LEXI HAMILTON - 2 yo -(2010) Cleveland OH

Cleveland police believe a two-year-old girl found dead in a home was
first injured at a suburban motel. The girl's mother is being held
behind bars.

Around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, paramedics were called to a home on
Longwood Avenue in Cleveland. Two-year-old Alexandria Hamilton was in
full cardiac arrest.

"The little girl is not breathing," a woman could be heard telling a
dispatcher in a call to 911. "The mother is with her trying to revive
her."

The dispatcher unsuccessfully tried to talk Alexandria's mother, Tyesha Hamilton, 29, and her friend through CPR.

"There's obvious signs that she was abused," paramedics on the scene
told a police dispatcher. They later made an official call to police to
report the signs of abuse on the child's body.

Police arrested Hamilton on suspicion of aggravated murder.
Warrensville Heights detectives said they believe Hamilton injured the
child at a motel on Northfield Road, possibly scalding her with hot
water, before taking her to the Longwood address.

Hamilton's relatives said they never saw signs the mother was allegedly abusive.

"[She] always had those kids with her, good, there's nothing I could
say that was bad. My kids and her kids are cousins. She come get my
kids, they go swimming together, no, nothing," said Trena Bell, the
mother's aunt.

Cleveland homicide detectives turned the case over to Warrensville Heights police.

Tyesha Hamilton has not been charged.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Tyesha Hamilton had been a troubled parent before
she got clean. The cardboard box full of files on her and her children
at Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court says so.

Hamilton's life seemed to be looking up. She was to start a new
job March 1, she just found an apartment for her family and had used
her income tax refund to buy clothes for her children. And she had
consistently passed her drug tests.
But on Friday, Tayesha Hamilton, 29, was charged with murder in the death of 2-year-old Lexi, as she was nicknamed.




The
toddler had suffered extensive burns over much of her body, and was
unresponsive when paramedics took her from the Longwood Avenue
apartment complex where Hamilton and four of her five children were
staying with a friend.
Alexandria died from thermal injuries, and the Cuyahoga County Coroner's office ruled her death a homicide.
Deborah Forkas, director of Cuyahoga County Children and Family
Services said the girl had been put in scalding water in a tub. She
said she was told the girl had defecated in a bed.
She noted that Hamilton had a record of neglecting her children, but
not abusing them. She had been in trouble for using marijuana, her drug
of choice.
"We're not talking about a mother who had a crack habit," Forkas said.
Last week, Hamilton and her children were living at an Econo Lodge in Warrensville Heights, where police say Lexi was burned.
The family's residing at the Econo Lodge for a week was a surprise
to county welfare officials. Hamilton and her children had been staying
at the Zelma George shelter and did not notify her case worker that she
moved and neither did the people at the shelter, Forkas said. Calls to
the Zelma George shelter were not returned Friday.
Hamilton had a felony record for receiving stolen goods and forgery, and had served time after breaking probation, in 2001.
Several years ago, Hamilton had lost her children to foster care
when she was hooked on marijuana and neglected her children. After she
got clean in October 2007, and then stayed clean, she got them back,
Forkas said.
Several months ago, she lost her job at a Doubletree hotel. Files
didn't indicate which Doubletree location she'd worked at and calls to
human resources and managers at the Doubletrees in Cleveland and
Independence said they didn't have a record of a Tayesha Hamilton
having worked there.
Forkas said Hamilton's caseworker told her she'd been let go after
hotel managers found out she'd been deceptive about her criminal
record.
For three months, including over the holidays this past year, Lexi
and her sister Mariah were living at the Providence House shelter for
children in Cleveland. They left to move to Zelma George with their
mother and two other siblings, about a month ago.
Natalie Leek Nelson, executive director of Providence House, said
the two little girls were there only because their mother had lost her
housing; they were not ill or injured.
"[Their] mom was working actively with her county worker," said
Nelson. "She complied with all program requirements for visitation,
education. There were no indicators of any further risk -- this was a
well-supported family, working with lots of organizations, with the mom
sticking with her plan."
Nelson said staff at Providence House were devastated.
"We fall in love with our babies," she said. "Lexi was a beautiful little girl, a sweetie.
"It's tragic. We're as shocked as the rest of the community."

