By Jennifer Fernandez and Ashley Fredde
Outrage over the death of Moore County toddler Rylan Ott in 2016 compelled North Carolina on a path to improve its child welfare system.
Nearly a decade later, the state has rolled out several of those reforms — a statewide office focused on preventing child fatalities, regional supervisory offices to provide more support to county departments of social services, and a modernized intake and assessment system for all 100 counties that will eventually include case management.
All these changes were intended to strengthen the state’s state-supervised but county-operated child welfare system, one of only a handful in the country that operate under this model.
After Rylan’s death, legislators also gave the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services the authority to take over some of the most troubled county DSS offices.
Since 2018, the state has taken over six of them — four after child fatalities. Three counties — Bertie, Davidson and Vance — are still under state control. In addition, NC DHHS is working on corrective action plans for six other counties, including Mecklenburg County, where 6-year-old Dominique Moody was found unresponsive in her east Charlotte home in December 2025.
She later died. Police alleged that she was starved, beaten and locked in a dog crate.
The high-profile death has legislators asking why red flags were missed in dozens of visits by social workers and law enforcement over several years, and what can be done to prevent it from happening again.
“Time and time again, children are harmed or killed when law enforcement or social services ignores or downplays reports,” Rep. Allen Chesser (R-Middlesex) said Thursday during a N.C. House Oversight Committee hearing on Dominique’s death. “Children suffer when those authorities disregard abusive histories, and this must stop.”
While legislators focused on Mecklenburg County’s role in Dominique’s death, other opportunities to flag what was happening were missed, said Karen McLeod, who runs Benchmarks, an umbrella nonprofit organization that advocates for groups that provide care for children and families.
The case exposed cracks across the system that — even after a decade of reform — still need to be addressed, she said.
‘Broad, systemic failures’
Every year, children in North Carolina die at the hands of a parent or caregiver. Twenty children died between July 2021 and June 2022, according to the latest state data available.
In recent years, there have been other high-profile deaths of children involved with DSS in the state. In 2023, 8-year-old Christal Lane was beaten to death in Nash County. Her grandmother was sentenced to life in prison for the killing. Severe blunt force trauma killed 2-year-old Jamie Drain in Bertie County in 2024. Her mother has been charged in the toddler’s death.
Dominique’s death became a flashpoint for legislators, in part because they felt that county officials weren’t cooperating with requests for information, Chesser told NC Health News in a phone interview on Sunday.
In those previous deaths, county officials wanted to help as much as they could and make sure they got back on track, Chesser said.
The frustration with Mecklenburg officials was evident during Thursday’s more than seven-hour hearing in Raleigh as legislators grilled officials with state DHHS, Mecklenburg DSS, the county sheriff’s office and Charlotte-Mecklenburg police.
Over the course of several years, county DSS workers, police officers and sheriff’s deputies were called to Dominique’s home dozens of times to investigate reports of child abuse or neglect, to serve domestic violence protective orders and to search for a murder suspect.
Sheriff Garry McFadden said deputies only served domestic violence protective orders at the residence. He did not know if the deputies went inside, but typically in such cases, they hand the legal documents to the subject when they answer the door.
“We first have to have knowledge of something before we can take ownership of it,” McFadden told the oversight committee. “I wish we had the opportunity to help this young lady, but we did not have any knowledge.”
Police Chief Estella Patterson said officers never reported signs of abuse or neglect at the home. A 2022 encounter at a separate location involving Dominique and one of the suspects in her death raised concerns that were shared with DSS, she said.
When pressed further by lawmakers on what responsibility, if any, the sheriff’s office and police department bear, Patterson acknowledged, “Collectively, there could have been more communication.”
In prepared testimony ahead of Thursday’s hearing, DHHS said its review of Dominique’s death “revealed broad, systemic failures, including a lack of appropriate safety planning, insufficient family contacts, and inadequate [Mecklenburg DSS] supervisory oversight.”
Lisa Tucker Cauley, director of human services for NC DHHS, told lawmakers that a deeper review of 122 other Mecklenburg cases found several deficiencies.
In more than half of intake cases reviewed, workers did not ask enough questions to explore alleged maltreatment, she said.
