A 4-year-old girl who died of abuse or neglect following visits by a child welfare worker to her home was excluded from a state tally of similar deaths and her case will not be reviewed.
Rosalia Quintana died Oct. 31 in her La Junta home in southeastern Colorado after abuse and neglect complaints were made to the Otero County Department of Human Services, family members and officials say.
Rosalia’s father, Salvador Quintana, 23, and his girlfriend, Carmen Marquez, have been charged with child abuse causing death, said Otero County District Attorney Marty Barta.
Karen L. Beye, Colorado Department of Human Services executive director, Tuesday announced an emergency probe into a dozen child-abuse and -neglect deaths. Officials said the cases were especially troubling because kids died after they came to the attention of child welfare workers within the past five years.
But Rosalia Quintana’s name was not on the list and therefore the handling by social workers of abuse and neglect complaints involving her will not be investigated.
Donna Rohde, director of the Otero County Department of Human Services, declined to comment.
State Human Services spokeswoman Liz McDonough said the department determined that Rosalia Quintana’s case did not meet its review criteria but declined to explain why.
In some cases, a review isn’t done because the person who was the target of an abuse report is no longer in the home when the child dies, she said. She declined to say whether that was the reason Rosalia’s case was not reviewed.
She did not know of any other comparable cases that were left off the review list.
Custody battle
Rosalia was taken out of the home of her biological mother, Angelica Garcia, by Otero County in July and placed in Salvador Quintana’s home, Garcia said. She said she was in a custody battle with her ex-husband, who falsely claimed she was not feeding her daughter.
At the time, there was an active warrant for Salvador Quintana’s arrest out of Seward County, Kan., for violation of his probation for a May 2005 aggravated assault conviction. He had pleaded guilty to the lesser assault charge after initially being charged with attempted murder for stabbing Manuel Morales during a fight in December 2004, Seward County prosecutor Don Scott said.
“I didn’t know anything about him being on probation,” Garcia said. “I think that is something the officials should have known.”
After Salvador Quintana got custody of his daughter, she said she received calls from her ex-husband’s family, who told her Rosalia was skinny, crying and not properly dressed.
Garcia said she repeatedly reported possible neglect or abuse of her daughter to CeCe Zavala, the same social worker who took her daughter. In the months before her daughter’s death, four other people in La Junta also reported abuse or neglect involving her daughter to social services, she said.
Prosecutor Barta confirmed that Zavala had an active case involving Rosalia’s family.
Garcia said Zavala told her she visited Rosalia and that she appeared healthy and well cared for.
“Pools of blood” in skull
According to a report in The Pueblo Chieftain, Barta said during a court hearing that Rosalia had very serious injuries to the skull and body that were left untreated for some time. It’s unclear whether the injuries were present when Zavala visited the home.
“She had fresh bruises on her skull and pools of blood in the skull showing trauma,” the newspaper quoted Barta as saying.
Barta also described bed sores on her spine and back and open sores on her feet and left knee. He indicated Rosalia may have been involved in an all-terrain vehicle accident, according to the paper.
When Garcia learned Thursday that the state would not review how social services responded to the child neglect and abuse complaints in her case, she objected.
“To me, they are not doing everything they could,” she said. “It’s been three months since we buried my daughter. What happened to my daughter I don’t want to happen to other kids.”
Colorado Human Services reviews cases in which child protection workers had contact with a victim prior to death to determine whether they failed to follow state rules or if new standards should be adopted, McDonough said.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
