Did Heaven have to die? Case file details slain Forsyth 5-year-old's torment, system's shortcomings

Lora Lucear saw the little girl playing outside.

Five-year-old Heaven Woods had moved to a house next door on Brookwood Drive in Forsyth with her mother about three weeks earlier.

On Sunday, May 18, 2014, Lucear saw Heaven sitting in a chair near her mother and her mother's boyfriend.

She was still watching when the boyfriend, Roderick Buckner, looked around as if to make sure no one was looking.

Then he elbowed Heaven and kneed her in her stomach, Lucear later told police.

After seeing a similar beating the next day, Lucear tried twice to call the state child abuse hotline.

"I held, I held, I held. I hung up and then I called back again, and I held and held and I just hung up," she told police.

Lucear figured she was on the phone for 30 minutes.

Heaven died the next morning.

Prosecutors later filed charges against the child's mother, Amanda Hendrickson, and Buckner. Both of them have pleaded guilty to murder.

The Telegraph obtained records from the case through an Open Records Act request.

Investigative reports and witness statements show Heaven's suffering didn't just begin when she moved to Forsyth.

Several people had earlier suspected -- or witnessed -- her being abused.

Although the Georgia Division of Children and Family Services was called to investigate numerous times, Heaven remained in her mother's home. DFCS is the state agency charged with assessing and protecting Georgia's most vulnerable children.

In the nearly two years since Lucear's calls to DFCS, the state agency has made changes -- some of them directly related to Heaven's death.

After she died, Heaven's body told the story of what she'd endured.

"She was tortured," said Richard Milam, district attorney for the Towaliga Judicial Circuit. "This child was terribly mistreated."

Despite her injuries, had the case gone to trial, a doctor would have testified there was a good chance Heaven could have been saved if she'd been taken to the hospital soon after she was injured that Sunday and Monday, Milam said.

"She literally laid there and bled to death," he said.

'IF SOMETHING HAPPENS ...'

Heaven had curly brown hair and eyes to match.

Her father, Anthony Woods, remembers her laugh as "something special."

She liked playing with dolls and watching "Tigger" on TV.

The name Heaven came to him when she was born in January 2009.

"It just hit me," he said. "It sounded right."

Woods and Hendrickson had started dating about a year earlier.

They'd met online.

Hendrickson's mother told police her daughter met the fathers of her three older children the same way. At the time of Heaven's death, the other children weren't living with her.

Woods said he and Hendrickson, both 34, lived together with Heaven for a while in an Adairsville trailer and later in West Virginia.

Their problems came to a head in 2011 when he says he tried to protect Heaven from Hendrickson's "wailing" on Heaven with her hands, he told the GBI in May 2014.

He pushed Hendrickson away from Heaven and scooped up his then 3-year-old daughter. Hendrickson pushed him and he shoved back, causing Hendrickson to drop her laptop computer.

At some point, Hendrickson grabbed Heaven away from Woods, pushed Woods over a baby gate and left with Heaven, he said.

"It took my life away right there," Woods said by phone last week.

Hendrickson alleged that Woods had been an abusive boyfriend, but charges against him were dismissed later, Woods said.

Meanwhile, Hendrickson moved back to Georgia and took Heaven with her.

After learning Heaven had bruises on her legs, Woods moved to Georgia, leaving behind his job as a supermarket meat cutter and his home, to search for his daughter.

Beginning in 2011 and stretching until 2014, Woods filed several petitions seeking custody of his daughter while paying child support to Hendrickson.

"I never gave up," said Woods, who has three other children. "Not a day went by that I wasn't trying to think of ways to beat the system and get my child."

In a conversation with the GBI, Woods said he'd fought to have DFCS investigate Hendrickson's treatment of Heaven.

He said he told a Rome DFCS worker, "If something happens to my daughter, y'all are going to be held responsible."

'NO, THAT'S ABUSE'

The GBI and a Monroe County Sheriff's Office investigator interviewed Hendrickson hours after Heaven died. The investigator asked Hendrickson if she'd ever spanked Heaven with anything other than her hands: "Not a hairbrush, ... coat hanger, not a belt, not a board?"

