PHOENIX (AZFamily)<\/b> \u2014 Arizona\u2019s Family is still digging for answers into the death of a 10-year-old girl in northern Arizona, where police say her own father and his girlfriend murdered her.<\/p>\n
A former Valley detective said he thinks the Arizona Department of Child Safety and the Phoenix Police Department dropped the ball.<\/p>\n
Bill Richardson, who spent decades investigating child crimes, says it boils down to examining the circumstances, the number of incidents, and the credibility of those making the reports.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think DCS failed because they didn\u2019t put two in two together. I think the police department failed,\u201d Richardson said.<\/p>\n
Richardson said DCS and Phoenix Police need to disclose more information about the reports leading up to the murder of 10-year-old Rebekah Baptiste. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn this case, the school had more than enough to act on and they did,\u201d Richardson said.<\/p>\n
In one week, Empower College Prep\u2014Rebekah\u2019s school\u2014reported making 13 calls to DCS, claiming each was properly filed. DCS, however, stated that the school only contacted them five times<\/p>\n
School officials responded with a statement claiming over 20 calls were made and that Phoenix Police were also involved. The police department stated that they had conducted five welfare checks at the Baptiste home since 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, what were they? Did you go out and knock on the door? Is everyone OK? Did you send a detective out? Did they have all the information about all the complaints about abuse and neglect,\u201d Richardson said, explaining that he wonders how the interviews at the home were conducted.<\/p>\n
One of those times, a school resource officer saw Rebekah with a black eye.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere did it happen? When did it happen? Who did it? Who saw it? Who did you tell? And then you want to look at the bruising and how new or old the bruise is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last month, prosecutors in Apache County charged Rebekah\u2019s father, Richard Baptiste, and his girlfriend, Anicia Woods<\/a>, with child abuse and murder in the 10-year-old\u2019s death.<\/p>\n \u201cNot all of them [reports] rose to the level of a full investigation or required a report in each of those cases we notified DCS, but there wasn\u2019t enough evidence or probable cause to further the investigation. Sometimes it\u2019s a difficult decision to make on what we can do when we look back and the number of cases, what can we do differently to avoid what resulted,\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n During an interview with Phoenix PD on Friday, it was revealed that each call to the Baptiste home concerned a different child, and department policy is to investigate them separately.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were different reports for different kids, and so you have to treat them every differently, that\u2019s bull****,\u201d Richardson said.<\/p>\n Richardson believes the volume and pattern of calls should have raised serious red flags for both police and DCS.<\/p>\n See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n