By Kathy Chaffin
kchaffin@salisburypost.com
A representative of the N.C. Division of Social Services will announce the findings of a Dec. 11-12 child fatality review at a called meeting of the Community Child Protection Team Friday.
The meeting, which is open to the public, will be held at 2 p.m. at the Park Avenue Community Center at 642 Park Ave.
Jeff Olson, who supervises the state child fatality reviewers, will present a report on the review of the May 2, 2008, death of a 10-month-old Salisbury infant. John Weill, who headed up the review for the state, has taken a new job.
Tom Brewer, program administrator for the Rowan County Department of Social Services’ children’s service division, told the Rowan Task Force for Child Abuse Prevention Monday the department had developed a response plan after reading the findings.
Salisbury attorney Jeff Morris, who serves as chairman of the Community Child Protection Team, will issue a press release at Friday’s meeting announcing aspects of the plan.
The findings were not made public at a March 3 meeting of the Community Child Protection Team pending a decision on whether criminal charges would be filed. District Attorney Bill Kenerly said on March 11 that barring any new evidence, no charges would be filed in the death of Emmanuel Campusano Jr. of 923 S. Caldwell St.
Kenerly said he talked to a doctor with the N.C. Medical Examiner’s Office in Charlotte about the autopsy report on the infant. “The medical examiner could not give a cause of death that would indicate homicidal conduct,” Kenerly said at the time.
Though some information indicated the living circumstances for the infant were sub-par, Kenerly said “that doesn’t help us prove a homicide.”
Brewer said at the Community Child Protection Team meeting that co-sleeping with an infant was a factor in the death. The boy’s father, Emmanuel Campusano Sr., told police the baby was fine when he left him and his then 19-month-old daughter at home with their mother, Tana Maria Mings, to go shopping at 10:30 a.m. He said he received a call at 12:38 p.m. informing him that EMS had been called for his son.
CPR was administered on the baby en route to the hospital and for 15 minutes after arrival at Rowan Regional Medical Center, but the baby was pronounced dead at 12:37 p.m.
Salisbury Police Chief Mark Wilhelm said then that there were no signs of trauma on the baby’s body.
Brewer told Child Abuse Prevention Task Force members Monday that educating parents on the dangers of co-sleeping with infants is one of the issues that will be addressed at a Child Well-Being Community Roundtable scheduled for 1 p.m. on June 30, at First United Methodist Church of Salisbury.
Task Force member Edwina Ritchie, chief nursing officer for Rowan Regional, said the medical center educates all new parents about the dangers of co-sleeping with infants before they take their newborns home.
Co-sleeping may have been a factor in the Feb. 14 death of 2-month-old Jyhiem Adam Bacon, who was unresponsive when Salisbury police officers were called to the Happy Traveler Inn. Emergency medical personnel were unsuccessful in their efforts to revive the baby.
Upon searching the room, investigators found marijuana and cocaine and charged the infant’s mother, Latoyia Niccole Myers, with possession of both controlled substances. She was charged four days later with second-degree murder in her son’s death.
Preliminary autopsy results indicated the cause of death was suffocation.
Though police did not say whether Myers was sleeping with the infant, the autopsy report on another infant son indicated he was co-sleeping with an adult when he died of accidental suffocation Nov. 11, 2007.
Zy-marion Dwayne Myers was only 29 days old at the time. “This situation (co-sleeping with an adult on a makeshift bed on top of a pillow) represents an inappropriate sleeping environment for an infant,” the autopsy report said.
It also noted that a child of that age lying face down on a pillow would not be able to raise his head.
Legislation passed during Gov. Jim Martin’s term mandated an on-site state child fatality review when a deceased child and its family had received child protective services from the local Social Services department within 12 months of the death.
Rowan’s child protective services was called to investigate the death of Zy-marion Dwayne Myers, which happened less than a year before the second infant death. Social Services Director Sandra Wilkes said in February the investigation did not substantiate any abuse or neglect.
Contact Kathy Chaffin at 704-797-4249.