The moment Constantino Torres admitted twisting and breaking the leg of his 9-month-old son, caseworkers made up their minds about the home life of little Frank Diaz.
They saw Torres–who also told counselors he used to drink too much and hit Frank’s mother–as the abuser, and his common-law wife, Veronica Diaz, as the victim. And for 18 months, they counseled Diaz based on those assumptions.
So caseworkers and state officials were horrified to learn that, just months after they unanimously recommended that 3-year-old Frank be returned to his mother, she is alleged to have drowned him in a bathtub.
They said they had no idea that Veronica Diaz had moved back in with Torres, and that the mother, according to sources close to the case, was five months’ pregnant.
The shock of Frank’s violent death earlier this month–and of his parents’ being charged with first-degree murder–was by no means limited to the handful of professionals who knew him.
Domestic violence advocates and shelter counselors not involved in the case say it has jolted them into re-examining some of their basic assumptions about family violence.
More Top Picks Best Camping Cots
“Everyone has to reassess and ask, `How can we make sure this doesn’t happen again?’ ” said Diane Bedrosian, executive director of South Suburban Family Shelter. “When I read about (Frank), I sat and thought, what methods are we using? How are we looking at the mom? A horrible case like this has got to change something.”
Other fatalities, and years of experience, have given social workers a kind of road map to follow in predicting–and thwarting–behavior patterns in violent households.
But the Diaz case underscores just how sketchy the road map is. It reminds counselors how difficult it can be to determine who is abusing a child, particularly when the child cannot speak for himself. And it highlights the problems in determining whether an abused wife will act violently, or whether she will return to an abusive man–or even whether she is telling the truth.
Any analysis of what went wrong also must include two decisions that, in retrospect, may have been fateful: the recommendation of state officials to close the case a mere three months after returning Frank to Diaz’s custody and the failure of caseworkers to make any unannounced home visits, which might at least have tipped them off that Diaz and Torres were back together.
“The question is, how long do we pay attention to these cases, and how much energy do we put into keeping track?” said Rita Smith, executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. “I’ve worked with a lot of battered women, and for them, three months is just a minute in time.”
These and other questions are likely to be addressed by the state’s official review team, which held its first discussion last week on how Frank Torres fell through the safety net designed to protect abused children.
The investigation will almost certainly begin with how Diaz, who was home alone with the boy when he was killed, was assessed by social workers.
At first, both Torres and Diaz were suspected of child abuse after Frank was rushed to a hospital emergency room on New Year’s Eve 1994.
The infant had been brought in for pneumonia, but when workers discovered a spiral fracture of his right femur, Frank was reported to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
The infant was placed in the foster care of his paternal grandparents while the case was investigated.
Social workers typically would have suspected domestic violence as well as child abuse, according to Vickie Smith, executive director of the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
“Where you find one, you often find the other,” she said.
In the Diaz case, when the couple told counselors about their own violent relationship in early 1996, the focus shifted to helping Frank and his mother, according to Cleo Terry, vice president of child and family services at Lifelink/Bensenville Home Society, the private agency that took on the case in December 1995.
The caseworker referred Torres for a violence assessment, and there was “an open admission (by Torres) of wife battering as well as abuse of the child,” said Terry.
Terry said that Diaz’s treatment involved “helping her feel empowered to leave him–letting her know there are alternatives to living in an abusive environment.”
But even where the mother abused, Terry said, “the child-protection field still expects her to work to protect the child’s safety. We try to assure her safety as well as the child’s. But the child’s is foremost.”
Beginning in 1996, the court repeatedly ordered Diaz not to allow any contact between the father and the child. On April 1, more than a year after Diaz told counselors she had left Torres– and after nearly two years of counseling, parenting classes and supervised visits–Diaz was reunited with Frank.
The recommendations that she regain custody and that court supervision be terminated three months later were without dissent. And there seemed to be plenty of evidence to support them, according to documents obtained by the Tribune.
“Bio-mother has an extremely loving and nurturing relationship with her son,” said a progress report dated April 1.
Frank “will receive good nurturing, age-appropriate discipline, and protective supervision in his mother’s custody,” a therapist concluded in March.
Given what they knew–or thought they knew–about Diaz, the accusation that she killed her son “defies understanding,” in Terry’s words.
Until last week, the domestic violence debate had centered on ways to encourage women to leave their abusers and remove their children from a dangerous environment, said Bedrosian. Now, counselors are also re-examining their role in assessing a victim’s potential for violence and providing ongoing support.
The usual assessment methods are interviews with the battered woman, her children and possibly neighbors or teachers who know the family. Unannounced visits, unless court-ordered, are rare.
The goal is to “teach families to be with each other without the element of violence,” said Vickie Smith.
More Top Picks Best Instant Hot Water Taps
Counselors and advocates thought Diaz had achieved that goal. But some experts say that more should have been done.
Rita Smith said Diaz would have needed six months to a year’s worth of intense follow-up visits to see whether she could survive as a single mother, emotionally and economically.
“Is it worth our time?” she asked. “If you are looking at the life of a child, it has to be.”