Tariji Gordon Case Study

This year, Tariji Gordon should have just had her seventh birthday. Instead, the foster family that she lived with and her siblings are mourning the fourth anniversary of her death. Tariji was born on March 6th in 2011, she was murdered, at the age of two, by her mother on February 6, 2014. The mother, Rachel Fryer, gave birth to seven other children other that Tariji. Unfortunately, Tariji was not the only victim of Fryer’s abuse and neglect, and much of this maltreatment, including her death, could have been avoided, had the case been handled and monitored properly. When Tariji died, she was just two years old, so unfortunately, Tariji did not get to experience much in life. With that being said, this little girl made a huge impact in her

Looking through the Case Review conducted by the Florida Department of Children and Families, it is known that at the time of Tariji and her twin brother, Tavont’aes’ births, Fryer had custody of three of her children other than Tariji and Tavont’ae. Fryer had already surrendered her parental rights of her two oldest children by this time. Fryer was just 20 years old when she gave birth to her first child and 22 years old for the next, both of which she gave up custody of, after a Child Protective Investigation in February of 2002. The father, Timothy Gordon, Jr. was in and out of the picture for the entirety of the time the children were in Fryer’s custody. At the time of the case review in February 2014, Fryer was 32 and Gordon was 28, both of which are African Americans. Both parents also had criminal histories. Fryer also had a history of drug abuse, mental illness, physical illness, and instability in terms of money, housing, and jobs. They all lived in Seminole County, Florida, which is a small area with a notably higher crime rate than the United States’ national average, in both property and violent crimes (Seminole, FL Crime

All of the children, including Tariji, seemingly did very well adapting into their new home. The case review even stated that Tariji showed a deep attachment to her foster mother and considered her, her actual mother. The children spent over two years in foster care until they were returned to Fryer’s full-time care on November 17, 2013. By January in 2014 Tariji began to miss daycare. One of Tariji’s sibling told the daycare’s staff one day that Tariji did not come to daycare because Tariji had a “boo boo that mommy (didn’t) want anyone to see.” Over the next few weeks the children, especially Tariji, began to be less and less accessible or visible to the community. Fryer began to miss scheduled and unscheduled meetings and appointments with her Case Worker and others. The children where often kept home from school and daycare because Fryer said it was “too cold.” One day Tariji was kept home, the school bus driver asked Fryer to see the little girl and she refused. There were two occasions where Fryer left town for longer that the planned days. At one point, Fryer told the Case Manager that she thought Tariji was developmentally delayed since she would “stare into space” and not listen or respond when spoken to. It is important to note that Tariji was just separated from the woman she considered her mother and despite this, no attention was paid to the