Doctors didn't think the Santa Fe baby would survive. If she did, they said, she would never recover from so severe a brain injury.

When Baby L. arrived at the hospital, her small bones were broken in 26 places, she did not respond to voices or touch or light, and her head was so misshapen that doctors drilled nine holes in her skull to relieve the pressure. At 3 months old, she weighed just 8 pounds.

A year has passed since police said the baby's injuries and those suffered around the same time by her 2-year-old sister were probably the result of abuse and neglect.

Since then, the children have been in state custody. But no charges have been filed in the case, and the state Children, Youth and Families Department is still apparently working to reunite the girls with their parents.

The children are now living apart from one another in the homes of area foster families who say they don't understand why so much time has passed and who have hired attorneys to help them adopt the children.

Stepping in to help

Baby L. is now nearly 15 months old. She has enough caregivers to field two football teams, and spends hours each day trying to learn things that most kids her age figure out on their own — how to put her hand in her mouth, sit up or turn her head toward a noise.

She wears a plastic helmet to guard against further harm from seizures that occur as often as 20 times a day. Although she's learning to chew on beef jerky and slices of dried mango, she is fed through a tube that pokes through a hole in each pair of her pajamas.

The muscles in her neck and back are getting stronger with the help of regular visits from a physical therapist for infants, but she still has what doctors call "poor head control." Initially blinded by her brain injury, Baby L. continues to experience serious visual impairment.

The Santa Fe family with whom she lives already includes three adopted children. They asked that their names not be used in this story. Not too long after the couple signed up to be foster parents last year, they got a call from the Children, Youth and Families Department about an emergency placement.

Baby L. had been airlifted to the pediatric intensive care unit at The University of New Mexico Hospital a week earlier. The information the foster family received was meager: The baby was 3 months old, she had likely been the victim of a shaking that caused a traumatic brain injury, and if she lived for two more days, she would come home with them.

Although no one was sure at first if her condition would improve, the couple had no doubts about stepping in.

"We thought, 'There is no way that we are not going to take this baby,' " one parent said in a recent interview. " 'There is no way we are not going to do whatever we can for this little child.' "

Over the next 12 months, life became a parade of visits to doctors, neurologists and case workers. Supervised meetings with her biological parents were suspended when Baby L.'s health seemed to worsen in their presence. In October, she underwent brain surgery.

Over the next couple of years, caregivers will start to understand her brain function and how her development will be affected in the long term. A doctor at UNM told police last year that the baby would certainly suffer permanent brain damage.

State police investigation

State Police Agent Eric Schum, who investigated the case last year, called it "a very serious" example of child abuse.

"This is as serious as a homicide. This is a big deal," said Schum, who still receives calls about Baby L. from different people. "This case has not gone away for me."

Schum said the state police finished their investigation months ago, and the findings are now with the Albuquerque district attorney.

"I believe we have a substantial amount of evidence" that points to a perpetrator, he said, but stopped short of identifying any individual.

State police issued two search warrants in the case and used one of them to seize a computer from the workplace of the baby's mother, Maya Loya, then 20 years old. The warrants also name Baby L.'s father, Tadeo "Damian" Lucero, and indicates that at the time of the baby's injuries he was laid off from his job and was spending his days watching the two girls and looking for work. A baby-sitter whose cell-phone records were seized and Benita Martinez, a paternal grandmother, also cared for Baby L. during the first three months of her life, her parents told police.

The baby was at the home of Martinez on March 27 last year when her mother called 911 using a cell phone that belongs to the woman she told dispatchers is her mother-in-law. Contacted at that number for an interview last week, Martinez said neither she nor Loya will talk about the incident or the children because court cases are still pending.

"Because it's an investigation, we can't speak to anybody about it," she said. "Eventually, we will. I wish we could."

Loya has repeatedly told police that she does not know who is responsible for her infant's injuries, according to court documents filed by Schum.

In a recording of the 2009 emergency call made at about 6 p.m., Loya told a dispatcher that the baby was lethargic and that her eyes were fixated.

"She's a baby, and she's not moving, and we just need an ambulance to come get her," she said, adding later, "Her eyes are just, like, open — like in shock."

Baby L.'s sister

Across town is another couple who have been foster parents to Baby L.'s older sister since last March. After the baby was hospitalized, her sister was also taken into state custody.

