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Last updated on Saturday, August 25, 2012
(INDIANAPOLIS) - Kenneth Hudson, the father of the 3-year-old girl who died after being beaten Tuesday, said the Department of Child Services knew about his daughter’s abuse and didn’t do enough to stop it.
Police said Jose Cruz admitted beating 3-year-old Carmen Ellis with a brown leather belt.
Ellis' father said he received a letter from the Department of Child Services on Aug. 10 letting him know that an abuse investigation had been opened in connection with his daughter.
He said he called the agency repeatedly to get more information about the case, but never got a response until he got a call Tuesday from a case worker at Riley Hospital saying if he wanted to see his daughter before she died, he better head to the hospital.
He never got a chance to see her.
"It made me mad. No kid should be in that situation, and they left her in that situation," Hudson said. "They need to get new people in there. They need to get people in there who can do their job."
Because of confidentiality rules, DCS said they are limited in what they can say about the case.
Friday, prosecutors filed formal murder charges against the man accused of killing his girlfriend's daughter.
Charges could eventually be filed against the girl's mother. Prosecutors are waiting for more medical evidence before making that determination.
Cruz is now on suicide watch at the Marion County Jail. He told the judge that inmates have told him he will be dead in a week. Cruz confessed his role in the crime to investigators, saying, "I blanked out, I lost it."
Deputy Prosecutor Denise Robinson said this case is "one of the worst I've seen in 20 years of prosecution. Just the number of injuries, the extent of the injuries. This is a pretty devastating case."
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