The state’s child welfare system failed 4-year-old A’zella Ortiz and her siblings, according to a scathing report released Wednesday by the Office of the Child Advocate (OCA). It found that the Department of Children and Families (DCF) missed warning signs and closed its case a year before the Worcester girl was killed.

The OCA stated the Ortiz family had been served by DCF between 2018 and 2023 for a total of three years and eight months due to findings of neglect of A’zella and her two siblings.

In that time, DCF failed to reassess the children’s chronic neglect and missed warning signs in the children, like untreated developmental delays as two of the children were nonverbal. There were also several missed pediatric and specialist visits, the report found.

The children did not receiv

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