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La. child welfare agency touts progress Lawmakers express skepticism at committee meeting
BY MEGHAN FRIEDMANN Staff writer
Leaders for the Louisiana Department of Children & Family Services say they have made strides in alleviating the heavy caseloads for Child Protective Services staff that have long plagued the agency, all but eliminating backlogs in every region outside of Baton Rouge. But some lawmakers expressed
skepticism about those assertions when they spoke with DCFS officials at the State Capitol on Monday, during a meeting of the Senate Select Committee on Women and Children that lasted eight hours. State Sen. Patrick McMath, RCovington, questioned how the agency could have reduced caseloads when it appeared to be losing staff. Lawmakers also raised concerns about the agency’s decision to reassign around 100 state office
staff to positions in the field, and about a policy that changed how foster parents are paid. In recent years, DCFS has faced intense scrutiny over its handling of child deaths related to abuse and neglect. And a 2025 annual report from Kathleen Stewart Richey, the state’s child ombudsman, found that the agency had unnecessarily separated a pair of siblings in foster care, communicated poorly with families and left
children in psychiatric care after they were discharged — sometimes for months. Those findings surfaced during the recent legislative session, when concerns about the department came to a boiling point. Some lawmakers, including McMath and state Sen. Regina Barrow, DBaton Rouge, entertained whether the state should dismantle the department altogether and assign its work to other state agencies. Monday’s committee meeting, where DCFS officials faced a litany of questions from Barrow,
BRPD may have found teen’s body in landfill
McMath and other lawmakers, represented the latest chapter in the debate over how to address Louisiana’s struggling child welfare system. During the meeting, DCFS Secretary Rebecca Harris and other agency officials said that, in every region except Baton Rouge, the department had nearly eliminated backlogs in Child Protective Services cases. Connie Guillory, the assistant secretary for child welfare, said the average caseload in
ä See PROGRESS, page 8A
Killer’s appeal rejected Todd Wessinger fails in attempt to stop execution for 1995 double murder BY QUINN COFFMAN Staff writer
STAFF PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS
Baton Rouge Police Chief TJ Morse discusses the search for the body of Ja’Derrius Minnieweather at a Tuesday news conference.
Remains turned over to coroner for DNA testing
“This morning, after all the hard work our collaborative search teams have done so far, I can report that we’ve located suspected human remains, and the evidence gives me hope that these remains belong to BY OLIVIA TEES Ja’Derrius,” Police Chief TJ Staff writer Morse said. Morse said the area where Baton Rouge police say they strongly suspect the body of Minnieweather’s remains were 15-year-old Ja’Derrius Minnie- found was not in the original weather was found Tuesday in 0.64-acre sector that was identhe East Baton Rouge Landfill, tified with help from the FBI two months after the teen was Laboratory’s Technical Hazards reported missing. Response Unit and Evidence
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Response Team. Because the case is still an ongoing and active homicide investigation, Morse could not confirm whether the remains found were full or partial. The remains were turned over to the East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner’s Office to be processed. The DNA extraction from the bones will take a day or more to confirm if they are Minnieweather’s, Morse said. “Professionally, I am unable to
ä See LANDFILL, page 7A
“This morning, after all the hard work our collaborative search teams have done so far, I can report that we’ve located suspected human remains, and the evidence gives me hope that these remains belong to Ja’Derrius.” TJ MORSE, Baton Rouge police chief
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Nearly 30 years ago, Todd Kelvin Wessinger was sentenced to death by a Baton Rouge jury for fatally shooting two of his former coworkers at Calendar’s Restaurant as they begged for their lives. Before leaving, he stole $7,000. Now, after three decades of sitting on death row, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Wessinger has denied Wessinger’s latest attempt to escape execution. Wessinger’s appeal is just the latest in a legal fight that has lasted almost as long as his time on death row. His appeals have been heard multiple times by state and federal courts, and have reached as high as the U.S. Supreme Court. The panel’s Tuesday ruling reversed a previous ruling that vacated Wessinger’s death sentence. In that instance, the federal judge determined Wessinger’s courtappointed attorneys provided ineffective counsel during the sentencing phase of his 1997 trial. In the panel’s decision, Circuit Judge Don Willett described Wessinger’s appeal as a “clever” attempt to repackage a previously denied state-court argument and present it as new in federal court.
ä See APPEAL, page 8A
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