The toddler arrived at the home of Michael and Delanne Reichard with a spiral fracture in her left arm that has since healed, but they believe she continues to feel emotional stress.

The Reichards say the situation is frustrating, and the state's plan to reunify the child with her mother is scary. They've been told Child Protective Services could make a change as soon as next month.

"They want to send her home with a bow on her head," said Delanne, who has fostered a dozen children for the state along with her husband, an employee at The New Mexican. "Nobody knows who committed the abuse, and they are going to send her back to where it happened."

Both the Reichards and the couple caring for Baby L. were given permission a few weeks ago by a state District Court judge to intervene in the case — a court action available to foster parents who have cared for children for at least six months and who disagree with the state's recommendations for custody.

"I don't like or dislike the parents, but don't tell me nobody saw bruises on the babies. They did nothing," Delanne said. "My whole feeling about all of this is that all along these two little kids have been trying to testify about what happened. ... Nobody is listening to either one of them, and nobody cares. It is maddening to us."

'First plan is reunification'

In cases of suspected child abuse and/or neglect, New Mexico statutes provide for two parallel tracks — child protection and criminal prosecution.

CYFD's Child Protective Services Division maintains strict privacy policies, making information from its records almost impossible to track.

Romaine Serna, a department spokeswoman, said she can't confirm or deny whether the state is working to reunify these particular children with their mother.

"The children continue to be in state custody," she said, but declined other inquiries because of privacy concerns and because "the case is very heated," she said.

CYFD's guidelines aim to keep families together, she said.

"There are some exceptions, but usually when children come into custody the first plan is reunification. We do believe that children belong in their home with their biological parents if they can be safe," she said. "In situations where there is substantiated abuse, but the parents are willing to make the changes necessary, we are able to work with them to address those issues so the children will eventually be able to come home."

Parents participate in a court-ordered "treatment plan" with the agency that may include psychological counseling, education or referral to agencies that provide public assistance such as housing, Medicaid or food stamps.

Serna said some things can lead to automatic termination of parental rights. If a parent is responsible for the death of a sibling and the living child is abused, the department would likely seek termination. Other cases result in termination because of the severity of a child's injuries, she said.

CYFD tries to make a custody decision within 12 to 15 months, Serna said, however, data shows that reunification for a Santa Fe child takes an average of 20 months.

"We can all agree that a month in the life of the child can be a lifetime," she said, "so it's our goal and our mission to achieve permanence as quickly and safely as possible."

With that in mind, she said, the state is also constantly trying to apply safeguards that prevent officials from seizing children without due process.

CYFD officials have noticed an uptick in cases of severe violence against children, which Serna said they attribute in part to the national economic downturn.

"There are crises," she said. "There are red flags in certain families. There is drug use, alcohol abuse, domestic violence, poverty, lack of employment, isolation. There are all sorts of factors that contribute to a child being abused and/or neglected."

Indictment on the way?

When it comes to criminal prosecution, police investigate reports of child abuse and submit findings to the local district attorney, who decides whether to file charges.

Sometimes it happens quickly. For example, in a recent Santa Fe case, the parents of a 2-year-old boy were indicted within two months on suspected first-degree child abuse after police said someone tied up their son.

In the case of the two girls, the Santa Fe district attorney had a conflict of interest because Martinez, Baby L.'s paternal grandmother, works in the office. The case was transferred to the Bernalillo County district attorney, where the office includes a Crimes Against Children Unit.

Deputy District Attorney Lisa Murray Trabaudo, unit supervisor, said her attorneys, who took over the case in May, continue to work on it. They are reviewing the medical records and meeting with physicians to get advice about what happened, she said.

"It's not unusual, though, for cases to take a long time," she said. "Our caseloads are also extremely high, so if someone is not in custody and the child is safe, like not in the abuser's home, it may take a little bit longer. ... We don't want to get into a position where we are charging someone and we don't have the evidence to do it."

Contact Julie Ann Grimm at 986-3017 or jgrimm@sfnewmexican.com.

CALL IN INFORMATION

Crimestoppers, 505-955-5050, is offering up to $1,000 in reward for information about the Baby L. case. Informers may remain anonymous when they call. State police investigator Eric Schum said he believes there are other adults who know what happened to the children and hopes they will contact him at 505-827-9303.