ATLANTA -- Although the agency has been around for decades, trying to pin down child death statistics from Georgia's Division of Family and Children Services has been difficult until just the past few years, when they finally centralized their record keeping.
But we know from past experience that the agency has frequently dropped the ball.
Last Saturday's apparent murder of 10-year-old Emani Moss in Gwinnett County is just the latest questionable case.
Her grandmother told 11 alive the child's father and stepmother had already been reported to DFCS for child abuse, yet the child was returned to them.
Just last month, 12-year-old Eric Forbes of Paulding County was found dead after his father had been suspected of abusing him.
During a recent bond hearing for that father, Shayaa Forbes, it was revealed that several of the young boy's teachers had reported signs of abuse, which DFCS dismissed.
Now the father is charged with murder, as well as child abuse.
"Do not let them kids go back home or you're gonna regret something that you can't change," Gary Stokes told 11 Alive in the summer of 2012.
That was not long after his 2-year-old son, Jadien, was found dead and 3 of the child's brothers injured in a Clayton County abuse case blamed on the boyfriend of the child's mother.
Stokes was convinced of abuse after his own investigation, but said DFCS ignored him.
In fact, a DFCS worker visited the family only 2 days before Jadien's death saying the children seemed "happy, smiling and playful" and that the case would soon be closed.
To put those and similar cases in context, here's what DFCS' own statistics for most of the last two years show:
In 2012 they reported 152 deaths of children they'd had some contact with.
Of those, 18 were ruled homicides, 42 are still pending or undetermined, 86 were declared natural or accidental, and 6 were ruled suicides.
Out of 55 deaths in the first six months of 2013, 5 have been ruled homicides, 20 are pending or undetermined, and 30 have been declared natural or accidental.
DFCS released the 2012 statistics last May in its first ever yearly report on deaths.
But there has already been trouble with its reporting system.
As 11 Alive reported last January, a state audit of the $101-million computer system used to compile those numbers showed it often lacked timely information on abuse or neglect allegations.
Known as SHINES, the system cost state and federal taxpayers $49.8-million to start and now costs an average of $23.6-million a month to maintain.
And there have been other problems, including alleged fraud.
In the fall of 2012, police and the GBI raided the Muscogee County DFCS office.
They arrested former intake supervisor Phyllis Mitchell and former acting director Deborah Cobb, accusing them of falsifying department records in order to comply with federal regulations.
In response to an 11 Alive Open Records Act request, DFCS sent us a summary of Eric Forbes' case file on Monday, which we are now studying.
We submitted a similar request for Emani Moss' case, which we hope to receive in a few days.
11 Alive is committed to trying to help get to the bottom of how those cases were handled.
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