Police visit home 44 times before murder

LAFAYETTE -- Neighbors and relatives of a 4-year-old girl beaten to death earlier this month said they repeatedly asked authorities to check on the child's safety in the months before her death.\nPolice found Aiyana Gauvin dead March 16 when they responded to a 911 call at the family's Lafayette home. An autopsy showed she died of blunt force injuries.\nHer stepmother, Michelle Urbanus Gauvin, was charged with murder and neglect after allegedly telling police she bound and gagged the girl before putting her to bed the previous night.\nShe also said she had hit her with a broken cutting board on various occasions.\nThe girl's father, Christian Gauvin, faces neglect charges in her death.\n"Aiyana was failed by the people who are supposed to protect children," said the child's maternal grandmother, Patty Robinson, 52, of Lafayette.\nA review of public records by The Indianapolis Star and the Journal and Courier of Lafayette revealed that police had been called to the Gauvin home 44 times since 2000. At least four of those visits were to investigate reports concerning the well-being of Aiyana and Michelle Gauvin's two children.\nRecords also showed that Michelle Gauvin's day-care business had been cited by the county welfare office for violations that put children in danger before it closed in 2003. Christian Gauvin was granted sole custody of Aiyana despite a May 2003 conviction for battery against a 13-year-old boy who was allegedly rude to his then-wife.\nThe Tippecanoe County Sheriff's Department investigated at least two reports of abuse regarding children in the care of Michelle Gauvin, one in December 2002 and the other in June 2004, according to records. Her 12-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son have been in foster care since Aiyana's death.\n"They didn't connect the dots," said Aiyana's maternal grandfather, William Robinson, 56. "Nobody wanted to save our grandchild."\nNeighbor Kathy White said she and others in the subdivision south of Lafayette called the Child Protection Services agency repeatedly to express concern about Aiyana's safety. "There was no response," she said.\nJames W. Payne, director of the state's new Department of Child Services, formed to improve child protection efforts, said county records show only two calls about Aiyana's well-being -- one in November or December and the other Feb. 18.\nHe said it was too early to comment about the actions of child protection officials.\nTippecanoe County juvenile court Judge Loretta Rush, who oversaw a previous case in which Aiyana was temporarily made a ward of the state, said she is concerned more children will be hurt or die without significant changes in the system.\n"We have to figure out what happened and prevent such things like this from happening again," she said.