Child dies after Cuyahoga County officials reunite her, siblings with troubled mother; officials defend decision
By Rachel Dissell, The Plain Dealer
February 18, 2010, 6:38PM

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Before they returned four children to their troubled mother last year, Cuyahoga County officials said they did everything they could to make sure Tyesha Hamilton was ready to raise her kids.
Hamilton completed parenting classes. She signed up for extra programs. She stayed sober and her drug tests came back negative, county officials said.
And still, her 2-year-old daughter Alexandria died. The toddler had extensive burns over much of her body when she was found unresponsive by paramedics Wednesday evening at an apartment complex on Longwood Avenue.
Hamilton, 29, is locked up on suspicion of aggravated murder, but has not been charged with a crime. And her surviving children are with relatives, less than a year after being reunited with their mother.
"This is not a case where I would say we screwed up or failed to follow through," Cuyahoga County Children and Family Services Director Deborah Forkas said. "We were very involved with this family for a long period of time and so were many other providers."
The agency returned the children to Hamilton in 2009 over the strong objections of the children's foster parents, who feared for the children's safety because they felt Hamilton was not ready to properly care for the four kids.
Hamilton and her children were still under the county's protective watch this week, Forkas said, when Alexandria died.
Last year, nine children in Cuyahoga County died at the hands of their caregivers, officials believe. Seven were killed by their mothers' boyfriends, one was killed by his mother and one died of medical neglect, Forkas said.
Warrensville Heights police have taken over the investigation into Alexandria's death because injuries took place at an Econo Lodge Motel in that city, Police Chief Frank Bova said.
The county agency originally took custody of the children in 2007 because Hamilton neglected them while struggling with drug addiction, Forkas said.
Since then, Hamilton did everything asked of her by social workers. The children were closely monitored and it appears whatever went awry happened quickly, Forkas said.
"I absolutely could have never predicted this," Forkas said. "I can't frankly understand how this happened."
Hamilton and her family lived at the motel for about a week when Alexandria was injured, motel workers said.
Hope Burpo said Tyesha Hamilton, who she considers a daughter, will be freed after police investigate. County officials say Burpo is the former girlfriend of Hamilton's father.
"We're all hoping and praying she'll be home in a few days," Burpo said. "My daughter is not a baby killer."
Kathi and Ollie Coffey cared for Alexandria and her three siblings from the time she was less than a week old and seemed as skinny as a string of spaghetti. They agreed to take the premature baby into their Euclid home a month after her brother and two sisters came to live with them because they didn't want the children split up.
As with all the foster children the Coffeys took in, they knew the children would likely go back to their mother at some point.
But when that time came, the Coffeys warned county officials against returning the children to Hamilton.
"The county was telling us that she was doing what she was supposed do." Kathi said.
The couple, who have been married nearly 30 years and have three adult children, had concerns after the children stayed with their mother overnight on several weekends in early 2009.
The children were brought back to their house unkempt and told stories about their weekends that made them uneasy, the Coffeys said.
One weekend Alexandria came home and her normally luminous gold-colored eyes were bloodshot.
Kathi Coffey was told her the toddler fell from the top a bunk bed. She took her to the hospital but said doctors couldn't determine what caused the redness in Alexandria's eyes.
Ollie Coffey, 61, said he insisted to the children's case worker that it was too soon for the children to return to their mother for good.
"I kept telling them it's not time yet," he said.
Forkas said the agency knew about the toddler's fall from the bunk bed. But one instance of bad judgement was not enough for social workers to keep the children from their biological mother, Forkas said.
"I understand that the Coffeys didn't feel the mother was ready," Forkas said. "And we heard them out."
Foster parents often have similar concerns but that under normal circumstances the law prevents the agency from keeping children in custody for longer than two years without making a permanent decision about where they will live or severing the parent's rights, Forkas said.
Coffey, a Vietnam veteran who works as a security guard, said he is a rule-follower who does things by the book. But he felt so strongly that reuniting the children with their mother was premature that he called a local television anchorwoman who was a friend and asked her for help.
After Denise Dufala, of WOIO Channel 19, inquired about the case, the Coffeys said agency supervisors met with them in their family room. The agency agreed to stagger the children's return to their mother and county workers assured the Coffeys they would keep close watch on the children.
"We fought and we fought and we fought for them," Kathi Coffey said Thursday as she sat in the same family room, flipping through pictures of Alexandria in her crib, curled up with a stuffed Elmo or hamming it up in a pair of oversized sunglasses.
Ollie Coffey said he "told that room full of people that if anything ever happened to these kids there would be hell to pay."
The Coffeys said they remained in contact with the case worker after the children left, checking on their condition and trying unsuccessfully to arrange a visit so the kids wouldn't feel the family had abandoned or forgotten them.
They hope the county will now let them have some contact with the kids, who they have not seen in 11 months. If not, they said they would like to raise money to for Alexandria's burial.
Forkas said the children are currently with their maternal grandfather. The agency will likely file for custody of the children.
Kathi Coffey keeps thinking about the last time she saw the little girl whose siblings called her "a-baby" because they couldn't pronounce her name.
When the county van picked up the children for visits, Alexandria usually clung to her and threw a fit.
But the last time, the toddler was calm.
"She didn't cry at all. Kathi Coffey said. "She just rubbed my face.

