In 43 Days, a Future Shattered

Five months later, the agency turned to Jenkins again. Finding a foster family ready and willing to take in a child often isn't easy. It can take one call after another before a social worker finds a foster parent who says yes.

Jenkins said yes. But, according to a supervisory social worker, she said she didn't have the money to care for the child.

It is not unusual for foster families to rely on help from the government. Without it, the system wouldn't work. The day after Rafael arrived, Jenkins was given a Giant gift card and the promise of additional assistance, Good said.

But she was struggling already. During the trial, a neighbor testified that Jenkins told her that the money from the city would help save her from eviction or having her utilities turned off.

Rafael's arrival brought stresses of its own.

"She couldn't get no sleep. She was tired all the time. It was wearing her down," neighbor John R. Threadgill testified.

One day, as she was returning home with Rafael, her frustration boiled over, Threadgill said.

Jenkins was trying to give the baby a pacifier to calm his crying, but he spit it out and kept wailing. Suddenly, Jenkins picked up the bassinet, with Rafael still in it, and slammed it to the ground. Then she picked it up again, Threadgill testified.

"I thought she was going to hurl it," he testified. "I said, 'Don't do it.' "

Meanwhile, the child welfare agency wasn't keeping close track of what was going on in the home.

After Rafael was placed with Jenkins, his social worker returned once during the six weeks the baby was in the home. Under court-ordered rules, a social worker must visit weekly during the first eight weeks a child is with a new foster family.

The social worker made her only visit to Rafael on Oct. 3, according to Good. No one from the child welfare agency would see Rafael again until it was too late.