Rica Rountree’s life lasted eight short years, ending after prolonged torture and abuse at the hands of her faither’s girlfriend took its toll.
Rica’s death played out in near silence as adults who saw the bruises, chipped teeth and signs of neglect took notice but dismissed the clear warning signs of trouble as clumsiness. Rica’s horrific final months have been scrutinized by child welfare experts hired to offer opinions in a federal lawsuit, opinions that offer insight into the question that haunts the death of the bright and energetic 8-year-old: Did Rica Rountree have to die?
Rica’s story ended with her death on January 29, 2019, at a Peoria hospital where doctors fought to save her on January 29,2019. She was transferred to the facility from Bloomington after she was found unresponsive at the home her father Richard Rountree shared with his girlfriend Cynthia Baker and four other children. An autopsy revealed 67 scars on the child’s body and listed the cause of death as peritonitis, caused by blunt force trauma to the abdomen. Baker was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison; Richard received eight years after pleading guilty in 2020 to endangering the life of a child.
Rica was placed with her father and his girlfriend by the state in 2016 after her biological mother Antionetta Simmons was arrested on drug charges. In conversations with me over the course of this case, Simmons has acknowledged that her shortcomings as a parent put Rica in the position to be potentially abused. She was in the process of negotiating with Rica’s father to regain custody of the girl when a judge sent her back to prison for failing to complete the terms of her probation. Rica died two weeks later.
The signs of abuse Rica endured were observed and reported by Simmons and teachers at the three schools Rica attended in her final years. Reports were made to the police and the Department of Children and Family Services, who dispatched investigators to examine the bruises, black eyes and other injuries first seen by school personnel.
Rica was returned to the Rountree-Baker household after DCFS investigations were closed with a designation of “Unfounded” as to the allegations. False and farfetched explanations from Rica and her caregivers as to how she sustained the injuries were accepted as plausible.
Following Rica’s death, DCFS investigators put together the pieces of Rica’s prolonged torment. The state workers involved in her case received minor punishments but kept their jobs. An investigator whose failures were deemed most egregious saw her unpaid leave sanction reduced and later received a significant salary bump. She is still employed by the department, drawing a salary of over $170,000 a year.
It would take authorities several months to compile the evidence to support charges against Baker and her paramour.
All child death cases that wind up in a courtroom have their moments of shock, anger and grief. Looking back on my time in the courtroom for Baker’s 2019 murder trial, I am reminded of the emotional trauma so obvious on the faces of jurors and many others in the courtroom. Cellphone videos made by Baker of the ongoing abuse of Rica as the child was forced to stand –naked–for long periods while holding canned goods seemed to last hours as we watched them in the darkened courtroom. Older children living in the home walked past Rica, sometimes taunting her, the videos showed.
At her sentencing hearing months later, the judge called the actions depicted in the video “pure evil.”
Following the trials, a federal lawsuit was filed on behalf of Rica’s estate against DCFS and eight state workers. The lawsuit alleges the state failed in its duty to protect Rica from abuse by the two adults, both with known histories of prior child abuse. Lawyers for the estate solicited expert opinions of the handling of Rica’s case and the consequences of the actions—or inactions-by state welfare workers.
In her expert opinion psychologist Nicole Stolar-Peterson said the workers ignored information and evidence of abuse, “and turned a blind eye to the risks and dangers of imminent harm and abuse” to Rica. She pointed out the refusal by a DCFS supervisor to acknowledge the abuse Rica suffered in the months leading to her death. The assertion made during the DCFS investigation after Rica’s death was contrary to the medical evidence in the case, she noted.
“It is my opinion based upon my training, education and experience, to a reasonable degree of certainty, that the ongoing torture, abuse, and death of Rica Rountree was avoidable,” Stolar-Peterson concluded.
Court records include details of the abuse and timelines of how it unfolded. Perhaps the most damning disclosure in the investigation comes from the agency’s directive two hours before Rica’s death after a Peoria doctor called the DCFS hotline:
“EMERGENCY, CHILD AT HOSPITAL WITH LIFE-THREATENING TRAUMA. PLEASE ASSIST WITH DISPOSITION. PLEASE DETERMINE IF THERE ARE OTHER CHILDREN IN THE HOME.”
In a follow-up narrative, DCFS noted Rica’s death and signs of suspected abuse. The department moved to immediately remove two children younger than Rica from the home, concerned that they may be “susceptible to abuse that put them in the same situation as the deceased child.”
Psychologist Kristina Tyler wrote in her expert opinion that “the final year of Rica’s life was a combination of Cynthia and Richard, emboldened by unfounded child abuse reports, Rica getting older and starting to refuse to comply at times, Cynthia’s need for control and compliance, and more scrutiny by Rica’s schools, which increased the abuse of Rica.”
Rica, said Tyler, “was in a hopeless situation, being abused with impunity.”
The more reports the school made, the worse things became for Rica-not an uncommon outcome when children are not protected, said Tyler.
“In these situations, DCFS is the only avenue of assistance for an abused child. If DCFS fails to act, fails to fully investigate, fails to follow protocols, or allows parents with strong manipulative abilities such as Cynthia and Richard possessed to give explanations which are not given more than a surface look, the abuse will continue and even escalate,” according to Tyler.
Dr. Scott Krugman, a pediatrician specializing in child abuse, summarized his review of the case by saying, “In conclusion, it is more likely than not that the failures of the DCFS defendants described here led to escalating child abuse of Rica Roundtree which ultimately caused her death.”
In his ruling dismissing the federal case, U.S. District Court Judge Jonathan E. Hawley called the scenario of unending abuse “heartbreaking.”
“This case also involves a series of disturbing acts and oversights by DCFS personnel as they investigated various allegations of abuse relating to R.R. If DCFS personnel had done things differently, R.R. may still be alive today, but we will never know. The issue before this Court, however, is not whether DCFS could have saved R.R. Instead, the question is whether the DCFS Defendants’ conduct, or lack thereof, amounts to a constitutional violation under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. “
In the judge’s opinion, the fact that the danger that led to Rica’s death was caused by Baker and Richard Rountree and not the DCFS workers exonerates the state employees from the claim of violating the girl’s constitutional rights. Hawley dismissed the sole federal count of the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled. Other state claims of wrongful death and negligence were dismissed without prejudice, allowing them to be brought to state court. Lawyers for Rica’s estate have filed their intent to appeal the ruling with the Seventh Circuit Courts of Appeals.