philly social workers starve 14yr-old child to death

from philadelphia inquirer: Two Philadelphia social workers were among nine charged yesterday in the death of a Danieal Kelly, a 14-year-old girl who starved to death in 2006, her body eaten by bed sores to the bone.

Unveiling a blistering grand jury report today (1.5mb PDF), District Attorney Lynne Abraham blasted the city's Department of Human Services as an indifferent and callous agency that had let Kelly die needlessly.

Drawing gasps at a news conference in which she showed a photograph of Kelly's bloody, emaciated corpse, Abraham urged the state to take over DHS - a call that was not embraced by state officials.

At a later news conference, agency director Anne Marie Ambrose broke down crying at the podium when asked if she had seen the photo in which the dead child was hardly recognizable as human.

The grand jury's stark and emotionally wrenching report, Abraham said, should "outrage the whole Philadelphia community."