A sweet little boy, with stars in his eyes when he smiled. This is how a grieving mother describes her son Delias (2.5) today in the Alkmaar court. Placed with foster parents, he died in April 2020 from severe head injuries. According to the Public Prosecution Service (OM), his foster mother brutally abused him. “You literally beat the life out of my child.”
Two broken women faced each other today in the court of Alkmaar. On the left is Delias’ mother, who is crying about the big hole in her broken family. Right in front of her in the suspect’s bench is the 47-year-old DR, a mother who may have to explain to her own child that mom has to go to prison for a long time.
When Delias was just in his mother’s womb, there were doubts whether the family was ready for a third child. “When I knew it, I had to swallow hard. I have a troubled past and struggled to make ends meet with two children,” she explains.
Until she had a dream that made her know she was going to make it. “I dreamed about a turtle, which I picked up and then put back in a stream. He went forward with the current. For me a spiritual sign to go with the flow.”
Signs of God
She also suddenly saw ladybugs everywhere: a sign of good luck. “It felt like confirmation that Delias could be there all the way.” But the boy is born into a family where there are many problems. “We loved Delias very much and are a loving and warm family at heart. But there were multi-problems and we had just moved.”
“I tried to persevere through trial and error. I gave everything, but then I was burned out again for a few days,” she continues her statement. “I was also hypersensitive to loud noises. Then I yelled at the children and later I didn’t understand why I did that. After aEight months I turned out to have a burnout.”
She calls youth services and asks if her three children can temporarily find a safe place somewhere else. In 1.5 years, Delias and his older brother are placed with five foster families. At the sixth they are separated.
“It was a child with a backpack that needs a lot of attention”
Delias ends up with DR’s family, consisting of her husband and then 7-year-old daughter in Koedijk. That seemed like a good match at first. “He was happy to see them and I really saw an improvement in him. His hair was also cut hip, he wore cool clothes and little Nikes. Like me, she was a woman of God, so I thought: it’s well.”
Delias is allowed to see his mother every three weeks, together with his brothers. The first alarm bells go off when the foster mother and Delias don’t show up during one of those visits. “After two hours I received a message that she had had a crisis. My child was sick, had the flu. ‘Nothing can be done’.”
When she picks him up during a visit a few months later, she sees that he is covered in bruises. He is also getting thinner and thinner. “He had all kinds of specks on his face and that indicates a lack of oxygen. According to the GP, this was due to hanging upside down for a long time or crying for a long time. I immediately called youth services and wrote to the judge.”
No more mom
During the subsequent visit, the guardian also sees that Delias is not doing well. “He was very apathetic, quiet. He looked very fixed and seemed to be in shock. He also didn’t say mama anymore, just ‘hey’. Normally he always came running towards me enthusiastically.”
A month before his death, his foster mother appears to have told social services that she wanted to stop caring for Delias. He often asked for attention and in combination with a family of her own that had become too much for her. According to her, also largely due to the lack of proper guidance from youth care. “It was a child with a backpack who needs a lot of attention. Certain things irritated me, but you also have that with your own child. Yes, it was tiring, but he didn’t drive me crazy.”
Unbeknownst to his mother, a new foster home is sought. Youth care would not have informed the juvenile court of this in the meantime.
‘Madam, you are speaking with the pediatrician on duty, are you Delias’ mother? He was found with his head in a cistern’
Fearing that youth services will simply place him with another foster family, she contacts them. “I wanted my child back, and I begged for a home placement through a judge.” But she gets an email back “that she shouldn’t worry so much”. According to youth services, there is no question of an urgent situation. “All that fuss with the juvenile court was unnecessary, according to her. Delias would probably sleep well in his bed and I had to do that too. I didn’t sleep all night.”
On the morning of his death, she sends the juvenile judge a letter urging her son to come home. That afternoon she prays with someone from her church for his homecoming. “I feel like we prayed for an hour, until the sweat was on my lips,” she says emotionally.
Water bowl
Then the phone rings in the evening. ‘Madam, you are speaking with the pediatrician on duty, are you Delias’ mother? He was found with his head in a cistern.’
Her whole world collapses at that moment. She curses child services and prays that he is still alive. Then she pulls herself together and says: “Delias is a lion, he will make it. God can work miracles.” But then, according to the mother, the doctor says: ‘Madam, Delias has a serious brain injury. He may never walk again, never talk again. He’s being operated on urgently, you really need to come now.’
Delias is driven to the hospital that afternoon with sirens blaring. He has slow breathing and low heart rate, a jaw clench and dilated pupils. Medical examination shows that he has multiple bruises and bruises in parts of his brain and brainstem. Bleeding is also found in his eyes.
Cold hands
Despite frantic attempts by doctors, with a transfer to Leiden, they can no longer do anything for Delias. “His face was crooked and he was bone-thin, I could count his bones.” He is taken off the ventilator and dies shortly afterwards. “I was allowed to change his diaper for the last time. His hands didn’t get warm anymore, no matter how hard I rubbed. Then I had to leave him there alone,” she sobs, torn with grief.
That afternoon, according to his foster mother, things went completely wrong while playing. “I had to go to the toilet and left Delias alone for about 15 minutes. When I came back I found him with his head in the dog’s water bowl.”
She lifts Delias up and sees his eyes roll away and his body is limp. When she rushes inside in a fright, she says he makes an unexpected movement, causing him to fall and hit his head against the stone floor threshold. To protect her daughter, she runs upstairs to examine Elias on the bed. She takes off his clothes and sees that he has a dirty diaper, which she quickly changes.
“I’m afraid I’m responsible for his injury, but it was an accident”
Delias doesn’t respond to anything, so she says she shakes him hard and calls his name. When her husband comes home from work a few minutes later, she calls 911 and says he nearly drowned. “Could he have gone to the drinking trough himself and choked?” asks her lawyer.
The two pathologists who examined his body are also present today. No fluid was found in his lungs. There was also no question of a medical cause, Delias was perfectly healthy.
‘Severe violence’
According to them, it is very unlikely that the injury was caused by a simple home-garden-and-kitchen incident. It must have been applied with great force. “It is not accidental, but deliberately inflicted head injuries. Violent violence by hitting something on the head, punching or shaking violently, or a combination of both. Without a doubt.”
“We don’t know what the circumstances were,” the foster mother’s lawyer responds. “Just because experts say something is highly unlikely doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”
“Did you shake it? Can you remember that”, the chairman asks the foster mother. “I may have shaken him when he had an epileptic fit,” she responds. According to the police, she would have said during the 112 call: “When you shake it, it’s like a water balloon.” She can’t remember that. “I panicked and took him on my lap, resuscitated him and shook him because he didn’t respond.”
Overheard
The OM is convinced that the foster mother has become angry with him and has deliberately abused him. To find out, she was interrogated several times and her telephone conversations and conversations with her daughter were secretly tapped. However, this has never led to a direct admission of guilt.
“Why did my child lie unconscious with his head in a dog bowl? What does this say about the harshness of your act?” his mother yells at the woman to whom she once entrusted her child. “I am accused of a monstrous act, when I never wanted to hurt him. Not only Delias’ family is broken, our family is too.”
The public prosecutor today demanded eight years in prison for manslaughter. She is charged with conditional intent. With a background as a nurse, she should have known, according to the Public Prosecution Service, that violent violence in a toddler on an extremely vulnerable part of the body can have fatal consequences. “You give different statements, refuse to clarify anything and take no responsibility for your actions. Relatives will never know what happened, while they are entitled to it. The suffering is immense, Delias can never be reunited with his family. “
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