a history of abuse to leave Johns Hopkins Hospital with her newborn twin girls
that she and the infants’ father are accused of beating to death less than a
month later, city officials said yesterday.
Officials from several agencies are to meet today to try to determine why a
teen runaway – whose first child was removed from her custody when she was
five months’ pregnant with the twins – was allowed to take the girls home to
the basement of an abandoned Northeast Baltimore rowhouse that lacked basic
amenities such as electricity and toilets.
The child protection team in the Johns Hopkins Pediatric Emergency
Department will discuss the case of Sierra Swann, 17, of the 1900 block of E.
31st St., who has been charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of her
daughters, said Staci Vernick, a spokeswoman for the Hopkins Children’s
Center.
Swann and the babies’ father, Nathaniel Broadway, 24, of the same address,
were denied bail yesterday. Police say the couple beat the girls – fracturing
their skulls and ribs – and failed to properly feed them.
Emonney and Emunnea Broadway were rushed to Hopkins via ambulance May 11,
where doctors pronounced them dead less than 30 minutes after police received
a 911 call.
According to charging documents, Dr. Jean Ogborn – a hospital physician –
stated that “both infants were cold to the touch, indicating that the infants
had been dead for a period of time before being brought to the hospital.” The
report said the girls had “significant weight loss.”
City Health Commissioner Dr. Peter L. Beilenson said the girls were normal
size at birth, weighing 6 1/2 to 7 pounds, but weighed only 4 1/2 to 5 pounds
at death.
“They should have been 9 or more pounds,” he said. “They were grossly
malnourished.”
Beilenson will attend today’s meeting with doctors, nurses and social
workers who treat and handle suspected abuse cases. The team works closely
with the city’s Department of Social Services and the child abuse units of the
police and state’s attorney’s office, Vernick said.
Emonney and Emunnea lived with their parents in the basement of the vacant
rowhouse. Police Detective Eric Sharp said a mattress rested atop milk crates,
there was a crib for the babies, and clothes and furniture were strewn about.
The stairs leading to the basement were covered with trash, junked furniture
and other items cluttered the back yard, and a white T-shirt covered a window.
Sharp said the couple told him they fed the children infant milk formula.
As officials begin assessing where mistakes were made, questions abound
over who’s to blame for the apparent gap in the system that allowed Swann and
Broadway to take home their babies.
The Hopkins child protection team meets regularly to evaluate cases,
Vernick said, and it “takes action when necessary” to bring alleged abusers to
justice and to protect children.
“They really advocate for the safety of children,” she said.
Vernick said she could not discuss the specifics of Swann’s case, nor
procedures for discharging children to mothers who have a history of abuse.
The hospital staff had referred Swann to Beilenson’s office for the city
Health Department’s Maternal and Infant Nursing Program, a home-visit program
designed to ensure that high-risk pregnant women receive prenatal care,
including treatment for substance abuse and sexually transmitted diseases. The
referral was mailed in, rather than sent by quicker e-mail or facsimile.
Swann, 17, a foster-care runaway, was never enrolled in the program.
Beilenson said his department got the referral May 6 and had scheduled a
nurse’s visit May 13. The babies died May 11.
Officials said the infants’ brief existence was tumultuous.
Swann gave birth to one of the girls while en route to Hopkins, Beilenson
said, though it’s not clear how she was taken there. The baby came out into
the leg of her sweat pants, where the newborn stayed until a doctor removed
her, Beilenson said. The second baby was born at the hospital.
A social worker visited Swann at the hospital after doctors learned that
she did not have prenatal care and had tested positive for marijuana use, said
a source close to the investigation who asked not to be identified.
Beilenson said a call was made to Child Protective Services and that
officials were told there was not an open case involving Swann, enabling the
couple to leave with their newborns.
But the couple had a 2-year- old girl who was removed from the home Dec. 12
because of abuse and neglect, according to Sue Fitzsimmons, spokeswoman for
the Department of Social Services.
A foster care case was open for the girl who had been taken from them, but
the case involving Child Protective Services had been closed because she had
already been placed in foster care, Beilenson said.
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When social service workers came to take Swann’s toddler in 2003, they did
not know that Swann was nearly five months’ pregnant with the twins,
Fitzsimmons said. Had they known, they would have monitored the mother, she
said.
According to Fitzsimmons, once a child is sent to a foster home, the
department is supposed to open a foster care case and close the CPS case.
But Beilenson said the system should be changed to keep the Child
Protective Services case open after a child is sent to foster care.
Fitzsimmons said her office will examine the case to see what workers could
have done to better protect the infants, but that she doesn’t want to “get
into the blame game.”
“We’re all responsible for the kids in Baltimore City,” she said. “It’s not
just us. We’re the last resort.”
On East 31st Street, where word of the babies’ deaths quickly circulated
among residents, shock and sorrow gave way to anger and frustration.
“I think it’s tragic,” said Lisa Jones, 45. “But I was asking myself, if
she’s 17 years old and already had one child taken from her, how in the world
did she leave the hospital with those babies?”
Sandra Whitaker, 58, affectionately called “Aunt Raye” by Broadway, also
wonders how it happened.
“Even though the girl was a runaway, who was she living with before?”
Whitaker asked. “That’s my question. I think something wasn’t done properly,
especially knowing that she had a history of abuse, and with how young she is.
“I think if officials had followed through with proper procedures, even if
the children had to be taken from their parents and live in foster care, that
perhaps they would still be alive.”