Watch CBS News

CPS Still Not Offering Specifics On Baby Dwight's Case

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - As questions continue to mount about how a toddler could be missing for 11 months, the director of Sacramento County's Child Protective Services faced the media for the first time on Tuesday but still didn't speak to the specifics of the case.

"I absolutely understand the public outcry and we are very concerned about this baby," Michelle Callejas said. "I get the questions and what I can say is that we are working hard with law enforcement."

That's about all CPS really told us about 22-month-old baby Dwight Stallings, who's been missing for almost a year, citing privacy issues.

CPS officials have only spoken in broad generalities, saying that in a situation similar to this one, they would push for a judge to issue a protective custody warrant to gain custody of a child.

According to sheriff investigators, we know one was issued for Dwight. But CPS never found him and never told law enforcement he was missing for so long. The situation came to light when his mother, Tanisha Edwards, was arrested last Thursday at her mother's Elk Grove home on a probation violation after CPS reportedly asked Elk Grove police to check on her. She has a previous drug conviction.

Edwards hasn't been helpful in helping investigators find her son.

Earlier Tuesday, bounty hunter Leonard Padilla said he's willing to pay for information about the boy.

Dwight Stallings
Dwight Stallings

Padilla says he's even willing to bail the baby's mother out of jail if it will lead to finding Dwight, but Tanisha Edwards isn't eligible for bail.

"Cash, $3,000 cash, no questions," Padilla said Tuesday. "Information will be kept confidential."

That's the offer for anyone with information to find Dwight from the bounty hunter whose cash offer has led to major breaks in the "Speed Freak Killers" serial murder case.

But Children's Advocacy Institute attorney Ed Howard says if the answers won't come from Tanisha Edwards, they should come from CPS.

"The child can't be missing 11 months if CPS is doing its job," he said.

CPS attempted to take custody of Dwight several times last year but was never able to find him. The agency also never filed a missing person's report, meaning the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department just started looking for the baby last week after Edwards' arrest.

"There's absolutely no law anywhere, privacy or otherwise, that prevents CPS from answering three simple questions to people that pay their bills," Howard said.

Howard says CPS should reveal its policy, if that policy was followed in this case and what it's now doing to find baby Dwight. The agency only answered one of those questions, telling us Monday it has no specific policy on when to report a child as missing.

"That's just pure common sense," Howard said. "The fact they don't have such a common-sense policy is shocking and scary but completely unsurprising, and it really shows some troubling contempt when they don't answer very basic questions about their policy and whether their policies were followed."

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.