In December, Rivers pleaded guilty to the childs death. He remains free on a $1,500 cash bond and will be sentenced March 20.
Peabody was sentenced in September to 18 months probation with required parenting classes, counseling and drug and alcohol assessment.

Voiceofkids: I am missing something here. Are you writing about this case or a different case? Can you provide more background so that I can understand?

Ann Marie Ames has all the info on this case and is working on it now! thanks!

Lee Peterson was a worker now a case managers. nice! Governor Jim Doyle and big ups are getting a independent review team togther.

Somebody said, "it's not about money." Unfortunately, it IS about the money. Not the amound the mother wants for the lawsuit, but about how much money the state has to pay for Child Protective Services. I've worked with them in the past- they care. It's not that they don't, I swear it, it's that they have to somehow find a way to "pick and choose" their cases and somehow KNOW what the most important ones will be, the ones which require the most immediate attention. It's sad, really, to know that the fate of some children rests in the hands of what the people can afford. Perhaps it is that the monies given to the state are not enough, or that they need to be reallocated so that CPS has more funding to work with- regardless, they are not heartless. They do care, often they care too much- they just don't have enough to hire more case managers.

Why was the child taken away from the mother to begin with. Social services just doesn't take a child for the heck of it. I agree that Rock County Human Services are useless, but I think the suit is probably going to get dismissed!! Sorry for the mother's loss.

Its sad that they investigated the foster mother but never pressed chargs against the father earlier maybe they could have prebented this

he was convicted and served his time/paid his debt to society. Im not defending the piece of #$%@ but from a legal standpoint he has rights to his child.

thats the problem, who says he was a known drug user at the time? he has no convictions and all the county had to go by was the biological mother telling them that dad "has a drug problem" Allegations coming from another user about an EX so as to try and not get him to see a child. You think that an EX-wife has never made up stuff about the other EX to hinder parental rights? Its a daily occurrance. State laws give the biological father as much right to see his son as the mother no matter what CPS does. Unfortunately it takes months or years in the system to terminate parental rights completely. Thats not a CPS problem, thats state and fedral laws.

nana - unfortunately the criminals/defendants will always have more rights than the victims the way the current system is. Regardless if it's related to CPS or the criminal system.

Milton I agree we have laws for a reason but, when you know a child is in a bad situation and still do nothing then who's fault is it? If you know the family is dealing and using drugs and you have family members who are not why would you leave the child in a bad situation? When the child tells you what is going on and nothing still happens then what? Who is responsable? I beleive we all are. You need to keep calling and keep reporting theses incidents to the authorities. They will eventually get taken care of.

To all the postings in here this child was in foster care the child died as a result of severe neglect on every single person that was involved with him on that day. April was not his mother and she wasnt there when child suposedly fell in the bath tub (he shouldnt have been left unattended in the tub at that age)The cps allowed unsupervised visits with a known drug abuser and his claim of what happened is what they have to go on do to noone else there to witness what happened as to the no supervision by the CPS and this law suit is needed to wake up the lack of investigations on suspected abuse of children as now we have another case with a 3 year old who is now in the hands of the courts and CPS and I pray she is protected from anymore injuries so we dont have to read another artcle about her in the Gazette. I still cant believe they were released with a court date!!!!!!!

Ive said it once ill say it again, Rock County cannot be blamed for this, there are laws that prevent CPS workers from walking in and taking custody of children. Stop and think about how you would feel if your neighbor 3 doors down called cps and said "i think maybe little baby billy isnt getting the care he needs from mom and dad" then CPS came with law enforcement and knocked down the door and took little billy away because of a neighbor who thinks she might know something. LAWS prevent CPS from doing that, unless billy showed up at school with obvious physical harm, bruises, scratches it is very hard to take a child on unsubstantiated rumors.
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Sure we know now that dad was out buying drugs and had issues, Mom was in rehab (the best place for her). How can any of you sit here and say that a CPS worker had a conviction or hard evidence of anyone doing anything wrong to not be placed with a child. Its easy to sit back and say it now all the facts came out AFTER the incident, you think he said "no dont place my child with me because im addicted to heroin" then CPS still placed the child with dad?
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Rock county did not drop this baby, Rock county did not neglect care on this baby by driving to beloit to buy heroin, Rock county did not kill this baby.

A stupid person (Nicole)made a stupid decision (to take drugs and have a child with a drug user)and it ended up bad. She is furthering her stupidity by filing this lawsuit. She should look in the mirror at who is at fault.

Why did the child die? Because he was with his drug abusing father.
Why was he with his drug abusing father? Because his mother was in drug rehab.
Why was the childs mom in drug rehab? Because she was hanging around drug users.
Why was she hanging around drug users? Only Nicole can answer that one by looking in the mirror, not blaming Rock County.

