NO EXCUSE

Foster Mom Allegedly Killed 4-Year-Old Months After Being Accused of Child Abuse

Lakeisha Mitchell was allowed to continue fostering children after watching training videos “where they tell you ‘Don’t hit kids.”

A Florida foster mother who allegedly beat, strangled, and murdered a 4-year-old in August was accused of physically abusing that child and her sibling just four months earlier, according to police records obtained by USA Today. Child welfare workers removed Joy King-Castro—the child who was ultimately killed—and her sibling from Lakeisha Mitchell’s Titusville home after the kids revealed to the Florida Department of Children and Families the horrifying abuses they’d endured. The police report alleges Mitchel beat one sibling so hard that the child had a lump on her head and a patch of hair missing. According to one investigator, the child had abrasions that “appeared to be from some type of cord or thin instrument.” Mitchell was not charged and was allowed to continue fostering children after watching training videos “where they tell you ‘Don’t hit kids.’”

“Their errors in judgment cost this child her life,” said Kirsten Larson, a care coordinator and housing specialist at the foster program’s sister agency, who resigned on Monday and spoke up after ongoing investigations revealed flaws in the Florida child welfare system. “Joy would still be alive today if we had closed Ms. Mitchell’s home.”