Chris's Crime Forum

I feel the need to know everything there is to know about Nixzmary Brown's short and tragic life.I also want to make sure no one ever forgets what these parents did to her.I know her mother is not charged with her murder,but being a mother myself the minute any man laid his hand on my child,well it would be one of the last things he ever did.Where were her mother instincts,why wasn't she in protection mode,and how could she let this happen to her own flesh and blood.I also want to know why the system failed her.The following are the original news stories which broke this case wide open and enraged thousands of people.Grab a tissue because if you are a caring person the details will make you cry.

Bound, beaten, starved, killed: Stepdad & mom face murder rap in death of girl, 7

Friday, January 25th 2008, 2:55 AM

Originally published on Jan. 12, 2006

Nixzmary Brown's tragic life of unimaginable physical and emotional agony ended at 4:30 a.m. yesterday when the 7-year-old's battered body was found in her Brooklyn "house of horrors."

The second-grader had been bound to a chair, tortured, sexually molested and starved for weeks before being killed by a savage blow to the head - even after child welfare authorities dismissed charges of abuse.

In what cops are calling the worst child abuse case in a decade, Nixzmary was beaten with a belt without mercy because her stepfather believed she was "wild," police sources said yesterday.

Trapped inside a makeshift, barren bedroom, Nixzmary missed weeks of school - and was forced to use a cat's litter box as her bathroom, sources said.

No one - not the city Administration for Children's Services, not her mother, not her public school, not her neighbors - did enough to save her.

Her stepfather, Cesar Rodriguez, 27, an Army veteran with a past assault arrest, and her mother, Nixzaliz Santiago, 27, were both charged with second-degree murder. Based on his own admissions and statements from other children in the family, Rodriguez also was charged with sexual abuse.

It was 4:30 a.m. when Santiago - who has five other apparently unscathed children - found the girl's corpse lying faceup on the bedroom floor in their Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment, authorities said.

When medical technicians examined Nixzmary's small body, they found fresh and old bruises, ligature marks around her ankles and wrists where she had been bound and a fresh wound to her head, authorities said.

She stood 45 inches but weighed only 36 pounds - less than what a 4-year-old should weigh.

The medical examiner determined Nixzmary died of head wounds and the accumulated injuries of years of beatings.

Last night, investigators carried a small wooden and metal chair from Nixzmary's second-floor apartment. White twine - apparently used to bind the girl - dangled from the chair.

One cop called Nixzmary's apartment on Greene Ave. a "house of horrors."

Not since 6-year-old Elisa Izquierdo was held prisoner, sexually abused, starved and beaten to death by her mother has the city seen a case so disturbing.

Elisa's death on the lower East Side in November 1995 became a symbol of the failures of the city's child welfare agency - triggering a revamp of the system.

Mayor Bloomberg yesterday called Nixzmary's death a "great tragedy." He vowed to launch an investigation into her slaying and to review all open child abuse cases throughout the city.

But Bloomberg defended the ACS.

"A 7-year-old is dead," he said. "ACS was called. . . . They tried to do an investigation, obviously not fast enough. . . . Overall, ACS does a very good job."

As the city's sweeping probe began, the medical examiner also was investigating the death of a second Brooklyn child, 2-month-old Michael Segarra, who was found dead in his Howard Ave. home. His family had been monitored by the city.

ACS officials first investigated Nixzmary's family last May, after her school, Public School 256, said she had been missing for weeks, sources said.

But child welfare workers dismissed the abuse charges and closed the case. A source said investigators believed Santiago's explanation that she had been ill because of pregnancy and had a hard time getting her children to school.

Nixzmary, a slight girl who loved math and playing tag, started missing school again in November, showing up to class just two days that month, sources said.

Her unexplained truancy and bruises on her head led school officials to notify the ACS again, sources said. A second official case file was opened Dec. 1.

But sources said investigators took no action to safeguard Nixzmary or her siblings. The agency has 60 days to investigate a complaint.

Her sister and four brothers, ages 6 months to 9, were all placed in protective custody yesterday. There was no initial evidence they had been beaten.

When detectives at the 79th Precinct stationhouse grilled the stepfather, he told cops the girl was "wild" and "tormented" her siblings, pulling their hair and throwing food on the floor, sources said.

To punish her, he locked her inside a bedroom or tied her to a chair or other piece of furniture - often at night, sources said.

"It wasn't his kid, so he thought she was disrespectful, wild," a source said. "So he'd beat her and wouldn't feed her, locked her up in a bedroom, but he left the other kids alone."

Rodriguez has two children with Santiago, his wife, sources said. He was laid off from his job as a security guard Dec. 22, they said. Investigators believe Santiago participated in the beatings, sources said.

A teenage boy who lives in the building said Nixzmary's mom ran to his family's apartment for help after she found her daughter early yesterday. "She said [Nixzmary] was dying. When they got downstairs, [Nixzmary] was mad cold," said the teen, giving his name only as Adam.

The teen said he had seen signs in the past that the girl had been abused. "She had a black eye and a busted chin," he said. "Her chin was bleeding."

Yet, apparently, few or no attempts were made to save her.

