One year ago, almost to the day, the father walked down the stairs of the house, carrying in his arms the decomposing body of his 9-year-old son.
The child by all accounts had been confined to his third-floor bedroom for years. He had been dead several days, the coroner ruled.
Jarrod Tutko Jr. was severely malnourished and dehydrated. His mouth - filled with multiple abscessed teeth - must have been a source of excruciating pain. Jarrod weighed 16.9 pounds, a little more than he did at birth. Seasoned journalists would retch at the stench and sight of the fecal matter smeared across his dark, airless room, a gruesome, squalid space swarming with flies and devoid of childhood trappings.
Chronicles of child abuse are nothing new. In 2013 alone, at least 38 children in Pennsylvania lost their lives at the hands of their parents. The headline-grabbing accounts detail the horrors of children dying at the hands of the very people entrusted by providence to nurture and protect them.
Jarrod's death launched a grand jury investigation into the Dauphin County Children & Youth Services. The panel's report was released two months ago, and details a pattern of missteps and incompetencies among case workers who have misjudged and miscalled agency action. In doing so they have put at risk - and often in lethal ways - vulnerable children across the state.
Jarrod's untimely death directed the floodlights on the state agency, which, long cloaked in secrecy - purportedly to protect children and investigations - also had shielded itself from public scrutiny.
Among many troubling findings, the report noted how the Dauphin County Children & Youth office was overburdened by challenging caseloads, employee stress and disengaged supervisors. As many as eight children, including Jarrod, the grand jury report detailed, had either died or come close to dying, or were left in the care of predators and abusive caregivers as a result of agency incompetencies.
The grand jury report, however, held no one but the Tutkos accountable. No agency staffer or official has been charged in any of the cases involving the death of a child.
In addition, the state Department of Human Services has not revoked a single license from even one county children and youth agency stemming from children's deaths detailed in the probe.
Concurrent with the grand jury investigation, officials in the state Department of Human Services, which licenses the county agencies, launched its own evaluation of the Dauphin County agency. State officials could revoke the Dauphin County agency's license if they find gross incompetence, negligence or misconduct. At best, the agency would be placed on a tenuous provisional license.
'Worst of human behavior'
The seemingly glaring faults in the child welfare system compelled PennLive to conduct an investigation of its own. Already, preliminary findings reveal sweeping systemic problems, troubling inefficiencies and , not only in the Dauphin County agency but in others across the state. In the case of Jarrod Jr., as with scores of other children, caseworkers mishandled and misjudged time sensitive cases, PennLive's investigation found.
Determined to effect change in the child welfare system, PennLive awaits what is certain to be reams of information requested through the state's Right-to-Know law.
This week, with the one-year anniversary of Jarrod's death, PennLive rolled out a comprehensive multi-story package that scrutinizes the county and state child welfare system.
At first glance, the Dauphin County agency - likely as with others across the state - negotiates a balancing feat that teeters on disarray if not collapse: The agency is strapped in dozens of ways. Its staff is overwhelmed with an uptick of caseloads, poorly funded as a result of cuts in state funding, often undertrained and burdened by what is arguably one of the toughest jobs around.
As Dauphin County Children & Youth interim administrator Joseph Dougher told PennLive: "Our caseworkers, at times, see the worst of human behavior. Every month, we investigate literally hundreds of cases and improve lives."
State mandates exacerbate an already stretched system.
Optimistically, good will emerge
Jarrod Tutko Jr. spent the better part of his short life in the gruesome scene of a bedroom covered in dried feces and dotted with maggots. Caseworkers did not inspect the entire Tutko home, nor his bedroom. Multiple alerts, including from Harrisburg School District officials and Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center went unanswered.
In much the same way that the 2011 conviction of serial child molester Jerry Sandusky brought about fundamental changes across the state and its storied university, Penn State, with regards to the protection of children from sexual predators, Jarrod's death stands to bring about similar changes to the child welfare system.
Already, county and state officials are under heightened scrutiny. Dauphin County Children & Youth Services has had to submit a corrective action plan. Roadblocks are being lifted. The state auditor general's office, for instance, was recently granted broader authority in ensuring that child welfare agencies operate effectively and efficiently.
Meanwhile, Dauphin County commissioners have approved the addition of four new caseworker positions to the ranks of the child welfare agency. The agency also is seeking to fill 10 other vacancies. When all the positions are filled, the county agency will have a full complement of 83 caseworkers. Commissioners also have approved the hiring of six part-time caseworkers from the ranks of those who previously left the agency in good standing on a temporary basis.
Ten months would pass before Jarrod's remains went to their final resting place - a grave at the East Harrisburg Cemetery marked with a black heart-shaped headstone. Even that comes with an asterisk: The date of death on the stone is incorrect.
That dignity, granted by the Harrisburg community, prevented the boy from being interned in the burial grounds reserved for vagrants and unclaimed bodies. His five siblings remain in foster care. That includes Arianna, a severely handicapped child who doctors say was, at the age of 10, a few hours from death. She remains in a vegetative state.
Jarrod's siblings visit each other on a weekly basis, sometimes on a more regular basis, state officials say.
Jarrod Tutko Sr. has been charged with criminal homicide, endangering the welfare of children, concealing the death of a child and abuse of a corpse. Kimberly Tutko has been charged with criminal homicide and endangering the welfare of children.
A Sept. 21 trial date has been set.
Jarrod might have only lived nine years, but his nine years stand to change lifetimes for other children.