Hendrickson answered, "No, that's abuse."

Records show DFCS workers in Georgia and West Virginia received nearly a dozen reports alleging that Heaven had been abused or mistreated between 2009 and a few weeks before she died in 2014.

Nearly all the incidents included allegations of physical abuse.

The abuse reports were either deemed unsubstantiated or otherwise dismissed.

In one instance, Hendrickson claimed bruises on Heaven happened at a day care center. DFCS filed a report regarding the center and Hendrickson's case was dismissed, records show.

Later, DFCS interviewed staff and other children at the day care about another complaint regarding Heaven. They determined nothing suggesting abuse was happening at the day care.

Hendrickson's mother, Lisa Coursey, told authorities her daughter mentioned having contact with DFCS, but Hendrickson said Woods was just causing trouble for her.

The Telegraph called Coursey last week, but the call was disconnected, and attempts to reach Coursey again were unsuccessful.

Hendrickson and Heaven moved to Forsyth to live with Buckner days after DFCS received a report alleging that Hendrickson had kicked Heaven hard in the back after picking her up from day care on April 29, 2014.

The case was still open -- though workers didn't see any bruises on Heaven -- when the two moved.

In speaking with police, Coursey said she never saw signs of her granddaughter being abused, but she also said, "If somebody would have just showed up (the day before Heaven died), Heaven probably would be here."

HEAVEN'S INJURIES

When Heaven's body was examined by Dr. Yameika Head, a forensic pediatrician, the dead child's feet and nails were caked black with dirt.

Her hair was "filthy" and "full of dirt," the doctor wrote in his report.

She had bruises on her cheeks, abdomen, both arms, both thighs, her right hip, lower back and buttocks.

Using a special light, the doctor also found old scars and bruises, according to a GBI report.

The next day, an autopsy found that 10 of Heaven's ribs had been fractured and were in varying stages of healing.

Her left arm was twisted and broken.

The medical examiner attributed Heaven's cause of death to internal bleeding, blood loss and injuries to her abdomen.

After the autopsy, police seized several tools from Buckner's home -- pliers, a multi-tool and scissors -- that could have inflicted the pinching wounds found on Heaven's chest, according to a GBI report.

Questioned on the day Heaven died, the 36-year-old Buckner -- Hendrickson's boyfriend -- denied causing her fatal injuries.

Shown pictures of the girl who'd come to live with him less than a month earlier, he said, "Oh my God. ... I did not do that. ... That's a lot of bruises."

After he pleaded guilty to murder last June, Buckner admitted in a plea agreement that he'd seen Hendrickson hit Heaven, causing bruises.

According to that agreement:

About a week after Hendrickson and Heaven moved in, Buckner saw Hendrickson grab Heaven by the arm and strike her repeatedly with her hand because the girl had urinated in her clothing.

On another occasion, he saw Hendrickson throw a shoe at her daughter, striking her on the side because Heaven "was getting on her nerves."

At some point, Buckner noticed Heaven's face was bruised, and he asked Hendrickson about it. She said the girl had fallen.

On Sunday, May 18, 2014, Buckner "roughhoused" with Heaven. He bounced her on his knee and elbowed her in the abdomen. Afterward, Heaven defecated on herself.

He contends Hendrickson said she'd "spanked" Heaven after cleaning her.

Later that day, Heaven defecated on herself again, and Buckner contends Hendrickson "directed" him to strike and punish the girl.

He admitted striking her three times.

Buckner said he "roughhoused" with Heaven again the next day, boxing with her and elbowing her in the stomach while Hendrickson watched.

While at work at Encore Plastics in Forsyth, his mother -- who lived with him, his sister, Hendrickson and Heaven -- called and said Hendrickson was "beating" Heaven.

Soon after the call, Buckner said he received text messages from Hendrickson asking him to come home to "spank" Heaven because she had been "beating" Heaven with a shoe.

Later that night, Hendrickson called and said Heaven was misbehaving. Buckner spoke with Heaven by phone, saying he was going to "beat her ass" when he got home, in hopes Heaven would behave and her mother would stop beating her.

Heaven was asleep when he returned home about 12:10 a.m. May 20, 2014.