Please reread my post below. The natural mother of Israel (the woman filing this lawsuit) is herself due in court on Monday to face charges for felony child abuse involving another child. According to public records, the incident took place on 12/23/2008. I am not saying she shouldn't file a lawsuit in the monitoring of Israel, but this all just seems even more dysfunctional than I could have imagined.

can we put all users and addicts on a deserted island? or would that be inhumane to treat idiots that wouldn't know any different? Shoot, Britain did it with their convicts by sending them to Australia. Oh, wait, Australia turned out just fine. Back to my point... send'em all away together to screw up each others' lives!

peabody an rivers both need to be in prison. the mother of this child should have been listened to. their is no price tag for this baby, social services should definitely be held accountable for this. but i can guarantee you they will find away to protect their own like they always do, i surely hope this does not cause the mother to relapse.

miltonalum is right on point....maybe you people should read the statutes and understand what statutes the social workers, who are overworked and underpaid, are required to follow while trying to protect these poor children. They cannot just go to a home, enter and take the children. There is an investigation that is required and even if instances of abuse are found, there are standards that need to be followed to remove children from their home. Please be completely informed before you go blaming CPS. It is a sad society when one believes that the only way to change things is by suing someone. When in fact IF, and this is a hypothetical, the mother does win any amount of money that will not change the system in any way. That will only affect the budget of CPS further. If you want the laws changed you need to speak with your state representatives.

The article says she was at work not in the rehab at the time. I do feel bad for the child. Good for her that she went through the rehab though.

I think the mother is at fault also in this childs death. She knew he had a drug issue but left the child with him and then went with him to get drugs while that poor child was hurting, she should have taken him to the er soon as she got home.

CPS does the best they can within the laws set by the states. If people have a problem with the job they do then i would lobby lawmakers to give them more power, it takes Alot outside of obvious physical abuse to remove a child from its biological parents and stay within the law. 98% of the people who complain about CPS have no clue about laws that govern their actions, you dont just walk in and take a child out of the hands of the parents, we have laws for a reason to protect mother and child rights. I applaud CPS and all social workers for the jobs they do. They arent the ones who dropped this baby in a bathtub then drove around all day without seeking medical attention, get a clue people.

i know of a family where the whole family are junkies: the mom the dad the daughters and the one daughter has 2 little boys, cps has been called to intervine with these 2 little boys and they do nothing, what i want to know is what will cps take kids away from parents for, if your making an effort to get your life together than fine, but when you are buying heroin and your child is dying and cps knowingly put that baby there, then that child's death is the the fault of cps. when these other 2 little boys are in the middle of a drug house while there mom is buying herion and grandma is buying it to, who steps in for these kids? , and this is why cps is directly repsonsible for that little angels death, and that mother in my opinion is not asking for enough, she did her part and no one is going to theres and admit that our cps system is bull and a waste of tax payers money.

Interesting, mom doesn't even HAVE custody of the kid, because she isn't "fit".
Dad has the kid, and he STILL isn't fit.
The kid dies, and now MOM wants a payout?
If ANYONE gets a payout, it should go into a fund for children just like this.

This is a very sad case, but the article now explains why the foster mother was not informed of the court dates. Unfortunately, the sadness probably hasn't ended with Israel's death. The mother (not the foster mother) is due in court in Madison on new charges of felony child abuse that were filed just last month.

I was thinking the same thing, maybe its more about proving a point than the money. Seriously how do you put a price on your childs life? You can't. It's impossible. And I know that if she had asked for a million or maybe even in the high hundreds of thousands, people on here would be talking crap about her saying she was using her sons death. I don't think this woman made the right choices in the beginning of her sons life but I think she was trying to get a staight mind so she could care for her son. Social services spends to much time investigating the wrong people. They don't have time to go for the serious cases. The investigate the small "I saw her swat her child on the butt" cases more than the "boy came in with broken bones, bruises everywhere and said that daddy did it" cases. It's messed up and hopefully this case will help them realize its wrong!

Maybe it's not about money, but you have to put an amount down to file a lawsuit. Maybe it about proving a point. Maybe it is about wrongdoing, and change does not occur until someone is hit in their pocketbook. No inside information - just a thought!

I too don't understand how the system works. I know of several cases where Social Services are involved and they do not remove the children from a situation where children are surround by drug users and dealers. When the children tell you what is going on and they do nothing. The entire family they are staying with is using, or dealing. I just don't get it. How do we protect our children from this type of abuse. Over the years I do not every recall CPS doing the right thing. They at least need to help theses kids.

Pat, the mother was in treatment for drug abuse when her son was murdered.
She begged Social services to keep him in the foster home full time, and not with his father. She told Social services time and time again that he was not safe with the father.
She was doing her best to get clean and be safe for her son. Yes, she had a drug problem. Yes, she chose a drug addict as apartner and a father for her child.

BUT, at least she was trying to remedy those bad choices- and the guilt she must feel must be crushing.

Chelle, I agree. $50K? That's a pittance compared to what she is owed.

What I find even more concerning is social services calls family's they are investigating before they go out to investigate a claim. They set up a time to meet with them. Is that nice that social services gives these parents time to clean up their house and put their drugs and booze away and bath the kids. It is the most ridiculous thing the way they operate. I think they call ahead so that when they get there everything is neat and clean, and they can put in their report " we found no problems, it all looked good."

How ever it says the child was in custody of Rock County. What had mom done that she did not have custody?

Maybe if she had made better choices in who her baby daddy's are, the little boy would still be here today.

Kids deserve so much better.

Why weren't the allegations investigated?
How do you put a price tag on a child's death?
I would certainly think the child's pain, suffering, and death would be worth more than $50k.