Alize Vick

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remembering Alizé

Alizé J. Vick was two years old. She had a younger brother, Anthoni, and the two children entered the custody of El Paso County Human Services after both of their parents were incarcerated. They were placed in foster care together. Foster care was supposed to give Alizé a safe place to live while her parents could not care for her. Instead, she was placed in the Colorado Springs home of Jules Lynn Cuneo. Alizé was tiny approximately 30 pounds and completely dependent upon the adults and the child welfare system surrounding her. There is very little publicly preserved about the ordinary pieces of Alizé's personality. Most of what survives describes the abuse she endured, the warnings made on her behalf, and the criminal case after her death. But Alizé was a little girl before she became the subject of a child-fatality investigation. She was a daughter.  She was a big sister.

She was a granddaughter whose family continued carrying her memory years after she died.

Her name was Alizé J. Vick. And she deserved the protection that foster care had promised her.

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Alizé's Story

Alizé and her younger brother were placed with Jules Cuneo after entering foster care. During the approximately seven months Alizé lived in Cuneo's home, injuries began accumulating. Cuneo characterized Alizé as extremely accident prone. Reports attributed injuries to accidents: Alizé supposedly fell in the bathtub and bruised her lip badly enough to require hospital treatment. Another alleged bathtub fall resulted in a broken tooth. But people outside the home were becoming concerned that something very different was happening. Alizé's grandmother reported seeing injuries including a fat lip, a black eye, a broken tooth and other bruises. A neighbor became so concerned about what she could hear happening inside the home that she began documenting it. Using a baby monitor, neighbor Mary Ann Hartman recorded audio from Cuneo's home. One of those recordings captured an extraordinary scene. Cuneo, who weighed approximately 300 pounds, could be heard sitting on approximately 30 pound Alizé while the toddler screamed and begged her to get off because she could not breathe. Cuneo could also be heard mocking the little girl's attempts to speak.

Then came October 2007. On October 9, Alizé suffered the catastrophic head injury that would end her life. Cuneo gave investigators differing explanations for how the toddler had been hurt, including that Alizé had fallen and struck her head on a coffee table. Prosecutors alleged something much more violent had occurred. The evidence presented against Cuneo was that she had thrown Alizé approximately five feet across the room, causing the toddler to strike her head against a coffee table.

Alizé was hospitalized with a devastating brain injury. The treating physician believed her injuries were the result of abuse. The following day, October 10, 2007, Alizé died. The El Paso County Coroner determined that her cause of death was a closed head injury.

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Warning Signs & System Failures

This section absolutely belongs on Alizé's page because people tried to get help for her before she died. Concerns about Cuneo's home had been reported repeatedly. Alizé's grandmother reported seeing injuries on her granddaughter. Neighbors reported concerns. And approximately five months before Alizé's death, El Paso County Human Services investigated possible abuse involving her. The allegation was determined to be unfounded. Then Mary Ann Hartman went even further.

She sent child-protection authorities a letter describing what she believed was happening inside Cuneo's home. She also provided the recording captured through her baby monitor the recording on which Alizé could be heard screaming while Cuneo sat on her. Yet according to a later review, the anonymous letter and recording were not documented in Alizé's case file, although county officials maintained that the information had been reviewed. Alizé remained in the home. After her death, a state review examined child fatalities across Colorado. The state's human-services director said that when she reviewed whether several of the deaths could have been prevented, in several cases the answer was yes. Alizé's case was among the child-abuse deaths examined in that reporting. Alizé had been removed from her parents and placed into foster care because the government had assumed responsibility for protecting her. People outside that foster home recognized that something was wrong. They reported it. One neighbor even recorded evidence of the abuse and provided it to authorities. Alizé was still left in that home. On October 10, 2007, she was dead.

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Justice for Alizé

Jules Lynn Cuneo was prosecuted for Alizé's death. She faced first degree murder and felony child-abuse charges. In February 2010, a jury found Cuneo guilty of child abuse resulting in death. She was sentenced to: 32 years in prison.

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Person convicted: Jules Lynn Cuneo
Relationship to Alizé: Foster mother
Conviction: Child abuse resulting in death
Sentence: 32 years in prison

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The case did not completely disappear after sentencing. Alizé's estate brought a federal civil rights lawsuit against El Paso County and several individuals concerning the circumstances surrounding her death. By February 2010, county attorneys reported that the parties were nearing an out of court settlement. Years later, Cuneo sought an early release from prison. In November 2019, nine years into her 32 year sentence, she appeared before a community corrections board seeking placement that could eventually lead to earlier release. One board denied her request, although she was being referred to another for consideration.

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Forever Remembered

Alizé was two years old. She was approximately 30 pounds. Yet one of the surviving recordings from her life captures this tiny child trying to protect herself. She begged an adult many times her size to get off of her because she couldn't breathe. Someone heard her. Someone recognized that what was happening was wrong. Someone recorded it. Someone reported it. And still, the system responsible for protecting Alizé did not remove her from that home before it was too late. Alizé J. Vick was a child, not a child welfare failure. She was a daughter. She was a granddaughter. She was Anthoni's big sister. She had already experienced instability in her short life, and foster care was supposed to provide something different. She deserved a safe bed. She deserved adults who comforted rather than frightened her. She deserved caseworkers who responded decisively when people raised concerns. Most importantly, she deserved years. There should have been a third birthday, kindergarten, school pictures, friends, interests and an adulthood that no one ever got the opportunity to see. Instead, Alizé's life ended at two. Abuse Angels remembers Alizé J. Vick, tells the truth about what she endured and remembers the little girl whose cries for help were heard but who was not rescued in time.

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