Santa Clara County Children’s Death Review Team

Purpose

The Santa Clara County Children’s Death Review Team was established in 1985 and meets monthly to review all deaths of children under the age of 18 who have died suddenly and unexpectedly.

• Improve our understanding of how and why children die
• Demonstrate the need for and to influence policies and programs to improve child health, safety and protection
• Prevent other child deaths

It is the mission of the Santa Clara County Child Death Review Team (CDRT) to review and investigate the circumstances surrounding the deaths of children that occur in Santa Clara County. The review is conducted through a process of interagency collaboration and discussion. The objectives of this inquiry are to discover ways to improve children’s lives, and to prevent serious childhood injury and deaths in the future. The CDRT’s review is not intended to assess fault by any particular agency or child care professional.

 

https://www.sccgov.org/sites/coroner/Documents/DRT-annual-cumulative-report-2013-2015.pdf

Report >   Not included in the above statistics is the review of a 25-year-old case of a suicide involving a young adolescent who hanged himself at his father’s residence. Dr. Michelle Jorden was asked to review this case and completed a review of the autopsy report, autopsy photographs, and investigative reports. She also returned to the scene and conducted a scene investigation and re-enactment using the investigative reports. Remarkably, the scene was minimally disturbed years later and allowed for a thorough re-investigation. An entire CDRT meeting was devoted to the review of this case, and the CDRT concluded the case was a suicidal death but the team also concluded the young boy was a victim of child abuse.

California Death Records

Joshua’s death was placed before the Child Death Review Board in 1990,  The Santa Clara County Sheriff Department did not give the board the true information on Joshua’s death, The Boards findings ~  Suicide ,  nothing more.  His death was placed before the board once again this year,  2014 .  Their findings were that Child Abuse was a huge part of Joshua’s life before and leading up to the time of his death,  this information was changed in the State of California’s database.   .That is the Justice Joshua received from Santa Clara County – a update to the States database.

The Board in 1990 would of had more information available to them when they conducted their review then they had in 2014 and the child abuse was very clear to the 2014 board but in 1990 this same board took no action, Joshua just slipped through their fingers.   I know they had our court records that showed a history of child abuse because there is a request and a court order to give them access to our court records. And the questions this 1990 board must of had were answered by the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office and UnderSheriff Laurie Smith –  I didn’t even know the process was happening, the Sheriff’s Office lied to me.   The Homicide deputies that came to our home in 1990 told us the investigation opened because a person involved in the juvenile court system started asking questions about Joshua but they refused to tell us who this person was and if I had known about the child death review board I would have been sitting at their review table with my complaints but it seems that even with the court records before them the CDRT didn’t feel child abuse was still a issue in Joshua life and I ask myself why is that even though I know the answer. I feel that Sheriff Gillingham and Assistant Sheriff Laurie Smith being new to their level of Responsibility with-in the Sheriff’s Office felt they had no choice but to clean up Sheriff Winter’s mess of protecting KW, They lied to CDRT and in the process KW gets protected again and Joshua didn’t get his State of California Database Update in 1990 like he did in 2014. This is one of those swearing moments so lets move on – At this time even with a unprofessional lazy ass Sheriff office who refused to investigate Joshua’s death KW was in the legal limits to arrest him on child abuse charges at the least but that didn’t happen.

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