Just a month ago, ACS Commissioner John Mattingly had pledged to review his agency's practices after two kids being monitored died. He found himself pledging to do the same thing yesterday. "I am deeply disturbed by the death of Nixzmary Brown early this morning," he said in a statement.

Nixzmary's classmates and their parents described her as a quiet girl who loved to draw and write stories about friends. She was learning English and tended to stick close to her mom.

"My heart goes out to that little girl," said William Peace, 43, whose nephew was Nixzmary's classmate. "This is what happens when ACS lets them fall through the holes."
Santiago doubled over to hide her face from reporters and photographers as she was led from the police station to go to Central Booking about 12:30 a.m. today. Her husband
also hid his face an hour later. Neither said anything.

Outside her apartment building, neighbors put up a shrine of teddy bears and candles to Nixzmary. A cop brought down a rose-scented candle inscribed with a verse from the family's apartment. It said in part, "Because I love you, everything's more beautiful."

HOW COULD NO ONE NOTICE THIS HAPPENING?

May 2005:
Officials at Public School 256 notify the city Administration for Children's Services after Nixzmary Brown has been absent for several days.
ACS opens an investigation but cannot find any evidence of abuse. The mother tells investigators she was sick because she was pregnant and had been having trouble getting her six kids to school.

Dec. 1:
ACS opens a second abuse investigation after PS 256 reports Nixzmary has a bruise on her forehead and had missed weeks of school. ACS has 60 days to investigate the case.

Late December/Early January:
Neighbors noticed signs of abuse, seeing the girl with a black eye and a bloody chin.

Yesterday:
Nixzmary is found dead inside her makeshift bedroom.
The medical examiner determines she died of a head wounds and the cumulative impact of beatings over an extended period.

Originally published on Jan. 12, 2006

LINK

Please save me! Girl begged kin

But grandma couldn't afford to take her from B'klyn hell

Friday, January 25th 2008, 2:56 AM

Originally published Jan. 13, 2006

"Don't leave me here! Take me with you!"

That was the heartbreaking Christmas plea of Nixzmary Brown, who begged her grandmother to rescue her from her Brooklyn torture chamber.

Grandmother Maria Gonzalez, 53, told the Daily News yesterday how the bruised and battered 7-year-old begged to go back to Puerto Rico with her after a holiday visit.

"The little girl always wanted to be with me wherever I went," Gonzalez said. "If they would have allowed me to take her . . ."

But Gonzalez couldn't afford another plane ticket - and couldn't get the necessary paperwork in time to take the girl when she returned home Dec. 30, relatives said.

"Poor little girl, poor little girl. Why? Why? Why?" the grandmother wept last night over a makeshift memorial in front of the Bedford-Stuyvesant home where Nixzmary was killed.

Gonzalez returned to New York yesterday to identify the bruise-covered, 36-pound body of Nixzmary, who was found dead early Wednesday morning after months of vicious abuse - allegedly at the hands of her stepfather, Cesar Rodriguez, 27.

"Anything that went wrong, he blamed the child and beat her," a police source said. "He beat her, beat her like he'd beat a man."

Authorities pressed murder and sex abuse charges against Rodriguez, who, in the last hours of Nixzmary's life, allegedly whipped her with a belt, held her underwater and smashed her head in the bathtub.

Her mother dried her off and put pajama bottoms on Nixzmary, who authorities said was left to die in a nearby bedroom in the family's Greene Ave. flat.

Nixzaliz Santiago, 27, who allegedly did nothing as her daughter cried, "Mommy! Mommy!" during her final two hours, was hit with manslaughter and reckless endangerment raps.

"She died at the hands of two people she called Mommy and Daddy," said prosecutor Ama Dwimoh.

Rodriguez and Santiago allegedly tortured the girl for much of the last year - tying her to a chair, forcing her to use a catlitter box as a toilet and beating her regularly. They even strung a rope between the girl's doorknob and another door to keep her from getting out, sources said.

Santiago admitted giving the girl two black eyes, sources said.

Rodriguez told cops he had to discipline the girl after she allegedly took $100 from his wallet - and described how he whipped the underweight child when she dared to eat his yogurt, officials said. He also confessed to sexually abusing her, sources said.

In addition to fresh and old bruises, Nixzmary had a deep rope burn to her ankle from being tied up and locked in a dank room. The girl was singled out for abuse, with the the five other children in the household unharmed, sources said.

Horrified cops found blood on the apartment's bedroom walls - as well as a jar holding what they believe is a fetus from a recent abortion Santiago had.

Mayor Bloomberg and city Administration for Children's Services Commissioner John Mattingly admitted yesterday New York had failed Nixzmary - and promised a full review.

"They did not pursue this case with the intensity that they should have," Bloomberg said. "Had they pushed harder, perhaps they could have - although we'll never know -
prevented this from happening."

Staff at her school, Public School 256, tried to get help from ACS, but the agency closed a May case without action.

When ACS received another report Dec. 1, the girl and her parents told caseworkers that her swollen eye was caused by a fall.

The caseworkers talked to a doctor at a city hospital who said the eye injury was consistent with that story, Mattingly said - but after that day, Rodriguez blocked them from interviewing the family again.

