Mysterious Corrupt DCF Drowning
destroycps
Fiore killed Bagwell because she (?) was in on the rip-off of the foster-care
fund with Fiore. Somebody else, also involved in the rip-off, killed Fiore
because the heat was on, and Fiore couldn’t be trusted to hold her mud. Nobody
commits suicide like that: “Fiore jumped from the ground and struck her head on
the sharp, concrete edge of the pool where the deck meets the water.” An
accident is equally unbelievable.
DontTakeOurKids of http://www.DontTakeOurKids.com quoted the article:
http://www.floridatoday.com/news/local/stories/2001/aug/loc082501e.htm
Aug. 25, 2001
Medical examiner: DCF worker drowned, but chain of events a mystery
By Tony Manolatos
FLORIDA TODAY
If Candice Fiore jumped to her death, she did it from a height of less than
a few feet, not from a balcony as originally thought, a top sheriff's
official said Friday.
Sometime next week, investigators will close the books on the June deaths of
Fiore and child-welfare co-worker Tracey Bagwell. While the ruling on
Bagwell's death remains definitive - homicide agents believe Fiore stabbed
Bagwell to death - the events leading to Fiore's death are not as easy to
determine, leaving investigators and family members divided over what
happened.
This week, the county medical examiner ruled Fiore drowned after suffering
an L-shaped laceration to her forehead. But the medical examiner didn't say
how it happened, listing the manner of death as undetermined.
"We know why she died, but we don't know how," said Charles Levi, an
investigator in the medical examiner's office. "Unless additional
information comes forward, the manner of death won't change."
Brevard County Sheriff's officials will go a step further than the medical
examiner next week when they explain their theories. But don't expect to
hear exactly what happened, because investigators don't know.
Agents will rule out homicide and natural causes and they're not expected to
select undetermined. But of the remaining two choices - accidental or
suicide - neither will be backed fully, Cmdr. Mark Riley said.
"We'll list any factors which may support those theories and basically allow
the reader of the report to reach their own conclusion," said Riley, who is
leaning toward suicide, something Fiore's family has ruled out.
Regarding an accidental death: "Although a possibility, it's not likely, but
we are unable to conclude 100 percent," Riley said.
Fiore, an adoptions supervisor in the Department of Children and Families'
Rockledge office, died the morning of June 7, less than 48 hours after
Bagwell, a foster-care counselor, was killed in a Merritt Island Church
parking lot. Family members found Fiore floating in the in-ground pool
behind her mother's Merritt Island home.
Initially, investigators believed Fiore jumped to her death from a
second-floor balcony. But neither Fiore's handprints nor footprints were
found on the balcony. And, Riley said, her head wound isn't consistent with
a jump from the balcony. The wound looks more like the 50-year-old's head
struck something, not that someone or something struck her. Riley also said
there was no sign of foul play.
So what happened?
Riley believes Fiore jumped from the ground and struck her head on the
sharp, concrete edge of the pool where the deck meets the water. "Only she
knows if it was intentional or by accident," Riley said.
But investigators won't paint a picture of a lady taking a leisurely swim
after killing Bagwell in an attempt to cover up a forgery and embezzlement
scam at the Rockledge DCF office.
Fiore was distraught, panicked, awake for about 48 hours and desperate,
Riley said.
"She knew we were onto her," he said of Fiore, who left her home with her
husband and two sons after investigators produced a warrant to search
Fiore's car.
Evidence in both places linked the DCF scam to Fiore, who was found with
Bagwell's pager. DNA from Fiore and Bagwell would later be found in blood
discovered inside the battery casing of the pager. A blood-splattered pair
of Fiore's tennis shoes, found at the bottom of a clothesbasket in her home,
contained Bagwell's DNA.
After killing Bagwell, 36, Riley said Fiore changed clothes before coming
home. The clothes she had been wearing were never found.
As for the scam, state investigators are still looking into that.
DCF officials say she stole at least $44,000 from a foster-care fund.
DCF investigators, meanwhile, continue to probe at least a third of the
agency's 15 district offices to determine if the scam is an aberration.
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news:alt.support.child-protective-services
Destroycps!!!!!!!!!! Destroycps!!!!!!!!!! Destroy_dfs!!!!!!!!!!
DontTakeOurKids.com
"destroycps" wrote in message ...
> Destroycps!!!!!!!!!! Destroycps!!!!!!!!!! Destroycps!!!!!!!!!!
> Fiore killed Bagwell because she (?) was in on the rip-off of the
foster-care
> fund with Fiore. Somebody else, also involved in the rip-off, killed Fiore
> because the heat was on, and Fiore couldn't be trusted to hold her mud.
Nobody
> commits suicide like that: "Fiore jumped from the ground and struck her
head on
> the sharp, concrete edge of the pool where the deck meets the water." An
> accident is equally unbelievable.
To me that seems entirely probable, but naturally the investigation is going
to die just like these DCF workers did, only less violently. You can be
sure that the $40,000 is just a drop in the bucket.
www.DontTakeOurKids.com
--
http://www.haywired.com/inthemail
Herb Tucker
Greg Carr
Britt KennerlyFLORIDA TODAY
On the day Tracey Bagwell would have turned 50, her mother and daughter ate dinner with family.
Rose Marie Bagwell and Chanel Bagwell Martin shared a quiet evening and carrot cake — Tracey's favorite — with Tracey's grandchildren, two little girls she never met.
Thirteen years after Tracey's murder at the hands of a co-worker at the Florida Department of Children and Families, her birthday, Sept. 3, is "a bummer of a day," said Bagwell, Tracey's mom and a Cocoa resident.
