Child welfare agency again quits just before neglected child dies

"Justice for Kane" is an illusion. No one can create justice from a situation that took the life of a 2-year-old boy.

Justice should have come long ago when the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services was first called about neglect. Kane Friess-Wylie lived in filth. Trash on the floor, spoiled food left out and the heat about to be shut off.

DCFS repeatedly helped his mom with housekeeping.

“By April 2016, the mother had been more consistent in maintaining the home, but often avoided the worker, not responding to calls, being gone for scheduled visits and shortening unannounced visits,” according to a report detailing the agency's involvement before the death of Kane and 103 other Illinois children.

Contrast that to what the mom, Lindsey Friess, said about DCFS involvement: "I didn't know what to do. I called 40 times a week. They failed my family," Friess said.

We can agree on failure.

Two reports of neglect, ample evidence that the household was in chaos and then refusal of help, except when that help was for free food, housing and maid service. What possible reason would DCFS have to walk away from this family when all these red flags were waving?

And to top it off, no caseworker knew or saw clues that Friess was allowing her children to live with a drug dealer?

Close the case in February 2017. Kane is dead in April 2017.

The story is all too familiar, because even when multiple rooms were filled with trash DCFS kept cajoling the Elkins family into doing right rather than grabbing the kids and saving baby Matthew from suffocating on a grimy mattress.

Justice for Kane. Please. Justice for neglectful adults — those who are the targets of, and the employees of, DCFS.

This story was originally published May 22, 2018 at 3:46 PM with the headline "Child welfare agency again quits just before neglected child dies."