CHICAGO _ Days before Christmas, a McHenry County doctor asked 5-year-old Andrew "AJ" Freund how he got a large bruise on his right hip.
The boy and his mother had suggested the family dog, a 60-pound boxer named Lucy, caused the injury when the pooch jumped on him. The doctor, suspicious of the explanation but unable to pinpoint a cause after examining the child, took AJ aside and asked him what had happened.
"Maybe someone hit me with a belt," the child said, according to newly released records. "Maybe Mommy didn't mean to hurt me."
Despite the boy's alarming words, state child welfare officials investigating the Dec. 18, 2018, hotline complaint from police about the bruise determined there wasn't credible evidence to support taking AJ into protective custody. Nine months earlier, a similar hotline complaint about the boy's bruising also was deemed unfounded.
Tragically, the Crystal Lake boy was fatally beaten April 15 _ three days before his father called 911 to report him missing, sparking an exhaustive search effort that ended with the discovery of the child's body in a shallow grave about seven miles from his home.
As JoAnn Cunningham, 36, and Andrew Freund, 60, face murder charges in the death of their son, a Chicago Tribune review of the family's troubled history as told through court records, police reports and state child welfare documents reveals a series of missed opportunities for authorities to have intervened.
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, which on Friday revealed new details about the case, has limited legal authority to remove a child from a parent's custody and does so only if it finds an "imminent and immediate" risk of harm. Even its harshest critics concede that not all deaths are preventable, as the overburdened state agency is tasked with the difficult job of trying to predict future human behavior.
Still, the Tribune found that DCFS missed telltale signs of trouble despite repeated hotline calls and police reports that documented squalid living conditions, substance abuse, domestic violence, suspicious bruises and, at times, uncooperative parents.
Investigators with DCFS have had repeated contact with the family since even before AJ was born with opiates and other drugs in his system.
Later there were at least three hotline calls alleging abuse or neglect in the final 13 months of the boy's life. Two resulted in DCFS investigations. The agency declined to look into one hotline complaint that came in between the other two last year about a lack of working utilities in the home.
In one of the two that resulted in agency investigations, records show, a DCFS worker failed to see AJ until about five weeks after the hotline call. Despite the family's troubled history and his alarming remarks to the emergency room doctor, the investigator in the subsequent case closed it in just over two weeks. The investigator did not seek other medical opinions to determine the cause of AJ's bruise, despite having access to other child abuse experts in the area, records show.
DCFS Acting Director Marc Smith called AJ's death heartbreaking and said his team is conducting a comprehensive review of its "shortcomings" in the case and would take steps to address those issues. The agency has placed a worker and supervisor involved in AJ's case on administrative duty until the internal probe is concluded.
It's the latest tragedy for a beleaguered state agency where stability has proved elusive for years amid highly publicized deaths of children in state care, management upheaval and scandal. Smith was appointed just weeks ago, after numerous directors and acting directors have cycled through the agency since 2011. State lawmakers were expected to grill him Friday afternoon at a previously scheduled budget hearing in Chicago.
Acting Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert, a child welfare watchdog, noted that AJ's death comes near the second anniversary of that of 17-month-old Semaj Crosby, of Joliet Township. Her body was found underneath a couch in late April 2017 and her death was deemed a homicide by asphyxia.
In response, DCFS pledged various changes, including to improve case reviews for children whose families, like Semaj's and AJ's, had multiple investigations. Golbert said promises for reform have proved fleeting.
"There's not been any consistent, systemic reforms," he said. "None of this is brain surgery. It's commitment and resources and consistent, long-term-minded leadership."
