This story has been updated.

The case of an 11-year-old found dead earlier this month in a plastic storage container involves circumstances that the state Department of Children and Families has “rarely, if ever,” seen before, the interim commissioner said Thursday.

Those circumstances now have legislators talking about whether the agency has enough resources and considering potential changes to state law regarding the way DCF confirms children’s identities during interviews.

Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-García was severely abused and starved. Her mother, aunt and her mother’s boyfriend have all been charged in connection to her death. DCF had a history with the family, and in January of this year responded to a report about maltreatment of Torres-García’s younger sister.

When DCF staff conducted their investigation, they were told that Torres-García was being homeschooled out of state and would return, although the date initially provided by the family to caseworkers for her return changed. DCF staff then had a video call with a child who Karla García, Torres-García’s mother, said was her daughter, DCF interim Commissioner Susan Hamilton said. 

But court documents show that Torres-García died in September 2024, months before DCF staff had the video call with the girl who posed as her.

“The circumstances in this case outlined well-orchestrated efforts by adults, one rarely if ever seen before in our Agency, to conceal the whereabouts of a child by being intentionally deceptive and producing a completely different child to pose as the child in question,” Hamilton said in a statement.

Gov. Ned Lamont said Thursday that state agencies, including the Office of the Child Advocate, are working together with law enforcement to find out what happened.

“We’re doing everything we can, no stone unturned,”  he said. “I’m not sure it was dereliction. I think you had a parent, some family members, that tried to cover up a crime.”

The video call wasn’t standard practice, but the agency made an exception because the child was out of state and wasn’t the one who had reportedly experienced maltreatment, Hamilton said in her statement.

“They made an exception, and we have this terrible outcome,” said Children’s Committee ranking member Sen. Jason Perillo, R-Shelton. “I don’t think that’s acceptable. We put policies and practices in place to keep people safe, and we follow them. Failure to do that is absolutely unacceptable.”

DCF policy is to conduct visits in-person, Hamilton said.

“We don’t have virtual visits with clients,” she said previously at a public meeting.

Asked Thursday about the well-being of the child who was made to pretend to be Torres-García, Lamont said he didn’t know, although it appeared he had been briefed on the details of the case.

“I don’t know the answer to that, except that that kid was looking pretty good in the video,” he said with a chuckle. A spokesperson from his office said the meeting was not recorded.

The agency recently implemented a policy change that requires staff to ask for photo identification of adults involved in investigations, and that policy will be formalized in policy books soon, Hamilton said.

“Through the engagement process with the parents or guardians, we interview all children in the household, relying on parental or guardian identification because children under the age of sixteen do not typically possess photo identification,” Hamilton said.

Children’s Committee co-chair Sen. Ceci Maher, D-Wilton, said she’s considering legislation for next session that would require DCF to maintain photos of all children involved in the system so they can be identified.

She said she’s also considering measures that would prevent anyone convicted of child abuse from moving into a home where children live after they have been released from prison on parole. In the Torres-García case, her aunt, Jackelyn García, had been convicted of risk of injury to a child and been incarcerated for 18 months. 

Jackelyn García appeared to be living with Torres-García’s family and has been charged in connection to her death.

“What are the policy pieces we can put in place to make sure that we are looking at things holistically to see not just immediate fixes, but a bigger picture?” Maher said.

DCF dealt with this case in the face of staff turnover challenges, an issue that exists at child welfare jurisdictions across the country. Online data shows that the agency has about 2,800 full-time employees, a drop from closer to 3,000 during the last gubernatorial administration.

“Social Work is a ‘calling’ and our staff are often immersed in some of the most complex forms of violence, child maltreatment, and family dynamics in our communities as part of their daily job functions and responsibilities,” Hamilton said in her statement. “As such, the work may result in extreme emotional, psychological and physical challenges for our employees.”

DCF has tried to improve turnover rates with internal office support, an Employee Assistance program that offers counseling, an Employee of the Month program, mentoring and training, among other initiatives.

At a recent conference in which DCF employees met to brainstorm strategies for improving challenges at the agency, Hamilton also spoke about the issue of worker turnover.

“We do pay. We do what we can to pay to attract people. The work is hard, no matter what. But we do have to, as a system, figure out ways to retain people. Because we’re putting a lot of effort, training and support in that first year,” Hamilton said. Although she didn’t have the numbers she said “people are deciding to leave after a year, and then you have to sort of start over.” 

At that conference, DCF employees also discussed the severity and complexity of their cases post-COVID pandemic. They said that the caseloads of workers is not the best metric for the amount of work they are doing, because the complexity of cases has risen significantly. 

Sarah Eagan, executive director of the Center for Children’s Advocacy and a former child advocate, said staff turnover has been “a dominant concern,” for DCF over the past few years.

She added that the conversation should be about DCF resources and whether there are enough services for families. Other systems, including Torres-García’s legal representation in her custody case, should be considered, she said.

Children’s Committee co-chair Rep. Corey Paris, D-Stamford, said staff turnover and caseworker loads is something he’s having conversations about, although he didn’t disclose details of legislative proposals he’s considered.

“I am thinking of a number of things, of how we might be able to better position and enable DCF with more resources and with better oversight to better run their agency,” Paris said.

Paris wants to see more of the facts of the case before he makes decisions about legislative proposals, but there is a “history here with other cases that we can point to in terms of how we need to focus on procedural and policy changes.”

Children’s Committee ranking member Rep. Anne Dauphinais, R-Killingly, said she’s also not ready to make decisions or advocate for legislation until she has all the facts, but that she thinks DCF has an “astronomical number” of staff.

“I think until we actually lay eyes on all of those reports, we’re not going to really be able to, I think, make any suggestions or kind of come up with any conclusions of where this all went and what went wrong,” Dauphinais said.

She added that she doesn’t want to see solutions that introduce too much government involvement in people’s lives.

“I don’t think anybody wants big government oversight over themselves merely because some individuals have created some horrific crimes, but we want to make sure that the agencies in place are doing their jobs correctly,” she said.

Clarification:

An earlier version of this story reported that the governor had not viewed a video of a meeting between a DCF worker and a child posing as Torres-García. A spokesperson for the governor later clarified that the meeting was not recorded.