CA - Raijon Daniels, 8, tortured to death, Richmond, 26 Oct 2006 *Insanity*

[philamena]

Did the mother cause this precious child's injuries?

If not did she get him the medical care he needed?
I'm leaning heavily towards no!

 

[philamena]

That poor little guy. Fly with the angels and may God's loving arms embrace you.

Ditto!

 

[SewingDeb]

If he had a disease this bad and she did not seek medical attention, she caused his death. Either way, she should be charged and is responsible.

 

[cenasangel]

This is just stupid

My daughter was seriously under weight and has legions and dermatitis all over her and was hospitalised twice but she has got

1. hidden relflux
2. global developmental delay
3. Feeding difficulties

And thats just what they can identify SO FAR. It took 3 peadiatricians and a gastroenerologist and 2 years to work all this out so far. Thats not the parents fault that their childs health team may be a bunch of idiots at the end of the day yolu can only push so far. I don't blame this mother at all

 

[Taximom]

This is just stupid

My daughter was seriously under weight and has legions and dermatitis all over her and was hospitalised twice but she has got

1. hidden relflux
2. global developmental delay
3. Feeding difficulties

And thats just what they can identify SO FAR. It took 3 peadiatricians and a gastroenerologist and 2 years to work all this out so far. Thats not the parents fault that their childs health team may be a bunch of idiots at the end of the day yolu can only push so far. I don't blame this mother at all

I totally understand what you mean, cenasangel! My daughter has some issues and we are still undiagnosed. This is after two neuro's, a geneticist, endocrinologist (sp!), and a mitochondrial specialist (again, sp). Fortunately our health insurance is good. Who knows what coverage this lady had.

I would like to know more, but if she truly did harm this poor little boy....:furious:

I hope you find answers soon for your precious daughter. :blowkiss:

 

[cenasangel]

Pffft you have gotten more than me then.... my daughters peadiatrican won't even reffer her to an endocronologist, even though ive asked for it.

When i went into hospital with her both times she would not feed and her dermatitis was out of control. They never reffered me to a dermatologist and the nursing staff complained to the peadiatrician that they could not feed her (he denies all of this but the nurses told me) and still nothing was done about her. Then they tried to blame ME for it. It was only an after though that the peadiatrician called in a speech therapist to look at her which acertained she had bad oro-motor skills so therefore could not eat. Put me in the clear but spoke volumes for their competence.

The same thing could have happened to this lady.... what if she did go for medical help but they sent her away or what if they were sol slow in getting their acts togeather and organising appointments for her that it was too late ??? one thing i do know is if a hospital or individual doctor stuffed up he/they would never admit that.

 

[txsvicki]

The boys genitalia may have been scrubbed with Pine Sol due to the wetting and the breakdown to the skin on the buttocks could have been pressure sores from having to lay on that bed all the time due to surveillance and being unable to move much from lack of nourishment. No one would leave an open bottle of chemicals in a childs room if he were able or allowed to move around the room. Maybe she liquified his food because he was too weak and starved to keep any solids down. Also, how could a bedbound child get he bruises and scratches all over him if not allowed to even move off he bed? I don't believe that this boy wasn't abused because all it would of took was visits to the ER, repeated if necessary to get some help. I've ran children to ERs with bad rashes, bad tummy aches, and once even called an ambulance for a bad headache in one thinking they all could be a serious emergency. Poor little boy.

 

[cenasangel]

But it took me 2 years to get the help i needed and I was repeatedly sent away too. I was even told by a doctor to go home and have a nice cup of tea and stop worrying. Why would they not do the same to this lady.

 

[Taximom]

The boys genitalia may have been scrubbed with Pine Sol due to the wetting and the breakdown to the skin on the buttocks could have been pressure sores from having to lay on that bed all the time due to surveillance and being unable to move much from lack of nourishment. I don't believe that this boy wasn't abused because all it would of took was visits to the ER, repeated if necessary to get some help.

I'm more or less thinking she abused him, but that's just because I've seen that in most cases here. I do understand that undiagnosed and neglected health issues could have done this as well.

Cenasangel, if our insurance made us get referrals we would still be with the stupid pediatrician that was worthless. I went to each specialist on my own but each time the doctors would question me like I had that disorder where you hurt your own children to get attention. Shoot, can't think of that disorder...Munchausen-by-proxy, I think. Then they would look at her file and HER and try to solve the mysteries.

The long wait period to see any doctor lately seems ridiculous. For the specialists we saw, it was generally 6 months. God forbid you or your child gets sick on that one day out of the year.