In more than one third of cases with allegations that may have met the criminal definition of child abuse, case files did not include the required verbal and written notification to the district attorney and law enforcement.
In Dominique’s case, NC DHHS noted several reports of neglect or abuse that were deemed by Mecklenburg DSS to not warrant further investigation but upon review by the state were found to meet the definition of abuse or neglect.
Over the years, 13 allegations of neglect or child abuse of Dominique had been reported, according to officials. One of those cases allegedly included photographs of the child’s wounds, with the caseworker recommending removal from the household. That recommendation was overturned by a supervisor who dismissed what was noted by the caseworker as “ligature marks” as marks from a nail in a crib, according to Chesser.
In the daylong hearing, Mecklenburg County Manager Mike Bryant and Deputy County Manager Kimm Campbell spoke to lawmakers last and incurred most of their growing frustration and anger.
Mecklenburg DSS said 12 people involved in Dominique’s case were disciplined, including a senior social service manager who was fired and a social worker supervisor who resigned.
Bryant and Campbell pointed to additional steps the county had taken to improve the process, including the county budget that had been approved by commissioners just days prior. The budget outlined $2.1 million to enhance capacity and resources for Child, Family and Adult Services, including 21 new positions.
But some committee members were not convinced this would help.
“Everybody comes to this moment in this committee. Where do your loyalties lie? How many lost kids do we have in Mecklenburg County being ignored just like this?” Rep. Brian Echevarria (R-Harrisburg) asked.
“This should have gotten the attention necessary, and no, staffing will not fix it, because staff looked at it,” he said. “It wasn’t that someone didn’t get to it, they got to it and they dismissed it. It wasn’t at the bottom of a pile, not seen. It was looked at and dismissed under your authority.”
When pressed further about the county’s responsibility, Campbell acknowledged, “I do think that we all share responsibility and things that should have been done or could have been done.”
She added that the county’s last involvement with Dominique was February 2024, so it had been well over a year since they had seen her or her living conditions when she was found unresponsive in December 2025.
“Feel like y’all did a pretty good job?” Rep. Brenden Jones (R-Tabor City) quipped grimly during the hearing.
“I think for the time that we were involved, I think the workers did the job by following the policy,” answered Campbell.
“Well you didn’t!” he snapped. “You got a dead child on your hands, so you didn’t do the job.”
McLeod agreed that there’s no excuse that so many red flags were missed in Dominique’s case. But there were also clear signs — from large caseloads to policy failures — that the current system is overstressed, she added.
More work to be done
“Any of us who are in child welfare … these are our children,” McLeod said. “We all have a responsibility. We should all be holding ourselves accountable for their well-being, and we should all be raising our voices to moving our system to a better place.”
She said many counties struggle to find enough staff to meet the bare minimum requirements. Even when they have money, some can’t pay enough to get anyone to take the job or stay very long.
In a system with 100 counties, there are a lot of inequities. Larger and wealthier counties can pay more, so often, case workers in smaller, less-well-paid counties, gain a year or two of experience and then go looking for better pay elsewhere.
“There’s so many barriers that the county DSSs are trying to overcome to try to meet those standards,” McLeod said.
State and local lawmakers should be putting money into aggressive training and recruiting, and ensuring all counties can provide appropriate salaries, McLeod said.
While North Carolina has been investing in infrastructure, which is critically important, it is at the beginning of reforming its child welfare system, said Vicky Kelly, a board member of the Child Welfare League of America, a national coalition of hundreds of private and public agencies that advocate for improved child welfare policy.
State lawmakers started appropriating funding in 2017 to fulfill the promises made in Rylan’s law, allocating about $10.5 million annually which provided funds for DHHS to hire 24 positions to support child welfare agencies.
During the 2023-24 budget, when the state was flush with leftover federal pandemic funding, lawmakers bumped up spending to support families with children with complex needs.
What will happen as federal funding begins to dwindle is yet undetermined, as the legislature failed to approve a budget last year and has not yet presented this year’s budget.
Kelly said North Carolina should be looking at reducing caseloads and improving training for supervisors, who she described as “the linchpin” in child welfare. A seasoned supervisor who has the time to help process what the caseworker is seeing and can properly apply reports from others sources is crucial to good outcomes, she said.
