Jacob McGinnis

4 months

Non Survivor

KMBC TheKansasCityChannel.com | Kansas City Star

Wednesday September 05 11:22 PM EDT

Baby Sitter Charged In Child's Death

A Blue Springs baby sitter charged with the murder of a baby boy and
endangering the welfare of 19 other children appeared in court on
Wednesday.

KMBC's Maria Antonia reported that Jacob McGinnis, 4 months, died in April
of a head injury. Court records show that his baby sitter, Phyllis Mullins,
told police that she dropped the baby while giving him a bath at her home.

"She's very sweet. She loves children and is very sorry for what has
occurred. But it was an accident," Mullins' lawyer John Quinns said.

Antonia reported that court filings also include information from the
medical examiner who said what Mullins claims could not have caused the
serious injury involved.

Mullins is also charged with 19 counts of child endangerment. Detectives
said that is how many children were in her care the day McGinnis died.
Mullins did not have a license to care for more than four children, Antonia
reported.

"She had a routine. She knew how to prevent the parents from knowing how
many children she had in there," McGinnis' mother, Laura Linn, said.

Court records indicate that Mullins was not truthful to detectives about
the number of children she was watching.

Mullins pleaded innocent to the charges. She is expected to be back in
court Sept. 20.

Kansas City Star, The (MO)
Sitter charged in death of baby
19 endangerment counts also
filed
September 5, 2001
Section: NATIONAL
Page: A1

By JOE ROBERTSONThe Kansas City Star

A former Blue Springs baby sitter was charged with second-degree murder Tuesday in the death of a 4-month-old boy, who investigators say died while she was caring for 19 children in her home. Authorities aren't saying exactly how the infant, Jacob McGinnis, suffered the deadly blow on the back of his head in April, but the charges allege that the baby sitter, Phyllis Mullins, is accountable.

Mullins, 49, was expected to surrender today and be arraigned on the murder charge and 19 counts of felony child endangerment, said court officials and Mullins' attorney, who contends Jacob's death was an accident.

State records show that Mullins' business was not licensed when the death occurred. Nearly seven years ago, records show, state health officials asked Jackson County prosecutors and the Missouri attorney general's office to take action against Mullins because of a history of complaints that she was caring for too many children in her home.

No action was taken by either agency.

The 19 child endangerment counts, listed in a warrant issued Tuesday, account for each of the children who investigators claim were in the home on April 11, the day that Jacob died. The murder charge does not accuse Mullins of inflicting the wound but holds her to blame because the death occurred during the commission of an alleged felony.

Mullins, according to a probable cause statement filed Tuesday in Jackson County Circuit Court, told investigators that she dropped the child. A medical examiner's report, cited in the statement, said Jacob died of blunt force that created a hemorrhage in the child's skull.

The injury, the statement said, was more severe than what would be expected if Jacob had been dropped.
Mullins' attorney, John Michael Quinn, said Tuesday that Jacob's death was an accident.

"Ms. Mullins is very sorry for the family of the child," Quinn said. "She is very distraught. What we have is a sad accident. We don't have a murder."

Quinn said he could not comment on past complaints against Mullins. He said she is no longer providing child care.
The boy's mother, Laura Linn, said Mullins called her at work the afternoon of April 11. She could hear sirens in the background. Jacob had stopped breathing, Mullins told her. She had called 911, and Mullins' 16-year-old son was giving CPR.
Linn met the ambulance at the hospital, where Jacob died by nightfall.

Although there is no record of any substantiated complaints against Mullins since 1994, the Missouri Department of Health inspected her home several times in the early '90s and asked two agencies to take action against her for having too many children in her home.

According to records on file at the state health department's Bureau of Child Care Safety and Licensure, inspectors reported in 1994 that Mullins had been caring for as many as 30 children in a home that was never licensed to have more than 10.
Most of the time, the inspectors said, the home was unlicensed and not allowed to have more than four children not related to Mullins.

Records show that the Bureau of Child Care Safety and Licensure had received five complaints between October 1992 and October 1994 saying Mullins had anywhere from 15 to 30 children in the home.

