Anytime a child dies, it's sad. But when that little person is the victim of child abuse, the death becomes tragic.
No one, child or adult, should have to endure the pain inflicted on Danieal Kelly, who was left to starve to death in a rundown rowhouse because her parents didn't want to deal with her cerebral palsy.
Danieal's bedsore-covered corpse was found almost two years ago to this day. She weighed only 42 pounds. But she was 14 years old.
A grand jury Thursday charged the child's mother, Andrea Kelly, 39, with murder, and her father, Daniel Kelly, 37, with child endangerment.
But the grand jury didn't stop there. Charges were also lodged against two social workers for Philadelphia's Department of Human Services who were supposed to be looking out for Danieal's welfare.
Dana Poindexter, 51, and Laura Sommerer, 33, were charged with felony child endangerment and misdemeanor reckless endangerment.
Poindexter is accused of tossing Danieal's file into a trash-filled box. Sommerer is said to have not noticed the child's dire condition in a visit shortly before her death.
Involuntary manslaughter charges were also filed against two private social workers, Julius Murray, 51, and Mickal Kamuvaka, 59, a founder of a nonprofit hired by DHS to provide direct services to Danieal.
Workers from now-defunct MultiEthnic Behavioral Health were supposed to check at least twice weekly on Danieal. But the grand jury said Murray was so rarely seen that he was almost a "ghost employee." It accused Kamuvaka of convening a "forgery fest" to cover up her company's failures to help the child.
The top villain in this terrible story is Philadelphia's child welfare system. Changes have been made since Danieal's fate was first revealed two years ago. DHS's leaders then were replaced. But DHS is not that far removed from the "total meltdown" condition that District Attorney Lynne Abraham says existed when Danieal was starving.
Children die when DHS stumbles. Children depend on the agency to do more than assign case workers to monitor them, or contract private companies to handle that responsibility. DHS has to notice when an overwhelmed case worker starts going through the motions, when a subcontracted agency is pocketing cash without doing the job it's paid to do.
DHS has a new director, Anne Marie Ambrose, appointed by Mayor Nutter in June. She is expected to carry out 30 recommendations to reform the agency made by a blue-ribbon panel last year. But the children of Philadelphia can't wait too long for results. Undue delay leads to tragedy, like the death of Danieal.