FLORA - Linda Jones says child protection workers were hostile and indifferent when she tried to warn them that someone was abusing her step-granddaughter.
"They said, 'Don't you worry about this. This is none of your business,'" said Jones, a Flora beautician.
Jones said she made several calls to an Illinois Department of Children and Family Services child abuse caseworker at the field office in Olney concerning bruises she observed on the baby, Cree Lynn Scott.
On Aug. 24, 2000, the 10-month-old girl choked to death on tissue paper forced down her throat while her mother, Brandy Scott, attended a parenting class.
Jones said she made her last call to DCFS several hours before Cree Lynn's death.
Police charged Scott's boyfriend, Chad W. Jones, no relation to Linda Jones, with murder. He pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and received five years in prison.
Chad Jones testified he placed the tissue paper in the little girl's mouth to stop her from crying but could not remove it before she suffocated.
The DCFS had required Scott to take parenting classes after an earlier finding that someone had physically abused Cree Lynn, according to a child death report by the department's Office of the Inspector General.
Linda Jones, who had already adopted two of Brandy Scott's older children, both girls, said she continued to observe bruising on Cree Lynn, even after a second probe.
"They would not listen," she said. "To me, they were more or less just protecting Brandy. They're supposed to be there to protect the child. It was like the baby wasn't even important."
Brandy Scott could not be reached for comment. A supervisor in the DCFS' Olney office declined to comment.
In the investigation of Cree Lynn's death, an investigator faulted the DCFS caseworker and her supervisor for "ethics" violations. After the first child abuse probe, a supervisor allowed Scott's former private therapist to become her DCFS caseworker.
Because of the prior relationship, "The caseworker accepted all of the mother's (claims) regarding substance abuse, employment and the baby's health, and neglected to verify information when obvious discrepancies arose," the investigative report stated.
When the agency assigned another child protection investigator to the case after the second abuse allegation, that worker failed to assess the danger and accepted the opinion of the former therapist-caseworker that the girl's injuries were accidental, the inspector general's office reported.
Linda Jones said a judge would not allow her to make a victim statement at Chad Jones' sentencing.
"They wouldn't hear anything we had to say," she said. "It was like Cree Lynn just didn't matter."
