The South Los Angeles foster mother under investigation in the fatal
beating of a 2-year-old child had been the subject of five previous
child-abuse complaints, including one substantiated allegation that she
had severely neglected her own biological child in 2002, confidential
records show.
Kiana Barker’s troubled history, coming in the wake of disclosures about
her live-in boyfriend’s criminal record, has raised questions about how
she could have been approved last year as a foster parent by
child-welfare authorities. Under state rules, both adults should have
been disqualified from caring for or living with foster children.
Barker’s home was supposed to have been a refuge for Viola Vanclief,
born in 2007 to a schizophrenic mother who proved dangerously neglectful
when off her medications. Instead, confidential child-welfare records
reviewed by The Times show, Viola was moved from one high-risk home to
another.
After Viola’s March 4 death, Barker told investigators that the toddler
had been trapped in a bed frame and that she accidentally struck the
child with a hammer while trying to free her, according to coroner’s
records. Viola had multiple bruises on her body, the records say. The
death was deemed a homicide caused by blunt-force trauma.Read the full story here.
–Garrett Therolf