Johnston County Sheriff's Office
Teghan Alyssa Skiba, 4, died in the hospital.
RALEIGH -- Wake County child welfare officials determined that Teghan Skiba's mother, Helen Reyes, had failed to protect her daughter and entrust her to an appropriate caretaker before Reyes left for Army Reserve training in New Mexico, according to a statement the county released this morning.
A family court judge granted the county temporary legal custody of Teghan after she was hospitalized with injuries that sheriff's investigators say were inflicted by her mother's boyfriend, Jonathan Douglas Richardson. Teghan died two days later, and Richardson was charged with murder.
Reyes has not been charged with a crime.
Warren Ludwig, Child Welfare Administrator for Wake County Human Services, released a statement this morning outlining his agency's involvement with Reyes and her daughter, who had lived in Raleigh with Reyes' mother.
According to the statement, Reyes told Wake County officials the day after Teghan was hospitalized that she and her daughter had lived with Richardson in an outbuilding on his grandparents' property in Johnston County for four weeks before she left for Army Reserve training on July 6. It was after that interview with Reyes that county officials petitioned the court for legal custody of Teghan on July 17.
On Tuesday, Wake County Child Protective Services officials determined that Reyes had abused Teghan. Ludwig's statement notes that Reyes may not have physically injured Teghan, but that the definition of abuse includes "creating or allowing to be created a substantial risk of serious physical injury by other than accidental means."
According to a search warrant, Richardson told Johnston County sheriff's investigators that bipolar disorder causes him to be short-tempered and that he "lost it" before whipping Teghan with an extension cord.
