The Philadelphia InquirerFather in abuse case dies in jail
written by Troy Graham and John Sullivan
Monday October 26, 2009
He was found hanged four days after Charleeni Ferreira's death at age 10.
Charleeni Ferreira's father, accused with his wife last week in the abuse death of the 10-year-old Feltonville girl, was found hanged yesterday morning in his jail cell at the Curran-Frumhold Correctional Facility.
A guard found Domingo Ferreira, 53, during a routine inspection around 3:10 a.m lying on his bunk with a torn bed sheet tied to the upper bunk. CPR was administered and medical staff responded, but Ferreira was declared dead.
Ferreira, who was admitted to the jail Friday, had been kept alone in a cell in the housing intake unit because of the notoriety of his case.
He had been given a mental evaluation when he arrived and judged not suicidal.
Ferreira and his wife, Margarita Garabito, 43, were charged with murder after Charleeni died Wednesday. Garabito is the girl's stepmother.
Police called the "ongoing torture" of the girl one of the worst cases of abuse they had ever seen.
Charleeni had numerous old and fresh wounds, and she had been sexually assaulted. She died from an infection stemming from untreated broken ribs. A fractured hip caused her to limp, and a large gash in her head had been stuffed with gauze and hidden beneath a hair weave. The wound was months old, and skin had begun to grow over the gauze.
Investigators are awaiting DNA test results before lodging any charges for the sexual abuse they say Charleeni suffered.
Garabito is at the Riverside Correctional Facility. She was informed of her husband's death and placed under observation, jail officials said.
Investigators are still trying to unravel the final months of Charleeni's life. They said they were puzzled by how the girl, the subject of a previous abuse investigation and whose hip injury had recently been the focus of an alleged medical exam, could have died before authorities intervened.
School nurses over four years had either alleged abuse or demanded that the family seek medical attention for Charleeni, a fifth grader.
In May, a nurse at Feltonville Intermediate School asked Charleeni's parents to produce medical records and take her to a doctor after teachers noticed a pronounced limp.
Her stepmother explained the limp by saying the girl had recently gained weight.
Records from the school show the nurse continued to press the parents until they took her to a doctor. But the records do not indicate that the doctor, who supposedly examined Charleeni in September, found anything wrong. The medical examiner has told investigators that Charleeni's injuries should have been apparent.
It was the second time a school nurse had flagged injuries with the child. In 2006 and 2007, a nurse at Clara Barton Elementary School called the Department of Human Services and reported the girl was being abused. But after providing services for the child and her family for five months and taking the girl for two physical exams with doctors who specialize in child-abuse cases, the department closed the case.
After interviewing Charleeni then, a doctor said she had claimed that she was not afraid of her parents and that any evidence of abuse was from old abuse she suffered at the hands of her biological mother, who lived in Puerto Rico, according to sources who reviewed DHS records.
Garabito is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Wednesday.
No comments:
Post a Comment