ACS considered getting a Family Court warrant so cops could help the caseworkers get into the apartment - but for some reason ACS didn't, Mattingly said.

"That was our key opportunity," he said. "People made judgments about whether it was an emergency or not - and those judgments turned out to be wrong."

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Desperate effort in vain: School worker begged ACS to save abused girl

Originally published on Jan. 13, 2006

A social worker at Nixzmary Brown's school was so disturbed by the 7-year-old's injuries she relentlessly pleaded with child welfare workers to save the girl from her abusive parents, the Daily News has learned.

Not only did Margarita Cotto report her suspicions to the city Administration for Children's Services last month, she made a dozen followup calls to the agency - and even went to the child's home, sources said.

But Nixzmary's stepfather - the man charged with torturing, molesting and starving the girl before beating her to death - refused to let Cotto inside.

"They would not let her in," said a source close to the Public School 256 staffer. "She tried to push her way in but [the stepfather] closed the door on her."

Cotto, who used to work for ACS' precursor, wasn't the only official at the Brooklyn school worried about the second-grader.

A guidance counselor filed two abuse reports last spring, alerting child welfare authorities that Nixzmary was bruised, underweight and frequently absent, officials said.

Despite those warnings, ACS caseworkers failed to remove the battered girl from the Bedford-Stuyvesant torture chamber where she was found dead at 4:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Her stepfather, Cesar Rodriguez, 27, was charged with second-degree murder and sexual abuse. Her mother, Nixzaliz Santiago, 27, who allegedly ignored the ghastly abuse, was charged with manslaughter and reckless endangerment.

"The school really tried to save her life," said Jerry Jones, 33, a parent volunteer at PS 256 who has two sons in Nixzmary's class.

"ACS dropped the ball - and by dropping the ball, that little girl is not here."

Even as he conceded ACS was not aggressive enough in protecting Nixzmary, Mayor Bloomberg said the "school clearly did what they should have done."

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein also confirmed the school was persistent in its efforts to get the child help.

"It seems clear that school staff did focus their attention on Nixzmary and her escalating problems and followed prescribed procedures," he said in a statement.

The school first raised the flag on May 16, when a guidance counselor contacted the state child abuse hotline with information that Nixzmary had bruises and had been absent 46 days, education sources said.

An ACS caseworker visited the home but found the abuse charge unfounded and believed Santiago's promise that her daughter would return to school.

Just six weeks later, on the last day of school, the guidance counselor filled out an ACS questionnaire sent to the school. This time, the school faxed the information directly to the agency, adding that Nixzmary was underweight - a possible sign of abuse, education sources said.

When school resumed in the fall, the clues that something was terribly wrong at Nixzmary's home became even more obvious.

Cotto contacted the state registry again on Dec. 1 after the girl showed up for classes with fresh injuries.

"She came to school with a black eye," Jones said. "She had a patch over her eye. She could barely walk and she was in pain."

The girl also was complaining of a stomachache, which Cotto recognized as a sign of possible sexual abuse, a source said.

ACS came to the school that day, interviewed Nixzmary, her siblings and her parents and then took the children to Woodhull Hospital, where they were examined, sources said.

In the end, they believed the injuries were consistent with the family's story - that she had simply fallen down, ACS said.

So once again, Nixzmary was not removed from her parents' care - and she then "virtually" quit going to school, education officials said.

The extended absence troubled Cotto, who made the first of about a dozen calls to the ACS caseworker to see what action was being taken, sources said.

After being told the agency had tried but failed to make followup home visits, Cotto was so frustrated and worried she took matters into her own hands.

She went to the Greene Ave. apartment herself and was blocked at the door by Rodriguez, sources said.

Education officials said staffers attempted to visit Nixzmary's home on Dec. 15 and Dec. 21.

"That's what we do when there's excessive absences," said Michele Cahill, senior counselor for educational policy. "They tried the home phone number, the father's work number. They attempted to reach the family."

More alarmed than ever, Cotto continued to press the issue. Earlier this month, after the Christmas break, ACS told her a home visit was in the works.

But ACS also was being thwarted by Rodriguez, who kept telling caseworkers who showed up that no one was home, officials said.

ACS Commissioner John Mattingly said ACS considered getting a warrant. He doesn't know what became of that plan, except that it didn't happen.

"At no time did we, in fact, get that warrant and attempt to interview the family with the police once again," he conceded.

The next word that Cotto got about Nixzmary was news of her death, with the savage details that she allegedly had been tied to a chair, forced to use a litter box, molested and starved.

The social worker - who repeatedly declined to discuss her actions last night - was devastated that all her efforts had been in vain, a source said.

"She was crying," the insider said. "She is concerned a child died because people didn't do their job."

Michael Best, the Education Department's top lawyer, said the school workers "performed admirably in trying to respond to signs and warnings and in trying to do whatever could be done in the interest of this child."

Emotions at PS 256, meanwhile, swung from anger that ACS had bungled the case to grief that Nixzmary's sweet smile has been extinguished forever.

"She was beautiful," said Jamila Bush, her second-grade teacher.

