Michigan lawmakers review child deaths after interactions with the state’s child welfare system

There were years of signs of abuse and extreme neglect in the life of 3-year-old Chayce Allen, Detroit attorney Jonathan Marko told lawmakers on a committee reviewing Michigan’s child welfare system Tuesday. But ultimately Allen’s story ended in tragedy, after Marko said Child Protective Services, or CPS, failed to act on multiple occasions.

“The warning bells had been going off for years, and nothing was done,” Marko told lawmakers, saying that when Allen was 2 months old, CPS was aware he had been beaten, sustaining a black eye and abrasions to his genitalia, and was living in a home with no beds.

“It was rat infested. The rats had actually eaten through the pack and play that him and his siblings had been left in and [the rats had] eaten holes in the pack and play,” Marko said.

In this instance, Allen and his siblings were removed from the home, but were later placed back with their mother, Marko said, adding that two months later Allen was found with burns on his hands when CPS came to the home again.

Marko is one of the attorneys working on a lawsuit filed a month ago against employees of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Children’s Protective Services Division. It outlines the multiple interactions Allen had with CPS, with evidence reflecting that Allen was rendered blind and suffered from frequent vomiting due to frequent physical abuse.

“Defendants were entrusted with the duty of protecting this vulnerable child from harm and neglect and had the chance to intervene and diligently respond to the severity of the situation and the horrific nature of the allegations,” the lawsuit reads. “However, each time, Defendants left Chayce with or returned him soon after to his abusive mother.”

Residents of Michigan began to learn of the horrors Allen faced when law enforcement and other authorities discovered Allen’s body in a freezer during a wellness check in June of 2022. Law enforcement determined Allen had been dead for months and his mother, Azuradee France, 33, was sent to prison for second-degree murder.

The system needs to be fixed, Marko told lawmakers Tuesday.

“It’s hurting the people of the state of Michigan and for many there’s no justice… and the problem is that a lot of times, the state or the individuals who we entrust to protect these children don’t act and a lot of time they don’t do anything until it’s too late,” Marko said.

The state House Child Welfare System Committee has been looking into the state health department, where Child Protective Services is housed, for weeks, evaluating current policies within the department and hearing testimony from stakeholders. For the past two weeks, Members of the Office of the Auditor General have outlined areas of concern the office found in an audit in 2018 that it says persisted in a follow up evaluation in 2024, including what the office asserts are delays in CPS opening investigations that could lead to children being left in dangerous situations.

Even with Allen’s mother serving her sentence for her crimes, justice has not been served while the systems that were of the abuse and allowed it to continue go unchecked, chair of the committee Rep. Luke Meerman (R-Coopersville) said.

“Life is sacred and any life lost is a tragedy. When life is lost after CPS has become involved in a child’s care, it’s a blight on the state and the system responsible for that child’s care,” Meerman said.

It’s heartbreaking to see vulnerable adults and children continue to suffer after CPS or Adult Protective Services doesn’t intervene, Monroe County Sheriff Troy Goodnough told lawmakers.

Goodnough recalled details of the conditions two children in his jurisdiction have been living in since 2023, in which the family was found living in a tent during the winter both in 2023 and 2024, while the kids were covered in lice and hadn’t been to school in more than a year.

“I had two grown command officers come into my office saying we’ve got to do something, we’ve got to do something. They’ve not eaten. They’ve not bathed,” Goodnough said.

Despite multiple attempts to connect the family to CPS, Goodnough said his department has not heard from CPS on the case and has relied on a local church’s services to offer help to the family. It’s not sustainable for welfare services to ignore need in the state, Goodnough said, and something needs to change.