This happened about 20mins from me, I'm furious!

There better be more charges meted out. to be clear this 'mother' just got her kids back in the last 2 months and the burns the child received happened almost a week before her death..

This baby was is agony for a week and no one sought medical treatment!

Theres no way this friend they moved with didn't know or anyone else who came in contact with them during that time. I don't care if she wasn't smoking crack, the article above clearly states the foster family told case workers the children shouldn't be returned to there mother..but they were, and two months later a baby is dead.

CPS fails AGAIN. :::rant:::

29 years old and 5 children. No mention of any father. There's probably more than one. These low lifes have to stop breeding and we've got to stop enabling them to keep on having children when they are clearly not going to be a good parent. There are mothers who get pregnant repeatedly but can't tolerate
parenthood. Some men get woman pregnant repeatedly and beat the babies
to death. IMO these people are psycopaths. Serial killers/abusers. It's
not about poor parenting skills or poor anger control. Constantly
getting a women pregnant or getting pregnant without wanting to parent
a child is a deliberate act. They enjoy creating life then destroying
it. Sorry Tom

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Angela Hamilton stood before Cuyahoga County
Juvenile Court Judge Leodis Harris in 1986, as her daughter, Tyesha
Hamilton, 6, was being taken away from her.



Along with legal language he used, he ordered Angela, a troubled woman and cocaine addict, to read something.

Not from the Bible, but from "The Godfather," the Mario Puzo book
published 17 years earlier. He told her to specifically study Page 290
of the paperback version.

On that page, Don Vito Corleone is speaking of the murder of his
child Sonny, and pledges not to seek vengeance. Instead, he asks for an
end to the cycle of violence.

He says he will not "make the innocent world around me suffer with
me," and adds, "None of us here want to see our children follow in our
footsteps."

Judge Harris wanted Hamilton to take those words to heart. But his advice would be in vain.

The maelstrom did not stop. Within ten years, Angela would be found
stabbed to death, her body discarded in a field behind a Cleveland
crack house, when her daughter Tyesha was 16.

And 13 years after that, Tyesha would repeat the violent pattern
with one of her own children, police say. They say she pushed her 2-year-old daughter Alexandria "Lexi" Hamilton, 2, into a bathtub of scalding water.

Now Tyesha is charged with murder.

More than 1,000 pages of public records from Cuyahoga County
Juvenile Court tell the story of Tyesha's family across nearly 25
years. As far back as when she was just starting school, Tyesha grew up
amid violence and criminal behavior. As an adult, police and records
say, she became the source of violence and criminal behavior in her
children's lives.

Lexi's open-casket funeral was on Thursday. Idris Atkins, an aunt
who sometimes baby-sat her, was horrified by how even makeup didn't
cover the scarring burns on the little girl's face. She hadn't known of
the death of Lexi -- "so tiny, so cute" -- until she saw it on the
news.

"You know how when some people die that last expression from what
happened is on their face?" Atkins says. "It was still on her face.

"Oh, it hurts."


Tyesha struggled with addiction

Lexi's siblings are now staying with Tyesha Hamilton's father, Terrance Jones.

