Full Coverage: Innocents betrayed

When agencies fail to share details of abuse cases in the county, tragedy can result. A good database remains elusive.

A long history of dysfunctional parenting put a 6-year-old boy in the murderous path of a man his siblings called the Maniac.

Miguel Padilla, mistreated and abandoned, killed himself at 17

The abuse cases came from families that had been under scrutiny by L.A. County child welfare officials.

An L.A. County program returns abused children to their troubled homes, emphasizing parental training over foster care. But there are risks.

She had bounced from one stop to another in the welfare system.

L.A. supervisors are indignant at news of more deaths from child abuse and neglect, but the pattern is familiar.

Social workers feed in data on suspected abuse and neglect, and a decision pops out. Officials say the system eliminates the previous scattershot approach. Critics say the human element is slighted.

Dae’von Bailey had injuries that suggested blows or other trauma over an extended period of time, a police lieutenant said.

The Department of Children and Family Services will now have an administrator review all cases, even those in which abuse allegations are deemed ‘unfounded.’

An official says a nurse practitioner called a social worker to relay concerns about Dae’von Bailey, who was later found dead. The county disputes the account.

Records show that Yolanda Tijerina exhibited signs of mental illness months before she decapitated her son Lars Sanchez, 4. But the risk was not deemed sufficient to remove him from her care.

A 4-year-old killed by his mother in July had been the subject of a botched child-abuse investigation, she says.

County supervisors will study a new attempt to help agencies share information.