Five months before a Florida boy was found dead, the child's guardian ad litem opposed his return to his mother from foster care, the Tampa Bay Times reported Thursday.
But according to records, a case manager for a state contractor advocated the return of 2-year-old Jordan Belliveau to his mother, Charisse Stinson, and the guardian was overruled, the newspaper reported.
Tuesday, police found Jordan's body in the woods behind a baseball field in Largo, Florida. Police arrested Stinson, 21, and charged her with first-degree murder, the Times reported. Jordan had been missing for two days; Stinson told authorities that she hit the boy in the head when she became frustrated, investigators said.
Originally, Stinson told investigators a man who said his name was Antwon offered her a ride Saturday night, but instead punched her in the head and took off with her son. She said she woke up hours later in the woods.
Mariela Ollsen, the circuit director for the guardian ad litem program, told the Times she could not comment about Jordan's case but said her agency will cooperate with a review being conducted by the Florida Department of Children and Families.
According to a DCF report dated Sept. 2, 2018 -- the day Jordan was reported missing -- the child was originally taken away from his parents because "the father is a drug dealer and gang member," WFLA reported.
The report also noted that “The father has a history of domestic battery on the mother which was the reason that Jordan was originally removed from his parents care,” the television station reported.
According to another document dated June 18, 2017, Stinson "walked into the middle of a fight" while holding her son, WFLA reported.
Jordan Belliveau Sr., the father of the boy, told the Times denied his son ever lived in a dangerous environment. He also denied being in a gang, the newspaper reported.
“(There were) "no guns in the house, nobody smoking in the house, no drugs being sold out of the house. It wasn’t dangerous," Belliveau said. "I just don’t like how everybody is calling me a deadbeat."
According to a Pinellas County Sheriff's Office investigator, the guardian was "always against the reunification" between Jordan and Stinson, but a social services case manager "was for the mother and wanted her to go forward with reunification," the Times reported.
According to the Sheriff's Office records, Stinson's case manager said he last saw Jordan on Friday, and Stinson "was crying and upset because the father to the child is not helping her out and she is in the process of being evicted from her apartment," the Times reported.
In April, a court considered reuniting Stinson with her son. Child welfare workers approved Stinson's home, according to court records. But Jordan's guardian ad litem objected, saying there was no documentation to show that Stinson was going to counseling, the Times reported.
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