When a child is in danger at their home, there is a system in place to secure their well-being. But after two children were killed and a girl was tortured last year in East Salinas, allegedly by their informal guardian, officials are working to legislate further protections for at-risk children.
“What can we do to prevent these tragedies? We need to improve the law and its inadequacies by writing protections for the children of the incarcerated,” says Assemblyman Luis Alejo, D-Salinas.
On Feb. 17, Alejo proposed a bill that would require a background check on informal guardians when the child’s parents are incarcerated.
In California, an incarcerated parent can make arrangements for child care outside of any public oversight or clearance for the placement. The bill would strengthen guardianship supervision, and help secure safe placement for thousands of children in the state.
The deaths of Shaun, 7, and 3-year-old Delylah Tara, whose bodies were found decomposing in barrels last year, and the torture of their 9-year-old half-sister, may have been prevented if this structure was in place.
When the children’s father was incarcerated about 18 months ago, he gave informal custody of the children to his cousin, Tami Huntsman. At the time, Huntsman did not undergo a background check, which would have shown previous charges of drug possession and child neglect in Santa Cruz County from the 1990s. Her criminal record would have made her ineligible to be the children’s guardian.
Since then, she has been charged with the murders of the younger two children and the abuse of the older girl. Also charged is Gonzalo Curiel, Huntsman’s reputed 18-year-old boyfriend, who was a minor at the time of the alleged crimes.
“This bill does not guarantee that it will not happen again,” Alejo says, “but it does constitutionalize background checks, which are the most basic reviews that should happen when determining who will take care of children.”
In a January email to officials at the County Welfare Directors Association of California, Elliott Robinson, director of the Monterey County Department of Social Services, wrote in response to Alejo’s proposal that it would have made a difference. It could have guaranteed the children weren’t left “drifting around who knows where,” he adds.
If the incarcerated parent’s choice for placement doesn’t work, the county could step in and help identify a different home for the kids, which would not necessarily involve the foster care system.
In Monterey County, there is also a push to allow social workers to obtain warrants to investigate cases of child abuse and neglect when parents become evasive, meaning they try to prevent social workers from talking to children or entering their homes.
It would be a fast process and would grant social workers access to a child who is believed to be in imminent danger.
Robinson says establishing this process in the county is among his top priorities. The Monterey County Superior Court has already agreed to the proposal, and it is currently being reviewed by county counsel.
This type of warrant would not allow social workers to force their way into a residence in order to interview children, but a court order would give them the opportunity to continue investigating a case without a parent’s or caretaker’s cooperation.
In the case of the murdered children, the belief there was imminent danger came in a fifth and final call to social services last October, when a caller said a child was being zip-tied to a bed at the home and Huntsman was having sexual relations with Curiel, then 17.
After that fifth referral, neither social workers nor police were able to contact the family again, until the abused girl was found locked in a car in Plumas County and the younger children’s bodies were found in a storage unit in Redding in December.
Robinson says the extra boost in power in that last call would have helped.