Holly Vargas joined me in this very important special report.
Holly is married with children and living a happy life in California.
Last August, her cousin, Joan Lee, visited with three kids from Missouri.
Holly and Joan have known each other nearly their entire lives.
“I call her Joanie Macaroni,” she told me.
Nothing prepared her for what she was about to witness.
She saw her cousin hit, scratch, and verbally abuse the children.
The three-year-old boy was referred to as a “womanizer.”
Don’t hold him, she was told, “he’ll touch your boobs,” her cousin said.
The fourteen-month-old had not been fed solid foods, because, as Joan said, this would make a mess in the diapers.
Finally, she found a moment to be alone and called the Jasper County, Missouri social services child abuse hotline.
Joan got a call from the caseworker, Jesse Davidson, sometime thereafter.
I reached out to Mr. Davidson, but he did not respond.
The Missouri Department of Social Services provided this response.
The Department of Social Services (DSS) cannot comment on specific information about foster and adoptive families as it is closed and confidential pursuant to Section 610.021.24, RSMo.
DSS would become involved if a concern was reported to the Missouri Child Abuse and Neglect Hotline. If the allegations meet the criteria to be accepted as a report under 210.110 RSMo., the Children’s Division would conduct an investigation to determine whether or not the discipline met the elements of abuse. It's also important to note that allegations of maltreatment do not automatically equate to substantiations of maltreatment which may preclude a person from licensure. In regards to foster and adoptive requirements, both foster and adoptive parents must meet state and federal regulations for consideration of licensure (See Section 6 of the Child Welfare Manual.)
This process was triggered. Joan got a call from an investigator, but the investigation, which started while Joan was still in California, was skin deep, Holly told me.
It amounted to a Zoom call; Joan, Holly remembered, covered up the three-year old’s bruises before the call.
An investigator came to the house, but it was not for another five days.
Holly remembers Joan calling her husband, Zach Lee. He cleaned the house before the investigator arrived.
I reached Joan and Zach by phone, but they declined to comment on the record.
Holly wasn’t done. She called and emailed everyone she could: the caseworker, the guardian ad litem, and even the head of the Missouri Department of Social Services Children’s Division, Darrell Missey.
Here is part of an email she sent to Tricia Gould: the guardian ad litem on the case.
They say the three-year-old is a womanizer they don’t allow him in their room he’s not allowed to hang out with them in the living room after 7 PM for family time he’s only allowed to have water and what he served.
If he doesn’t eat all his food from dinner he’s forced to eat it the next day even if it sat out all night long he hast to eat that first before he’s allowed to have the next serving so for example if the hotdog is shriveled and dry he’s made to eat it.
They tell other adults don’t pick him up he’s a ‘weirdo’ ‘he doesn’t know how to respect a woman’s personal space’ and ‘he touches women inappropriately’ HE IS 3!
Trent B was the investigator and he seems more concerned about making nice with Jesse than he did ACTUALLY investigate.
He never interviewed the bio kids that have eyewitness these things or the one that they beat and treated like this for 12 years even though he even called and left a message
I reached out to Ms. Gould by email but received no response.
No action was taken; instead, she was called “obnoxious” by staff.
Holly wasn’t done. Joan’s biological daughter reached out to her.
She told her that she knew that Holly had called into the hotline, and she agreed, because she had also witnessed the abuse.
In this recording, she describes to Holly how Joan makes the three-year-old vomit.
Holly told me that she also learned from Joan’s daughter that Joan and Zach would lock the three-year-old in a room for hours at a time.
I reached out to Joan’s daughter, but she did not respond to a voicemail.
She wasn’t the only to witness this vomiting. The three children’s biological mother also witnessed this.
Her name is Jessica Ford and she interviewed with me. At approximately twenty-two minutes she describes a similar incident where Joan sticks her fingers down her three-year-old son’s mouth.
Jessica told me that prior to witnessing this incident she had a good thing going with Joan.
While Joan had technically adopted all three children, in reality, Jessica was primarily raising two of them, while Joan raised one child.
Upon witnessing this incident, Jessica set out to expose the abuse, but Joan, Jessica told me, beat her to it.
Joan called Mr. Davidson and told him that she witnessed Jessica stealing and was no longer comfortable having visits at her home.
By the time Jessica disclosed the abuse, Davidson believed she was just trying to get back at Joan for cutting her off.
“He says, ‘what makes you think I should believe any of this,” Jessica told me recounting what Davidson told her, “They felt I was just mad and revenge. I was just mad, and I was just making up these lies.”
Jessica continued, “They didn’t believe me, and right then and there, I started crying, I said, “are you fucking serious right now? I’m telling you my baby is being abused. He’s not in a good place.”
Jessica told me she lost her kids due to struggles with drugs.
She was clean, but she relapsed after this meeting.
Still others have also witnessed the abuse. Holly told me that Zach’s mom and a bus driver also called in abuse complaints.
I couldn’t reach Zach’s mom.
Finally, Zach’s biological son also reported abuse.
I spoke with him and his mother; he described an incident where he was hit with a guitar and also being forced to stay in his room for hours at a time.
The Missouri Department of Social Services (DSS) has a long history of abuse.
I previously wrote about a lawsuit by a whistleblower.
In 2021, it was revealed that Missouri DSS lost almost one thousand children.
A federal report shows that more than 975 kids in Missouri’s foster care system have vanished at some point. Just days after the report was released, lawmakers stressed their frustration with the state’s agency for the lack of protection and policies during a House Families and Children Committee.
The acting director for the Department of Social Services (DSS) said as of Tuesday morning, there are 95 kids in the state’s case management system that were on the run. The United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) released a report Thursday that showed Missouri has previously failed to comply with federal requirements that could have found missing children.
There are more than 13,000 kids in Missouri’s foster care system, better known as the Children’s Division under DSS. After hundreds went missing in August 2019, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (IOG) joined other law enforcement agencies to find them, which led to an audit of the state’s agency.
At a hearing to discuss these lost kids, several lawmakers slammed the agency.
“What I heard was a department that has left the hearing early, who didn’t have answers to the questions that we were asking, and I’m really disappointed…” Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, an Arnold Republican and chair of the committee, said in reference to DSS officials leaving before the hearing had finished. “There are people who are sitting on this dais who are furious.”
“Kids are getting made prostitutes. And I don’t like it,” Rep. Dottie Bailey, R-Eureka said. “I don’t know where we go from here.”
Things have only gotten worse, and Holly believes something really bad will happen to these three kids unless someone steps in to protect them soon.
Update
While Joan and Zach refused to speak on the record before publication, Joan did comment on a Facebook post about this case. I captured part of her statement, though she eventually removed it before I could get the entire statement. What I captured is below.
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