Nine times between September 1993 and November 1994, bureau agents reported they had visited the home and either found too many children or were not allowed inside.

On various occasions, inspectors noted that they believed Mullins was hiding children from them during unannounced visits. A former assistant in the home told an inspector that Mullins tried to conceal the number of children from parents, records show.

Inspectors' reports also noted instances of children with chicken pox in the home, of children sleeping behind a locked door, or lying awake and alone in playpens, of children sent to a park without supervision, of inadequate meals and poor diaper storage.

"The health, safety and welfare of children are endangered when a situation such as this exists," states a letter that the Missouri Department of Health sent to the Jackson County prosecutor's office in November 1994.

The letter asked the prosecutor to take action, but no case was ever filed.

"We wouldn't refer (a case to prosecutors) unless we thought it was a good case," said Mary Ann Heryer, the district supervisor for the Bureau of Child Care Safety and Licensure. "It seemed obvious the statute was being violated in spite of our efforts."
So what happened?

Claire McCaskill, who was the Jackson County prosecutor in 1994, said she does not recall the case. Nor could her spokesman find anyone else who remembered the case.

"It would disappoint me if a case was ready for the courtroom and it didn't get filed," said McCaskill, now the Missouri state auditor.

She said child-care safety cases in general were a priority.

The bureau forwarded the Mullins case to the office of Attorney General Jay Nixon in February 1995. Spokeswoman Mary Still said no one there now recalls the case, either. She found some correspondence seeking more information about the case, but, as with the prosecutor's office, none can say why the case withered.

Once a case is given over for prosecution, the bureau doesn't go back to the home unless it receives a new complaint, said Patricia Wills, assistant chief of the Bureau of Child Care Safety and Licensure in Jefferson City.
"At this level," Heryer said, "we did what we could do."

It hardly seems enough to Laura Linn.

"We parents, we think those agencies are out there doing their job," Linn said. "Why didn't anyone do anything? Why didn't they go back and check?"

A lot of the regret she feels is her own, she said. She admits she wondered how Mullins could provide relatively inexpensive day care.

Jacob has now been gone longer than he was here, and Linn is frightened by her eroding memory of him. Even the pictures in her photo album are blurry.

She remembers staring at a birth announcement she opened in an old e-mail at work. Jacob Michael McGinnis, all 6 pounds and 7 ounces of him, had arrived Dec. 15, 2000, it said.

"He was here, wasn't he?"

To reach Joe Robertson, call (816) 234-7806 or send e-mail to jrobertson@kcstar.com.

Choosing child care

Visit a facility more than once, and don't hesitate to drop in unannounced.

Visit near closing time and talk with other parents.

Tour the facility and outside play areas. Make sure children are attended at all times and that the site is clean and free of hazards.

Count the children and adult supervisors. There should be one adult per four infants or one adult per 10 preschoolers.
Interview the provider. Ask about punishment, the provider's level of patience and respect for children and his or her knowledge of hygiene, safety and nutrition.

Be certain activities exist to enhance children's growth.

For more information
Most records on licensing and substantiated complaints are available to the public.
In Missouri, call (816) 325-5860
In Kansas, call 1-(785) 296-1270
- Source: Missouri Bureau of Child Care Safety and Licensure

 

Kansas City Star, The (MO)
Woman enters not-guilty plea
Former sitter faces charges in
baby's death
September 6, 2001
Section: METRO
Page: B1

By JOE ROBERTSONThe Kansas City Star

Former baby sitter Phyllis Mullins pleaded not guilty Wednesday to second-degree murder and 19 child endangerment counts that blame her for the death of 4-month-old Jacob McGinnis. Prosecutors say Mullins, 49, was caring for 19 children on the day Jacob died.

The baby's mother, Laura Linn, stood and watched in the Jackson County courtroom as Associate Circuit Court Judge Twyla Rigby set Mullins' bond at $50,000 and barred the Blue Springs woman from caring for any children other than her own while the charges are pending.

