Given Back TWICE to His A*usive Parents Because CPS Feared Being Racist

Given Back TWICE to His A*usive Parents Because CPS Feared Being Racist

A call came into 9-1-1. It was about a little boy who had drowned in a swimming pool at the apartment complex his family lived in, but as the police were soon going to discover, what sounded like a terrible accident was much, much more than that.

Today I have a case for you about a little boy, and this case is remarkably similar to that of Anthony Avalos as well as Gabriel Hernandez. This story is going to be about a child, so please be aware of that before you go any further in the video. Unfortunately, this is another circumstance where Child Protective Services failed to protect this child. This is the story of Noah Cuatro.

Noah Cuatro was a sweet, cuddly little boy who loved animals and he loved to sing. Noah was born on August 20th, 2014, to his parents, Ursula Juarez and Jose Cuatro. Now, Ursula and Jose had met back in high school; they met at the John F. Kennedy High School in Granada Hills in Los Angeles, California. Ursula gave birth to the couple’s first son when she was 18 years old. Two years later, she gave birth to Noah. They also went on to have two younger children as well.

When Noah was born, he was immediately taken away by DCFS. This was due to the fact that 10-month-old Bobby Jean, who was Ursula’s half-sister, was in her care, and while she was in her care, Bobby Jean suffered a skull fracture. Skull fractures are usually consistent with shaken baby syndrome at that young of an age. Once Noah was taken away from his parents, he was briefly sent to a few foster homes before he landed in the home of his great-grandmother, Evangelina Hernandez. She provided a loving and nurturing environment for the little boy. He was happy and he was well taken care of for the first nine months of his life.

And then, at nine months old, Noah was placed back with his parents, and this was due to the fact that they could not prove the allegations against Ursula that she had actually harmed her half-sister. Putting Noah back into his biological parents’ custody proved to be detrimental to the child’s health. It’s thought that since Noah was not with his parents for the first part of his life, his parents did not form a typical bond that a parent and child would form. Ursula blames this on DCFS all the time—it’s not her fault as a parent for just being a bad parent, it’s DCFS’s fault, because who knows.

So Noah was back in his parents’ custody, and when he was a little bit over two years old, Kaiser Permanente called DCFS to let them know that Noah had missed eight appointments in just the short span of six months. Now, as you probably know, at that age, appointments are very important. They mark a child’s milestones, and they would have been able to keep an eye on Noah and see if he was being properly fed and see if he was being properly cared for. That’s the exact reason why they didn’t bring him to the doctors—because the doctors would have caught on that this child was being abused and neglected. Ursula tried to tell DCFS that it was due to the fact that there were issues with the family’s medical insurance. This was found out to be completely untrue.

So, due to this call, DCFS paid the family a visit. Then they found out that Noah was malnourished, and at over two years of age, he was weighing only 17 pounds. The normal weight for a little boy of that age is between 27 and 30 pounds; that’s a healthy child. 17 pounds is extremely underweight and malnourished. Of course, Ursula already had the excuses waiting, and she was ready to tell DCFS what was going on. She said that Noah liked to run around the house like a crazy child and eat a bunch of food. He ate so much that it would cause him to throw up, and that’s why he was not gaining any weight. Now, the only kind of child that I know that will eat so much that they would possibly throw up from it is a child who is being starved.

At this point, Noah was again removed from his parents’ custody. He was returned to his great-grandmother’s care. Again, he thrived while he was in her care, and she absolutely adored Noah. Noah, however, eventually started getting visitations with his parents again. They started off as days on the weekend, and then they soon became overnights. In the time leading up to these visitations with his parents, Noah would scream, cry, and wet his bed. The thought of going back to his biological parents’ house was clearly causing this child distress. Right then and there, DCFS should have noted this and cut it off, but he continued going. His great-grandmother even made reports to DCFS about this, and he was still sent there.