"We really keep it low-key."
Rather than dwell on the horrible way Tracey died, however, family and friends honor how she lived.
So the "party" is this Saturday, at the Radisson Resort at the Port. That's when the 12th Annual Tracey Bagwell Caribbean Island Party kicks off at 6:30 p.m. Proceeds benefit the Children's Home Society of Florida's transitional living program for girls 12 to 17.
The fundraiser comforts Tracey's family, with the knowledge that Tracey's desire to see young women succeed lives on. Donations help girls who might need assistance, as they get started in adult life, with first and last month's rent, or buying a car to get to work, or other necessities.
"I guess this is kind of my shrine to her," Bagwell said of the fundraiser. "I think Tracey would be proud. ... I think in some way it gave me a purpose, to honor her, because she was such an awesome kid."
That awesome kid, in turn, loved children, no matter their lot in life.
In June 2001, Tracey Bagwell was 36 years old, a devoted single mom and UCF graduate working out of DCF's Rockledge office as a foster care caseworker. She was deeply attuned to the needs of young people, those who knew her say.
Bagwell had just returned home from a Caribbean vacation and, on the Sunday before she died, had lunch with family.
That Tuesday, June 5, she died in a church parking lot.
Investigators concluded Bagwell was lured there and murdered by Candice Fiore, 50, a co-worker and adoptions supervisor who had forged Bagwell's signature in a scam to embezzle more than $100,000 in funds set up for foster children in DCF's care.
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They speculated Bagwell had learned what Fiore had done: Bagwell had been questioned at work about vouchers for some of those funds, but "her name was even misspelled on them," her mother said.
But family members said Bagwell was so devoted to the kids whose cases she oversaw, they're not surprised she responded to a call to her pager at 10 p.m., and wound up in the parking lot of Merritt Island First Baptist Church.
There, investigators said, Fiore stabbed Bagwell more than 30 times. Bagwell's body was found in her car, still buckled into her seat belt, the next day.
Within 48 hours, Fiore was not only the suspect but was dead, too.
Evidence started to mount when Bagwell's pager, which she always carried, was missing. When law enforcement officials dialed the number, the call back was traced to Fiore's home, where in addition to the pager and a bad cut on Fiore's left hand, blood was found on Fiore's shoes. Still, Fiore denied killing Tracey Bagwell. The next day, Fiore was found dead after falling from the second floor balcony of her mother's condominium.
Though a retired agent and profiler for Florida Department of Law Enforcement thought it was accidental, police ruled the fall a suicide and closed the case after identifying Fiore as the killer.
Chief Deputy Doug Waller of the Brevard County Sheriff's Office went to high school with Bagwell. In a small place like Merritt Island, word of her death spread quickly, he said.
"Everybody knows everybody and the Bagwell family has been part of the community for a very long time and is loved and respected," he said.
"So when it started coming out, it was like, 'Wow.' One of those things you don't expect, at 5 in the afternoon, to come across the victim of a violent murder, left in a car ... the car was there an entire day. People parked next to the car; moved around it doing their daily business."
The murder "touched so deeply" into the heart of the community but fortunately, the investigation moved quickly, he said.
Fiore's husband and sons were "victims as well, with no knowledge of what, why, how," Waller said.
Rose Bagwell has met members of Fiore's family in the years since and said they were "lovely people."
"They were all very sorry this happened ... it wasn't anybody's fault except Candy's," she said.
Chanel Bagwell Martin was 17 and a student at Merritt Island High, her mother's alma mater, when her mom was slain. She lived with her maternal grandparents after the murder.
Now 30 and living in Atlanta, she's married and the mother of a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old.
The outpouring of love after her mom's death amazed Martin.
"I had no idea that so many people had cherished my mom," she said. "She was so strong ... she worked three jobs at one point to support us. She came home so tired, but always wanted to know about my day ... I don't think I could ever do what she did."
The support has been overwhelming, Bagwell agreed.
"To this day, hardly a week goes by that I don't run into somebody who says, 'Oh, I knew Tracey,'" she said. "It's amazing, how many lives she touched in the 36 years that she was here, really."
She doesn't believe in closure.
"There isn't a day goes by that I don't wish she was here ... people always say, 'Oh, she's in a better place,'" saidBagwell, whose husband, dentist Bill Bagwell, died in 2009.
"But how could she be in a better place? Her better place was here ... She wanted to live. She fought to live. I don't think there's any closure, not when you lose them like that."
So while family doesn't "celebrate" Tracey's birthday, they think of her daily. Wonder what could have been: She hoped to earn her master's degree. And at the fundraiser, they're reminded what others might achieve because once upon a time, a vibrant young woman had a heart for children.
Random stories about her mother are like sweet messages from beyond for Chanel Martin. Once, at a Walmart, a clerk asked if she was related to Tracey Bagwell.
"She said, 'You look just like her," and she just burst out in tears," Martin said.
"She said, 'Your mom saved my life, with the way she guided me'... It's wonderful, knowing what my mother did for her and so many people."
Contact Kennerly at 321-242-3692 or bken...@floridatoday.com. Follow her on Twitter @bybrittkennerly or at Facebook.com/bybrittkennerly.
Tracey Bagwell Foundation
For information on the Tracey Bagwell Foundation, which supports young women transitioning to independence from foster care or homelessness: 321- 397-3000 or http://www.chsfl.org/TraceyBagwell2014.
https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/local/2014/09/04/legacy-dcf-worker-still-inspires-years-murder/15072483/