From the Mountain Home Observer:
The Arkansas Department of Human Services has reversed its promise to release findings from an internal investigation into how the agency failed to act on 29 child abuse complaints over 11 years, leaving prosecutors and the public without answers about systemic failures that allowed a teenager to allegedly endure years of severe abuse.
The case involves a 15-year-old boy who was discovered locked naked in a bathroom with a ratchet strap securing the door in November 2024.
Court documents show he had allegedly been forced to sleep on a pallet in the bathroom, was only allowed out to attend school, and could only eat on school days. School records indicate he attended just 112 days since January 2024.
According to charging documents filed against Daniel Wright, 41, and Jaclyn Barnett, 42, investigations revealed that 29 reports had been made to the state’s Child Abuse Hotline since 2013.
The complaints included allegations of maltreatment, inadequate supervision, failure to provide food and essential needs, extreme or repeated cruelty, and failure to protect.
All reports were closed as unsubstantiated without full investigation, despite some coming from mandated reporters such as teachers, healthcare workers, and law enforcement officers who are legally required to report suspected abuse.
Sources familiar with the case indicate the family would often move residences after complaints were made to the hotline, a pattern that may have helped them evade scrutiny.
“How did we allow a child to be harmed when there were reports made, some 29 reports that were made about an incident?” asked Baxter County Prosecutor David Ethredge in a recorded interview.
“What are we doing so this never happens again? What are the safeguards we put in place to make sure that when we see repeated incidents concerning a child, that we’re going to make sure we see those triggers, that we step in and ask some additional questions?”
Following the arrests in November, Ethredge met with then-DHS Secretary Kristi Putnam and the agency’s chief counsel earlier this year. According to Ethredge, DHS leadership acknowledged serious failures and promised transparency.
“We discussed the issues, and it was very clear that they understood there was a problem, and they wanted to look at how we addressed the problem and what had happened to lead us to that point,” Ethredge said.
“I felt very satisfied and confident that there was going to be a resolution, that there was going to be answers that I could share with the community.”
Putnam, who had taken over DHS in 2023 after the abuse reports were filed, initiated an investigation into how the complaints were handled by her predecessors.
The agency pledged to review each of the 29 reports and determine why decisions were made to close them as unsubstantiated.
“We have an obligation to children. If we find that the people who should be protecting them have not done their job, does it rise to the level of criminal culpability? I don’t know. Without that information, it’s hard for me to say yes it does or no it doesn’t.”– Baxter County Prosecuting Attorney David Ethredge
Putnam’s departure in June 2024 came as a surprise to many in Arkansas’ child welfare community.
She had arrived from Kentucky with strong credentials, including service on the board of the American Public Human Services Association, where she advocated for advancing child welfare systems nationwide.
Her LinkedIn profile lists children, education and social services as her primary causes, with extensive experience in child welfare reform at both Kentucky and Arkansas human services departments.
She now lists herself as self-employed on LinkedIn, having returned to Kentucky shortly after initiating the Mountain Home investigation.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced that Putnam would be returning to Kentucky for family reasons. Janet Mann, who had served as deputy secretary overseeing child welfare and youth services during some of the period when complaints were filed, was promoted to lead the agency.
Initially, a DHS spokesperson assured that Putnam’s departure would not delay the promised report.
By late August, however, the agency had reversed course.
“We have completed our review of this case and have informed the prosecutor. However, we have also determined that details cannot be released publicly as initially intended due to the sensitive child maltreatment investigative information it concerned. Arkansas law requires this information to be confidential,” DHS spokesperson Gavin Lesnick wrote in an email.
The agency refused to provide even a redacted summary of its findings, stating only that issues were being “handled internally.”
Ethredge strongly disputed the timing of DHS’s communication, saying he only learned of the reversal after media inquiries prompted a call from the department’s chief attorney.
“I know that now, time has passed, and their position has changed, and I don’t have those answers, and I would like to be able to give to the people of this community about what did transpire,” Ethredge said.
“I don’t know what the shift was, why they made the shift.”
The prosecutor expressed frustration that the agency invoked confidentiality laws that existed when the report was initially promised.
“A summary of the findings with no names listed would certainly have helped,” Ethredge said.
The Mountain Home case highlights broader systemic issues within Arkansas’s child welfare system. Data shows that only about 55 percent of reports made to the Child Abuse Hotline between January and March of this year were approved for actual investigation.
A 1991 class action lawsuit against the governor and DHS director documented systemwide problems, including failure to investigate abuse reports, inexperienced caseworkers with excessive caseloads and inadequate training.
As recently as 2021, DHS itself characterized the Arkansas foster care system as being “in crisis.”
Ethredge indicated he has not abandoned efforts to obtain answers about the systematic failures and is prepared to pursue criminal charges if warranted.
“We have an obligation to children,” he said. “If we find that the people who should be protecting them have not done their job, does it rise to the level of criminal culpability? I don’t know. Without that information, it’s hard for me to say yes it does or no it doesn’t.”
The prosecutor emphasized he would pursue criminal charges against DHS workers if an investigation reveals they were criminally culpable in allowing the child to continue being abused.
“If they find something different, then we decide,” Ethredge said, noting that while the standard for criminal cases differs from civil liability, “I think the public deserves to know that.”
The prosecutor said that if necessary, “we will bring DHS officials up here, question them on the issues related to this case and generate a report of our own.”
He had previously stated that if the DHS investigation revealed potential criminal negligence, he would ask the Arkansas State Police to investigate. ASP’s Crimes Against Children Division operates the abuse hotline and investigates reports of abuse in conjunction with the human services department.
Ethredge confirmed he is moving forward with the case against Wright and Barnett regardless of whether DHS turns over its findings.
Attempts to obtain documents through the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act have been unsuccessful. The Observer specifically requested information surrounding the 29 calls, which were available through the court system at one point and already in the possession of other news outlets. The Observer also requested internal emails between DHS employees over any reports surrounding the case.
After initial denials, the Observer pushed back on the automatic rejections of its FOIA requests. DHS FOIA Officer Rebekah Brooks said she would check on the requests before closing the Observer FOIA request on the DHS’s FOIA system without further comment.
The only document DHS would release to the Mountain Home Observer was the agency’s own email response to KTLO refusing to provide information.
The Observer is considering legal action to compel release of the documents.
Wright and Barnett each face 112 counts of first-degree false imprisonment, endangering the welfare of a minor and permitting child abuse.
Both have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled for trial in November. They remain free on $50,000 bond each.
The teen victim is no longer in the custody of Barnett, whom court records show is his paternal aunt and legal guardian.