I'm sorry you have to go through that and hope you find answers soon.

Sorry. We should probably do this in PM's! :blowkiss:

 

[txsvicki]

I have to take a time-out on this one. As horrible as it sounds, I am not convinced that she did it. The pathologist made this statement:

"Can diabetes in children be deadly if untreated, doctor?" Costy asked. "Absolutely, yes," replied Reiber, who also acknowledged that he had not reviewed the boy's previous medical records. "

I think most of us know someone who has diabetes, but how many of us know someone who has gotten as ill as this child from diabetes? Ridiculous....unless you receive NO medical care at all! As I read this story, I immediatley thought of a much rarer, though not unheard of disease that is usually hereditary. It is based on a problem with the enzyme pathways that typically break down hemoglobin in the liver. The by-products of your red blood cells which are dying everyday, eventually build up and depost thier selves in your skin and tissues. There are many different kinds of these diseases, and they are generally referred to as "porphyria" diseases. Go to google, and select "images" and type in the word "porphyria". Here is an example of a little boy with congenital porphyria.

Here is a description of his disease:

A 4-year-old boy, presented with blistering and scarring of skin. He had vesicles and erosions with mutilations of the skin over exposed surfaces (Fig.1). There was hypertrichosis over face and extremities, teeth were stained red (Fig. 2) with moderate splenomegaly. The urine was red with increased levels of urinary and erythrocyte porphyrins. A diagnosis of Congenital Erythropoeitic Porphyria was made.

Now, wouldn't you think this child had been abused? I think this case should be evaluated further. What if this mother is poorly educated, and had been doing the best she could with a child who had special needs? I find it odd that the abuse was limited to the "skin".....why no broken bones? The "skin breaking down" and "raw tissue" sounds much more like a porphyria disease. Sad case any way you look at it.

I wouldn't think abuse but it's only because a nursing instructor I had "suggested" that I use my lunch break to go to the hospital library and look up Porphyria after I had a patient with it and couldn't tell the instructor exactly what it was. It's very interesting and I think an odd disease.

 

[cenasangel]

There are many types of rare diseases out there that doctors don't even look for because either they never seen it or never come across a case like if. For exaple my daughters bed mate next to her when she was in hospital the second time was diagnosed as having cystinosis. Very rare and only a hand full of people have it. She is problably going to die shortly as nothing more can be done for her. Funny enough though, they never tried to blame HER mother for her failure to thrive.

In another case i know off a baby was only diagnosed as have Cornelia Delange syndrome AFTER his peadiatrician read an article in a magazine but he was already 6 months old at this point.

 

[Amraann]

One other point, and I will shut up. If you follow the link link to the article originally posted by Dark Shadows, you will read the following:


"Authorities found Raijon unresponsive at his home on the 700 block of South 40th Street in Richmond. The boy lived in a locked bedroom outfitted with a surveillance camera and an alarm that notified his mother when he got off the bed, and Moses fed him food mixed in a blender, police said.
Richmond police Officer Timothy Gard testified today that he arrived at the home and was overpowered by the smell of Pine-Sol, "so much so that it irritated your nose." That initially led investigators to believe that Raijon may have ingested it. But the coroner's report said toxicology reports came back "negative for Pine-Sol constituents." Moses told police that she used Pine-Sol to clean the house and to mask the smell of her son's urine, as he was prone to wet the bed, Gard said. She also kept Pine-Sol in open containers in the house, including Raijon's room, the officer said. "

Did she feed him the food mixed in a blender because his gums were bleeding from his disease??? Did she have the security cameras installed because she was afraid he would injure himself? The smell of urine being a problem is also an alarm bell for various metabolic diseases. I am not at all convinced that this child was abused....I think he was sick. Perhaps he should have been in the hospital, but that is a far different situation than saying the Mother caused the injuries.

I disagree... it is possible the injury was caused by illness rather then her beating him but in either case it was her job to keep him safe ... whether that be getting help for her bad parenting skills or getting him to a hospital if he was that deathly ill.
It all boils down to the same thing...
She was the one who should have not let it get to that point.
Who the hell can sit back while their child is that sick and not take him to a hospital?