The oldest is a teenage boy, born in 1997 when Tyesha was 16. But
it was Lexi's birth on Oct. 25, 2007, that was the first day of her
longest period of sobriety. She had struggled with a longtime marijuana
and alcohol addiction.

While Lexi's life might have spawned a time of sobriety, she
ultimately might have triggered Tyesha's rage on Feb. 16, when the
child did something that most toddlers do.

Lexi defecated in the one bed of the Warrensville Heights motel
room where the family was living. Tyesha's response, police say, was to
scald Lexi.

Tyesha, 29, wasn't supposed to be at the Econo Lodge that she'd
moved into the week before. As far as her caseworker at Children and
Family Services knew from their phone conversations -- and Tyesha was
to tell them if she moved out -- she was at the Salvation Army's Zelma
George shelter for women and children, near Broadway.

There are no bathtubs there. And a mother can't attack her child with impunity.


Deemed negligent in 2006

In the spring of 2006 -- before
Lexi was born -- Tyesha's children came to the attention of Cuyahoga
County's Children and Family Services Department. That's when Tyesha
was deemed negligent because she was often high and partying and
couldn't explain where her children were.

She'd already had her own run-ins with police as an adult,
beginning in August 1999, for possession of marijuana. In 2001, she was
convicted of forgery and receiving stolen property. She served time at
the Ohio Reformatory for Women after violating terms of her probation.
At that time, she only hada son, who was already living with her father.

But when that boy was 8, she started a cycle of giving birth again,
every year -- 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007. Anger and physical violence were
already present. She was nine months pregnant when Cleveland police
were called to her home in 2005, because she and a boyfriend were
fighting over her new leather coat. She told police he grabbed her and
threw her to the ground, and he was arrested.

By 2006, Tyesha was living at Miracle Village, a subsidized housing
complex. It's a safe place for women and children, but staying clean of
drugs and alcohol is required. When Tyesha relapsed, she was told to
leave. She came back to pick up some items and assaulted a security
guard.

"Anger management," say the county records assessing her emotional fitness, was one of her big issues. So was depression.


Family pattern repeats itself

The
misery, of course, started long before. Juvenile court files of
Tyesha's childhood from the 1980s read like those of her own children
20 years later.

Court records from when she stood before Judge Harris show that
Angela Hamilton was missing from home at times, leaving her kids alone.
Later, she was jailed on drug charges.

Tyesha and her older sister went to live with their
great-grandmother, but found little peace there either. A social worker
saw the great-grandmother physically and verbally abusing the girls.
She said it was punishment for them staying out late, disrespecting her
rules and being involved with a gang.

By the time she was 14, Tyesha had gone to live with her father,
but was still in trouble -- she shoplifted, and later, while in high
school at John Hay, she was charged with distributing cocaine.

At 17, she'd already been in several foster homes and had an
18-month-old son. The county's reports once again note that she was
"easily angered."

The drama continued into her adulthood. Police even arrested her
father for disorderly conduct when he threw Tyesha, then 25, and her
three children out of his East 131st Street house, into a 30-degree
sleety night.

A year later, in 2006, Cuyahoga County's Children and Family Services stepped in, helping her get sober and findcounseling and housing. But it wasn't long before she began using again, even while pregnant with Lexi.

By now, Tyesha's own children were victims of negligence, if not
worse -- just like she had been. The children's fathers, if known,
seemed not to be in the picture for long, or they were in jail or
prison.

Her parenting skills could be dismaying. When Lexi was 1, she
placed her in the top bunk of a bed, and Lexi fell out. When the
caseworker heard about it, she ordered a crib for her to sleep in.

Atkins, Lexi's aunt, says she noticed when she saw the children
with Tyesha that they seemed a little afraid of her. "They loved their
mama so much," she says. "But when they got in trouble, and she was
fussing at them, she came on a little strong. You could tell by the
look in their eyes, there was something more behind that yelling."

"Still, I never thought in a million years something like this
would happen. Tyesha was a bright woman. Now it's like there must have
been two Tyeshas."


