Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Vanessa Lopez's children were found in trashbags outside her apartment.

Child Protective Services was looking for Valerie Lopez.

The agency knew her baby daughter had been injured and that the 19-year-old mother had a record of abuse.

Yet more than two months went by without a single CPS caseworker stopping by her South Side triplex to find her. In that time, Valerie had beaten her 14-month-old daughter to death, police say. Valerie later admitted it happened on Christmas Eve.

This gap in attempted visits — based on information from a source close to the investigation who did not want to be identified because the information is deemed confidential — was part of a nearly four-month effort by CPS that was unable to turn up Lopez or her two children even once.

It wasn't until March 6 that the children were found.

A neighbor discovered the bodies of Sariyah Garcia and Sebastian Lopez, Valerie Lopez's 4-month-old son, in trash bags beneath the triplex on West Winnipeg Avenue.

Lopez told police Sebastian had died later. She's charged with capital murder. Her live-in boyfriend, Jerry Salazar, 28, is charged with injury to a child over his alleged failure to report the abuse.

Since the grim discovery, some have criticized the agency's attempts to find Valerie Lopez and her children as lackluster.

Relatives of the children, two former CPS child abuse investigators and a state senator all have emphasized "red flags" that should have alerted the agency to the urgency of its task. Valerie Lopez already had been convicted of assaulting another daughter, who along with another son, were put up for adoption after Lopez left them.

At least two people had told CPS early in the investigation they suspected the mother was abusing Sariyah.

Sylvia Garcia, a great-grandmother of Sariyah whose friend took cell phone videos of bruises to Sariyah's face on Nov. 10, said she told CPS about the videos. But the agency, she said, never came by to see them.

"They said, 'Just save them,'" Garcia said.

CPS spokeswoman Mary Walker said the search for Lopez and the children remained a high priority and included about 43 attempts between November and March by a CPS special investigator and others.

Those attempts included at least nine visits to the Winnipeg triplex; at least four trips to the couple's former address on Gerald Street; phone calls by the agency, some unanswered or to a wrong number; and e-mails seeking additional information, according to various sources, including interviews with relatives and neighbors.

The agency itself has refused to release details of its search.

There are signs that Valerie Lopez tried to elude investigators. But several neighbors in and near the triplex have rebuffed the notion that Valerie Lopez or Salazar hid out, saying they often saw the couple outside: walking their pit bull, cleaning the yard, or having an evening cookout.

State Sen. Carlos Uresti last week requested that the Texas Health and Human Services Commission's inspector general investigate CPS' response to the allegations of abuse and that the findings be reported to the Legislature.

"Who's really to blame? The system failed her because there were enough red flags, and someone should have intervened," Uresti said. "The state is charged with protecting these children, especially when they have previous knowledge of abuse."

He added: "First and foremost we need to hold (Valerie Lopez) responsible for the children. We can't lose sight of that."

Red flags

Officers responded to the triplex, and Valerie Lopez told them the 5-year-old son of a friend, Silver Hernandez, had caused the injuries days earlier. Police, who saw the bruises, decided to leave Sariyah at the triplex and called CPS.

A caseworker visited the triplex that same day in an attempt to find the family.

In a circumstance that would become familiar, no one answered the door.

CPS called Hernandez the following day. She said she told a caseworker that her son had not caused the bruise.

"I told her everything I saw. That (Valerie Lopez) was abusive to (Sariyah)," Hernandez said.

By Nov. 14, CPS was aware that Valerie Lopez had given conflicting stories about her daughter's injuries, according to various sources.

The mother had claimed by turns that her child had fallen off a hospital bed, had been struck by her friend's husband, and had been hit by the 5-year-old boy.

No one home

Each time, no one answered the door.

It's unclear what times of day those visits took place. But neighbors, including Tony Serenil, a tenant of the triplex and Salazar's cousin, said the couple often was in the front yard in the evenings.

CPS, Serenil said, never showed up at those times — a detail Valerie Lopez noticed.

"She'd say, 'Aw, they won't come after 5 o'clock,'" he said.

Serenil said he spoke to investigators numerous times. Once, an investigator searched his apartment, looking under the bed and in a closet for Valerie Lopez. But Serenil did not advise CPS how to find the couple because he was worried Valerie Lopez and Salazar would hurt him, he said.

There are other signs that Valerie Lopez eluded CPS.

Sylvia Garcia said she went to the triplex on Nov. 11 to find the family and saw a note on the door written by Valerie Lopez.

"Thank you for letting us stay here," it read. "I'll call you later to see where I could meet you to leave you the keys. We took everything already."

Garcia, thinking the note was meant to mislead investigators, removed it and called CPS.

"There is no way they have moved," she told a caseworker.

But subsequent visits yielded no one. An investigator tried again Nov. 20 and didn't return to the triplex for more than two months, according to confidential information. By then, authorities said, Sariyah had been beaten to death and hidden under the building.

Two months later, Valerie Lopez added the body of Sebastian, police said. She told authorities she had accidentally rolled onto the baby and killed him.

"That doesn't sound right to me that they hadn't kept up the visits," said a former CPS child abuse investigator who did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation. "Why would you just drop that?"

Dead ends

Reached by the San Antonio Express-News, the landlord, Melquiades Morales, said he had no idea CPS was searching for Valerie Lopez.

CPS unsuccessfully tried to intercept Valerie Lopez at one public agency, but she failed to show up for a child support meeting in February, according to confidential information. .

Police spokesman Sgt. Gabe Trevino said it's a "team effort" between CPS and the Police Department to protect children.

"The agencies don't have to consult with each other (to take action)," Trevino said, "but in many cases they seek each other's expertise."

CPS called police once to discuss the case, according to confidential information. But the Police Department did not seek a search warrant because no "exigent circumstances" arose after the Nov. 10 call, Trevino said.

"Nothing else came up," he said.

'Lack of effort'

One letter, dated March 8, reads, "RE: Veronica (sic) Lopez" and is addressed to Jerry Salazar, Lopez's boyfriend who was arrested in Sariyah's death.

"This is to inform you that the report made on your family has been investigated and there was not sufficient information to determine if the abuse/neglect did occur and we will not be providing further services."

A relative received a similar letter, also dated March 8. Another letter dated March 7 — the day after the bodies were found — informed a relative of Sariyah that CPS was opening an investigation into allegations of abuse.

CPS on Friday apologized for the letters, saying they were sent in error.

"Those letters should not have been sent," CPS officials said in a prepared statement. "CPS regrets the insensitivity of the letters, and the confusion they may have caused in this case."

Walker, the CPS spokeswoman, has defended the agency's efforts to find Valerie Lopez, noting that a special investigator kept searching for her despite fulfilling legal requirements and shouldering a heavy caseload.

That did not appease one relative of Sariyah, who was a CPS child abuse investigator in the 1980s.

"It's just lack of effort," she said.