New information on child abuse cold case

There is new information on a horrific case of child abuse.

A child forced to live in a filthy closet in a pristine home with an often unused guest room.

The adopted 10-year-old boy died in a neighborhood almost three years ago.

Is it a tragedy, or is it a crime that’s gone unpunished?

There’s so little to go on here. We don’t even have a picture of the victim, Begidu Morris.

Public documents show he was 10 years old, found collapsed on the bathroom floor at home and rushed to the hospital, where he was put on life support and died.

“So, I have a lot of lingering questions. I’ll just put it like that,” said Kristen Ziman, WINK News’ safety and security specialist.

Ziman is a retired police chief who the federal government asked to investigate the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting.

We asked her to look into Morris’ death.

“We know from the police report that data was taken from the baby monitor, which was installed in the room that the 10-year-old was sleeping. Call it a closet,” said Ziman.

Florida’s Department of Children and Families called it exactly that.

A closet with a rollaway bed containing a pile of urine-soaked clothes, no ventilation but a camera trained on the door locked from the outside.
      
Despite that data, there have been no charges, not for his death and none for the abuse.

The issue with charging in the death seems to be that two people were in the home at the time, so investigators can’t determine who was responsible.

“That’s the bottom line: the investigation identified a pattern of abuse, but it did not have conclusive evidence to determine which individual inflicted the fatal injuries,” said Ziman.

Remember, no abuse charges have been filed either.

The DCF report shows a list of previous traumas: verified internal injuries, physical injury, medical neglect, malnutrition, failure to protect and inadequate supervision.

The report says the “caregiver responsible” is the mother and father.

Here’s the list of people we tried to ask about that. None of them returned our calls and
the family’s attorney had no comment.

• The child’s uncle
• The child’s grandfather
• A pastor
• A neighbor

Here’s another list. The government offices that wouldn’t say anything other than what we already know from public information:

• The Lee County Sheriff’s Office
• The state attorney
• The medical examiner

That public information also says the child had scars “consistent with a burn injury,” weighed only 44 pounds when he died and suffered “severe physical abuse” and “severe malnutrition.”

Again, DCF identifies the mother and father, Consuela and Jack Morris, as the responsible caregivers.

“There is a whole list of things that could be charged that don’t rise to the level of homicide,” said Ziman, “and my biggest question is, why were those lesser charges not filed?”

WINK News will keep trying to answer that.

The state attorney said it is still an active investigation.