In Occasional Memory of Baby Tess Maye

Perhaps everyone has this experience, a news article read long ago that you’re cursed to recollect, from time to time, ever after.  Mine is about Baby Tess Maye.

It’s got everything.  The failed mother, the failed extended family, the failed family court system, the white saviors who failed to save her.  But those last ones, about them we can say they tried.

I can’t find all the articles written about Baby Tess Maye and her mother Tracey Maye, and that’s not so surprising.  Baby Tess Maye’s bones must be mouldered away to nothing by now and there wasn’t so much of them to start with.  Her mother beat her to death with electric wire on March 27, 1987.

The part I must give you just from memory is this—that a loving white foster family—not the loving white foster family that tried to save Baby Tess Maye, but a different one—was able to adopt another of Tracey Maye’s daughters.  A third daughter begged Tracey to release her, too for adoption so she could live with her sister but Tracey refused.

Of what is still available online, I’ve pasted what I want you to read here, so it doesn’t disappear entirely.  Of course Substack could go down someday, but I got this on my hard drive—and heck.  I’ll go down someday too and then I won’t be caring about Baby Tess Maye from time to time any longer.

But whenever I do think of Baby Tess Maye, I want to ask the New York Times if there’s any follow-up to the story I’d want to know, like what happened to Tracey’s other kids.  But I guess I won’t bother.  I feel enough grief about all of them already.

For 10 months, Pam Miller had Baby Tess Maye in her foster care. She did everything in her power to prevent the baby from being returned to the natural mother, arguing that the mother was being battered by her husband, that she regularly missed visits, that she was not mentally well. Westchester County officials did not listen. In November 1986, Baby Tess went back to her mother, and on March 20, 1987, the mother, Tracey Maye, beat the baby to death.

Pamela and Rick Miller, of Tarrytown, N.Y., were foster parents for nine months of Tess Maye, who had been born prematurely at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. The Millers were discouraged from trying to adopt Tess, because they are white and the infant was black. So the child was moved to the home of a black family that hoped to her adopt her.

In October 1986, a judge ordered that Tess be returned to her natural mother. Mrs. Miller said yesterday that the child had lived in a New York City shelter for battered women. In March 1987, the mother beat Tess to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.

One morning this week, in a voice barely audible, Tracey Maye stood in a Bronx courtroom and admitted that she had killed her baby girl. During the 15-minute hearing, she sat hunched over, head down. ''Miss Maye,'' Judge Gerald Sheindlin said, ''on March 20, 1987, at about 7:30 in the morning at 1171 Clay Avenue, you did recklessly cause the death by striking her repeatedly with an electrical wire?''

''Yes, Your Honor.'' That was the most Tracey Maye said. It was the short answer. Plenty of others deserved blame. Bad law helped. Unlike in the Steinberg case, there were people who tried to save 18-month-old Tess. Pam Miller, Tess's foster mother for nine months, tried. Mrs. Miller is a nurse who has cared for 17 foster children. She is so highly regarded that Westchester County uses her to recruit foster parents. In October 1986, Mrs. Miller wanted to tell a Family Court judge that it was too soon to move the baby from foster care to the natural mother, that Tracey Maye had missed many scheduled visits. But Mrs. Miller wasn't allowed. State law requires a foster parent to have a child a year before she may testify; Mrs. Miller was three months short.

Westchester Social Services comes in for some blame, too. When the Family Court judge ordered the baby returned to Tracey Maye, he requested six months of ''frequent'' social-worker visits. At the time, Tracey Maye was living in a shelter for battered women. It doesn't take a Ph.D. to know that battered wives are high risks to batter children. In the five months before Tess's death, a Westchester worker visited once.

And, say family members, the dead baby's father, Marvin, deserves his share, too. ''He had so much control of Tracey,'' said her mother, Jacki McKinney, ''She wouldn't eat until he brought her food.'' The last time Tracey saw him was at Tess's funeral. ''He ran off with the money for burying the baby,'' Mrs. McKinney said. In court documents Marvin Maye is listed as ''address unknown.''

Last year, 173 children in New York State died from abuse or neglect. Tuesday in Orange County, Cheryl Shahine pleaded guilty to killing her baby. In that case, too, foster parents tried to warn of parental abuse but were not heeded. Wednesday was Tracey Maye's turn. ''Are you pleading guilty to manslaughter second degree, ma'am?'' the clerk asked.

''Yes.'' She had given birth prematurely to Tess on Sept. 4, 1985. Because she rarely visited the hospital, Westchester placed the baby in Pam Miller's foster home. The assistant district attorney, Marie Bonavoglia, told the judge that Tess was in ''perfectly good health'' in foster care. Mrs. Miller has home movies of a round, smiling Baby Tess.

The prosecutor also described a statement that Tracey Maye had made to the police after the death, ''indicating that she did beat Tess and indicating it was right she had to beat her child. She said the child was a sick child and acting like a dog.'' In accepting the plea bargain, the judge said Mrs. Maye's ''volatile conduct stemmed from a mental disease.'' He said he would consider probation if her lawyers found a proper mental health residence. Then the 28-year-old Mrs. Maye was free to leave.

She stood outside the courtroom silently, watching her mother talk with the two reporters interested in the case. Mrs. McKinney said she came up from her home in Washington when she realized Tracey's judgment had been affected by batterings.

''They had a big fight,'' Mrs. McKinney said, ''and he put her out. Tracey had a week-old baby'' - Tess's younger sister - ''and C-section. We went to a shelter for the homeless. We were all walking around the streets with bags and kids and no idea what to do.'' Not long after, the Family Court judge ordered Baby Tess returned to Tracey Maye.

They found an apartment, but things did not improve. ''They were starving,'' said Alvaader Frazier, an attorney who represented Mrs. Maye in early proceedings. ''She would beg food from neighbors. What happens when you can't eat, when you can't take care of your children, what does that do to you? If Social Services had visited, they would have seen it.''

One visit? ''It should have been more steady,'' John Allen, Westchester's social service commissioner said. ''One social worker left and one didn't pick up.''

Before leaving the courthouse Wednesday, Mrs. McKinney said Tracey Maye's four other children - one of whom had untreated pneumonia at the time of Tess's death - are in foster care now. She said that when this is over, they will fight to get them back. ''Everyone knows Tracey is one of the most caring, loving mothers existing,'' she said.

Upstairs at the courthouse, the prosecutor was calling her star witness, Mrs. Miller, the foster mother, to say that her testimony and her home movies would not be needed.

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Our Towns; Vague Answers, Faceless Blame In Tess's Death - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Foster Parents Testify on Failures in the Child-Welfare System - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Our Towns; A Child's Cry Goes Unheard: 'Tess Is Dead' - The New York Times (nytimes.com)