While an independent review panel continues to investigate how the Department of Children and Families failed to protect abused twins Nubia and Victor Barahona, it has emerged that a then-7-year-old Nubia shared unsettling pre-adoption concerns with a child psychologist.
Nubia was "sure that terrible things are going to happen to her" if adopted by Jorge and Carmen Barahona, noted the psychologist according to a Miami Herald report.
The little girl also said she felt "alone," and called the psychologist her "best friend," and both twins revealed they thought of kiling themselves.
However, the adoption was approved in May 2009, and in February Nubia's decomposed body was found steeped in chemicals and stuffed in a bag in the bed of adoptive father Jorge Barahona's pickup truck. In the cab, police found her brother, alive but with broken bones, convulsing and badly burned by toxic chemicals.
Barahona, who was found passed out on the ground near the truck, has been charged with attemped murder in Victor's case; police have yet to file charges in his sister's death.
“We were getting signs [of abuse] early on,’’ said Jacqui Colyer, DCF’s top Miami administrator, to the panel reviewing the case. “But we didn’t tie it all together."
