Overview
- About a year ago, 10-year-old Rebekah Baptiste was found unresponsive near Holbrook after prolonged abuse and later died, and prosecutors have charged her father Richard Baptiste and his girlfriend Anicia Woods with first-degree murder.
- This week Rebekah’s biological mother filed a roughly 20-page wrongful-death lawsuit that lists 19 calls to the Arizona Department of Child Safety she says were logged as 'information only' and never investigated.
- News reports say a majority of those contacts came from school staff and resource officers, with educators making 12 separate reports expressing concern about Rebekah’s safety.
- Records cited by reporters show earlier interventions in the family, including children removed in 2019 and returned to the father in 2022, and a June incident when Rebekah sought help at a gas station with bruises documented by police.
- Lawmakers say the case helped prompt recent DCS reforms that require people with direct knowledge to make reports and that escalate review when a child has multiple reports, and DCS declined to comment because litigation is pending.