BALTIMORE — People who live on Aiken Street in Northeast Baltimore say they had no idea about the horror going on inside this home.
“The entire time I’ve been living here I’ve never seen the kids coming in or out of the home,” a neighbor named Andrea told WMAR-2 News on October 15.
Another neighbor, Eric, said that day: “When I stepped out here, there were detectives and police everywhere. We never knew the reason why, because we never knew the neighbors at all.”
Their neighbors, Gerald and Bernice Byrd, were arrested the day before and now face murder and child abuse charges related to the death of their 5 year-old daughter.
According to charging documents, Zona Byrd was found unresponsive in her bedroom, her hands “ice cold,” her ribs “clearly visible,” and her body “severely emaciated.” Police were called to the home after Bernice's sister came over and saw Zona.
Neither parent could tell detectives the last time they saw their daughter alive, or when she last ate. Her six year-old brother was also found severely malnourished; detectives say he could barely stand or walk.
There was a freezer full of meat, and food locked in the parents’ bedroom closet, where the children couldn't get to it. Gerald told police he witnessed both Zona and her brother rummaging through the garbage for food.
“This is not an impulsive act. Starving someone takes time,” Delegate Stephanie Smith, who represents Baltimore in the state legislature, told WMAR-2 News. “It is such a level of cruelty or disconnection from humanity that you cannot do in an instant. It takes time.”
With a 6 year-old child of her own, Delegate Smith was devastated by this case. But what really spurred her to speak up was the fact that the Byrd family had prior contact with Child Protective Services and the court system.
According to a police report from November 2019, another daughter of the Byrds showed up to school with a black eye. She told a school social worker her parents hurt her because she didn’t clean her room. She said her dad even tried to stab her. She went to stay with a relative.
Her parents were both arrested and charged with assault. Gerald reached a plea deal where he only had to spend five days in jail, and two years on probation. Charges against Bernice were dropped.
Due to confidentiality laws that are designed to protect families’ privacy, the Department of Human Services can’t share details about what happened next, such as whether the parents received services from DHS, or whether and when they regained custody of the daughter, Zona's sister.
“A child is now dead, and they’ve had contact with the system. I think the public deserves to know - what does that interaction look like?” Smith said.
But state law does allow DHS to release records in cases where a child abuse victim has died, so long as the local state’s attorney believes that disclosing that information wouldn’t jeopardize an investigation or prosecution.
In this case, Baltimore City State’s Attorney Ivan Bates says he must prioritize the integrity of ongoing investigations, and therefore will not authorize the release of those records.
“But simply knowing if there were interactions with CPS, the dates, the times, I don’t see that being the same as undermining the integrity of a criminal investigation about truly starving a child,” Smith told WMAR-2 News. “This is about the supports that someone under CPS received or did not receive.”
While it’s a natural instinct to place blame on a specific person or agency who may have failed this child, Adam Rosenberg from Baltimore-based child abuse prevention organization Center for Hope, believes there’s a shared blame here.
“It takes a village to raise a child, but it also takes a village to ignore it. I think there are many people who now have that feeling in the pit of their stomach that they should have done something,” Rosenberg said.
He says there is help out there for families, but none of it becomes available until someone picks up the phone and makes a report, a step people may be hesitant to take if they feel they don’t have enough evidence. But Rosenberg reassures people, “When we activate the system, it does not mean that someone’s immediately arrested and a child is taken away.”
The head of DHS’s social services administration, Dr. Alger Studstill, explains, trained screeners determine whether to accept a report of abuse or neglect when one is called in to their 24/7 hotline.
“If it’s an abuse case, there’s a 24 hour response time to the home to initiate the case. If it’s child neglect, then within five days there’s a response to the home to initiate the case,” Dr. Studstill told WMAR-2 News.
He says the goal is to get the case resolved within a month. In more severe or complex cases, that may be extended to 60 days. The court decides whether a child should be removed from their home. If they are, DHS immediately begins working to get the parents to a point where they can safely take care of their children again.
“There are follow-up hearings with the court where all of the legal parties are able to provide information. The department is constantly completing risk assessments, safety assessments, and then the information is presented before the court, and the court has the ultimate determination as to - have the reasons that brought the child to our attention been mitigated and safely addressed, to where the child can be returned to the parents?” Dr. Studstill explains. “So it’s not the caseworker that’s doing the vetting and the final decision making. They are a part of the process, but there’s a court proceeding where evidence, information, court reports have to be presented.”
A judge makes the final decision on whether the parents can regain custody. It varies by case whether or not a case worker continues to follow up with home visits, and for how long.
“We do do risk assessments to attempt to prevent future maltreatment and future harm. However, we’re unable to predict what may happen in the future, and if something does happen, we’re ready to respond as we would,” Dr. Studstill said.
There’s a general philosophy that we want to have family reunification. The overriding philosophy that’s out there is that children will thrive and do better with their parents. Unfortunately, as we can see in situations like this, that’s not always the case,"Rosenberg from Center for Hope told WMAR-2 News.
But if the system is overwhelmed, managing cases becomes much more difficult, and it becomes easier for things to slip through the cracks.
“All of our teams that focus on this work are depleted at this point, and to some degree demoralized,” Rosenberg said. “It makes it even harder for the people who are still there to be able to still do this successfully.”
Delegate Smith says vacancies in all state government jobs have come down, but the issue might not be only about needing more bodies. The department might just need more money. That’s something she plans to look into next legislative session, as she sits on the appropriations committee.
DHS says caseworker vacancies specifically have dropped to 7.7% since last year, and staff have received pay increases between 9 and 12%.
“And we are working daily to, of course, even though those vacancy rates are in the single digits, working to constantly reduce that even further,” Dr. Studstill said.
Dr. Studstill added, "We hold ourselves accountable to the families that we serve, understanding that as a public agency, as a public entity, they put trust in us. So as the new child welfare director here in Maryland, I truly am encouraging both internal staff as well as external community members to lift up their feedback in real time, so that we’re able to work together in partnership to solve any type of issues, barriers, understanding that those often closer to the work have some of the best solutions on how to address those barriers. We welcome the feedback. We welcome the accountability, and would ask that there is a level of partnership and collaboration as we work to constantly enhance the trust that the public has with our agency."
In Zona Byrd’s case, State Senator Cory McCray joined Delegate Smith’s calls for greater transparency, sending the following statement to WMAR-2 News:
“As a father of four and a son of Baltimore, the loss of young Zona Byrd hits close to home. This tragedy underscores the importance of community-led efforts to protect and uplift our children. This year, I took steps to increase SNAP benefits, building on our prior work to secure Summer SNAP for our young scholars because every child deserves access to basic necessities. Transparency in cases like these is essential, and as leaders, we must ensure that the balance is struck between sharing information and protecting the integrity of justice. I encourage DHS and the State’s Attorney to work together so that we can learn, improve, and prevent such heartbreak from touching our community again.”
