My nephew's Army reserve unit was called up last year. His ex-wife had custody of their two-year old daughter, Kelsey. While he was in Kuwait and Iraq, his daughter suffered obvious abuse, including a broken collarbone and two broken legs. His parents notified DHS and gained custody of their granddaughter for a short time. But in June, while her dad was still serving his country in Iraq, a judge ordered Kelsey to be returned to her mom and step-father, with no visitation rights for her dad or grandparents. Four months later (just days before her father was to return from Iraq) she was dead from blunt force trauma to the abdomen. The step-father has been charged with murder. The mother has still not been charged with anything, not even failure to protect.
Update: Thanks for all the comments and recommendations. Just wanted to add a couple of things:
One of the reasons I posted this on Kos was because of the potential for a cover-up by the authorities in this case. There are over 600 pages of DHS records, interviews, and court transcripts (including the final hearing where Kelsey was returned to the abusive home) that have not been made public. Oklahoma State Representative Kris Steele has seen the file, but can't discuss it because DHS made him sign a non-disclosure agreement. Other than the obvious example of redacting the names of any innocent people who reported abuse, I can see no reason for the entire file not to be made public. That decision rests in the hands of a district judge - let's hope he does the right thing. Here is a video report on that topic.
Another issue that should concern Daily Kos readers is the government's increasing reliance on volunteers. A big part of the problem in Kelsey's case was that much of the work was shoved off onto a volunteer Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) worker who was working her first case and appeared to be ill-prepared to handle such a dangerous situation. I know these volunteers work hard and their hearts are in the right place, but there must be enough oversight to ensure that they are adequately trained and supervised.
Some posters have questioned the mention of Iraq in the title of the diary, wondering what that had to do with the case. The feeling in our family, based on comments and attitudes during the custody hearings, is that the outcome of the hearings might have been different if the father had been present. The grandparents have no rights in cases like this. They did all they could, but in the end it wasn't enough.
One more thing: My nephew didn't volunteer for Iraq. He joined the army long before 9/11 and was an Army Reservist when we invaded Iraq. He was called up to active duty and shipped out. It's very easy to sit back and talk about the moral responsibilty of everyone involved in this unjust war, but each individual must act according to his or her own conscience. My nephew chose to trust his country's leaders and answer their call to serve. I will not fault him for that.
I'm asking your help to publicize this story nationally. It has been posted to Free Republic, and you can imagine the kinds of responses it has generated there. I would love to see Daily Kos readers get involved. Our website is Kelsey's Purpose. Please help spread the word.
I will post updates to this story here as they become available.