ATLANTA — Channel 2 Action News has received hundreds of state documents that give new details about what state welfare workers did and did not do in the case of a local 10-year-old who died from suspected child abuse.
More than two weeks after filing an open records request Channel 2 investigative reporter Aaron Diamant finally got Emani Moss' case file.
The Department of Family and Children Services case file spans nearly all of Moss' troubled life. The redactions don't hide the alleged abuse by her father and stepmother who now sit in the Gwinnett County Jail charged with Emani's murder.
"I see her hurt and what will not go away is the part where they throw her away," said Robin Moss, Emani's grandmother, a few days after police found Emani's starved and burned body in a trash can.
"I never stopped fighting for her," Robin Moss said
Emani Ross lived with her grandmother after her stepmother, Tiffany Moss, got probation for child cruelty in 2010 for beating Emani with a belt.
DFCS records show Emani's school counselor told agency staff, "The child has been doing so much better in school."
Later Emanireturned to her father and stepmother's home. But the documents show when DFCS got another call in 2012 from a school counselorwho suspected more abuse, the caseworker did review Emani's history but never contacted Emani Ross or her family. The case was "screened out," calling Emani's injuries "insignificant."
Just two months before Emani's death DFCS got a call from an "anonymous friend" with "suspicions that the child is being neglected … the child appears very slim … there is something wrong."
But since the caller didn't have specific contact information for Emani's family the complaint also got screened out due to "no address and no current maltreatment."
There is no indication the caseworker made any effort to locate Emani.
"I have to be her voice. I will be her voice," Robin Moss told Diamant.
Diamant was not able to talk to DFCS's director Friday about the case file. A representative told Diamant the director is out of town.
We do know DFCS is investigating how Emani's case was handled and plans to make significant policy changes.
WSBTV
