Father of 8-year-old Amaria Osby says DCFS dropped the ball before the little girl was murdered
CHICAGO (CBS) -- It was the last thing Amaria Osby heard before her mother suffocated her with a plastic bag in their Uptown apartment last month – an explanation.
Police said Andreal Hagler told the 8-year-old she was doing it because the little girl loved her father more.
That father spoke out only to CBS 2's Chris Tye about the child welfare system that he says failed his daughter.
"She smiled every day, all day," said DeMarcus Osby.
Amaria was the 8-year-old whom her father called "his heart." The father tried, but says he was repeatedly denied custody of the little girl
He had a Disney cruise planned with her next month. But a phone call last month changed those plans - and his life.
"I got that phone call from my brother telling me my daughter was dead," Osby said.
Amaria was murdered just after evening prayers in her bedroom of the Uptown apartment she shared with Hagler, her mom.
Hagler confessed to police that Amaria refused to drink some bleach she poured her — so, high on PCP, Hagler covered Amaria's head with a plastic bag as her daughter shouted, "Mommy, stop!"
"She knew her mama was trying to kill her - her last moments," Osby said. "That's what eats me up even more."
Hagler says she explained to her little girl why this had to be done.
"(Hagler said), 'I killed my daughter because I felt she loved her daddy more than me.' Is that a load of bulls**t," Osby said. "Girls cling to their fathers. Boys cling to their mothers. It's just human nature."
So, why did she do it? DeMarcus Osby thinks it had everything to do with a visit to the house just hours earlier by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
"To be truthful, that's the reason my daughter is dead - because she told the truth to the agent," Osby said. "She told the truth. She didn't lie."
What truth did Amaria tell?
"That her mother was beating her," Osby said.
When Osby came up from Texas to identify his daughter's body, he says he noticed evidence of that abuse.
"I saw bruises on her face," he said. "That lets me know her mother was beating her, and she wasn't lying."
He said the bruises were also on Amaria's back.
But in a statement to CBS 2, the DCFS said during their visit to the house that day "the investigator noted no signs of abuse."
The DCFS workers here that day have been taken off child protection duties.
Why?
DCFS policy calls on them to make contact, or attempted contact, with family within 24 hours of a hotline call indicating signs of neglect. DeMarcus Osby himself made that call back in March.
It took DCFS caseworkers 60 days to make contact - and on 59 of them, they never even tried.
Tye: "What do you make of that? Sixty days."
DeMarcus: "Sixty days? Honestly, a slap in the face. They could have got her. They could have got my daughter. They could have got my daughter and saved her life."
We've asked the DCFS for case notes on what they saw and what Amaria said that day — as well as what will happen to these employees.
They declined comment, saying, "This is still an open investigation and there are ongoing criminal proceedings, and we will not be commenting further."
Tye: "What is your message to the head of DCFS as you sit here today?"
Osby: "You need to clear the whole building out and put people in there that really want to do this job."
The little girl that smiled every day, all day, has now been laid to rest.
But her father says he will not rest until some sort of change is made.
Osby: "Because it don't make no sense that my daughter is laying the ground -- 60 days after I made a call - begging for help."
Tye: "And they never came."
Osby: "Never came."
Child advocacy experts have called on the DCFS to release all documents related to this case.
Hagler is charged with first-degree murder.