Slain Toddler’s Grandmother: ‘It Could Have Been Prevented’

The paternal grandmother of Elijah LaJeuness, the 3-year-old whose April death is being investigated as a homicide, criticized the decision by Howard County child welfare officials to allow the child to be back in contact with his “alleged maltreator” beginning less than a month before he died.

LaJeuness died April 13 of asphyxia at his Columbia home, 9685 Basket Ring Road, according to a death certificate.

Howard County police have said three other people were in the home the day he was found unresponsive and not breathing--his mother, her boyfriend and an 8-year-old sibling.

They said there were no signs of forced entry. No one has been charged.

“I think the most difficult thing is knowing it could’ve been prevented,” Snyder said of her grandson’s death. “What I don’t understand is how could they allow someone who has been accused of harming a child back around him? Whether it’s founded or unfounded, you don’t let that person go back around until you know for sure.”

According to a document released earlier this month by the Maryland Department of Human Resources, which oversees the Howard County Department of Social Services, the agency that investigated abuse complaints against Elijah, Howard County social service officials on March 21, 2011 decided to allow supervised contact between the boy and a man identified as his “alleged maltreator."

A showed that the year before, doctors, social workers, police and day care providers investigated several injuries to the child, ranging from bruises to his forehead and ears to second-degree burns on the tops of his feet. 

The Howard County Department of Social Services classified one complaint regarding Elijah as "indicated child abuse" but did not identify an "alleged maltreator.”

Officials from the Maryland Department of Human Resources declined to respond to Snyder’s comments.

Snyder also said her grandson’s death highlights the need for higher paid and trained social workers with lower caseloads.

“The system doesn’t allow for enough workers to tend to these children the way they need to be tended to,” she said. “There needs to be more workers, they need better pay and more training. Maybe this won’t happen to another child if it is. Elijah happened to be one of them to fall through the cracks.”

Maryland Department of Human Resources spokesman Ian Patrick Hines said he could not share the average number of cases for Howard County or social workers statewide because the number fluctuates.

“I am, therefore, reluctant to attempt to characterize a 'typical' caseload, as any number would likely be inaccurate,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Cheryl Ladota, Family and Children’s Services of Central Maryland’s assistant executive director, said the Howard County Department of Social Services is “stretched very thin.”

She cited difficulty filling positions and “huge” caseloads that come during a tough economy, not only in Howard County, but statewide.

The department, besides being responsible for investigating child abuse complaints in Howard County, also handles a myriad of entitlement benefits, such as food stamps.

The branch of Howard County Social Services that investigates allegations of child abuse--Child Protective Services--also faces challenges, she said.

“It’s very hard work, and people tend to see them as the enemy and the people who are going to take their children away, as opposed to a resource trying to prevent tragedies like this,” she said. “There’s so many more cases than people realize that need to be investigated both by CPS and the police.”

Synder, who is a homemaker residing in Atlantic, Iowa, said her son Robert LaJeuness, who has declined to comment on Elijah’s death on the advice of his attorney, is “devastated” by the loss of his son.

“He just wants to make sure that no other child has to go through what Elijah has been through,” Snyder said.

Joaquinia LaJeuness, Elijah’s mother and Robert's ex-wife, has not responded to requests for comment.

Synder said she was only able to meet her grandson once—when he was three weeks old but said she spoke to the child on the phone often.

“He was very smart. … Almost everybody that met him loved him,” she said. “The adults let him down, they let him fall through the cracks in the system. “