3 more to face justice in Danieal Kelly death

Opening arguments are to begin this morning in the trial of three people accused of being responsible for the 2006 death of Danieal Kelly in her mother's squalid West Philadelphia apartment.

The 14-year-old cerebral-palsy patient was a victim of starvation and neglect.

Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart and the trial's attorneys yesterday selected six women and six men to weigh the evidence.

On trial are Danieal's father, Daniel Kelly, 40, charged with endangering the welfare of a child; Dana Poindexter, 54, a former social worker at the Department of Human Services, charged also with child endangerment, recklessly endangering another person and perjury; and Mickal Kamuvaka, 62, who headed MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc., the now-closed agency hired by the city to provide in-home social services to some 500 families with children at risk of abuse and neglect.

Danieal, who died with bedsores covering her 42-pound body, was one of those children.

Kamuvaka is charged with child endangerment, tampering with records and related counts.

She is one of nine people from MultiEthnic who have already been convicted and sentenced in federal court for conspiracy and fraud related to the lack of care Danieal received.

The three defendants are the last of a handful of others who have already been convicted in the Court of Common Pleas.

They include Danieal's mother, Andrea, who is serving a 20-to-40-year state prison sentence for third-degree murder and child endangerment.