Bush had her students draw pictures and write poems in tribute to their slain friend yesterday.

"I wrote that I'm sorry that you passed away, but your friends and teacher miss you," 7-year-old Kandice McLean said.

Slow, tortuous route toward death
Here is a time line of how authorities handled reports of abuse regarding 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown:

May 16: A guidance counselor at Public School 256 files a report, through the state child abuse registry, that Nixzmary has bruises and has been absent 46 times. The city Administration for Children's Services opens an investigation and sends a questionnaire to the school.

June 28: The counselor faxes the completed questionnaire to ACS, reporting that Nixzmary is underweight. But ACS finds the abuse charge unfounded and takes no action.

September-November:
Nixzmary misses a day of school in September, six days in October and nine days in November.

Dec. 1:
After Nixzmary arrives at school with a black eye, Margarita Cotto, a social worker at the school, reports concerns again to the child abuse registry. ACS meets with Nixzmary and her siblings, then takes them to Woodhull Hospital for exams. Nixzmary "virtually" stops attending school.

Dec. 15:
After unsuccessful efforts to reach the family by phone, a school staff member attempts to visit the family's home.

Dec. 21:
School staff members make another attempt to visit the home.

Late December/early January:
ACS attempts to make home visits are thwarted, but the agency inexplicably fails to get a warrant to inspect the apartment and see the girl.

4:30 a.m. Wednesday:
Nixzmary is found dead in her family's Greene Ave. apartment. Police say she had been tortured for weeks and killed by a blow to the head. Her mother and stepfather are charged.

LINK

The evil in daddy's dark eyes

Thursday, January 17th 2008, 11:06 AM

Originally published on Jan. 13, 2006

The man 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown called Daddy sat in the glass-enclosed holding area just inside the arraignment part at Brooklyn Criminal Court.

Beside him sat the woman the murdered child called Mommy, her head bowed, her honeycolored dyed hair cloaking her face. She gave an impression of feeling at least shame, if not exactly soul-searing grief.

Daddy sat back, facing the big windows on the other side of the courtroom. His eyes were two dark sockets even as he tilted his face up to the last light of an uncommonly sunny day.

Daddy closed his eyes as if it were he who was suffering some great misfortune. He had a wisp of a mustache and scar tissue by his left eye, perhaps from somebody who could hit back.

The look of self-pity passed as he opened his eyes, and then his face showed nothing at all. Here seemed proof that evil, like cold, is not a force, but an absence.

"Docket 507, Cesar Rodriguez," the clerk called out. "Step up."

Daddy rose.

"Nixzaliz Santiago," the clerk said. "Step up."

Mommy rose. Her head remained bowed as she stepped with Daddy before the judge. Each had a foot in the square marked on the floor for the defendants to stand.

Mommy wore a sweatshirt, white pants and sneakers. She looked young for having been mother to six, now five.

Daddy was scrawny under his black leather jacket, red shirt, plaid pajama bottoms and sandals. He looked like he would have a hard time taking on anybody bigger than a child.

"This case does involve the murder of a 7-year-old little girl," the prosecutor noted.

The prosecutor described weeks of beating and torture at Daddy's hands, culminating in the girl lying fatally injured on the floor.

"Yelling out, 'Mommy! Mommy!' " the prosecutor said.

Daddy was being charged with the actual killing. Mommy was being charged with manslaughter for having failed to protect the child.

Others who failed to protect the girl notably include the city Administration for Children's Services. The same mayor who got into such a lather over the transit workers walking off the job evidenced little outrage over people at ACS who hardly did the job in the first place - and left a 7-year-old to be battered to death.

ACS had been repeatedly alerted to the murdered girl's peril by Public School 256, where her classmates from the second grade spent yesterday's recess dashing through sunshine so unseasonably glorious it seemed spring had come in the midst of winter. Their shining eyes and exuberant faces made all the more unbearable the thought that the girl who should have been smiling among them lay in the morgue.

Two girls began working a Double Dutch rope and you could picture Nixzmary jumping in. Instead, it was a girl in a baby-blue coat, splendidly alive, a challenge to us to better protect her and every other child in Bedford-Stuyvesant and the rest of the city.

A few feet away, three girls began spinning Hula Hoops around their waists in unison, giving shouts of delight that any daddy or mommy worth the title recognizes as the most perfect sound on Earth.

A fourth Hula Hoop lay on the ground almost as if for the absent girl, a reminder of the most unbearable sound on Earth. That sound is the wailing and sobs of a child in pain, a sound such as must have filled the murdered girl's apartment on the other side of Tompkins Park, such as seemed to rouse her assailant only to greater brutality.

At 1:35 p.m., the secondgraders formed orderly lines and trooped back into school without the girl who was beyond the feel of yesterday's sunshine.

Four hours later, the stepfather the murdered girl called Daddy stood before the bench in Criminal Court, an absence of light and warmth, charged with absolute evil.

Daddy showed no emotion until he was led off to the cells. He looked back with a flash of cold, dark fury, as if everything were everybody else's fault, as if he were ready to beat somebody who could not hit back.

