CHILD SLIPS THROUGH GRASP OF COUNTY'S ABUSE AGENCY.

Byline: Susan Goldsmith Daily News Staff Writer

Devynn Lancaster didn't plead for help. He couldn't.

The toddler was only learning to talk when he was struck in the abdomen and killed last summer. The blow ruptured his organs and he died from internal bleeding, according to the Los Angeles County coroner.

Only 18 months old when he died, Devynn was one of eight children who were fatally abused last year despite the active supervision of county social workers, according to a confidential county report obtained by the Daily News.

Devynn's father, Daron Travelle Swilley, 24, has been charged with his murder. He has pleaded not guilty, and a preliminary hearing is scheduled for Thursday.

``The system failed Devynn,'' said Gloria Lancaster, the boy's maternal grandmother.

``Somebody should have taken more interest in this little boy. It appears as if he was just a piece of paper (in a case file) being thrown around,'' Lancaster said.

Devynn's mother, Terri Lancaster, a nursing student, declined comment, citing the pending murder case against the boy's father.

The child's grandmother said she spends a lot of time ``thinking about what I should have done differently.''

``I knew something wasn't right,'' she said. ``But I didn't push it too hard because I thought the system was looking after him.''

There was plenty of reason during Devynn's short life for county officials to suspect that the child might be in danger, records show.

When he was 7 months old, he was hospitalized with a fractured leg and head trauma that doctors suspected were the result of child abuse, according to the confidential county report.

The boy's father, who claimed the injuries were the result of an accident, was charged by police but ``he was not convicted because the mother, the only witness, refused to testify,'' the county report states.

Devynn was placed in foster care for a month, then was sent to live with his grandmother.

But Juvenile Court Commissioner Bradley Stoutt ordered the boy returned to his home in Hawthorne even though a county social worker warned it was not safe, according to department records filed with the Civil Service Commission.

Stoutt declined comment last week, citing confidentiality laws.

``The court released Devynn to his mother,'' the county report states.

``Although the father was not supposed to have been residing in the home,'' the report adds, social workers were concerned because the father ``might still have easy access.''

Back home, Devynn was supposed to have been monitored by a social worker every four weeks.

Yet no social worker ever visited after he was sent home, county records show.

The social worker assigned to his case went on leave - and a supervisor failed to turn over the case file to another social worker, the records show.

That supervisor, Beryl Varner, was fired. Varner has appealed to the Civil Service Commission, disputing some details of the case and saying the termination is unfair in light of broader problems with the child protective services system.

``I bear some responsibility for this child's death, but not all of it,'' said Varner, who worked for the department for 17 years before she was fired.

``Don't forget a juvenile dependency court commissioner released this child to his parents even though the social worker warned against it,'' Varner said.

``The whole system failed this kid,'' she said. ``Every check and balance failed him. If I was screwing up, other people should have caught it.''

Peter Digre, director of the county's Department of Children and Family Services, told the county's Civil Service Commission in a letter that Varner was fired for ``gross negligence'' that resulted in ``the subsequent death of child.''

According to Civil Service Commission records, the social worker assigned Devynn's case went on medical leave Feb. 17, 1995. Varner, as unit supervisor, was given all of the social worker's 52 cases to reassign.

In the ensuing weeks, most of the cases were distributed to social workers - but somehow, Devynn's file was never properly reassigned, according to Digre's letter to the commission.

Because Varner could not find Devynn's file, she turned over his case to a social worker without ever turning over the actual file - a violation of county procedure, Digre wrote.

Then, Varner left town on a family emergency. When she returned she found the first social worker's files had been packed and left in boxes around the office.

Varner, however, did not unpack the boxes before being forced to leave town a second time in August for another family emergency, Digre wrote. Throughout those months, Devynn never was visited by a social worker.

In mid-August, Varner returned, unpacked the boxes, and found portions of Devynn's case file, Digre wrote.

Varner's attorney, Patrick Thistle, said she was unfairly being blamed for a child protective system that is plagued with problems.

``This was a disaster waiting to happen, and to pin it on Beryl Varner is a sin,'' Thistle said. ``To single her out for administrative death penalty is unconscionable.''

According to Thistle, his client ``reassigned the case to another social worker but the physical file had been misplaced'' - and that by so doing Varner had met her obligation.

The department disputes that, saying it is a violation of county policy to reassign a case if it is not in hand.

``This practice is totally unacceptable,'' Digre wrote. ``You could not have reasonably expected the case to receive service if you did not even know where it was.''

Thistle also says Varner was overworked and overburdened with an enormous caseload at the time of Devynn's death.

She was in charge of seven social workers - all of whom had 30 to 52 cases each - and had to reassign the one worker's 52 cases when the social worker went on leave. She also was co-supervising another emergency response unit, because that supervisor was on jury duty for several months.

Tim Farrell, a Department of Children and Family Services social worker for the past 11 years, says Varner is being made a scapegoat.

``It's easier to finger a person than to look at the whole system,'' he said.

The confidential report detailing Devynn Lancaster's death - and the deaths of 11 other children who were fatally abused last year after warnings to county officials that the children might be in danger - was provided to the county Board of Supervisors on Feb. 29.

The supervisors have responsibility for oversight and funding of the county's child protective services system - which has about 65,000 children under its protective umbrella.

There are about 2,300 social workers in the system - all handling 40 to 50 cases each, according to Schuyler Sprowles, a spokesman for the county's Department of Children and Family Services.

Dr. Astrid Heger, the director of the County/USC Center for the Vulnerable Child and a member of the county's Child Death Review Team, said there are problems with the social safety net protecting abused children in Los Angeles.

``The bottom line is the safety net needs to be drawn tighter,'' said Heger.

She declined to discuss specifics of the Devynn Lancaster case because of confidentiality laws, but said: ``The system failed this child.''

``We need to never let something like this happen again,'' Heger said.

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Photo

Photo: Gloria Lancaster holds a photo of her grandson Devyn n, whom she says the county failed to protect.

Phil McCarten/Daily News