DCF investigator loses her job

Florida Department of Children & Families

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DCF investigator loses her job

By WINK News

SOUTHWEST FLORIDA - New information in a child abuse investigation that ultimately ended in the murder of the girl's mother.

WINK News has learned that the DCF investigator on the case lost her job for not notifying police about the alleged sexual abuse of the 14-year-old girl.

The documents show that DCF learned on May 20th that the 14-year-old was allegedly being sexually abused by her stepfather. A call came in to the hotline. But DCF says tonight that the investigator failed to do her job, to follow up and to notify police.

What did happen: two days later, DCF investigator Nikol Anderson finally contacted the mother by phone and told her to tell the stepfather Robert Deleon to leave their North Fort Myers home.

Just hours after that phone call, police say Ruben Deleon shot and killed his wife 35-year-old Jeanette Deleon and pistol-whipped the 14-year-old fracturing her skull.

The report says he found out that the teen had reported she was being abused.

The Department of Children and Families says the investigator should have called police and Jeanette Deleon should have confronted her husband with law enforcement at her side.

"I think this was a train wreck waiting to happened no matter what. But she should have called law enforcement. She should have done her job and we will never know what would have happened "IF". said Cookie Coleman of The Department of Children and Families.

Also in this case, a North Fort Myers high school teacher Eric Zuspann was charged with not reporting the abuse after the girl told him about it back in May.

The teen and her 6-year-old half-sister are in the care of a relative.

DCF says that all hotline calls are now being reviewed by a supervisor, but that this was a case of an individual who failed, not the system.
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