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Supervisor: How we botched case

He tells News of woes in candid interview

Friday, January 25th 2008, 2:58 AM

Originally published on Jan 13, 2006

The administration for Children's Services blew critical chances to save Nixzmary Brown's life - because it was so busy investigating the death of a little boy just a month earlier, a disgraced city supervisor told the Daily News.

"One of the big problems was I couldn't cover all the cases in my area," said Roger Moore, who oversaw the ACS cases of Nixzmary and Dahquay Gillians, the 16-month-old boy who drowned in a bathtub in November.

"When we get fatalities, there's all kinds of pressure on the unit to find an explanation," Moore told The News last night. "We were . . . dealing with all the fallout from [Dahquay's] case. The Nixzmary Brown case wasn't an issue."

Moore's admission came as the head of ACS acknowledged that caseworkers and supervisors in Brooklyn didn't do enough to follow up on persistent reports that 7-year-old Nixzmary was being beaten, starved and molested.

ACS Commissioner John Mattingly said they could have pressed Nixzmary's family to say more about the girl, paid more attention to reports from staff at her school and sought a warrant to force their way into her Bedford-Stuyvesant home.

"We had an opportunity to save this child's life and protect her brothers and sisters that we were not able [to] and did not make use of," Mattingly told The News' Editorial Board.

Moore, 55, former director of field operations in Bedford-Stuyvesant, said he recalls seeing Nixzmary's case file only once, and his staff never saw indications she was in imminent danger - the standard for getting a warrant to get into the girl's home.

"Did we know that the child was being systematically abused? No. If we did, we would have taken her out of the home," he said. "I didn't drop any balls."
Moore, a 20-year veteran of the agency, was suspended Dec. 12 for falsifying a record in Dahquay's case file after the boy drowned while his mother, who was being monitored by ACS, was in the next room.

Moore said he faked the note in a panic, and resigned in remorse Tuesday - the day before Nixzmary was found dead.

But Moore was in charge of her case when a school staffer called ACS on Dec. 1 to report abuse and continued to be in charge for more than a week as ACS made its first failed attempts to check on her.
Authorities said Nixzmary was abused and beaten for months by her mother, Nixzaliz Santiago, 27, and stepfather, Cesar Rodriguez, 27, who has been charged with killing her.

Locked in a bedroom, kept home from school and forced to use a cat box as a toilet, she was often lashed to furniture, cops say. But ACS workers who twice visited the home found nothing amiss.

Santiago and Rodriguez appeared in Brooklyn Family Court yesterday in a hearing for their five other children, who were placed with one foster family Thursday night. Judge Nora Freeman said the kids should have no contact with their parents.

Mayor Bloomberg urged anyone who suspects a child is being abused to call 311 or 911. But he suggested that Nixzmary's case - where ACS, police, a city hospital and the public schools all had contact with the girl - shows that all of city government must explain how she was failed.

"Why the caseworkers didn't push further, harder - that's what we are investigating today," Bloomberg said yesterday.

Mattingly released a detailed chronology yesterday showing ACS had at least six chances to rescue Nixzmary between May and a week before she died - and blew it every time.
That is in sharp contrast to staff at the girl's school, who repeatedly called ACS and a state child-abuse hotline - and later tried to visit her home.

The first chance to save Nixzmary came May 16, when a guidance counselor called the state child-abuse hotline to say Nixzmary was bruised and had missed 46 days of school.

Somehow, ACS never heard about the bruises - and when Santiago said she was just an overwhelmed mom, ACS believed Nixzmary would return to school, and closed the case.

"We should have opened a full-scale case," which would have connected the family with agencies that help families at risk, Mattingly said. "We needed to know a heck of a lot more than a parent's story."

ACS staffers' only other peek into Nixzmary's home came Dec. 1, when she came to school with a black eye and a social worker called the hotline again.

A caseworker came to the school that day to interview Nixzmary and her siblings, and later called Rodriguez to the school for a separate interview.

Rodriguez explained away the eye injury by saying Nixzmary had fallen, showing a document from Woodhull Hospital that said she had been treated there two days earlier.

The caseworker called a doctor at Woodhull, who said, according to Mattingly, "the injury was consistent with the parent's explanation." But Mattingly added, "There is much more that we need to know - who the doctor was, how the doctor could do that over the phone, was it the same doctor that we had the documentation from."

Police say two child-abuse detectives came to the school, but only to provide security for the ACS worker who was concerned Rodriguez might interfere. The detectives didn't take part in the interviews, cops said.

The caseworker then went to the family's home - without the detectives, a source said.

"There was no evidence of imminent risk," Mattingly said.

That was the last time ACS was able to get into the house. On return visits and phone calls, caseworkers found themselves blocked by Rodriguez or getting no answer.

"They did not at any time pursue a warrant," Mattingly said. "It remains unclear to me right now why that decision was made."

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Inside Nixzmary's case files

Originally published on Jan. 15, 2006

The repeated lapses and glaring misjudgments that sealed 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown's fate are exposed in excruciating detail in pages of the tortured girl's child-welfare case file obtained by the Daily News.

