Posted on 04/26/2003 7:55:49 AM PDT by JustPiper
The search for 12-year-old Nicolas Zavala--who disappeared after falling through the cracks of Illinois' child welfare system--ended Friday when skeletal remains found in a Downstate field were identified as his.
Authorities in Iroquois County did not say whether Nicolas was murdered, but officials have been saying for several weeks that some family members were uncooperative when interviewed about his disappearance last year. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed reported this week that the boy's remains were found badly burned and scattered.
Iroquois County sheriff's police declined to comment about burns but did confirm another Sneed report that dental records were used to identify him.
The case has drawn the attention of Gov. Blagojevich, who in February named a task force to suggest reforms to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. Until Friday, Nicolas had been among 239 missing DCFS wards, including 19 believed abducted.
Nicolas disappeared last Aug. 4 from Oxford, Ind., after his grandmother said she dropped him off at a library where he was to meet friends for a weeklong trip. The grandmother, Margaret Williams, 57, was charged with felony child neglect for waiting nine days to report him missing. The boy's remains were found April 18 along the Illinois-Indiana border.
The grandmother had been given temporary custody of the boy by a Will County judge, despite a criminal record.
Williams had been convicted of two misdemeanors in 2000 for giving her son anti-depressant drugs and then lying to authorities about her reasons for doing so, Indiana records show. Also, two of her other children were placed in protective custody in Illinois about 20 years ago, according to one of her daughters, Donna Molina, 38, of Kankakee.
"If the state had done its homework, it would have been known that some of her other kids ended up in substitute care," a source familiar with the case said. "Wanting to place this kid meant they didn't verify the history."
DCFS took custody of Nicolas in January 1998 after his birth mother, Cindy Molina, 36, told state officials she no longer could care for two of her four youngest children because "she no longer could control them," agency spokeswoman Jill Manuel said. Nicolas and his older sister also went into state care after a DCFS investigation.
"I tried to put them in something like a boot camp for bad children," a sad and frustrated Cindy Molina explained. "I called every number they gave me, but they had to become wards of the state."
Nicolas' brother, now 16, and his sister, 13, live with Cindy Molina in Stafford, Va. Another brother, 14, was adopted. Cindy Molina said she had hoped to regain custody of Nicolas under a pact with Williams. Former Will County Judge Thomas Thanas granted Williams temporary custody in February 2002, but Thanas told the Sun-Times a year later that he was unaware of Williams' misdemeanors. Cindy Molina also said she didn't know about them.
Indiana child welfare officials admit the convictions didn't appear on a criminal background check they did through an interstate compact, but Indiana did send a letter to DCFS on March 25, 2002, stating that Williams wasn't complying with foster-parenting training.
"Placement is denied. Our case is closed," it read.
DCFS then notified the private agency that was supervising Nicolas' foster care, Guardian Angel Home of Joliet.
DCFS' Manuel said Guardian Angel should have taken the case back to Juvenile Court. An executive at Guardian Angel referred inquiries to DCFS.
"It appears they were kind of pushing to get rid of this case because the kid was in Indiana," she said. "They did not go back to court."
Contributing: Kate N. Grossman and Annie Sweeney
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