This is the worst thing I’ve read today and probably will be the worst I read all week. This is so awful and so infuriating especially because I wonder if anything will happen to the people responsible. The trouble started last year when the baby girl named Ella was just three weeks old.

On Aug. 11 of last year, according to the documents, Mr. Vitalis and Ms. Browne brought both children to the hospital after police responded to their apartment following a report of domestic violence. Ella Vitalis had been born three weeks before.

The parents said their son, Liam, had hit his head when Ms. Browne pushed Mr. Vitalis, who was holding Liam, into a wall during an argument.

Doctors evaluated both children; Liam was uninjured, but Ella had two broken ankles, a fractured skull and a small brain hemorrhage. Neither parent offered an explanation.

It’s just a mystery how an infants ankles were broken and her skull fractured. Neither parent has anything to say about it. At this point, the Administration for Children’s Services correctly determined that both children were being abused and put then in foster care with their grandmother. But just a month later there was another incident when the father went to visit his daughter at his mother’s house.

Mr. Vitalis’s mother left the two alone and returned to find Ella “with a moderate amount of blood in her mouth,” according to court records. A doctor determined a sharp object must have been used to cause that level of harm, and that Ella had not simply scratched her mouth, the records said.

The cut was serious enough that 2-month-old Ella couldn’t eat for six days. Again, there was no one else in the room besides the father which means this isn’t a case that requires Sherlock Holmes to figure out what happened.

Jump forward to June of this year when Judge Erik S. Pitchal determined Ella and her brother should be returned to live with their parents on a trial basis rather than remaining in foster care. In making this decision he overruled ACS which wanted both kids to remain in foster care. ACS also asked that both parents undergo mental health exams. Judge Pitchal, who went to Brown and Yale Law, said that wasn’t necessary but did allow that a foster agency could make follow-up visits. Over the next three months the parents missed at least five follow-up appointments.

Finally, on Sep. 14, there was another hearing before Judge Pitchal who once again decided the children could remain with the parents. That turned out to be the last chance for Ella who was now about 14-months old.

The baby, Ella Vitalis, 1, was brought to the hospital in cardiac arrest on Sept. 15 after she suffered a blunt force injury to her head while at her home in Crown Heights with her parents, according to the police. Doctors saw bruising and cuts on her forehead, a swollen eyelid, what appeared to be bite marks and a broken jaw, among other injuries, according to the papers, which include court petitions and Administration for Children’s Services records. Five days later, she was declared dead.

Her mother claimed Ella had started choking when the father was feeding her. Incredibly she blamed all of the injuries, including broken bones, on the baby drinking too much milk.

Maybe there are mental problems involved. It’s hard to understand any parent who could do something like this or even who would cover for another parent doing something like this. What I do know is that the judge’s decision, over the advice of ACS, put this helpless child back in the hands of these people. Police are investigating the death of Ella Vitalis as a homicide, but so far no one has been arrested.

NY Times readers share my frustration:

With the level of abuse described, how could a judge send those kids back to the parents — having rejected a mental health evaluation?

I cannot understand how anyone thinks keeping families together trumps the safety of a child whose parents broke their bones when they were a newborn. The kids were in family foster care, too!

Another good question is raised here. Why weren’t the parents charged for the previous instances of abuse?

A beautiful, innocent little girl paid the ultimate price because of two adults who never had charges brought against them.

The horrific pain, torture and trauma this little one endured from their hands is beyond belief.

This judge should have been looking out for the safety and well being a this innocent child who could not defend herself.

Someone from Brooklyn:

Heartbreaking when the Judge who has the last word does neither his job nor trusts that child protective services have done theirs.
Step down, Judge.

From someone who worked in the system in another state:

I have post-master degree training in family therapy and worked for twenty years (1973-1993) as a LCSW, and got to know the local Child Protective Services system, workers and the decisions made by the judges in this system. I learned to deeply trust and respect the CPS caseworkers, who generally spent alot more time with the parents than the judges or I did. I don’t remember a single time of thinking a child who remained in other care should have been returned to the parents but even now, 30 years later, I remember vulnerable children being returned to parents that I would[n’t] let care for my dogs much less a vulnerable child.

Hopefully someone is going to prison for this but it won’t be Judge Pitchal. If there is some legal way for NY residents to bring a swift end to his career, I hope they pursue it. There should be no second chances for a judge with judgment this bad.