State Had Earlier Reports Of Abuse In Oʻahu Household Where Girl Starved
The Hawaiʻi Department of Human Services reported that it had been unable to confirm maltreatment reports of another child in the household before Sarai Perez-Rivera died of starvation and dehydration in June.
The family of a 3-year-old girl who died from starvation and dehydration in June had been investigated previously for maltreatment of another child, according to a report released Friday by the state Department of Human Services.
But the two reports of physical abuse and neglect, as well as medical neglect, were not confirmed by DHS.
Sarai Perez-Rivera’s family also had been “engaged in services” through a state diversion program before her death, according to the report.
Such programs can involve counseling and other services designed to prevent children from being removed from the home and placed into foster care. DHS did not respond to a question about the exact nature of the program Sarai’s family had been in.
The report released Friday is required under the federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act. It included four other maltreatment deaths in the fiscal year that ended June 30. Although it did not name Sarai, the report included only one 3-year-old girl.
The two sentences about how state Child Welfare Services handled Sarai’s case raise more questions than they answer. DHS did not explain when the earlier reports of abuse came in, the details of what they alleged, what CWS did to investigate and how it came to its conclusion that the reports were unconfirmed.
Civil Beat reported in 2023 that other states respond to the CAPTA requirement with far more detailed accounts of the actions of child welfare workers when a child dies or nearly dies from abuse.
Colorado, for instance, publicly posts multi-page reports including the child’s living situation, the child’s medical situation and the actions of the child welfare agency before the death or near-death.
Sarai’s mother, Janae Perez, and her partner, Ashleigh Utley, were indicted Tuesday by an Oʻahu grand jury on second degree murder and other felony charges, including first degree assault and kidnapping. They also face misdemeanor abuse charges for allegedly starving Sarai’s three siblings, ages 6, 5 and 2.
Perez and Utley are being held without bail at the Oʻahu Community Correctional Center. The murder charge carries a penalty of life in prison with the possibility of parole.
The two are expected to enter pleas at their arraignment on Monday.
Sarai’s grandmother Leah Schnabel told Civil Beat last year that she begged CWS to intervene after noticing at a Valentine’s Day party how thin Sarai had become.
“I couldn’t sleep at night,” she said.
Schnabel’s sister Tiffany Texeira also shared with Civil Beat texts she exchanged with Perez, Sarai’s mother, after Schnabel called CWS.
When Texeira offered to bring a Costco chicken to the Kapolei house, Perez responded, “We have a bunch of chicken noodle soup we have to much food. Oh I forgot my mom said I don’t feed the kids.”
Perez texted a photo showing a shelf full of soup and other canned goods and wrote, “Oh you can let her know btw because I’ve blocked her on everything that the case was closed for her invalid accusations to Cws.”
HPD says that Perez and Utley failed to feed the children despite having full cupboards. They also allegedly restricted them to 8 ounces of water each per day.
After Sarai was found unresponsive, two siblings were admitted to the hospital suffering from extreme dehydration, HPD said.
Schabel said she later pleaded several times with a CWS social worker she met to check on her grandkids. She said the social worker told her to call the abuse hotline again, which Schabel said she did multiple times.
It’s unclear how Schnabel’s account squares with the CAPTA report released Friday, which contains no mention of an earlier abuse report about Sarai.
Schnabel filed a lawsuit Tuesday against DHS, alleging that child welfare workers failed to take adequate steps to protect Sarai and her three siblings. Schnabel said that a child services contractor Parents and Children Together had also been informed in March and again in May that the children appeared malnourished.
PACT did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Despite these complaints the subject minors were left in the Perez home without adequate supervision, care or services,” the lawsuit states.
Sarai was almost 4 when EMTs responding to a 911 call arrived at her Kapolei home on June 13. She was taken to The Queen’s Medical Center – West Oʻahu, where she was pronounced dead.
An autopsy released Wednesday found that Sarai died of a combination of starvation and dehydration. Though she had an abnormal number of bruises and cuts all over her body, these did not cause internal injuries and were not the cause of death, the medical examiner found.
The report poses a mystery. It appears that Sarai, though small, was within the normal range for her first two years or so. Only then, the medical examiner found, did she start “falling off the growth chart.”
“She started exhibiting loss of weight followed by a slow growth in her height,” the report stated. “No other significant medical problems were documented.”
By the time she died, she was well below even the very low percentiles for weight and height. It’s unclear from what police and other authorities have revealed so far what happened in the household that could explain the sudden change.
Sarai “and her siblings appeared hungry,” according to the medical examiner report. “They were witnessed to eat and drink large amounts when guests were present” in late 2023 and early 2024.
The autopsy states that Perez, Sarai’s mother, “declined care” in the summer of 2021 — when Sarai was 1 — and “complained of harassment with attempts to follow up.”
The medical examiner found that Sarai’s death was a homicide.
In releasing the report Friday, DHS also issued a statement about Sarai’s death:
“The Department of Human Services (DHS) continues to grieve with the community over the loss of this child. DHS cannot comment on pending litigation. The department will respond to any pending litigation in Court with the assistance and representation of the Department of the Attorney General.”
The CWS abuse hotline can be reached at 808-832-5300 on Oʻahu or 1-888-380-3088 on the other islands.
Civil Beat’s community health coverage is supported by the Atherton Family Foundation, Swayne Family Fund of Hawai‘i Community Foundation, the Cooke Foundation and Papa Ola Lōkahi.