Unfortunately, since Ursula and Jose were fighting DCFS, DCFS put a reunification plan in place for the family. Ursula said that she would never intentionally starve her child, and again blamed DCFS for not having her child for the first nine months of his life. She would often say she just wanted to be one big family again. So, in order for a child to be reunited with their parents, there are oftentimes steps that the parents have to follow. They have to go to counseling, they have to go to therapy, they have to get a job, whatever it may be. Well, as part of Ursula and Jose’s plan, they were supposed to receive therapy, and they had not complied with that, so that was one thing that they hadn’t done. However, the court still decided that it was a good idea to go ahead and give Noah back to them. As the juvenile court commissioner, Steve Ipsen, said, he saw “substantial progress” in the parents, so he sent Noah home to live with his parents on November 9th, 2018.

Now, the red flags started appearing almost immediately. When Noah was returned to his biological parents, he had a social worker whose name was Susan Johnson. On her first few visits to the family, she found out that they had ignored the court’s orders to, as I said, go to therapy. Still, they had ignored the court’s order to enroll Noah in a preschool program, and they had also ignored the court’s order to give Noah regular visits with his great-grandmother. As far as I’m aware, nothing was done about this.

Then, in April of 2019, one of Noah’s aunts made a call to the child abuse hotline reporting that Noah had lost weight, he had thinning hair, and he was complaining that his bum hurt. Noah’s personality had also changed at that point. He used to be a sweet, happy little boy, and now he was always scared. There was something going on, and many of his family members could see it. Many times when DCFS tried to conduct visits to the family’s house, they were too busy, or they pretended like they weren’t home. We just saw this in the Dakota Collins case, very similar. Apparently, they just let them get away with it. I mean, what else are they going to do, break into their house? I don’t know, but it’s ridiculous.

There was one time that Susan was able to visit the home, and when she did, she noticed that there were marks on Noah’s right arm as well as his neck, a big bruise on his left arm, as well as lotion covering his back, which his mother said was due to his eczema. Susan asked Noah at this visit what would happen to him when he did something bad, to which Noah replied, “I get hit.” Very shortly after, he recanted that statement. So Susan reworded it and asked him again what happened when he misbehaved, to which he again said, “I get hit,” and then recanted it again, which is very obviously a characteristic of a scared and abused child.

So after that visit, when Susan got back to her office, she spoke with her supervisor about what she had witnessed, and the supervisor told her to file a petition for removal from the home, which she did. Unfortunately, it was not Susan’s job to assess the truth of these allegations. She was known as a continuing services children’s social worker, and her job was merely just to monitor and assist families in the reunification process as well as getting the cases closed out. The duty of investigating these allegations fell on an emergency response children’s social worker, which is often known as CPS in other states. Her name was Maggie Vasquez Ducos.

When Maggie first visited the family, she noticed injuries on Noah as well. Ursula told her that this was just due to Noah falling off the bunk beds. She also told her very tearfully about how Susan, the DCFS worker, was being racist against her and persecuting her. Noah, of course, also denied the abuse because his mom was right there; he wasn’t going to say anything and get beaten again. They did take him in for a medical exam, and the doctor that examined him said it was possible that it had been caused by a fall from the bunk beds, so the allegations essentially got dropped.

Maggie also spoke with a social worker who had worked on the case before Susan had. Her name was Elizabeth Hernandez Aviles. Elizabeth reported that she had always had concerns for Noah and did not agree with him returning to his home. She also said that she felt his parents were habitual liars who presented themselves very well, which is very clearly—and I’m not a DCFS worker or a psychiatrist or anything like that, however, I know that that’s a sign of a sociopath right there. Maggie should have been like, “Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding! Don’t believe most of the things that these parents are going to tell you because they’re sociopaths.” She doesn’t, though. She doesn’t. She’s an idiot. It’s so frustrating. She also expressed her concern about the lack of bonding between Noah and his parents. Nevertheless, Maggie wrote off the allegations as inconclusive, and the allegations were dropped. Nothing was done. There, however, was no evidence of Maggie reaching out to any of Noah’s relatives to speak with them, which is an integral part of a child abuse case. After Noah’s death, police actually found text messages between relatives expressing their concern for Noah’s situation and his well-being.