"I want to see justice done," Linn said later.

It's not just a conviction in her baby's death that she wants, she said.

Her frustration goes deeper, to a Missouri Department of Health case file showing that inspectors had filed reports in 1993 and 1994 saying Mullins was repeatedly caring for too many children in her home.

The reports were forwarded to Jackson County prosecutors and the Missouri attorney general's office, but no action was taken.
Linn said she did not know about the history of complaints, or that Mullins' business was no longer licensed, until after April 11, the day Jacob died.

Mullins called Linn at work that day, the mother recalled, and she could hear sirens in the background. Jacob had stopped breathing, Mullins told her. She had called 911 and Mullins' 16-year-old son was giving cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
Linn said she could hear the teen-ager shouting, "Oh, God, no!"

In the investigation that followed, the medical examiner would rule that the child hemorrhaged to death from a blow to the back of his head.

The murder charge does not accuse Mullins of inflicting the wound, but holds her to blame because the death occurred during the commission of an alleged felony - child endangerment.

According to prosecution documents, Mullins told investigators she accidentally dropped the child.

Mullins "had no criminal intent," her attorney, John Michael Quinn, said Wednesday. "This should not be a murder case."
His client later was released on bond.

Prosecutors likely will try to make the history of complaints against Mullins part of the state's evidence, Jackson County Prosecutor Bob Beaird said Wednesday.

Beaird could not say why the complaints received no action seven years ago. At that time, the Jackson County prosecutor's office was headed by Claire McCaskill, who has since become the Missouri state auditor.

Child advocates share Linn's frustration with the system for regulating the number of children in a day-care home.

Authorities often find it hard to intervene when they suspect too many children are in a home, especially in Missouri, where violators can duck under a confusing veil of regulations, said Wendy Allman, the child-care resource and referral manager for Heart of America Family Services.

The unlicensed provider can shut the inspectors out, or claim most of the children within view are related to the provider, Allman said. Providers can count on parents to keep their secret.

"Some parents feel they don't have many choices," Allman said. "They hope their kid is OK and go on. It's heartbreaking, but it happens."

The scope of the problem is hard to measure, particularly in Missouri, said Candy Iveson, senior policy analyst for Citizens for Missouri's Children.

Missouri, unlike Kansas, exempts church-based child care from licensure. Missouri also allows a provider to care for up to four children at a time, who aren't related to the provider, without regulation.

Kansas requires people to register with the state if they provide more than 20 hours of care a week for more than two children not related to the providers. People who watch more than six children at one time must be licensed, and - unlike Missouri - children related to the provider are included in adult-to-child ratios.

Those differences, Iveson said, help explain why Missouri has fewer licensed day-care slots than Kansas even though 2000 census figures show it has almost twice as many children under 5. Iveson estimates that 30,000 to 50,000 Missouri children are left with child-care providers, other than relatives, who are unknown to regulators. "They are invisible to the system," Iveson said. "Short of sending someone up and down streets looking for little kids, it's hard to find them."

As long as providers are licensed, states can use the threat of suspensions or revocations to pressure violators. The threat of criminal prosecution will get the attention of most unlicensed providers.

Kansas, with its more consistent regulations, can deal with more violators administratively, Allman said. Missouri must rely more on investigation and prosecution.

Licensing bureau investigators - who often have to track down parents' license tag numbers or stop reluctant witnesses in the street - can find it hard to present a case prosecutors can use, said Susan Liley, legal coordinator for the state health department's Bureau of Child Care Safety and Licensure. Even when cases are solid, prosecuting attorneys aren't always interested.

Since 1997, Missouri officials had sent 21 cases to prosecutors claiming too many children in a child-care home, according to bureau records through July. Of those cases, five were prosecuted, five are pending, four providers quit or applied for licenses, one was exempted as a religious-based facility, and six cases received no action.

"They (prosecutors) have got many, many things on the fire with bigger penalties," Liley said. "And prosecuting people who provide child care is not always a popular thing to do."

