Lawsuit: Contra Costa social workers, Antioch police failed to prevent parents’ deadly abuse of toddler

In a case that echoes the tragic child deaths of Sophia Mason of Hayward and Phoenix Castro of San Jose, a federal lawsuit accuses Contra Costa County social services authorities and Antioch police of failing to protect an 18-month-old girl from the alleged deadly abuse and neglect of her parents.

The lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco and identifies the baby girl only by the initials O.Y. for the protection of two living siblings, said she arrived at a hospital in August 2022 with her face and body covered in bruises, numerous head injuries, a severed pancreas and bleeding in her abdomen and brain.

She died soon after, with a doctor ruling it a homicide, according to the lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of the siblings’ adoptive parent against Contra Costa County, Antioch Police, a Pittsburg Health Center pediatrician and the girl’s mother and father, Jessika Fulcher and Worren Young.

“All of her injuries were inflicted as a result of tremendous force,” the lawsuit said, adding that the girl “suffered unrelenting torture and abuse at the hands of her parents, while those responsible for her protection failed to intervene at every step of the way.”

Contra Costa County declined to comment on the lawsuit or make social worker Colleen Sullivan, also named as a defendant, available for an interview on Friday.

According to the lawsuit, the child’s death is under investigation by Antioch Police. The department’s interim chief, Brian Addington, declined to comment on the case, citing the lawsuit.

The baby girl’s parents, who haven’t been criminally charged in her death but who both had active criminal arrest warrants from Georgia according to the lawsuit, could not be reached for comment.

The child’s death highlights the potential pitfalls of well-intentioned attempts by authorities to keep children with their families in troubled homes – Sophia Mason, 8, was found decomposing in a bathtub in 2022 after Alameda County social workers ignored multiple reports of abuse.

Last year, 3-month-old Phoenix Castro died from a fentanyl and methamphetamine overdose while in her father’s care, with more than two dozen Santa Clara County social workers accusing their own agency of prioritizing family reunification over child protection.

“This press for reunification in my view has taken priority over the safety of children,” said Steve Baron, a former director of family court services in Santa Clara County.

O.Y. was born February 25, 2021 with methamphetamine in her system, and her mother also tested positive, according to the lawsuit.

Contra Costa County Children & Family Services, acting on a report from the hospital, seized baby O.Y. and a sibling, then 16 months old, from their parents in March 2021 after determining O.Y. was being neglected and the older child, identified as W.Y., was at risk of abuse, the lawsuit said.

The adoptive parent of siblings W.Y., now 4 and also allegedly beaten and neglected by the couple, and another sibling, A.Y., now 2, is identified in court filings as “Jane Doe,” and according to her lawyer, Brett Schreiber, had no connection to the family before O.Y.’s death.

Over the year following seizure of the kids, Children & Family Services employees repeatedly deceived the juvenile court, saying the parents were complying with court orders when the agency’s own records showed the parents were missing half their drug tests and not addressing the arrest warrants, the lawsuit alleged.

“How can you allow multiple missed tests which everyone knows is code for a positive test and still proceed to reunite?” Schreiber said. “No one at the county, no one at the city, no one at any of these care providers wanted this outcome . . . but they so consciously disregarded their own rules that it was inevitable.”

Despite the parents’ failure to comply with the court orders, Sullivan and other Children & Family Services employees in June 2021 allowed them unsupervised overnight visitation with O.Y. Within three months, the parents had physical custody, the lawsuit said.

Between late 2021 and March 2022, Sullivan and other county social workers visited the home several times, and twice noted scratches and bruises on O.Y.’s head, but never informed the court of the injuries, the lawsuit said.

In April 2022, at a juvenile court hearing, Sullivan and other social workers said the girl’s parents had met the objectives of their court-ordered case plan and addressed their drug abuse issues and that she should be reunified with them, according to the lawsuit. The social workers never told the court they had not obtained O.Y.’s medical records, which documented signs of abuse and neglect, the lawsuit alleged.

Two months later, the girl’s father took a video of her, a year old at the time, sitting in a booster chair motionless, with a nose-to-lip cut and blood on her face, according to the lawsuit. Young is seen screaming at her and flinging her onto a bed, the lawsuit claimed. About a year after O.Y.’s death, he was arrested in what the lawsuit described as a domestic violence case. He was found guilty of mayhem and is serving two years in prison.

On August 25, 2022, Antioch police and paramedics responded to a 911 call from the girl’s mother saying the child was having trouble breathing. She was taken to UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland for surgery.

Doctors found more than two dozen bruises on O.Y.’s head, and bruising from the previous week on her torso, arms and thighs. Along with brain bleeds and a severed pancreas, she bore signs of previous harm to her abdomen, the lawsuit said. The medical director of the hospital’s Center for Child Protection noted that “tremendous force would have been inflicted to O.Y.’s stomach or groin area to sever her pancreas,” the lawsuit said.

The doctor estimated the fatal brain and pancreas injuries happened within three days of her death, the lawsuit said. O.Y., the doctor testified, “suffered intense and horrible pain before her death,” according to the lawsuit. “She lingered for many hours.”

The girl’s mother admitted to causing some of O.Y.’s bruises but claimed they were accidental, the lawsuit claimed.

When Antioch police executed a search warrant at the parents’ home that day, they seized meth and meth paraphernalia, the lawsuit said.

At the hospital that night, the girl’s parents went out to smoke cigarettes but never returned. When her death appeared imminent, hospital staff called the parents to no avail. Just after 6 a.m., the girl died, the lawsuit said, “alone and without any family near her.”