PHOENIX - The Arizona Department of Child Safety (DCS) said the department had previous interactions with the family involved in the killing of three young boys near I-17 and Bell Road Thursday, but the agency maintained it did nothing wrong in its investigations.
In a media release from DCS, it was revealed that the department had investigated allegations regarding the welfare of the three children found stabbed to death and dismembered Thursday morning.
DCS said that in 2010 it received allegations of a child with a small abrasion on his forehead, but investigators were unable to locate the family.
In 2011, DCS received an allegation of child neglect due to an odor of marijuana coming from the family home. The mother was referred to family preservation services after the incident but refused to receive services by the provider.
DCS said that there was no reason or legal grounds to take the children into emergency care and the case was subsequently closed as unsubstantiated.
"In the end, the house was appropriate, the people were appropriate, the children looked well," DCS Director Greg McKay said during a press conference Friday.
Most recently, in 2016, DCS investigated an allegation that the mother gave birth to a baby exposed to marijuana, presumably Avery Robinson, who was 2 months old when he died.
An investigator found the children to be safe and the mother chose not to participate in receiving family services.
DCS Director McKay said there was nothing else a case worker could have done.
“Eventually it comes to a point where there’s no more cause for us to be involved," McKay said. "We tried to get a service provider to engage. If those service providers can’t engage due to family resistance, we can’t continue to do that.”