The writings by investigators at the Administration for Children's Services show that city workers ignored or discounted explicit warnings that the second-grader was being brutally beaten by her stepfather.

The case file also contradicts statements by police and city officials who said cops never interviewed Nixzmary or any of her five siblings after a social worker called a hotline to report that she had a black eye and signs of sexual abuse.

Most disturbing are investigation notes that reveal Nixzmary's 5-year-old sister, Selena, told an ACS worker on Dec. 1 that their stepfather, Cesar Rodriguez, 27, caused a 2-inch cut over Nixzmary's right eye.

During a closed-door interview at Public School 256, Selena bravely unmasked her stepdad as a callous child abuser, according to documents that misspell the father's name.
"Cedar did it," Selena said as she pointed to a nearby window - a valuable clue that Nixzmary had not tripped on "a piece of wood" as an older sibling and Rodriguez claimed.

Not sure what Selena meant, an ACS caseworker asked her a second time. "Cedar did it," Selena repeated.

The gash on Nixzmary's head required several stitches. Yet, ACS chief John Mattingly has said "there was no evidence of imminent risk that would cause us to remove the children."

ACS spokesman Sharman Stein told The News that the case files were being probed.

"The interviews conducted with family members and other parties are being thoroughly examined as part of the investigation," Stein said. "The judgment of the caseworker is a central focus of the investigation."

The wound and Selena's statements weren't the only warnings.

A summary of the Dec. 1 hotline call placed by school workers says the principal did not want to send the girl and her siblings home.

"Stepparent beats mother and he is intimidating," it reads. "Mother is withdrawn and passive, taking no action to protect herself or children. . . . Stepparent recently hit Nixzmary, causing laceration on her forehead and a bruised eye."

The account concludes by noting that the principal had "serious concern for their [the children's] immediate safety."

ACS caseworkers went to the school Dec. 1 and a followup report shows they checked with a Woodhull Hospital doctor who said Nixzmary's gash was consistent with the story she "fell on a piece of wood."

But an ACS review of the interviews that caseworkers conducted with Nixzmary and her family reveals basic questions were apparently never asked.

A supervisor told the caseworkers that the alleged abuse "must be fully explored."
"did she trip over the piece of wood, or did she hit her eye on the wood after the fall? . . . the school feels this is a 'target child,' why?"

The supervisor behind the critical review, Roger Moore, 55, was suspended three days later for falsifying records in the case of Dahquay Gillians, a 16-month-old who drowned in a bathtub Nov. 6 even though his family was being monitored by Moore's ACS office.

Another report in Nixzmary's case file notes that cops were more involved than officials have previously stated.

One entry says two cops questioned Rodriguez "for about fifteen or twenty minutes." Another claims the children and parents "were interviewed by [ACS] as well as NYPD.
NYPD did not accept the case because there was no evidence that the parents inflicted the injuries."

The documents also show that when caseworkers went to Nixzmary's home on the evening of Dec. 1, they found her mother, Nixzaliz Santiago, 27, sitting in the living room playing with her youngest child.

Just an hour earlier, Rodriguez had claimed his wife was too sick to talk on the phone.

Santiago made a bizarre confession to the caseworkers, saying she kept a human fetus in a jar of saline in her bedroom. She said she had prematurely delivered a baby around the time Nixzmary went to Woodhull to get the stitches. Santiago said she decided to keep the fetus in a bedside jar because she "saw the baby's eyes."

But again ACS did not move decisively to save Nixzmary.

Sources familiar with the probe said investigators could not coax Selena to give them more information.

Still, "everything about the judgments that were made is at the heart" of the probe, a source said.

LINK

The awful lies at death's door

Originally published on Jan. 15, 2006

Nixzmary Brown lay on the bedroom floor in her pajamas, not breathing, not moving, her sweet face battered beyond recognition.

Her mother stood there stone-faced - spouting ludicrous lies about how the 7-year-old had drowned or beaten herself black and blue.

That was the ghastly scene that greeted a neighbor who was summoned to the little girl's Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, apartment early last Wednesday.

The 48-year-old woman, a home care attendant, sobbed as she told the Daily News about the knock on her third-floor door and the horror that followed.

It was 4:15 in the morning when her neighbor, Nixzaliz Santiago, 27, roused her from a deep sleep with these words: "Come with me. My daughter drowned. She's dead."

The older woman rushed down to the second floor and was led into a back bedroom, where she found Nixzmary and her accused killer, stepdad Cesar Rodriguez, 27.

"I saw the baby on the floor. He was giving CPR to the baby. I touched it," she told the News.

"What happened?" the neighbor asked Santiago.

"She was in the bath," Santiago responded.

"She was taking a bath at 4 in the morning?" the neighbor questioned.

Santiago replied, "Yes," without "crying or anything," the neighbor said.

But one glance at Nixzmary's lifeless form told the neighbor the mother's story was a pathetic fabrication.

"Her face - it didn't look like her no more," she said.

The neighbor said she looked at Santiago and demanded, "What happened to her face?"

The mother offered an unforgivable response: "She did it to herself," she lied.

Even as the neighbor pressed her, the mother of six stuck to her tale of a late-night bath turned accidentally tragic.

