Angel Deherrera

 

 

 

 

 

Child-protection workers received nine phone calls from people concerned about Manuela Tooker’s foster home before they placed Angel Deherrera in her care. They would receive three more before the four year old was found dead in the backyard on February 6, 2009. Before the Denver Department of Human Services placed Angel in Tooker’s foster home, child protection workers received an allegation that Tooker dragged a child down a set of stairs. Caseworkers closed the investigation as “inconclusive” because there were no visible injuries on the child. An allegation that Tooker threw cold water on a suicidal child was also deemed inconclusive.

 

Angel and his two siblings were placed in Tooker’s care beginning in April 2008. The two had been removed from their parents’ home because of the couple’s drug use and continuing domestic violence. About two months later, the El Paso County Department of Human Services received a report that Angel’s school age sibling was punished with a belt after he kissed another child in the home. No visible injuries were found on the child, and the assessment was closed as inconclusive. A second report of bruises on Angel’s sibling’s back was not assigned for investigation. Child protection workers said that any evidence of the bruises would be gone by the time the assessment was opened. No one was watching Angel while he played outside on a trampoline. Tooker sent the little boy out to play while she prepared lunch. He did not come in when she called him 30 minutes later. Tooker found Angel on the trampoline, hanging lifeless with a cord around his neck. The coroner determined that he became entangled in the trampoline’s net and died of asphyxia. After Angel died, Tooker’s foster home was closed.

 

 

 

 

 

http://childfatalities.denverpost.com/#id=8&name=DeherreraAngel

 

May 24, 2004 - Feb. 9, 2009