charges the legal guardian of a teen-age girl who prosecutors said died from
abuse.
Satrina Roberts, 31, was charged with murder and child abuse in the death
of Ciara Jobes, 15. Ciara’s emaciated body, weighing just 73 pounds and badly
bruised, was found by police in Roberts’ kitchen in a Southeast Baltimore
apartment Dec. 11.
Meanwhile, the girl’s grandmother, Iva Cruse, has hired a lawyer to look
into the role public agencies, including the Department of Social Services and
city school system, might have played in her death.
Cruse said she contacted the Department of Social Services with concerns
about Ciara’s care while Roberts was her guardian. The school system, which
also contends it contacted the department with concerns about abuse, said that
the girl never reported for classes at Patterson High School in September.
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Roberts’ attorney, Warren A. Brown, said that although Ciara’s guardian has
told police she struck the girl the night before she died, the beating was not
the cause of the teen-ager’s death. Brown also said Roberts did not starve
Ciara or keep her locked in a room for months.
“It was a great deal of sensationalism associated with it, but the evidence
will show that Ms. Roberts did not neglect this young girl to the extent that
she passed away,” Brown said yesterday.
“We’re going to have witnesses who saw the girl out playing weeks before
this, saw her on trips. They’ve been over there before. The girl was not
locked in a room, made to defecate in a hole in a wall.”
Police have said that Ciara was kept in a room with a chained door and that
she was forced to use a hole in a wall for a toilet.
Roberts, of the 1200 block of Gregor Way, faces a maximum penalty of life
imprisonment if she is convicted of murder and 30 years if she is convicted of
child abuse. She is being held in the city jail without bail and is scheduled
for arraignment on March 27 before Judge Wanda Keyes Heard.
Cruise, Ciara’s maternal grandmother, believes that some agencies might
have done more for the girl and has retained attorney A. Dwight Pettit to
pursue a possible lawsuit.
“We’re trying to verify that Ms. Cruse made several calls to DSS and
nothing was done,” said Mitchell D. Treger, who works for Pettit. “We’re
trying to verify that the ball was dropped.”
Cruse said she is pursuing potential legal action because she believes
agencies that should have been looking out for Ciara failed. Ciara’s mother,
Jackie Cruse, died in July and had relinquished custody of the girl in 1998.
“I’m hoping that [Pettit] can fix it so that what happened to Ciara will
never happen again to nobody else’s child,” Cruse said yesterday.
She said that she sought custody of Ciara but was refused by DSS.
Cruse, 54, acknowledged that nearly three decades ago, DSS took her
children away from her, but she said that she had regained custody and would
have had no problems caring for Ciara.
Cruse said she had taken care of Ciara’s brothers, Christopher and Cornell,
off and on since 1998. Cruse also said she gave Roberts money for Ciara’s care
until the guardian refused to let her see the girl.
“If I could give Satrina Roberts $150 every two weeks for Ciara until she
stopped letting us have any kind of contact with her, then what’s wrong with
me taking care of her all the way?” Cruse asked. She also said she hopes that
justice is done in Roberts’ criminal case.
“I know Ciara is resting, but I just want Satrina Roberts to get what she
deserves,” Cruse said.
“Getting her off, or her spending