Later that night, he awoke to hear Hendrickson yelling at her daughter to be quiet. The girl was grunting.

He told Heaven to come to him.

She was having trouble waking and he picked her up. She vomited.

He saw bruises on her face.

Her arms were limp.

Buckner contends he dialed 911 and gave the phone to Hendrickson, who disconnected the call. Buckner asked his mother to call 911 and left.

The Monroe County 911 center received two calls shortly before 9 a.m. about an unresponsive child at the home.

Heaven died in the county hospital soon after she arrived.

During Hendrickson's interview with authorities hours after Heaven died, an investigator asked, "Did you do it?"

"No," she replied. "I did not."

POLICY CHANGES

Nearly two years after her death, Heaven Woods hasn't been forgotten at the DFCS administration office in Atlanta.

"It's a case that makes you pause," DFCS spokeswoman Susan Boatwright said. "It's just so heartbreaking, even now."

Heaven died just before Bobby Cagle was appointed to lead the agency.

Her death played a pivotal role in the initial changes Cagle made, Boatwright said.

A third-party agency was asked to review staffers' work on the case and make recommendations to improve the agency's work, she said.

A change in policy that can be directly linked to Heaven's death is that staffers must now interview people who make reports of child abuse, Boatwright said.

At the time of Heaven's death, a DFCS intake worker triaged reports using a degree of discretion, deciding whether allegations required an investigation or if a family could be referred to community services.

Now, all reports of physical abuse are assigned to an investigator, who must make contact with the child within 24 hours, Boatwright said.

With the shift, reports of physical abuse are addressed faster, and investigators' actions are geared more toward determining if a child can stay safely in the home instead of what services could help a family, she said.

While records pertaining to Lucear's calls to DFCS weren't immediately available, Boatwright said that beginning in fall 2013 and continuing into April 2014, the agency began using a call center and central toll-free number to receive reports of child abuse.

"We anticipated an increased number of calls," she said.

What they didn't expect was the 80 percent increase in call volume.

"We had hold times in April and May that were around 30 minutes," Boatwright said.

Following changes in staffing and how calls are handled, the hold time now is 30 seconds at most, she said.

Staffing of front-line case managers has only recently rebounded from recession staffing levels that had dropped to 1,600 case managers in November 2013. Now, the state has about 2,000 of them, still fewer than the 2,500 employed in 2006, she said.

Over the past two years, the system has been undergoing reform and "lots of progress has been made," she said.

"There's still a good bit of progress that we need to make."

STILL HOLDING HEAVEN'S HAND

Heaven's father thinks Hendrickson got off easy.

"Too easy," Anthony Woods said. "I've just got this fear that they're going to let her out."

Hendrickson pleaded guilty to murder last month and was sentenced to life in prison. She won't be eligible for parole until after she's served 30 years.

While awaiting a transfer to prison, Hendrickson is being held at the Monroe County jail.

When Hendrickson was arrested, she was pregnant with Buckner's child.

It's unclear who has custody of the toddler. Citing privacy laws, Boatwright said she couldn't provide any information.

Buckner was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. He's being held at Smith State Prison near Glennville, according to state prison records.

At one time, prosecutors had sought the death penalty against Buckner and Hendrickson.

Milam, the district attorney who handled the case, said prosecutors considered many factors before deciding to allow the couple to plead guilty.

One of them was the arrest of the lead GBI investigator in the case, Charles Woodall, late last year in Bibb County. Woodall is charged with molesting several boys.

Heaven's father said Hendrickson and Buckner deserved the death penalty.

Woods still has nightmares after seeing his daughter laid out in a casket.

He said he's filed a lawsuit against the state. He wants policies and laws changed to save other children from Heaven's fate.

Woods said it's his job as a father to show the world what happened.

It would be a tribute to his little girl, who always liked having her hand held.

"She was just fascinated about me holding her hand," Woods said. "She felt safe."

Information from Telegraph archives was used in this report. To contact writer Amy Leigh Womack, call 744-4398 or find her on Twitter@awomackmacon.

This story was originally published April 2, 2016 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Did Heaven have to die? Case file details slain Forsyth 5-year-old's torment, system's shortcomings ."