Nation & World | Fla. agency under fire for death in toxic truck | Seattle Times Newspaper

Nation & World | Fla. agency under fire for death in toxic truck | Seattle Times Newspaper

By KELLI KENNEDY AND MATT SEDENSKY
Associated Press
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. —
For four days, Florida child welfare investigators searched for missing 10-year-old twins. They made home and school visits, called the children's father on his cell phone, talked to their mother and contacted relatives.

Now, agency officials are being slammed for one call they didn't make: They never reached out to police.

By the time police were notified, the little girl, Nubia, was dead, wrapped in plastic bags in the back of her father's exterminator truck parked alongside Interstate 95. Her brother, Victor, was in the front seat, coated in a toxic chemical with critical burns.

Their father was nearby on the ground, unresponsive and doused in gasoline in what he later told police was a futile attempt to kill himself.

Her death has reignited criticism against the state Department of Children and Families, an agency that overhauled its system a decade ago after a foster child was missing for more than a year before anyone realized.