REMEMBERING ADAM

Adam Gonzales was only nine months old when he died.

He was still a baby, at an age when crying was one of the few ways he could communicate what he needed.

He could not explain that he was uncomfortable.

He could not move himself somewhere safer.

He could not call for another adult.

Adam depended completely on the people caring for him to recognize his needs and protect him.

Very little reliable public information preserves Adam’s personality or the everyday details of his short life. The records that remain focus overwhelmingly on the circumstances of his death and the child welfare history surrounding his family.

Adam deserves to be remembered as more than those records.

He was a nine month old baby whose life had barely begun.

ADAM’S STORY

Adam lived with his mother, Amanda Lujan, her girlfriend, Frances Garcia, and other children in an apartment on Tennyson Street in Denver.

During the night of August 4 into the early morning of August 5, 2011, Adam woke and began crying.

According to the criminal case, Frances got up to give him a bottle.

Rather than placing Adam safely back in his bed, Frances tightly wrapped him in a blanket and placed him on the floor of a closet.

A bottle was propped for him.

Another blanket was placed over him, including over his face, in an effort to muffle his crying.

The closet door was closed.

Adam was left there.

The following morning, Amanda found her son unresponsive and cold on the closet floor.

The blanket was still covering him.

Frances went to a neighboring apartment to call 911.

Emergency responders could not save Adam.

He was pronounced dead inside the home on August 5, 2011.

Adam’s autopsy did not establish a definitive medical cause of death.

The medical examiner noted, however, that an asphyxial death can occur without leaving definitive autopsy findings.

The criminal investigation focused on the conditions in which Adam had been placed during the night.

He had been tightly wrapped, placed on the floor of a closet with a propped bottle and covered with another blanket over his face.

Adam was nine months old.

SYSTEM FAILURES & WARNING SIGNS

Adam’s death occurred against a significant history of child welfare concerns involving his family.

During the two years before Adam died, social services agencies in Jefferson and Denver counties had multiple contacts involving Amanda and the care of her older son.

Five referrals or contacts were documented.

Three involved concerns that Amanda was not adequately caring for the older child.

In one investigation, a physician agreed with concerns that the boy was failing to gain enough weight.

Approximately two months later, another report alleged that Amanda struck the one year old in the head when he cried.

The family continued moving between residences, and Amanda later became pregnant with Adam.

The previous concerns did not result in the children being permanently removed from her care.

After Adam died, investigators found additional troubling evidence involving his older half brother.

The boy had two black eyes and suspicious bruising on his back.

Another child in the home reported that Frances had hit him.

Those findings added to a history showing that concerns about the safety and treatment of children in Adam’s household existed before his death.

Adam himself was too young to report abuse or neglect.

That made the history involving the other children especially important.

Previous reports involving a sibling can be a warning about the environment into which another vulnerable child is born.

Adam entered that environment as an infant.

He never reached his first birthday.

JUSTICE FOR ADAM

Frances Garcia and Amanda Lujan were arrested following Adam’s death.

Prosecutors alleged that Frances was responsible for placing Adam in the closet under dangerous conditions and that Amanda later attempted to interfere with the investigation.

Frances ultimately pleaded guilty to child abuse negligently causing death.

On November 8, 2012, she was sentenced to four years in the Colorado Department of Corrections. The prosecution had requested the maximum available sentence of 12 years, while the defense requested probation. The judge imposed the minimum prison sentence.

Amanda pleaded guilty to accessory to child abuse resulting in death after prosecutors alleged that she lied to investigators in an effort to hinder the investigation.

Frances Garcia

Relationship to Adam: Mother’s Girlfriend

Conviction: Child abuse negligently causing death

Sentence: 4 years in prison

Amanda Lujan

Relationship to Adam: Mother

Conviction: Accessory to child abuse resulting in death

Sentence: Not independently verified

FOREVER REMEMBERED

Adam had lived for less than ten months.

He should have had an entire childhood ahead of him.

At nine months old, crying is not bad behavior.

It is communication.

A baby cries because he is hungry.

Because he is uncomfortable.

Because he is tired.

Because he needs someone.

Adam cried during the final night of his life.

The response was not comfort.

He was wrapped tightly, placed inside a closet and covered so that his cries would be quieter.

The next morning, Adam was silent.

The criminal cases eventually determined legal responsibility for what happened that night.

Child welfare records revealed that concerns surrounding the children in his household had existed long before his death.

None of that gave Adam back the life he should have had.

He should have learned to walk.

He should have spoken his first words.

He should have had a first birthday cake and made a spectacular baby-sized disaster of it.

There should have been school pictures, scraped knees, lost teeth and years of ordinary memories.

Instead, almost everything publicly preserved about Adam comes from the records created because he died.

Adam Gonzales was more than a child fatality file.

He was a baby.

His life mattered before anyone opened an investigation.

And his name deserves to be remembered for far longer than the nine months he was given.

Abuse Angels remembers Adam Gonzales.

Remembered. Honored. Never Forgotten.