"She said, 'She drowned. She drowned.' I said, 'How she drowned? She's dry and she has all her clothes on.' "

Santiago insisted she had dressed her daughter after she drowned - and Rodriguez must have realized how flimsy that sounded and began a pitiful coverup.

"He took the T-shirt off the baby," the neighbor, who did not want to be identified by The News, said.

The couple had not yet called police. They did not have a phone so the woman sent Santiago upstairs, and her 22-year-old daughter dialed 911.

Cops arrived quickly and corralled the adults in the walk-through kitchen while they determined Nixzmary was dead and secured the crime scene.

The neighbor - who dressed Santiago's five other children and found their birth certificates in the apartment - could not believe how Santiago and Rodriguez were acting.

"She wasn't crying. She wasn't screaming. When the police told her her daughter was dead, she didn't say nothing," the neighbor said.

"She didn't have any emotion - like a zombie," she said. "He's the same; he didn't look anyone in the eye."

The death of Nixzmary and the revelations that she was allegedly tortured and starved by her mother and stepfather have unleashed a furor in the city.

While school officials repeatedly tried to get the second-grader some help, the Administration for Children's Services inexplicably took no action against the family. The failures are revealed throughout a large portion of Nixzmary's ACS case file obtained by The News.

Cops say the emaciated girl - who weighed just 36 pounds - was kept out of school, lashed to a chair, forced to use a litter box as a toilet and molested. Yet ACS workers said they found no problems during two visits to the home.

A disgraced ACS supervisor, who resigned the day of Nixzmary's death, told The News the girl's case fell through the cracks because his office was so busy with fallout from another bungled investigation that ended in November with a 16-month-old child's death.

A massive review of ACS is now underway - a decade after the city's child welfare agency was overhauled in the wake of 6-year-old Elisa Izquierdo's slaying at the hands of her mother.

The neighbor who came to Nixzmary's home the night she was killed said she knew there were problems in the family, but she didn't suspect the girl or her siblings were abused.

From the moment Santiago and Rodriguez moved into the Greene Ave. building from a shelter two years ago, she would hear raucous fighting.

"It was mostly like banging, on the walls, on the ceiling," she said. "I made complaints to them in the beginning about the noise, and they put the music on."

Eventually, Santiago confessed that Rodriguez would beat her. The neighbor counseled her to leave him but "she wanted to have a baby from him," she said.
By late November, Santiago was eight months pregnant, the neighbor said.

She miscarried the night that Nixzmary was rushed to Woodhull Hospital with a swollen eye and gash on her head - injuries that her parents claimed, and ACS accepted, were from a fall.

Santiago took the fetus upstairs and showed it to her neighbor. She later told ACS caseworkers about the fetus, telling them she kept it in a bedside jar because she "saw the baby's eyes," documents show. ACS did not think that was reason to immediately push for a warrant.

When cops searched the apartment after Nixzmary's death, they found the fetus in a jar.
The neighbor said she knew the kids had a rough life. At Christmas, tenants chipped in for dolls and action figures after Santiago complained that Rodriguez wouldn't let her buy gifts.

From time to time, she would spot a bruise or bump on one of the children - but it was always explained away by their mom.

"She said the kids fell. She never told me it was him," the neighbor said. "If I knew that, I would have called the police. They had an excuse for everything.

"Everyone's been whispering we should have done more," she added. "But I know in my heart I did everything I could do. What can you do when people don't want help?"

LINK

Sicko dad blames angel

Nixzmary gave me 'so much trouble...I used all my force'

Originally published on Jan. 20, 2006

Monster stepdad Cesar Rodriguez blamed his helpless victim yesterday, saying 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown's impish behavior so enraged him he was forced to administer sadistic beatings.

In an outrageous jailhouse interview the day after she was buried, Rodriguez revealed the demented conversation he has with Nixzmary's spirit while he lays awake in his cell at night.

"I ask her why she had to put me through so much trouble," he told reporters, wringing the same hands he used to pummel the child and tie her to a chair in a locked room.

"And I tell her I'm sorry and that I love her."

Wearing a gray jumpsuit and speaking in a calm voice, Rodriguez denied molesting his stepdaughter and refused to say what he did to her the night she died of a blow to the head.

But in excruciating detail, he recounted - and pathetically tried to justify - the many beatings she suffered in the past four years.

He made little apology for the brutal punishment, instead venting his frustration that the second-grader didn't learn from her mistakes.

After each drubbing, he said, "I would hold her up to the mirror and make her look at herself and I would say, 'Do you really want to live like this? Look at yourself.

Talk to yourself. How do you feel about yourself?' "

The little girl's death and life of torture in this house of horrors have touched the entire city and forced a shakeup of its child welfare agency.

Rodriguez, 27, and his wife, Nixzaliz Santiago, 27, are charged with second-degree murder. His defense is that his victim was "a handful."

"I don't want to say she deserved it, but . . ." Rodriguez said, then reeled off a list of transgressions, most of which would hardly shock the parents of a rambunctious grade-schooler.

Nixzmary cut her sister's hair, took money and baby food, ruined toys, hit her siblings and messed with the cat.

