DCFS tells judge it will comply with records request in 2024 death of foster child

SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services plans to comply with a request for records about employees who were responsible for monitoring a teenage girl who died in foster care.

Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Haas on Wednesday told Sangamon County Judge Jack Davis II she believes DCFS has “substantially complied” with the judge’s June 12 order and the department is working to produce the personnel files request by Capitol News Illinois about two caseworkers and one supervisor who were responsible for monitoring Mackenzi Felmlee, a teenage girl who died in 2024.

Last month, Davis issued an order requiring DCFS Director Heidi Mueller to appear at Wednesday’s hearing and explain why the agency has not followed the judge’s orders or appeared in court on the case at all this year.

Mueller’s appearance was waived during a status conference Wednesday, but Davis made it clear she is still expected to show up at the next hearing on the case Oct. 16.

DCFS blamed “significant miscommunications” for the oversight but said a fuller explanation would be given in court. That explanation was not given at Wednesday’s hearing, which was reduced to a status hearing to give the department another month to comply with the judge’s order.

“I’m certain that if the communication process is improved, and that’s what we’re looking to do, to make sure that they know when the court hearing is, they will show up,” Gov. JB Pritzker said at a news conference last month.

Capitol News Illinois sued the agency in March after it declined to release the personnel files for the two caseworkers. The lawsuit filed by Springfield attorney Don Craven in Sangamon County Court alleged DCFS violated the Illinois Freedom of Information Act and asked a judge to compel DCFS to produce the records.

Craven’s office served DCFS with a summons on March 23, but DCFS did not respond to that lawsuit, leading CNI to file a motion for default judgment.

On June 10, Davis issued an order finding DCFS “willfully and intentionally violated” FOIA when it failed to release the requested information. He ordered DCFS to produce the records within five days and to pay CNI’s costs, attorneys fees and a $5,000 civil penalty. DCFS also missed that hearing.

Davis ordered Mueller and the agency last month to appear on Wednesday and threatened to begin assessing daily fines up to $1,000 to the agency for its continued noncompliance.

It’s at least the second time in the last five years a judge has threatened to impose daily fines against DCFS for ignoring court orders. In 2022, then-Director Marc Smith was assessed contempt charges after the agency failed to follow a Cook County judge’s order to place children discharged from psychiatric hospitals into appropriate care settings. Those charges were later overturned by an appellate court.

Mackenzi Felmlee’s care

CNI requested the documents while trying to learn more about the care Felmlee, 18, received before she was found dead in her Fairview Heights foster home in May 2024.

Her foster mother, Shemeka Williams, and foster grandmother, Cornelia Reid, are charged with murder in connection with Mackenzi’s death. Both are being held in the St. Clair County Jail. Williams was licensed through Lutheran Children and Family Services, a nonprofit agency that provides foster care services on contract for DCFS.

According to a timeline of the incident released by DCFS, Williams purportedly told an LCFS caseworker during an in-person visit that Mackenzi was “struggling” two days before her death.

The caseworker, however, did not document that conversation until five days after Mackenzi’s death. LCFS later reported the visit was made by phone, not in person.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.