A woman charged with killing her 3-year-old son by scalding him in hot water as punishment for soiling his diaper has been investigated at least six times for allegedly abusing her children since 1997, state and county records show.
Valerie Love Kennedy, 30, was accused Oct. 12 of using drugs in front of her then 10-month-old and 2-year-old children in her Coral Springs apartment, according to a report from ChildNet, the private agency supervising state child placements in Broward County.
Assistant Attorney General Phillippa Hitchins said both of those children showed "physical abuse" when a doctor examined them this week after the scalding death of their brother, Jaquez Mason, who allegedly spent a week at his maternal grandmother's home with third-degree burns before he died.
Kennedy has had 10 children, with two dying at birth, by four different men, records show, although it was unclear if any remained in her custody before this week's arrest. In 2001, "medical neglect and physical abuse" led the state to remove five other children from Kennedy's house, authorities said. That case led the state to remove Jaquez from Kennedy two months after his premature birth in 2002, according to ChildNet and the Broward County Sheriff's Office.
Sheriff's officials said that preliminary reports from medical examiners showed that Jaquez "probably would have survived" had he received proper medical care.
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