking out about the child's death.
Laila Marie Daniel died Nov. 17. According to arrest warrants, Laila was denied food and both she and her sister were beaten. The GBI medical examiner said a major contributing cause for her death was a blow so hard that it transected her pancreas causing the little girl severe blood loss.
Her foster mother, Jennifer Rosenbaum, has been charged with murder, aggravated assault, two counts of cruelty to children in the first degree (causing excessive physical or mental pain) and second degree cruelty to children. She was released Tuesday night on $100,000 bond.
Joseph Rosenbaum was charged with two counts of cruelty to children causing excessive physical or mental pain in first degree.
Daniel's great aunt, Kim Smith, said pictures taken before the child's death showed signs that she was hiding pain.
"It was like a forced smile -- like she was being told to smile and she tried, she tried," Smith said.
PHOTOS: Laila Marie Daniel
Two DFCS workers have been fired after Daniel's death.
"Laila is not here anymore, she died," Smith said. "She died in their care, they were supposed to protect her and make sure she was in a home that would protect her and take care of her and they didn't do that."
A newly-released Division of Family and Children's Services report highlights what the family calls an inexcusable breakdown in the system.
"I read it and wonder why things were not thoroughly checked out when the kids had even minor bruises," Smith said.
Through an Open Records request, 11Alive obtained Laila's DFCS history in foster care. The report outlines normal meetings as well as a series of broken bones and unexplained injuries. – injuries that Laila's aunt says she question Rosenbaum about.
"I said, ‘Tell me again how these bruises ended up on her face,' and she said, ‘She got in a fight at daycare, she is such a bully and you should see the other kid, he's got a black eye,'" Smith said.
The report states there was no record of Laila being in daycare.
"There were a lot of warning signs, red flags that I think DFCS was made aware of and they just didn't follow through," Smith said.
DFCS Director Bobby Cagle was also critical of his agency.
"We have the responsibility of overseeing the care that the child received," Cagle said. "Unfortunately I think there were failures in what we did as an agency."
Cagle said procedures meant to safeguard children in state custody were not followed, like the reporting of injuries. This report shows several injuries on Laila -- including a broken leg -- an injury that was never investigated
"Any time a child receives a serious injury, which a broken leg is a serious injury, we have to report that," Cagle said.
Cagle also says children under 5 years old are supposed to be undressed at every visit to check for bruises. It appears now that Laila did not receive that extra layer of protection.
"I think it's also kind of confusing to me, concerning to me that we had so many medical professionals that saw the child on a fairly regular basis and none of these things rose to a level of concerns for them," Cagle said.
A foster child himself, cagle is especially disturbed by the number of times the system failed the little girl.
"It's not the training, it's not the policy, but it is the individual decision making of the people involved," Cagle said.
Henry County's district attorney said that the terminated DFCS workers could face criminal charges after the investigation into the case is complete.
