Child Advocate Prepared To Address Lawmakers On Hartford Teen's Death, DCF Actions

Feb. 23--As family members and friends prepare to bury Matthew Tirado, concerns are hardening over why the state's child-protection department, long involved with the teen's mother, closed a neglect case shortly before the 17-year-old died, with broken bones and bruises and weighing 84 pounds.

The Department of Children and Families closed an investigative file on Matthew's mother even though the teen, who had autism, hadn't been in school for months, and despite an abuse and neglect history on his mother's part that stretched back more than a decade, to when Matthew was six years old, according to prepared testimony from state Child Advocate Sarah Eagan.

She is scheduled to appear before the legislature's committee on children Thursday to describe how her office will conduct its latest investigation into DCF. Hartford police acted swiftly in Matthew's Feb. 14 death, charging the mother, Katiria V. Tirado, with cruelty to persons -- a felony that police say may be elevated to a murder or manslaughter charge once the autopsy results come back.

But DCF had closed its file, arguing that Tirado wouldn't let DCF social workers see Matthew or his sister. Eagan said she wants to find out how it is that a boy with special needs was allowed to miss month after month of classes at Oak Hill School in Bristol, where he had been placed by the Hartford school system, and why DCF case workers managed not to make contact with Matthew and his sister in the eight months leading up to the department's decision to close its case in January.

Hartford major-crime detectives reported in an arrest warrant for Tirado that Matthew "appeared as though he was severely malnourished and neglected."

At 5 foot 8 inches tall, the detectives noted in the warrant affidavit, Matthew weighed 84 pounds, and the associate medical examiner who did the physical part of the autopsy, reported that the teen-ager had three broken ribs, bruises over his upper body, an injury to his back, and bed sores on his buttocks.

"Dr. [Susan] Williams stated that these observations appeared to be the result of long-term abuse and neglect," the warrant states.

The medical examiner's office is awaiting toxicology results to complete the autopsy.

"There were chronic reports of physical abuse and educational neglect going back to when Matthew was 6," Eagan said as she prepared her public testimony, "and DCF had not seen the children before closing the case."

"Our office is investigating this system by system," said Eagan. "We are looking at how well safety and risk assessments were done of the home, what the school system did to bring concerns to DCF, what the children's [juvenile court-appointed] lawyer did ... We hope to report the findings shortly."

DCF spokesman Gary Kleeblatt said the agency had investigated whether children in the family were attending school. Kleeblatt said the mother would not allow DCF staff access to the home and refused to engage in services or accept the attempts of the department to help the family.

The case was closed last month, Kleeblatt said. There were no indications of safety concerns involving Matthew or other children in the home until this week, Kleeblatt said.

But Eagan's office and some state lawmakers who have been critical of DCF Commissioner Joette Katz want to know how the agency could make that determination without having visted Matthew.

Hartford police said Thursday that Matthew's 9-year-old sister is now in DCF care.

Eagan will also be discussing a second recent case in which a child in the care of the mother's boyfriend was scalded in 118-degree bath water in Rocky Hill. DCF was involved with that household and there was a "safety agreement" -- a controversial measure that DCF uses when it believes a child can remain home under certain conditions -- in place that prohibited the boyfriend from being alone with the child.

Matthew's wake is Friday the De Leon Funeral Home, 104 Main St., in Hartford.

Family and friends have set up a donation page at https://www.gofundme.com/funeral-services-for-matthew-tirado to raise money for his funeral.

"Matthew Tirado was an amazing and very likable student who walked into Burns Latino Studies Academy a few years ago for only a few weeks before moving on to another school," wrote fund organizer and former Burns Academy principal Monica Brase.

"Although he had limited verbal communication abilities because of his autism, he was able to communicate his feelings, and I, along with other staff members at the school, fell IN LOVE with him," said Brase, educator in the city.

Courant Staff Reporter Vanessa de la Torre contributed to this story.

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