Hartford, Connecticut — Sixty-two Connecticut children died and 17 nearly died from suspected abuse or neglect between January 2025 and May 2026, and the Department of Children and Families had prior reports on 29 of those children or their households, according to records Connecticut Public obtained and reported on Sept. 2. It took the department about four months, and two versions of the data, to produce them.
What the records show
Of the 29 children with prior DCF contact, 20 died and nine nearly died, Connecticut Public reported. The records describe a 16-year-old boy who died of an oxycodone overdose in October 2025 after the department had accepted 62 reports involving him or his household and substantiated 17. Six children with prior DCF contact nearly died after being exposed to or swallowing drugs; most were under 5. One was a 4-year-old who ingested THC gummies in a household with 15 accepted reports, three of them substantiated.
The outlet also reported that the Child Advocate’s preliminary review of a 15-year-old girl’s April 24, 2026, suicide found she had asked to be removed from her home during a DCF visit about an hour before her death. DCF had received 23 reports about that household and substantiated two. Neither the Child Advocate nor DCF would confirm whether that case was the same one listed in the records.
A disclosure law that leaves out the timeline
A 2024 Connecticut law requires DCF, on request, to disclose the cause and circumstances of a child’s death or near-death, the child’s age and gender, the findings of prior reports and the services provided. Connecticut Public requested the records in March. After three months without a response, reporters told DCF a story was coming. The first file the agency sent left out near-fatalities and showed only one deceased child with prior involvement. A corrected file arrived in July.
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Even then, the law does not require DCF to say when prior reports were made, whether a case was open at the time of the death, or when a worker last saw the child. The records also do not show whether earlier reports involved the child who was harmed or someone else in the home. Ken Mysogland, DCF’s chief administrator of external affairs, told the outlet that compiling the data took time and that some information was removed from the second file because the law does not allow its release.
State Sen. Ceci Maher, co-chair of the legislature’s Committee on Children, told Connecticut Public she was frustrated by how the request was handled, given the purpose of the law. Emily Knox of Connecticut Voices for Children said that without timing and context, the numbers are hard to interpret.
Earlier failures on the record
The figures arrive after a string of high-profile cases. The Office of the Child Advocate previously found DCF “catastrophically failed” to protect a 2-year-old boy whose 2023 death in Stamford was ruled a homicide, according to Connecticut Public. In October 2025, an 11-year-old girl was found in a storage bin in New Britain, and DCF’s past involvement with her family came to light afterward.
DCF says it reviews serious incidents using a scoring tool built with Tennessee’s child welfare agency and Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, and conducts special reviews of deaths and near-deaths involving families it had contact with in the prior 12 months. Commissioner Susan Hamilton outlined changes in a July 29 letter, including requiring all supervision to be in person and barring new workers from remote work for at least six months. Child Advocate Christina Ghio called the changes good first steps, but said concerns about case practice will remain until there is a tangible impact.
Secrecy is the pattern
When a child dies in a family the state was already watching, the public has a right to know what the agency knew and what it did. Connecticut passed a law to make that possible, and the department still took four months, produced an incomplete first file, and can legally withhold the dates that would show whether its workers acted in time. Without that timeline, no one outside the agency can judge whether a death was preventable. FAN tracks how these patterns play out across states in its overview of foster care system problems.
Key facts
- 62 children died and 17 nearly died from suspected abuse or neglect in Connecticut from January 2025 to May 2026, per DCF records.
- DCF had prior reports on 29 of them or their households: 20 deaths and nine near-deaths.
- One 16-year-old who died of an overdose had 62 accepted reports, 17 substantiated.
- Connecticut Public requested the records in March 2026; a complete file arrived in July.
- The 2024 disclosure law does not require DCF to release when prior reports were made or whether a case was open.
- DCF Commissioner Susan Hamilton outlined practice changes in a July 29 letter.
Sources
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