Violence affecting yet another generation

The
effect of Tyesha's mothering could also be seen in how her children
behaved. The violent cycle had touched another generation

Counselors and caretakers noticed that two of Lexi's siblings, a
boy and a girl, were physically fighting, so the then 4-year-old boy
was referred to therapy at the Berea Children's Home. He was physically
aggressive, cried a lot and "wants to be hit," counselors said. His
sister, then 3, also had angry outbursts and injured herself.

Tyesha's "parenting decisions are not completely appropriate," caseworkers noted.

At times in 2008, the children were placed in foster care with a Euclid couple.

Meanwhile, Tyesha was working (at the Browns stadium during
football season, at jobs with a temp agency and in telemarketing) as
well as passing drug tests. Whether she was abusing alcohol isn't
clear.

She took parenting classes and she and her children were getting
counseling. The family was reunited in March 2009, in spite of the
foster family's warnings about the children's safety with their mother.
But, as in most cases, federal law and county welfare officials' policy
skew in favor of children living with a biological parent.

Tyesha was said to be in contact with her 12-step sponsor each day,
but she wasn't attending all of the three 12-step meetings (for alcohol
and drugs) each week that she was supposed to. She missed some
appointments for urine screening for drugs, as well as for some of her
counseling sessions.

Then she got fired from a job at a Doubletree hotel on Dec. 21, for
being evasive about her criminal history, and that same month she was
evicted from an apartment. She moved in with a friend with two of her
children, and then moved to a shelter. She placed Lexi and her next
oldest daughter into Providence House, a crisis shelter in Cleveland
for children from birth to 5 years old, through part of January.

Executive director Natalie Leek Nelson recalls that Tyesha was
"working really hard" in the parenting program, even as her own life
was getting bumpy.

"She was really committed to reunifying her family," Nelson says. "There were no indicators of any further risk."

"This is not a mother who came into the system for abuse, or ever
had a referral of abuse," says Children and Family Services Department
director Deborah Forkas. "It was for neglect.

"She seemed to be willing to do whatever it took -- she wanted her kids back."


Judge said Tyesha needed supervision

Two
weeks ago, on Feb. 8, Juvenile Court Judge Thomas F. O'Malley signed an
order saying that Tyesha could have full custody of her children, but,
even though she had tested clean for drugs, he said she needed
continued supervision bythe social workers.

That very same day, Tyesha and her four children moved out of the Zelma George shelter, but it's not known why.

Tyesha checked into the motel on Northfield Road. She and her four
children shared the one room, with its one bed. Police aren't saying
how she paid for the room, but county welfare officials said she'd
recently received an Internal Revenue Service refund check that she'd
cashed.

Eight days later, on Feb. 16, Lexi was severely burned on the lower
half of her body, apparently in the tub at the Econo Lodge. Police who
went to the motel room after her death found evidence that Tyesha tried
to treat her burned daughter with drugstore remedies.

But instead of taking Lexi to the hospital -- South Pointe Hospital
is less than five minutes from the motel -- she fled with Lexi and her
other children to a friend's home in the Longwood housing complex.

"We're still working to determine what happened when they left the
motel and went to Longwood," says Warrensville Heights Police Chief
Frank Bova.

If Lexi was still alive, it's not yet known for how long. The
coroner's report establishing the time of death hasn't been completed.
It cited the cause of death as "thermal" injury; the lower half of
Lexi's body, especially, was severely burned.

The story of three generations -- Angela, Tyesha and Lexi Hamilton
-- eerily resonates with those words from "The Godfather" that Judge
Harris advised Angela to heed: "None of us here want to see our
children follow in our footsteps.

"It's too hard a life."

Or death.

Forkas said the children are currently with their maternal grandfather. The agency will likely file for custody of the children.

The drama continued into her adulthood. Police even arrested her
father for disorderly conduct when he threw Tyesha, then 25, and her
three children out of his East 131st Street house, into a 30-degree
sleety night.

WTH is wrong with this agency? The other children are not safe even now. Why do they keep talking about "parenting skills" and "poor judgment" and why do they insist on saying that neglect is not abuse? Unless this mother has a mental capacity of a 3 year old she would know putting a baby on a top bunk is dangerous and could cause death if she fell.These agencies these days defend useless and abusive parents over and over again. The only people defending these children were the Foster parents and they were banging their heads against a bureaucratic, PC riddled agency with stupid PC policies. The agency itself has shown poor judgment time and again and still are as they placed the children with a man who threw these children out into a freezing night. Why does this agency think that a 29 year old with a history like hers is capable of raising all these children on her own, living in shelters? She will have been on welfare since the first baby and IMO should have been made to have the contreceptive injection as soon as it was obvious she had an addiction to getting pregnant.
I believe that continuously having babies when you have no means to raise them and are a bad parent is a mental illness or at the very least a sign of a very disturbed woman and all our governments do today is enable them.