One day she admitted she'd filched a propane lighter and after a long interrogation confessed she'd held it to her 6-month-old brother Gabriel's leg, her stepfather said.

Without a speck of irony, Rodriguez said he berated Nixzmary, "How could you do this to a helpless little child?"

Asked how he punished her, he said simply, "I beat her."

The scrawny ex-security guard said that when he attacked Nixzmary, he used a closed fist on her bony back and legs. "I probably used all my force," he conceded.

He admitted she was imprisoned like an animal. "I would have to lock her in the room at night to protect myself and the kids so I could sleep at night," he said.

And accusations she was tethered to a chair are true, he said. At first, he used twine, but after he saw it left marks on her arms he switched to duct tape.

"This is for your own good," he would tell her, then leave her in the chair for the night with only a pillow and blanket.

Nixzmary did use the cat-litter box as a toilet, but only because it was in the room where she was locked at night, he said.

"All she had to do was call me," he said.

Rodriguez insisted Nixzmary was such a destructive force he and Santiago considered sending her to live in Puerto Rico with her maternal grandmother.

"I just wanted it all to stop," he said.

But a caseworker from the Administration for Children's Services, which first investigated the family last summer, counseled the couple against it.

"Don't do it. You'll regret it. She's going to end up hating you," the caseworker said, according to Rodriguez.

He said he began entertaining fantasies of getting rid of Nixzmary - putting her in foster care or dumping her someplace.

"If I could do it all over again, I would pressure myself to take her to the precinct and just leave her there," he said.

Although he had beaten her for years, Rodriguez said his patience with Nixzmary finally ran out last month after he was fired from his job and money became tight.

"I felt like this," he said, wrapping his arms around his body. "Everything was just closing in."

Then came the night of Jan. 10, when Nixzmary pushed him over the edge, he said.

Her crimes? First she took a container of his yogurt. Then she admitted she had jammed junk into his computer printer.

Suddenly reticent, Rodriguez would not say exactly what happened next, though he did acknowledge beating Nixzmary one last time.

"It was a mistake," he said. "It was an accident. If I was to walk out onto the street and get shot and die, it would be an accident like that."

Despite his efforts to portray Nixzmary as some kind of demon child, he said he does feel bad about her death.

"I have a lot of guilt. I'm sorry about all that happened," he said. "I have a problem with my emotions. It builds up and I hold it all in. I emotionally just burst."

Sporting a small cut over his eye, he whined that correction officers had taunted him, egged on other inmates to attack him and showed him a copy of the Daily News
featuring a photo of Nixzmary in her coffin.

"Are you happy now?" one officer asked.

Cesar Rodriguez had no answer.

LINK

Nixzmary ma shocker: Tells cellmates she feels bad - for dad!

Friday, January 25th 2008, 3:02 AM

Originally published on Jan. 22, 2006

When Nixzmary Brown's mother landed in a Brooklyn holding cell last week, she brought hookers and drug addicts to tears by saying her husband had killed her little girl, according to an inmate who was there.

But Nixzaliz Santiago never wept, this woman said - instead declaring that her daughter was a bad girl who deserved to be punished, and saying she felt sorry that her husband got arrested.

"She tried to defend him, saying the little girl was so bad," said an outraged Tanya Morales, 36, a suburban mother of two who was charged with driving with a suspended license. "She was the only one who wasn't crying. She just sat there remorseless."

As the other 15 or so women in the Brooklyn Criminal Court holding pen learned how 7-year-old Nixzmary died the night before, they turned surly and forced Santiago to stand alone in a corner, said Morales, who interpreted for Santiago.

"I asked her in Spanish, 'Why are you here?' She said, 'I'm in here because my husband killed my daughter. The police took me in, too, because I didn't protect my daughter,' " Santiago said. "She didn't look like she had just lost her daughter. . . . This woman never shed a tear."

Santiago and her husband, Cesar Rodriguez, both 27, allegedly starved and tortured little Nixzmary for months before one final beating the night of Jan. 10.

Rodriguez allegedly slammed her into their bathtub, forced her to lie naked under a stream of cold water, then threw her on the floor to die - while Santiago ignored the girl's cries of "Mommy!" for hours.

Both are charged with second-degree murder.

Santiago didn't mention a beating or the cold water in the holding cell, instead saying Rodriguez had shaken Nixzmary, Morales said.

And Morales said she and the others in the holding cell were sickened when Santiago showed she cared only for Rodriguez - saying Nixzmary was a disobedient girl who stole food, beat her siblings and didn't deserve any Christmas presents.

"She told me her husband didn't buy [Nixzmary] any toys for Christmas, so she broke the other kids' toys," Morales said. "She said that she felt bad because [Rodriguez] was overwhelmed with all the kids."

A jail guard eventually broke up the discussion, yelling at the inmates to stop discussing the high-profile case, Morales said.

But before Santiago left the cell several hours later, Morales said, the mother of the dead girl showed just one flicker of emotion - when a guard walked by holding a bottle of orange Snapple.

"She said that's her favorite juice," Morales recalled. "She said she really wanted some."

LINK