“I can’t say what happened in that house that night because I wasn’t there,” Loriann Britton said in an interview last Wednesday at the home of Diane Stewart in Lake Shastina. “I was with him in the park that day, and he was fine. Then they called the next day and said he passed away." Britton, 22, who resides in Montague, was talking about her son, Craig Britton, who would have been 2 years old Sept. 11. The child passed away Aug. 29 in the home of the third foster mother with whom he had been placed since he was taken from Britton, his birth mother, by Siskiyou County’s Child Protective Services Dec. 9, 2008.
Britton and Stewart – Craig’s second foster mother, with whom he lived from Feb. 26 until Aug. 3, twenty-six days before he died – are seeking answers in the child’s death, and they say they also want a “straight answer” regarding why he was removed from Stewart’s care. They claim that a CPS six-month review report indicates that Craig had been thriving in Stewart’s home after a rough start in foster care.
On Thursday Sept. 17, Tim Wilkinson, executive director of Environmental Alternatives (the foster care agency that works with CPS and was handling Britton’s case) released a statement which defends the actions of CPS and EA.
“In the recent tragedy of a toddler’s death, there has been interest and justifiable publicity about its circumstance,” the statement reads. “Unfortunately, in the early stages of investigation, facts and details are necessarily withheld until law enforcement and involved governmental agencies conclude their work.”
Stewart said the statement was not adequate, and she’d still like to know the reason Craig was removed from her home.
CPS’s six-month report, dated June 9, 2009 and presented in the Siskiyou County Court, makes a recommendation regarding whether a child should be placed in foster care permanently or if that decision should be revisited in another six months, Britton and Stewart said. The document referenced anger issues, including violent outbursts and threatening behavior, substance abuse problems and other dependency issues, domestic violence occurrences, and noted that Loriann Britton had been a foster child herself, they said.
Britton confirmed that she had been in foster care in her youth for “several years.”
Despite pointed criticism of Craig’s birth mother as well as his father, Craig Atkison, with whom the mother has had an on-again, off-again relationship, the report also noted areas of progress and improvement on the part of the mother, including in her relationship with her son. It recommended that the child should not be placed in foster care permanently at that point, and that the status would be reviewed again in six months. The court agreed, Britton noted.
Britton, who disputed some of the CPS report’s statements about her and said she felt “helpless in this whole situation, because no matter what I did, I didn’t have any power over (CPS),” said that she was not allowed to see her son for the first month after he was removed from her home, and that he had never had health problems until he went into foster care.
“When he was first taken away, he had a seizure,” she said. “When he was with me he never had any seizures … he developed an infection in the first home and I was arrested at EA because I tried to run out of the office with him. I was upset because I thought there was something wrong with him.”
A Yreka Police Department Incident Detail Report dated Jan. 20, 2009, shows that Craig’s maternal grandfather, Bill Britton, was also concerned.
“Earlier in the day, (Britton) received a call from his daughter … who is Craig’s mother,” the report stated. “Lorrianne (sic) was frantic and said that she called CPS about her son. She was informed by CPS that on the evening of 1/19/09, Craig had a high fever and had a seizure. Britton then said that approximately 3 weeks prior, (his daughter) had told him that Craig had bruising on his face and possible sores around his mouth.”
The YPD report stated that an investigation revealed there had been no lack of care on the part of the foster family nor CPS. However, a month later the boy was moved to Stewart’s Lake Shastina home, where he remained “for five months and six days,” Stewart reported. On Aug. 3, she said an Environmental Alternatives van pulled up and the driver said she was picking up Craig for a visitation with his father. Stewart said she was deliberately misled.
“The day they picked him up, he was lying on the floor and crying, and I didn’t know why, but he must have sensed something,” she continued. “I was told by phone later that day that he was being placed in another home,” and that she could bring his belongings to the agency to be delivered there.
Stewart said she was given conflicting reasons for the new placement.
“I got several different reasons and none of them made any sense,” she said. “The first was that the mother and father didn’t want him with me.”
“Can I say something?” Britton interjected. “When did CPS ever care what the mother or father wanted?”
The foster mother said the second reason she was given was that there was a “seven-day-out” clause, but that she understood that was more for the foster parent, who could contact the agency to request that a child be placed elsewhere within seven days.
She said that she was then led to believe that she had become too close to the child. Her neighbor Francesca Ford agreed.
“CPS doesn’t want to lose control,” she said. “Ten months ago I would have been afraid to say that, but I’m not anymore. I believe it was because (Stewart) was trying to reunite the family. She fought very hard. I think because Diane loved that boy so much, they wanted to take him away … he had a smile on his face every day at Diane’s.”