Tyesha Hamilton arraigned in scalding death of her toddler daughter
Published: Friday, March 05, 2010, 10:17 AM Updated: Saturday, March 06, 2010, 4:19 AM




CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Tyesha Hamilton pleaded not guilty Friday morning to aggravated murder and related offenses in connection with the scalding death of her 2-year-old-daughter, Alexandria "Lexi" Hamilton.

Hamilton, 29, will continue to be held on a $1 million bond. Her case was assigned to Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Michael Donnelly.

Hamilton has hired Shaker Heights attorney Lawrence Floyd to represent her, according to court records.

She is accused of pushing her daughter into a bathtub of scalding water on Feb. 15 at the Econo Lodge Motel in Warrensville Heights. The child suffered from second-degree burns over most of her body.

Instead of taking her to the hospital, Hamilton took Lexi and her sisters and brothers to a friend's home at the Longwood Avenue apartment complex in Cleveland, investigators said. Cleveland EMS, who were called to the apartment on the evening of Feb. 17, found Lexi unresponsive.

According to the coroner's report, the child died from thermal injuries.

In addition to aggravated murder, Hamilton is charged with felonious assault and three counts of endangering children.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/03/woman_arraigned_in_scalding_de.html

Mother Gets Life in Prison for Toddler's Scalding Death



Jack Shea
FOX8.com
5:11 p.m. EDT, September 29, 2010


CLEVELAND -- Tyesha Hamilton, the mother accused of causing the death of her 2-year-old daughter, pleaded guilty to murder Wednesday and was sentenced to life in prison with parole eligibility after 15 years.

According to the Cuyahoga County Prosecutors Office, Hamilton placed her daughter in scalding hot bathwater on Feb. 15 at the Econo Lodge in Warrensville Heights, creating 2nd degree burns on 70-percent of the toddler's body.

Two days later EMS was called to a Longwood address in Cleveland where baby Lexi was pronounced dead at the scene.

A woman who called 911 that night is a friend of the child's mother, and said Hamilton, 29, told her the burns were the result of an accident.

"Was getting the kids ready for the day, she said she took Alexi's clothes off first and she said Alexi just jumped in the tub," said Yakita Malone.

Hamilton was charged with murder, but her family and friends have trouble believing the burns on baby Lexi were the result of an intentional act.

"I don't believe it, because from my observations, I haven't seen anything like that," Malone said.

But a Euclid couple who served as foster parents to Alexandria and her three siblings after they were taken from their mother by children's services said they warned authorities that Tyesha Hamilton was not ready for the rigors of parenting.

Foster parent Kathy Coffey said, "You add four children to that mix, we knew at some point, she was just going to be overwhelmed, you could see it."

Coffey and her husband said the children showed signs of mistreatment after visits with their mother, and they told children's services that baby Alexi and her siblings would be at risk when they were returned to their mother in 2009.

"There's a lot on their docket, I realize that but you're dealing with lives, you're dealing with lives," said foster parent Ollie Coffey.

But children's services director Deb Forkas said the foster parents offered no specifics about how Alexandria and her siblings may have been mistreated.

Forkas told Fox 8 News, "By law, we must re-unify children with their parents. The mother had worked hard on the goals set in her case plan. Everyone, including the court, agreed that she was in complete compliance. She had rights to her children."

Children's services concedes that case workers did not know that Tyesha Hamilton had recently moved her children to a motel in Warrensville heights, where investigators believe Alexandria was scalded to death.

"All I can think about is how that baby suffered, if she was burned, that is one of the most horrific things that can happen to the human body, much less a two-year-old's," said Kathi Coffey.

http://www.fox8.com/news/wjw-toddler-scalding-death-mother-sentenced-txt,0,7250880.story

why doesnt someone scald her fat a$$? Geesh!