As family members mourned the loss of 5-year-old David Jones, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services removed four of his surviving siblings Friday from foster care homes and launched an investigation of the agency responsible for the children’s care, as well as a broader inquiry of more than 1,000 foster homes with five or more children.
At the time of David’s death, allegedly at the hands of two foster brothers, ages 9 and 14, he and his four siblings were living in a South Side Chicago foster home where they had been placed by There is Hope Christian Resource Center, a private agency hired by DCFS to oversee children removed from the homes of allegedly abusive parents.
The Jones children were placed in foster care after being taken from their mother, Linda, in May 1997 following a DCFS investigation alleging that Jones’ live-in boyfriend, Danom Matlock, had beaten the children with a belt and slapped and punched them for misbehavior that included wetting their pants. David, according to authorities, had been stomped and thrown into a wall.
Jess McDonald, DCFS’ director, said the agency’s office of inspector general had impounded the files relating to David and his siblings as part of its investigation of the care provided by foster mother Karen Starks, whose two sons are charged as juveniles in the boy’s murder.
“This agency is going to be reviewed as a result of this case,” said a DCFS spokeswoman. “We will do a review with (a DCFS) performance team to look at personnel records, at licensing records.”
The spokeswoman also said DCFS was beginning a review of all 57 foster children under the care of There is Hope as well as that firm’s foster homes, although she said it did not know how many homes that entailed.
At the same time, she said DCFS planned to review all 1,043 foster homes in Illinois that have five or more foster children. There are 18,613 foster homes statewide.
“We will ask our quality assurance unit to check all things in their homes, whether individualized needs are being met . . . double-check everything,” she said.
At the time of David’s death, Starks was caring for him and four of his siblings and at least one of her own children, the 9-year-old boy. According to DCFS records, Starks had told authorities that her two other children, the 14-year-old boy who was charged in the slaying as well as a 13-year-old boy, were living with a relative.
Also Friday, authorities disclosed that another of David’s siblings, a 9-year-old girl, also had been in Starks’ home until Feb. 16, when the child was taken to another foster home following an allegation raised by There is Hope officials that she was hitting her younger siblings.
DCFS officials said they did not know whether any incident report had been written up by There is Hope officials. And they said they were investigating allegations raised by Alan Mills, attorney for Linda Jones, the children’s natural mother, that one of her children had a dislocated finger and others of her children had been bruised.
Cook County Public Guardian Patrick Murphy said one of David’s siblings, a 2 1/2-year-old half-brother, was examined by his staff Thursday and the boy had “strange marks on his back” apparently inflicted with a hair-straightening appliance.
As authorities scrambled to try to determine what happened and when in Starks’ home in the 7500 block of South Carpenter Street, Mills demanded the surviving children–ages 1 through 7–be removed from There is Hope and rejoined to grieve together.
After David’s death, There is Hope removed the children from Starks’ home and divided them among three foster homes.
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During an appearance Friday morning before Cook County Juvenile Judge Carol Pearce McCarthy, Mills questioned whether There is Hope could guarantee the children’s safety and asked that they be put in the custody of their great-grandmother, Louise Jones, of Evanston.
McCarthy agreed and ordered DCFS to inspect Louise Jones’ home and determine her fitness as a foster parent by day’s end or place the children in the DCFS emergency shelter.
“These children have suffered a terrible loss,” McCarthy said. “The family wants to have something done, they are begging to have something done so they can go about the business of a funeral.”
Late Friday, DCFS said that it was unable to complete its investigation and that the children would be moved to the shelter.
Meanwhile, in another courtroom in the same Juvenile Court building, the 9-year-old and 14-year-old appeared for a hearing in the case.
According to authorities, David was beaten severely last week because of “sibling rivalry.” On March 6, David arrived home from school saying he felt ill and was vomiting, authorities said.
Linda Jones said she left work at her job in Niles on the afternoon of March 6 and arrived for a visit with her children around 5 p.m. Her visits were always done under supervision of There is Hope officials and away from Starks’ home.
“(David) was feeling sick,” she recalled in an interview Friday. “He asked me to rub his tummy for him.”
The visit was cut short after David vomited twice, she said. The next morning, a Saturday, David would not get out of bed, and by noon he was “cold and unresponsive,” police said. He was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead shortly after 1 p.m.
After Juvenile Judge Martin Agran continued the case against Starks’ boys to March 31, Assistant State’s Atty. Kip Owen, one of the prosecutors in this case, said: “The beating of the victim occurred prior to his going to the mother’s house. We believe the evidence will show that the death occurred as a result of the beating administered by these two youths.”
An assistant public defender representing the two accused boys contended David’s injuries could be the result of rough play.
Owen countered: “Not the severity of these injuries. This kid was beaten to death. He died as a result of being essentially pummeled. There’s a distinct difference there between that and roughhousing. You have to inflict some pretty severe licks on someone to injure them that seriously. I don’t look at this at all as roughhousing or playing.
“I don’t think there’s any question (that) they intended to do him harm.”
Friday evening, mourners crowded the Rowland Home for Funerals, 4152 N. Sheridan Rd. in Chicago, to pay respects to the Jones family and view David’s body.
“I want them to see what she done to my child,” the Linda Jones said, referring to Starks. “I want them to see. Her babies can walk and play. She still has her babies.”
Dressed in a white shirt and black slacks, the boy lay in a white casket surrounded by stuffed animals. He would have been 6 years old on April 15. His surviving siblings fidgeted and sobbed quietly, as relatives stood nearby.
Sitting in a side parlor, Linda Jones and Matlock denied that Matlock ever had abused the children.
“He did not kick David in the stomach,” Linda Jones declared.
Matlock, the father of two of the children, but not David, was never charged criminally, although Linda Jones told DCFS workers in 1997 that he beat her and the children repeatedly. Matlock was convicted in 1990 and 1992 of drug possession and was sentenced to 3 years in prison,
Eric Jones, the father of David and three other of Linda Jones’ children, was arrested in January 1995 in Ft. Wayne, Ind., on a cocaine charge and is now serving a 6-year prison term in Indiana.
According to DCFS records, Linda Jones bore her first child, a boy, with Matlock on May 31, 1995, and her second, a girl, with Matlock on Feb. 16, 1997. Those two and the four she had with Eric Jones were removed from their home on Chicago’s North Side last May.
Louise Jones, David’s paternal great-grandmother, contended that after the children were placed in foster care, she contacted DCFS offering to care for the children, but that DCFS never followed up.
“If they had let me bring him home . . . he’d be alive,” she said. “I don’t feel the system did him justice.”
The DCFS spokeswoman said Friday that the agency had no record showing that Louise Jones had made such an offer.