Brandon Williams

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CPS investigated mother 5 months before son's death

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Child Protective Services workers had been trying to find 5-year-old Brandon Williams for five months before he died, after Amphitheater Public Schools district officials raised questions about his health and welfare when he stopped showing up for school in October.

But neither that early warning, nor a Pima County Sheriff's Department visit to his home a week before his death, could save the boy.

His mother, Diane Marsh, and a roommate, Flower Tompson, have been charged with homicide. An indictment accuses them of administering a fatal overdose of over-the-counter drugs to calm him down.

In addition to scars on his wrists and ankles from having been bound, and severe burns on his feet from having been dipped in scalding water, police reports newly released on Tuesday include references to witchcraft practiced in the home he shared with his mother, Tompson and Tompson's boyfriend, although police don't link that to his death.

They also refer to investigators questioning Tompson's boyfriend about an anal injury the boy suffered, but the reports don't specify the nature of the injury or what they think might have caused it.

Child Protective Services records on the Marsh family date back to 1999, long before Brandon was born.

Marsh's two teenage boys had been removed from her home in 2005 and 2006.

The latter removal came at Marsh's request after one of the brothers threatened to harm Marsh and grabbed Brandon by the face.

The first CPS record on Brandon came shortly thereafter. In late September or early October, Amphi officials contacted CPS because Brandon, a special-needs student at Helen Keeling Elementary, stopped showing up at school.

Brandon missed eight straight days of class, and officials were concerned about his health and welfare, said Todd Jaeger, the district's attorney and associate superintendent.

Even before then, Brandon's school attendance had been choppy and marked by transfers. He attended preschool at Marion Donaldson Elementary and briefly attended Lulu Walker Elementary before Marsh transferred him to Keeling, Jaeger said.

Brandon never returned to Keeling, and Jaeger said Marsh never asked the district to transfer Brandon's records to another school.

"We didn't know" where he was, Jaeger said.

But school officials notified CPS.

A CPS investigator first attempted to contact Brandon in October, records show.

On Oct. 16, the CPS investigator requested a deputy to accompany her, but when they went to Marsh's home on West Wheatridge Drive, no one was there. The investigator tried again the next day.

While she was calling the Pima County Sheriff's Department's communication unit, however, the investigator spotted Marsh driving away. As she spoke with the Sheriff's Department, she lost track of Marsh, who had driven into the city of Tucson.

The failed attempts marked the start of a series of efforts to locate Marsh over the next few months, said Liz Barker, CPS spokeswoman.

"In the fall of 2006, over the course of several months, there were repeated attempts to locate Mrs. Marsh and Brandon," Barker said. "These included numerous attempts to locate them at their home. It included several contacts in his school to find out if his records had been transferred."

Barker said the investigator even visited Marsh's bank. But the attempts were unsuccessful.

It wasn't until March 15, a week before Brandon's death, that a deputy made contact.

Marsh's father had filed a missing-persons report on her.

Jeff Pankow, a family friend, told Deputy Lillian George that he not seen Marsh in two months. Pankow told the deputy when he last saw Marsh, "she was cowering and seemed in such a state that she could not answer for herself."

Instead, another woman, later identified as Tompson, answered questions and seemingly dominated Marsh's life.

Marsh's father said he had last heard from his daughter in October when she called him, desperate for money while also claiming "witchcraft was being performed in her house," the report states. Pankow also told deputies about conversations with Marsh about witchcraft, seances and ceremonies with razors spread on the floor.

George first went to Marsh's house, which had recently caught fire. Workers remodeling the home directed her to a North Side apartment provided by Marsh's insurance company.

There, George briefly spoke to a neighbor who said it seemed Brandon never appeared to be going to school and that the overall situation "was just strange."

It took multiple knocks on the door, but eventually Flower Tompson answered

Inside the apartment, the deputy saw Brandon.

"His feet and legs were heavily bandaged," she wrote in her report.

When the deputy asked what had happened, Marsh said Brandon had "fallen into the gravel and got cut up by cacti," the report states.

The interview was awkward, George wrote. There were numerous points when Tompson attempted to answer questions directed toward Marsh.

Eventually George asked to speak with Marsh alone, then asked Marsh if she was being held against her will. Marsh said she wasn't.

George said she would file her report to Child Protective Services, ending the interview.

"Ms. Marsh appeared to be well rested, well fed and not in any type of duress," George wrote.

The report wasn't transcribed until March 22, the day after Brandon died, and Deputy Dawn Barkman, spokeswoman for the Pima County Sheriff's Department, said it was never sent to CPS.

She said George followed department procedure. She investigated the missing-persons complaint and was in the process of forwarding her report to CPS. There is no indication in the report that she interviewed Brandon.

"She didn't see any signs of exigent circumstances," Barkman said. She said the deputy was checking on a missing person, who was located and appeared well. Although the boy's feet were bandaged, there was no cause to doubt the mother's explanation.

Barkman said she didn't know if George had access to Brandon's CPS case history.

When police next returned to Marsh's apartment on March 22, it was in response to a 911 call because Brandon, who had been heavily sedated hours earlier, was no longer breathing.

Marsh and Tompson had gone to the hospital with the boy, but Tompson's boyfriend, Mark Moss, 47, was still at the apartment.

Included in their questions, they asked Moss about injuries to Brandon's anus. Moss, who told the detectives he had a previous sex-crime conviction in California, said he knew nothing about the injury and would not do something like that.