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Between October 2004 and December 2005, New York City's child welfare hotline received at least eight separate reports about one Brooklyn family. On January 11, 2006, seven-year-old Nixzmary Brown died weighing just 36 pounds, having been beaten, starved, and confined to a room in her family's apartment. This episode traces the full case file: the fourteen months of missed warning signs, the trial and conviction of her mother Nixzaliz Santiago and stepfather Cesar Rodriguez, the sweeping reforms that followed inside New York City's child protection agency, and the sobering five-years-later coda of Marchella Brett-Pierce, a second child who died on the same agency's watch. Along the way, the episode draws research comparisons to Baby P, Zymere Perkins, Adrian Jones, Star Hobson, and Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, and closes with hard questions for anyone currently working in the field.

Runtime: 74 minutes

Content warning: This episode contains detailed descriptions of child abuse, starvation, and death. Listener discretion advised.

Sources referenced: NBC News; Wikipedia; New York City Department of Investigation case review; Youth Law Center / New York Times reporting on ACS reforms; Schnitzer & Ewigman, Pediatrics (2005) study on child fatality risk factors; Child Welfare League of America caseload standards; NYC Independent Budget Office review of post-2006 ACS reforms.