Britton also stated that she was asked if she would like to get a restraining order against Stewart.
“Why would I want to get a restraining order on her?” the birth mother asked. “I didn’t want him in foster care at all, but I loved Diane, and I thank her for taking care of Craig while she did.” The two met at one of the toddler’s doctor’s appointments.
Stewart speculated that he was taken from her when he was due to timing.
“After six months, the foster parent has more rights. If (Loriann) wasn’t able to get him back then, I could have the option to keep him.”
Craig Britton was placed in a third foster mother’s care on Aug. 3. The woman, reportedly in her 70s, had two other foster children in her care; Craig shared a room with one of them.
“I didn’t have any concerns about the woman,” Britton said. “She seemed nice to me. But I have unanswered questions, just like everyone else. I’m just confused. I’m not accusing her of doing anything to my son, but it seems very suspicious to me. I understand that people pass away, right? But he was left alone for 11 hours and she didn’t check on him.”
Questioned on this, Britton said she spoke to the foster mother after her son’s death.
“She told me she put Craig to bed at about 9 p.m., and that she woke up at 5:30 a.m. and started reading her Bible scriptures, then started cooking breakfast. She found him at 7:45 a.m.”
Britton also reported that the toxicologist who examined her son after his death told her that his stomach was empty except for some plant material.
“They did find about 12 plant leaves in his stomach, and as of right now, we don’t know if they were poisonous, since we don’t know what they are yet.”
She also doesn’t rule out another seizure as the cause of death; he had had a minor seizure while in Stewart’s care as well as the one he suffered in his first foster home. But she faults the third foster mother for not checking on a 2-year-old for 11 hours.
“What kind of mother would do that? If it had been a seizure and she had checked on him, maybe he would still be alive,” she said.
Britton displayed photographs of her son taken in his coffin at the Sept. 10 funeral. More than half of his face was mottled and discolored, a deep purple in the pictures. She said that the discoloration reached from head to toe.
By the date of the funeral, the former foster mother had placed an ad on Craig’s List, offering a free desk that had to be picked up by Sept. 10. Ford said the house where the toddler died is now empty. The Lake Shastina Police Department confirmed Wednesday that the woman, whose other two foster children were removed immediately pending investigation, had moved to Mount Shasta.
“He should never have been taken away (from me) until the family was ready to take him back,” Stewart said. “This home was his security in the meantime. How frightened he must have been. In my opinion, I could not understand that the agency could not be happy that I loved this little guy. I knew they were happy that he was happy.”
CPS’ hands are tied regarding a response to this issue and all issues regarding foster care, due to strict confidentiality regulations.
“We are restricted due to confidentiality to disclose even if a child is in foster care, but I can say that we have not received any information that there has been any neglect in that particular case,” Siskiyou County Human Services Director Michael Noda said Wednesday evening. Child Protective Services is a part of SCHSD.
Wilkinson said because of the confidentiality regulations and the ongoing investigation, his comments “... lack the type of total public disclosure” he prefers. “However,” he said, “Environmental Alternatives has disclosed all information to the appropriate parties, is working cooperatively with them, and to the extent information can be made public, it undoubtedly will.”
He added in his statement that as the executive director of EA, he conducted his own investigation of the matter.
“At this time, I have not found any action by agency staff of the child’s foster parents to suggest they contributed to the death. In addition, there is no indication that any law enforcement or regulatory agency has found fault with our actions.
“We are aware of various publicized allegations made by a disgruntled ex-foster parent,” Wilkinson continued. “Among the allegations is the child ‘died of a broken heart’ and that there was no reason to remove the child from their care. At this point, the law prohibits me from verifying that any child was in their care. Nevertheless, evidence indicates that every action taken by the faster family agency was reasonable, prudent and approved by all legally involved agencies. Foster children cannot be moved about, their lives disrupted, without justification and the authorization and approval of court appointed representatives.”
Susan Gravenkamp, a spokesperson from the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that there was an open investigation in the case, and that plant material had been found in Craig’s stomach. The “green leaves” have been sent to a botanist to find out exactly what they were,  she stated.
An autopsy was inconclusive, Gravenkamp said. Results of toxicology tests take four to six weeks to be returned, and at this point, the cause of death is unknown, she said.
“At this time, we do not know the cause of death and therefore cannot know what may have contributed to the death,” Wilkinson said in his statement. “Until further details are released, we suggest people not point accusatory fingers prematurely.”
When Britton, Stewart and Ford were asked what they would like to see come of this, Ford replied, “That it absolutely doesn’t happen to another child in Siskiyou County or anywhere.”
“We need to have justice for little Craig Britton,” Stewart added.
“I’m so angry right now,” Britton said. “I just want my son back.”