WARREN Mother: agency wouldn't help

The defendant's son told her in court to 'quit crying and tell the truth.'
By PEGGY SINKOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- The mother of a dead 3-year-old girl says she repeatedly asked a caseworker to visit her daughter and her two other children, but her requests were denied.
Clutching her daughter's baby doll, Angel Diggs, 29, said she had told her Trumbull County Children Services caseworker that she heard her child's caregiver was abusing the girl.
"She wouldn't do anything," Diggs said about her caseworker. "I hadn't been able to see my daughter since Easter. Every time I'd go to the house, no one would answer the door. I asked my caseworker to visit, but she didn't.
"If she would have, she would have saw what was going on and that my daughter only weighed 23 pounds."
Bob Kubiak, director of Trumbull County Children Services, says he cannot respond to Diggs' allegations.
"We are working with the county prosecutor's office and police, so we can't comment on the case at this time," Kubiak said. "It's a very sad, terrible, situation."
Ruled a homicide
The Cuyahoga County Coroner's Office ruled Wednesday that Auntavia Atkins' death was a homicide.
The coroner, Dr. Elizabeth Balraj, said the girl died of a head injury. She said the child also had a burn mark on her body.
According to reports the family obtained from Trumbull County Family Court, Auntavia had retinal hemorrhaging, chronic rectal bleeding, malnutrition, missing hair and burn marks on her body.
The caregiver, Ethel Wilbert-Bethea, 40, of North Bank Street, Cortland, pleaded innocent Wednesday to one charge of child endangering. That charge stems from a burn mark on the child's hand, police said.
She is being held in the county jail on $1 million bond. Prosecutors said additional charges are pending.
As Bethea cried in court, her son, Keyon Wilbert, repeatedly told his mother, "quit crying and tell the truth."
Wilbert declined to talk to reporters.
"Keyon told me that his mother was abusing the children," said Diggs' sister, Carla Diggs. "Children Services was told."
It was the family, however, not children services, that placed the child in Bethea's custody, CSB officials said.
"We knew her for over seven years, and she was a certified day-care provider for Trumbull County Job and Family Services," Bernita Diggs, Angel Diggs' mother, said of Bethea. "How could she do this?"
Police called
Police were called to Bethea's home about 10:30 a.m. Friday. Officials found Auntavia in serious condition and took her to a local hospital. From there she was taken to Cleveland Metro Health Center.
"She couldn't talk," said Angel Diggs. "She opened her eyes once to look at her Uncle Carl."
Carl Diggs, a graduate of Warren Harding High School, is a standout football player at the University of Michigan and captain of the defense.
Angel Diggs said placing her three children in temporary custody was one of the toughest things she ever did but she felt it was in their best interest.
The reason
"I had to work on getting a full-time job and getting a place to live," Diggs said, noting her children were placed in the home about a year ago. "I've done that, and now this has happened."
Her other two children are now in the custody of CSB.
"I want to get my children soon, and I have another hearing in October," Angel said. "How can I trust anybody now that this has happened?
She noted her other daughter, Anyla, has a black eye and a bruised lip.
"She said she got it by running into a wall, but I think she was coached as to what to say," Diggs said.
sinkovich@vindy.com