The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services issued a statement Monday regarding a lawsuit filed on behalf of the minor siblings of a 3-week-old baby who went missing from a Palmdale home in early May, declining to comment directly on the case but saying the agency is sympathetic and continues to try and meet needs in the Antelope Valley.
The missing boy, Baki Dewees, is presumed dead, according to the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit brought Wednesday, alleging negligence and failure to perform a mandatory duty. The plaintiffs are identified only as YM.D., YL.D., and L.G. and ranged in age from 1 to 5 years old when their brother disappeared.
In the statement, the DCFS said that state law prevents the department from discussing case specifics, but that the agency “grieves with the community” any time a child is seriously hurt or fatally injured.
“DCFS continues to work diligently in regions of the county that are disproportionately affected by poverty, untreated mental health needs and substance use, including the Antelope Valley,” the statement further read. “The well-being of children and families is a responsibility we all share and families must be able to readily access quality services in their communities before their problems become unmanageable.”
“If DCFS had discharged it mandatory duties, this tragedy could have been averted,” the suit states.
The boy’s father, Yusuf Dewees, 24, has pleaded not guilty plea to one count each of murder, assault on a child causing death and child abuse under circumstances or conditions likely to cause great bodily injury or death involving his son.
According to the suit, the DCFS permitted the biological mother of the children, Roselani Gaoa, to maintain custody over the couple’s four children “despite numerous alarming reports of abuse and cruelty toward the children.”
Before Baki’s disappearance, allegations surfaced that Gaoa had battered her 1-year-old son, ripped and cut another child’s hair and beaten and attempted to smother her 5-year-old daughter, the suit states.
In late April 2024 and into the next month, Gaoa and Dewees “conspired” to murder the infant, who was last seen on May 3 and was reported missing May 7, according to the suit.
When asked about the his son’s whereabouts, Dewees said the boy was in Florida with his paternal grandparents while also saying that the child was adopted by a California woman and additionally abandoned at a Los Angeles hospital, according to the suit. Investigators looked for the child’s body in Antelope Valley, and the boy is now presumed to have died, according to the suit.
The DCFS “failed to investigate and intervene, despite receiving multiple child endangerment referrals concerning the children, and as a consequence, failed to comply with these mandatory duties,” the suit alleges.