A recently revealed court papers states that authorities in Alabama arrested a nurse practitioner suspected of abusing her 12-year-old adopted daughter with the intention of murdering her.
A grand jury in Jefferson County indicted Kala K. Blakely, 39, of Trussville, on counts of severe child abuse and attempted murder involving her adopted daughter on Friday.
Alabama nurse charged with child abuse
Blakely was taken into jail by officers from the Trussville Police Department on Friday night, following a multi-month investigation into claims that the nurse and assistant professor had been brutally abusing and neglecting the little child. According to the story, Blakely, who is married and has three other children, had only legally adopted the child.
Prosecutors accused Blakely of attempting to "intentionally cause the death" of her daughter through medical negligence, strangling, malnutrition, and beating her," according to the indictment obtained by AL.com.
Blakely's arrest was announced over the weekend by Trussville Police Chief Eric Rush, who said the investigation into the child began on January 21, when the child- whose name was not announced but who was described as Spanish-speaking- was taken to Children's of Alabama in Birmingham to be treated for a variety of medical conditions and ailments.
Hospital workers allegedly notified the Alabama Department of Human Resources, who subsequently reported the event to Trussville police, due to the severity of the child's condition, which physicians claimed was indicative of abuse.
The young girl was said to be thin, with bruises and lacerations on her back, legs, arms, and feet. Doctors allegedly gave Blakely precise instructions on how to care for her daughter after she was released from the hospital, but she disobeyed them all, according to police.
The investigation was a collaborative effort involving Trussville police, the Alabama Department of Human Resources, the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office, and the Birmingham-based Prescott House Child Advocacy Center.
Blakely's adoptive daughter is no longer under her care, according to reports. The Alabama nurse's lawyer is not listed in public records.
A request for comment from the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office was not immediately returned to Law&Crime. Blakely was the operator of Hometown Family Medicine until her arrest. In 2010 and 2013, she received her Master's and Doctorate of Science in Nursing from the University of Alabama in Birmingham, respectively.
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An Opioid settlement aims to combat child abuse in Alabama
She also worked as an assistant professor at the University of Alabama in Birmingham's School of Nursing. Blakely was awarded the Nurse Practitioner State Award for Excellence by the American Association of Nurse Practitioners in 2018, according to UAB's website.
Online records revealed Blakely was booked into the Jefferson County Jail on Friday evening and remained there as of Monday afternoon. Her bail was set at $60,000 by a court.
More than $1 million - $1.5 million - from the McKinsey & Company opioid settlement will now go toward preventing child abuse in Alabama. The money was just given by Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall to the Alabama Department of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention.
The investment might assist to lessen the negative consequences of opioid-addicted parents. According to the AG's office, a high majority of children in Alabama enter foster care as a result of parental substance misuse, and child abuse accounts for more than 60% of child removals from the family.
This is the third time the settlement payments have been allocated. It follows a February agreement between the state and McKinsey. According to the AGO, McKinsey aided the opioid problem "for more than a decade by promoting marketing strategies and consulting services to opioid producers, notably OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma."
According to the lawsuit, McKinsey advised Purdue on how to maximize earnings from their opioid product by focusing on opioid prescribers, using special terminology to persuade doctors to write more OxyContin prescriptions and circumventing pharmacy constraints to deliver high-dose prescriptions.
As part of the settlement, Alabama will get a total of $9 million. It's the first multistate opioid settlement in the US, and it will go a long way toward addressing the issue. To alleviate backlogs from opioid-related cases, some of the money will go to drug courts and the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, as per WAAY TV.
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