Susan had written and submitted her petition to have Noah removed from the home, and on May 15th, the court granted that request, along with the requirement that Noah needed to take another medical exam so they could verify if he was being abused or not. A new tip came over to DCFS alleging that there was domestic violence in the home as well as possible sexual abuse going on to Noah. Maggie was assigned to investigate this new accusation, and as she was investigating, she found out about the removal order that Susan had gotten from the courts. She immediately began questioning it and saying that Susan was just harassing the parents. Maggie knew about the new allegations of sexual and domestic violence, but she said that Susan was just bullying them and targeting them. Okay… she argued that Susan was biased against the parents and she was taking the great-grandmother’s side. Yeah, yeah, I hope so!

In order to investigate the allegations, Maggie visited the family on May 20th of 2019, and she was also accompanied by Elizabeth, who was the previous worker that was put on his case before Susan. Once there, they found that Noah had an injured cheek, and three different explanations were given as to what caused the injury to Noah’s cheek. Also during the visit, Elizabeth reported that randomly Noah would run up to her and say, “They feed me a lot, they love me, they take good care of me.” This was a clear sign showing that he was being coached to say these things. Why would he come running up to her saying these things when he was never asked them? A kid just wouldn’t do that.

After that, there was a meeting with higher management, and Maggie argued against the removal order. The top administrator in the room at the time took her side and told Susan to not execute it. Susan later said that when she tried to state her case as to why he needed to be removed, her supervisor elbowed her and told her to be quiet. Ironically, these new allegations had been cited as the reason to not remove Noah from the home because they had not finished the investigation as to if they were true or not. I’m sorry, but what kind of logic is that? Are these people not professionals? Because none of the things that they’re doing is making any sense to me at all.

To make things even worse, Susan, who was helping try to advocate for little Noah, was removed from the case because a court order had said that they wanted somebody on the case that was Spanish-speaking. Why, I’m not sure, because the family did speak English. Such a person was never even appointed to the case, and for the rest of Noah’s life, Maggie continued to manage his case, and as I said before, she was an investigator, not a case manager.

On June 6th of that year, Ursula, who had repeatedly denied being pregnant, gave birth to a baby boy. She had received zero prenatal care, and she had also initially claimed that she was just a surrogate, but she had no paperwork for it. She tried to sneak out of the hospital with the baby. She knew DCFS was going to launch an investigation and probably not let her take her baby home, so she was trying to sneak out of the hospital with her child. Susan also told Maggie, now that Maggie was handling the case, that Noah’s mother Ursula had had a psychiatric exam done on her recently, and she had shown traits of being—yup, you guessed it—a sociopath. Big surprise. Susan also said, “I’m worried about the situation because of all the contradictory accounts and the denial of Ursula about her pregnancy. If she’s going to deny her pregnancy and give all these lies about that, what is she lying about in this other case?” That would be the first thing that would come to mind. I’m sure that’s what Susan was inferring when she was telling Maggie, but Maggie just didn’t care. I’m guessing she probably didn’t care, but you know, Maggie and her supervisor decided that it was okay to let Ursula go home with her new baby.

However, oddly enough, the family soon decided that they were going to start turning against Maggie. They didn’t want DCFS involved in their lives at all anymore. I mean, of course, most people who have DCFS cases open don’t want them involved in their lives anymore, but that’s usually not an option because that’s not how it works in most places. Not California, I guess. So they began trying to obstruct her from coming to check on Noah in the home.

In March of 2019, Susan actually went to the apartment where Jose and Ursula said that they were living. Jose’s sister actually answered the door and said that they had not been living there for months. Jose’s mother, Nuvia Barrios, said that the family occasionally stayed there and confessed that she was worried about Noah’s well-being. She said that he was often very hungry. She also said that her grandchildren were not in school. Her last visit with him was actually June 28, 2019. According to the report from that visit, Noah was in good spirits and he reported that he was doing well. She also did not follow the protocol that she was supposed to take Noah into a separate room and speak to him without his parents there, which is crucial, because no abused child is going to say “I’m being abused” in front of their abuser. That is just common sense.