 

[SewingDeb]

After reading this and learning that Raijon ran away from home three times, one time jumping out of a second story window to get away, I believe this was more than a case of child with a medical condition.

http://bts.dragonpack.com/spotlight07.shtml

 

[SewingDeb]

Much more information here:


http://www.nospank.net/n-q39r.htm

 

[Reannan]

I think you guys misunderstood what I was saying about the Mother's culpability in this case. I totally agree that she should have sought medical treatment, if the boy's problems were related to a disease process rather than abuse. I am greatly bothered by the fact that the pathologist who is being used on this case made a statement that this child died from "battered child syndrome", when he hasn't even reviewed the child's medical records! Being accused of negligence in obtaining medical care for a chronic disease is far different than being accused of beating and causing those injuries. Porphyria diseases are difficult to control, depending on which enzyme pathway is causing the problem. I also don't think she starved him to death. Why would someone bother to prepare food in a blender, if you intended to starve them? Why not just give them nothing??? I would be willing to bet you that the room was dark because patient's with porphyria diseases must be protected from the sunlight. Perhaps the alarm system she had in place was to let her know if he was getting up and possibly endangering himself. Haven't you ever known someone with a chronic disease? You don't necessarily run to the hospital every single time they have an actue flare-up. My father had congestive heart failure and severe rheumatoid arthritis. We took him to the hospital on numerous occasions, often in an ambulance, when he had acute episodes. He finally died in his sleep one night at home. He looked so frail, and so ill the last few months, I would hate to think that someone would have come into the home and accused me of having starved him.....because that is indeed how he looked.

Here is another statement about acute porphyria flare-ups from wikipedia:

"Often, empirical treatment is required if the diagnostic suspicion of a porphyria is high since acute attacks can be fatal."

Again.....I wish this mother had taken him to the hospital, but I do not think she should be accused of beating and starving him. It would be interesting to know what kind of medical care she HAD sought in the past.....and what kind was offered. Her insurance status and the way she had been treated previously in the health care system may also be contributing factors to her actions of staying at home. Don't forget the family in Los Angeles who had a relative die on the floor in an ER recently. They actually called 911 from inside the hospital. Our healthcare system is in a state of crisis in many areas of the country, and I do not know what sort of resources this woman had available to her.

Of course, I could be totally wrong, and this could HAVE been abuse rather than an illness. All I am saying, is that there is not enough information to accuse her at this point, but there is plenty of reason to question what is being reported.

 

[SewingDeb]

RICHMOND -- The lawyer for a Richmond woman accused of torturing her 8-year-old son sought to discredit the findings of an autopsy report that says Raijon Daniels died in October from years of abuse, suggesting instead that the boy flogged himself and perhaps drank Pine-Sol.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_6591062

 

[Reannan]

Thanks for that article SewingDeb. Maybe she did abuse him, but I still think there were some other issues. One of the biggest issues is that she is obviously not very bright herself......IF he had a medical problem, and she was punishing him for it, then she is evil. This may be a case where it is truly possible to prosecute and punish someone for being stupid.

 

[SewingDeb]

November 2006

An 8-year-old Richmond boy who died after his mother allegedly tortured him for months told social workers in January that she "takes good care of him" and that they do "fun things together," according to state records released Thursday that reveal new details about official responses to previous reports of the boy's abuse.

and

The documents, disclosed on the day that Teresa Marie Moses, 23, appeared in a Richmond courtroom on charges of torture and child endangerment, show that Contra Costa County child-welfare workers investigated allegations of abuse or neglect involving Raijon Daniels on five occasions.

~much more at link~

 

[SewingDeb]

You're welcome Reannan. It looks like she is being prosecuted. One of the links I posted mentions the mother's mental illness.

 

[SewingDeb]

This forum has articles posted from 2006 but the links no longer go to the articles. This is from the last linked article (originally printed in Mercury News in 2006):

Raijon apparently frequently went to the bathroom on himself and in his room, detective Sgt. Mitch Peixoto said. His mother viewed the behavior as resistance.

``She said whenever she would get back from work, he would defecate on himself. She thought he was doing mind games with her,'' Peixoto said. ``I think he did it because he was scared whenever she came home.''

Pine-scented fumes greeted police at the apartment Friday.

``When I entered the apartment, it literally burned my eyes,'' Richmond police Lt. Enos Johnson said. ``It was horrifying to think that a child lived in that environment.''

Moses told detectives Friday night that she had poured the caustic contents of one container on her son's genitals earlier in the day to discourage him from urinating on himself.

Investigators found vomit and empty containers of cleanser in the bathroom and in Raijon's bedroom. They also found Raijon's dinner: a pile of brown goo, which Moses told police was beans and spaghetti, in a blender and in a cup.

-----

The incident where Raijon jumped out a second story window in one of several attempts to run away is also detailed in that article.