ME's report says 8-year-old Amaria Osby was going to be taken from mom now accused of her murder
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Amaria Osby was the 8-year-old girl murdered by her mother in an Uptown residence for "loving her father too much".
We have now uncovered new documents that may reveal there may have been more to the motive behind Amaria's murder.
As CBS 2's Chris Tye reported Tuesday night, Amaria - who died at age 8 - was on the radar of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services as early as age 3. The department admitted rules were not followed in this case - but we're learning the story told to us for eight months may be a very different than the one told to the mother now facing murder charges.
Last May, Amaria's mom, Andreal Hagler, tried to get her to drink bleach. Hagler later admitted to suffocating Amaria with a plastic bag - because "she loved her father more."
Just hours earlier, Amaria and her mom were visited at their Uptown apartment by state child welfare workers from DCFS.
DCFS is an office that failed even to try to make contact with the family for 60 days - after a neglect call on Amaria came in last spring.
"Sixty days? Honestly, a slap in the face," Amaria's father, DeMarcus Osby, told CBS 2's Tye in June of last year. "They could have got her. They could have got my daughter. They could have got my daughter and saved her life."
Last June, DeMarcus Osby said he was the one who placed that neglect call - and he was repeatedly denied custody of the girl. He offered his opinion on what motivated the murder.
"Because she told the truth to the agent," Osby said in June. "She told the truth. She didn't lie."
What truth did she tell?
"That her mother was beating her," Osby said.
But a report obtained by CBS 2 from the Cook County Medical Examiner's office sheds new light on what those DCFS agents saw and said to Amaria's mom hours before the crime.
"According to family members," the ME's report says. "Osby's mother had a meeting with the Department of Children and Family Services and Osby was going to be taken away from her mother and placed in the care of another guardian."
If true, it flies in the face of the DCFS version of events this June. It read: "An investigator visited the family and spoke with the mother and child. There were no noted concerns for physical abuse or neglect."
We asked DCFS if they stand behind that June statement, given the new details from the Medical Examiner's office. They issued the following statement:
"Any child death is a tragedy, and this case is no different. An investigator from the Department of Children and Family Services visited the family and spoke with both the mother and the child on the day of the incident, assessed the child's safety and noted no concerns for abuse or neglect. If the investigator determined the child was in danger, DCFS would have taken custody immediately. DCFS does not speculate on future actions during an ongoing investigation, and in this case, no decisions had yet been made."
Both the DCFS worker and supervisor on this case were pulled from child protective duties.
One of them is back to caring for kids. DCFS wasn't able to offer us an update on the other.
Amaria's dad didn't want to speak Tuesday night, but his attorneys say they received these new documents today as well - and need time to process it before commenting.