The decision from DCFS was that if Noah was to stay in his parents’ care, there needed to be a meeting between DCFS and the family. However, Maggie noted that on June 28th, when she tried to schedule this or tried to ask Jose, “Why have you been rescheduling all the times we’ve tried to have this meeting?”, he told her that he just wanted no further involvement with the agency. Maggie just accepted this answer.

In the final week of Noah’s life, Maggie, who might have been sensing impending disaster, started sending out emails saying that Susan Johnson was being biased towards the family and that the great-grandmother was the one that was at fault for this happening. She said that Noah’s parents were victims of DCFS. “I feel like the department has been picking on the family,” were the exact words that she wrote on July 3rd. Three days later, Noah was dead.

Ursula was actually quoted as saying, “Why would we hurt our baby? We just got him back. I have had a case open for four years and I’ve been told that I’m good enough to have my other two kids but not Noah. How does that make sense?” So by mid-June, 29 days had already passed, and nobody ever told the juvenile courts that Noah was still with his parents. And the law says that if he has not been removed from his parents’ house within 10 days, the court needs to be notified. This was not even discovered until after Noah was dead. It just slid under the radar. Maggie also claimed that there were no allegations of sexual abuse, even though, as I said earlier, there had been allegations just a month ago. She also said in her reports that relatives had no concerns. She didn’t speak with any relatives, completely forgetting about the times that Noah’s relatives had called into DCFS as well as the child abuse hotline.

So sometime on July 5th, a neighbor was walking by the apartment of Ursula and Jose, and she says that she heard coming from the apartment a child crying out, “No Daddy, no Mommy!” And around 6 PM that same evening, Ursula and Jose made panicked calls to 9-1-1: “Help, please, somebody!” Jose told a dispatcher they reported that Noah had been swimming in the pool at the apartment complex and had nearly drowned. Once on the scene, however, police became immediately suspicious of the situation, as Noah was completely dry and clothed. He also had signs of mottling around his neck, which is actually a sign of strangulation. Ursula was expressing her disbelief in what was going on, while Jose just kept saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” You’re sorry for what? What’d you do? I thought he drowned in the swimming pool.

[Eyewitness News Investigation segment] “New video and frantic calls to 9-1-1 after the death of four-year-old Noah Cuatro last summer. Noah’s parents told police the boy drowned in a swimming pool, but according to grand jury testimony just released, the parents staged the scene to derail investigators. Miriam Hernandez has the story you’re seeing first on Eyewitness News. Unconscious on the living room floor, his parents telling first responders they had just pulled him from the swimming pool. ‘We brought them upstairs because we’re trying to get hit… we were trying to think like maybe he’ll wake up.’ ‘Where are you at right now? Is he breathing?’ ‘Right here in the house, in the living room.’ ‘Okay, so you’re in the living room and I lay it down.’ Noah’s father, Jose Cuatro, reenacting his desperate CPR attempts at their Palmdale apartment on July 5th last year. ‘And I was just like, no, no, come on son, please, please.’ Their story soon unraveled. Jose Cuatro and Noah’s mother, Ursula Juarez, are charged with the torture and murder of Noah. The case has the Department of Children and Family Services under fire, too. Just eight weeks before Noah’s death, a DCFS worker, Susan Johnson, had obtained a judge’s order to remove Noah from his home, but Johnson’s supervisors intervened. Noah died in a home DCFS itself had deemed high risk. A deputy responding to the 9-1-1 call describes how in the hospital, the parents’ lies were exposed. He was transferred to the hospital. No signs of drowning at all, no water in the lungs, but there are signs of physical and sexual abuse. What doctors and the coroner did find were bruises all over, healing rib fractures, brain swelling, and injuries consistent with sexual assault. Cause of death: asphyxiation and blunt force trauma. ‘It’s looking like there’s some sort of strangulation of some sort and sodomization.’ Noah and his siblings had been in and out of foster care. Prosecutors allege Jose Cuatro targeted Noah, believing the boy was not his son. That at age two, back with the parents, Noah weighed 17 pounds and could not walk on his own. Noah’s mother sent a chilling text message: ‘Almost killed him so many times I had to do CPR for him to wake up and stay alive, right?’ A check of security cameras at the pool showed no sign of Noah or his family that day. And about the frantic effort to revive Noah, there’s evidence that Noah was unconscious hours before the parents called 9-1-1.”