It’s difficult to have that level of supervision when in today’s strained child welfare systems, supervisors often also carry caseloads because of staffing shortages, Kelly said. And many supervisors don’t have deep experience anymore because of the continual turnover.
Kelly recalled meeting a group of social workers at a conference. Many of them were in their first year of working in child welfare. Their supervisor had just over two years of experience.
In addition, these social workers should have no more than eight to 10 cases at any time, according to best practices, Kelly said.
Letecia Loadholt, interim director of Mecklenburg County’s Child, Family and Adult Services Department, said the county’s average is 17 cases per social worker. That doesn’t account for complexity of cases, such as the number of children involved, she said.
Local child welfare systems don’t do a good job of accounting for the complexity of individual cases, Kelly explained. For example, a case involving one child is less complicated than a case with multiple children or a case involving a child with behavioral health issues. And then there are the family stressors that can add to that complexity — domestic violence, substance use, food insecurity, previous trauma, job loss.
“Then you’re waiting for services,” Kelly said. “And the access to services in the country is probably at one of the lowest levels that it has been in recent decades.”
Fewer North Carolina families are expected to have access to Medicaid and food aid after cuts to those federal safety net programs, which have started to roll out.
The growing need for system supports was acknowledged by Rep. Amos Quick (D-Greensboro) during the hearing.
“If there’s anything positive at all that can come from the legacy of Dominique Moody, it is that you all do a microscopic evaluation of how you deliver services and that we, as a state, make sure that we not only hold you to account, because you have to be held to account.” Quick said.
Quick pointed to an estimated 56 people moving to Charlotte-Mecklenburg every day — some who may need social services or may not come with resources.
“When people come in needing food assistance, when people come in needing housing assistance, those supports are often very slow to get to people,” Quick said. “It happens in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, it happens in Guilford County. We have to be able to have mechanisms to speed up the processes, so that people can eat.”
What’s next?
For Chesser, Dominique’s case bears the hallmark failures — from lack of oversight to poor decision-making — that have come up in other death investigations. He told NC Health News he expects the General Assembly will look at tackling those issues with future legislation.
“We have an opportunity here to intervene, to make some changes,” he said.
Legislators have already taken action to make system changes this year in the wake of Dominique’s death.
A proposed law named for Dominique would create escalation teams to look at cases similar to hers, when there is a history of attention from Child Protective Services due to a combination of safety and risk factors. And a Medicaid funding bill passed in April includes $1 million to study centralizing all of North Carolina’s social services — a suggestion that has been broached over the years but dropped after pushback from some counties.
McLeod said last year’s Fostering Care in NC Act is another example of trying to address the ongoing challenges to keep kids safe in the state. The law, passed in June 2025, gives the state the ability to step in and review county cases. Another provision requires that placements be found more quickly for foster youth with behavioral health needs.
As part of the county corrective action plan, NC DHHS is now monitoring Mecklenburg County’s progress through weekly meetings and monthly status reports.
The oversight committee’s work is not done, Chesser said. The committee has requested documents, reports and data from Mecklenburg County, including information about the 12 employees disciplined in the case. As part of the questioning at the hearing, Chesser pressed for information on whether DSS referred anyone to the district attorney’s office for possible criminal charges.
If a county investigated an employee for suspected embezzlement, it would send what it found to the district attorney to consider for charges, Chesser told NC Health News. Why not in this case, he asked.
“We have to be able to punish bad actors, those who are not doing their job and leaving kids in risky situations because it is convenient,” he said.
Dominique’s family is also calling for accountability.
J. Vernon Peterson, a distant relative, told NC Health News he didn’t hear much of that at Thursday’s hearing.
“I had heard a lot of shirking from responsibility, but it doesn’t take a sightless person to see what was going on at their residence,” Peterson said. “Somebody should have spoken up for the children. The place was in horrible condition.”
Renowned civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who has been helping the family press for answers, said Dominique’s younger sister Desiree shouldn’t be forgotten.
“This is a fight not just for Dominique, not just for Desiree. This is a fight for every child in North Carolina,” Crump said. “We’re committed to standing with this family and doing what we need to do, so that we can save every child.”
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