Danieal Kelly’s death was ‘a matter of time’

The death of Danieal Kelly - the 14-year old with cerebral palsy who starved to death in her mother's West Philadelphia apartment - was "a matter of time," testified a cofounder of the city-hired private agency that supposedly provided at-home visits and care to Danieal and her eight siblings.

Manuelita Buenaflor broke down before a Philadelphia jury Tuesday as she described the dysfunctional operations of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc.

Under a contract with the city Department of Human Services, the West Philadelphia firm was to send workers once, twice, even three times a week to visit and help Philadelphia's poorest at-risk families and children in their homes.

But Buenaflor described an agency plagued with caseworkers who made "ghost visits" to families and papered files with phony case notes.

Buenaflor, "quality assurance supervisor" for MultiEthnic and cofounder with Mickal Kamuvaka, said her July 20, 2006, audit of the Kelly case showed no visits had been made to Danieal and her family since that March 29.

Two weeks after the audit, Danieal, who could not care for herself, was found dead in her mother's fetid two-bedroom apartment. She weighed 42 pounds and was laying on a feces-stained mattress, her back covered with maggot-infested bedsores, one that went bone-deep.

"It was horrific," said Buenaflor, weeping before the Common Pleas Court jury. "I don't even want to remember it."

Buenaflor, 68, a native Filipino and former missionary worker in Thailand, said ghost visits by MultiEthnic employees were so problematic that "it was just a matter of time, just a matter of time before someone would die."

Buenaflor is serving a 36-month federal prison term after her 2009 guilty plea to wire and health-care fraud and conspiracy involving federal funds MultiEthnic took for performing nonexistent casework for DHS.

Buenaflor was a prosecution witness in the March 2010 federal trial in which Kamuvaka and three other MultiEthnic workers were convicted of fraud.

In June 2010, a federal judge sentenced Kamuvaka to 17 1/2 years in prison.

Buenaflor was one of a series of witnesses who testified as prosecutors completed their case against Kamuvaka, 62, MultiEthnic's chief administrator; Dana Poindexter, 54, a former DHS social worker; and Danieal's father, Daniel Kelly Sr., 40, for their alleged roles in Danieal's Aug. 4, 2006 death.

Kamuvaka is charged with involuntary manslaughter and counts involving falsifying paperwork to try to fool investigators into believing Danieal and her family got the twice-weekly at-home visits DHS had authorized.

Poindexter, the first DHS social worker who was supposed to have investigated neglect allegations against Danieal's mother in September 2003, is charged with reckless endangerment and perjury for allegedly never visiting the house.

Daniel Kelly is charged with child endangerment for allegedly abandoning Danieal and her year-older brother, Daniel Jr., in 2003 with his ex-wife, though he knew she had neglected them in the past.

When the trial resumes Wednesday at the city Criminal Justice Center, defense lawyers are to begin their cases.

Daniel Kelly's attorney has said his client will testify. It is unknown whether Kamuvaka or Poindexter will do the same.

Lawyers for all three have argued that Andrea Kelly, Danieal's mother, was solely responsible for the girl's death. They contend that in early 2006 she moved with her children to another West Philadelphia address and kept their whereabouts secret from her ex-husband and other relatives.

Andrea Kelly, 42, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in 2009 and is now serving 20 to 40 years in prison.