FENTON, Mo. – Two-year-old Jozi Woodall died Aug. 13 after being air-evacuated out of a foster home. It was a home that police alleged in a probable cause statement had “human feces on the floor, walls, stained on mattresses,” and “molded food on the floors and in the children’s bed.”
The foster mother, 25-year-old Alyssa Jackson, is charged with felony child abuse.
“They said she passed a background check,” Jozi’s birth mother, Sarah Woodall, said. “When I got there, the hospital told me she was completely brain dead. How that would have happened–I have no idea, and that was not an accident.”
She says she lost custody of two of her children around nine months ago, when struggling with mental health issues that she says she’s now overcome.
“Eight weeks of parenting classes,” Woodall said, “I’ve completed those. They wanted me to see a psychiatrist and a therapist. I’ve done all those.”
Two of Woodall’s children were in the defendant’s foster home in St. Robert, Missouri, that August day.
Her two-year-old Jozi was flown to a Springfield, Missouri, hospital, where she died after a reported “retinal hemorrhage.” Her three-year-old son was flown to St. Louis Children’s Hospital, where he recovered from reported “malnutrition, dehydration, and bruising.”
Woodall commented, “He actually seems to be doing a whole lot better.”
In another cruel twist, it turns out Woodall knew the defendant and recommended her for a foster care placement. It’s not uncommon for foster care placements to go to friends or relatives of the birth family, but that provider still must get licensed, pass a background check, and have their home inspected.
“They said they’d been doing in-home visits, but obviously, with her home condition, there’s no way they were in that home,” Woodall said.
Missouri legislators recently attempted strengthening our child protection system with House Bill 1414. It passed in 2020, with touted reforms such as the implementation of a “research and evaluation team” to “consider the safety and welfare of children as the most important goal.”
Case workers in the foster care system have always been required to do sight visits as described here in the Missouri Department of Social Services child welfare manual. DSS had no further comment for our report.
“It makes people lose hope in our foster system,” Trisha Knaff said. She’s with the group Angels are Blessings, which is offering Woodall support.
“I think the caseworker should be charged and held accountable just as much as the foster mother is, and the State of Missouri. They failed these children,” she said.
They’re organizing a Justice for Jozi vigil, which will be at Fenton City Park Friday from 4 p.m. to dusk.
To donate to GoFundMe, click here. To learn more about Angels are Blessings group, click here.