The doctors and nurses tried desperately to revive him. He was sent to not one but two separate hospitals. Unfortunately, neither hospital was able to do anything to save poor little Noah. No family members showed up at his bedside. A group of doctors and nurses stood next to his bed holding Noah’s hands in his last moments on this Earth. It was determined that Noah had died from asphyxiation and blunt force trauma, along with numerous bruises. The doctors also found rib fractures that were partially healed, and there was also trauma and bleeding to Noah’s rectum. Awful, absolutely awful, disgusting. It was later revealed that his father had inflicted this.

The full scope of DCFS’s failure came to light after Noah was deceased. Noah’s family, social workers, as well as medical experts, were all summoned to testify in front of a grand jury. One by one, Noah’s relatives took the stand. They all said that they were concerned about Noah’s well-being and how he was being treated by his parents. Ursula’s sister, however, Stephanie, admitted that she had lied to one of the caseworkers. She said, “I’ve dealt with DCFS a lot in my life, so I know what it’s like.” So, great family going on there. She later added, “I should have done more. I failed him.” Yeah, you did.

Maggie and her supervisor both acknowledged in court that they had read the 26-page document filing from the juvenile court that was intended to remove Noah from his home. It, however, was not read until after Noah’s death. Doesn’t do you much good then, does it? It was later found out that Noah’s siblings were also being abused in the home. His oldest sibling, his brother, told great-grandmother Evangelina, who has custody of the siblings now, that Jose often forced him to physically fight and beat up Noah. That same sibling also said that he and Noah were always hungry, and that he had seen his parents slap his baby brother in the face. He also said that he was scared of his father because he would often beat him up. The reason that Noah lost his life the day that he did was because he had soiled his pants, and it pissed off Jose.

The day after Noah’s death, Jose and Ursula were both arrested. They were charged with child abuse and homicide. Jose was held on a four million dollar bail, while Ursula was held on a three million dollar bail. Jose has been charged with one count of assault on a child causing death, and a newly added charge of sexual penetration on a child under the age of 10, with the latter crime occurring on the same day as Noah’s death. Ursula has been charged with one count of child abuse under circumstances likely to cause death. They pled not guilty. In 2022, in front of a grand jury, they were both indicted on the charges of homicide and torture. Their trial is expected to start in September or October of this year.

In 2020, Evangelina Hernandez filed a wrongful death suit for her as well as Noah’s remaining siblings. The lawsuit, as I’m sure you know, is due to the failings of DCFS and repeatedly putting Noah and his siblings back into an unsafe home with their abusive parents. It also states that DCFS workers threatened the great-grandmother after Noah’s death, saying that if she made any public statements about Noah’s case or filed any lawsuits, that she would lose her request for guardianship for Noah’s remaining siblings and she would never see them again. There has been no conclusion to this lawsuit as of yet.

Noah was buried in the Mission Hills Cemetery in Mission Hills, California. He loved the show PJ Masks, the Disney movie Coco, and he was so excited to be starting school soon.

As I said, this is another case of a terrible failure by Child Protective Services. More needs to be done. Less needs to be ignored and swept under the rug. It’s so unprofessional, and I don’t understand how there has not been reform at this point. Why would you remove a child from a clearly happy and thriving home and put him back into a home where the parents have not even completed the checklist of things that they needed to do in order to get the child back? If it was a bad home before, and they’ve made no improvements and done nothing to change the situation, why would the courts think it was ever going to be any different? I just don’t get it. It makes no sense. Noah should have been protected by these services that were put in place to do just that. It’s such a sad and equally frustrating story.