McCaskill says she doesn't remember the earlier Mullins case but said child-care violations were a high priority for her office.
Speaking generally, McCaskill noted that license violations are only infractions, punishable by fines.

"And an infraction is the kissing cousin of a traffic violation," she said. "The priority of the legislature says that's below a check forger."

Comparing Missouri and Kansas child care Missouri

Number of children under 5- 370,000

Licensed or registered day-care slots- 123,000

Number of children, unrelated to the provider, permitted in unlicensed or unregistered day care- 4

Are religious-based day-care providers required to be licensed?- No

Are children related to the provider included in measuring overall?- No Kansas

Number of children under 5- 189,000

Licensed or registered day-care slots- 130,300

Number of children, unrelated to the provider, permitted in unlicensed or unregistered day care- 2

Are religious-based day-care providers required to be licensed?- Yes

Are children related to the provider included in measuring overall?- Yes

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Citizens for Missouri's Children, Kansas Action for Children, Missouri Department of Health, Kansas Department of Health and Environment; The Kansas City Star

Kansas City Star, The (MO)
Metropolitan digest
September 21, 2001
Section: METRO
Page: B8

JACKSON COUNTY Woman arraigned Former Blue Springs baby sitter Phyllis Mullins was arraigned Thursday in Jackson County Circuit Court on a second-degree murder charge and 19 counts of felony child endangerment in the death of 4-month-old Jacob McGinnis.

Authorities have determined that Jacob died April 11 of a blow to the back of the head that created hemorrhaging in his skull.
Mullins, 49, has pleaded not guilty. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for Oct. 26.

The murder charge does not accuse Mullins of inflicting the wound, but holds her accountable because the death occurred during the commission of an alleged felony - child endangerment. Mullins allegedly had at least 19 children in her care April 11. Prosecutors will need to prove that Mullins knowingly placed Jacob and other children in substantial danger.

Kansas City Star, The (MO)
Child-care questions
September 6, 2001
Section: OPINION
Page: B6

The death of 4-month-old Jacob McGinnis raises new concerns about whether Missouri's laws and regulations protect children in all child-care settings. This tragic case also indicates that communication may be insufficient between local and state prosecutors and the state Health Department concerning alleged child-care violations. Investigators said Jacob suffered a blow on the back of his head last April while in the care of Phyllis Mullins of Blue Springs. Although investigators haven't said how the baby suffered the blow, they have taken action to hold Mullins accountable for his death.

Mullins has been charged with second-degree murder plus 19 counts of felony child endangerment. She pleaded not guilty to all the charges on Wednesday. She reportedly was caring for 19 children in her home at the time of Jacob's death.
Mullins had been cited in 1994 by the state Bureau of Child Care Safety and Licensure after inspections that resulted from a series of complaints that she had been caring for too many children. However, records show that Mullins was not licensed at the time of Jacob's death.

In 1994, state officials asked the local prosecutor's office and the attorney general's office to take action against Mullins. Nothing happened, and neither agency has a record directly pertaining to the request.

State inspection reports of Mullins' home between September 1993 and November 1994 show instances of chicken pox there; of children sleeping behind a locked door; of children being sent to a park without supervision, and of inadequate meals.
It is puzzling that the Department of Health did not make sure it had the attention of the Jackson County prosecutor's office after requesting official action against Mullins in 1994.

It is also strange that no new inspections were made of Mullins' home after the case was referred to Jackson County. A state official said inspectors would not have revisited the home unless another, new complaint was filed.

The child-care regulation system in Missouri historically has left children at risk. Largely this has been because state lawmakers have refused to toughen laws to require church-sponsored child-care centers and at-home providers to improve staffing. A major reason for child-care staffing requirements is to protect children.

The Department of Health needs to re-evaluate its follow-up procedures on cases in which it alleges regulatory violations. Local prosecutors need to work with the Health Department to make sure that regulators know whom to contact in their offices when they need assistance.

Pamela S. Rowse
4330 Crater St.
Las Vegas, NV 89122
(702) 810-5066