The Misery Machine - The Case of Kaydence Mills

Starting point is 00:00:00 Before she was even born, Cadence Hazel Mills was in danger. At least, that's what Child Protective Services thought. Her biological father, Robert Mills, had an extensive criminal record and substance use issues. CPS considered him a threat to her and her mother, Sanita Doita. Cadence had two older sisters who were already in foster care. Among some new sources, there is a discrepancy on Cadence's birthday. However, the most commonly repeated date is September 23rd. For simplicity's sake, this will be where we're going to begin our timeline. Cadence Hazel Mills was born on September 23rd, 2014 in Queensland, Australia. She was only five weeks old when she was put into foster care. All over the world, there are horror stories

Starting point is 00:00:49 about foster homes, but Cadence was lucky. Her foster parents, Nick and Sally Pearson, were loving, attentive, and happy to have her in their lives. Sally's mother called her. Sally's mother, Cadence her granddaughter and treated her as such. According to Sally, Cadence was a dancer. She also had fabulous taste in music for a toddler. Her favorite song was C&C Music Factories, Gonna Make You Sweat, Everybody Dance Now. It didn't matter where she was or what she was doing. If she heard it, she danced. Unlike most young children, Cadence didn't need to be sweet-talked into eating her vegetables. Broccoli was her favorite food, and she also had a panda bear plushy that she loved very much. Cadence was happy living with Sally and Nick, but they were forced to return her to her mother on September 18, 2016.

Starting point is 00:01:38 Sally was worried the immediate transition would be hard for Cadence. She asked Sinita to hold and comfort Cadence while the Pearson's left. Cadence followed them to the car, screaming and crying as they left. Sally told Sanita to contact her if she ever needed help, but Sanita never did. Pearson's tried to reach out on Cadence's birthday, and no one answered the phone. They heard from Sinita much later. All she said to them was Cadence is good. Sally's mother saw Cadence and Sanita while out shopping.

Starting point is 00:02:08 Cadence was frail, as if she was underfed. She tried to give her foster grandma a hug, but Sinita pulled her back. Sanita did not have good luck with relationships. At best, her romantic partners were incompatible with her. At worst, they were absolutely toxic. But a year before regaining custody of Cadence, Sanita began dating Kane DeSachi. Cain had 11 other children in a documented history of violence in the home. Caden's and her sisters weren't yet officially in their mother's custody.

Starting point is 00:02:36 Sinita agreed to an IPA, an intervention with parental agreement. According to the Queensland Department of Child Safety website, an IPA, I quote, allows child safety officers to work with parents of children and young people, while they remain safely in the family home for all, or most of the intervention period. They are used when a child or young person's parents are able and willing to work with our department to meet their needs, and that it is likely the parents will be able to meet these needs by the end of the intervention. By November, Sinita regained full custody for three daughters. The Department of Child Safety sent officers to the apartment until December. Sanita and Tain alerted officers that they were moving to Chinchilla.

Starting point is 00:03:15 Tane alleged that Robert, Cadence's biological father, didn't approve of his presence in his exes and his daughter's life. He was physically assaulted one day and he believed that Robert was behind it. Rather than alert law enforcement, best in home security, or be on high alert, Cain decided violence had to be paid with violence, but Robert was out of his reach. Instead, he decided Cadence would be punished for her father's alleged actions. Caden's wasn't properly potty trained and didn't have access to a toddler potty. She was so small that when she tried to use an adult toilet, she often fell in.

Starting point is 00:03:54 When she had an accident, Tane beat her with a bamboo stick. She slept naked and alone in a toilet bowl or on the bathroom floor. Tane made her eat her own excrement, and at least once made Sinita do the same. She was naive food and lost weight alarmingly fast. Caden's sisters were told not to give her food comfort or help her when Tane was punishing her. It isn't reported if he extended this maltreatment to his other stepchildren or if it was exclusive to Cadence and Sinita. The beatings gave Cadence severe bruises. She had to wear concealing clothes whenever she left the house so that strangers wouldn't know about Tane's temper behind closed doors.

Starting point is 00:04:36 Still, onlookers knew something was wrong. Cadence was always frail and her hair was shaved off. While Cadence was in foster care, Robert was serving a one-year prison sentence. He and Senna's relationship was already rocky, and the sentence was the straw that broke the camel's back. When he was released, he worked on bettering himself to get his daughter into his care, but unfortunately he was not fast enough to help Cadence. For the course of four years, Robert asked about his daughter.

Starting point is 00:05:04 Sunita sent him old pictures and gave him vague answers to his questions or bounced around them completely. Robert made calls to child welfare authorities concerned for Cadence's well-being. He could not get in contact with his ex or his wife. ex or his daughter. They considered him unreliable purely because of his criminal record. In addition, inability to contact a child does not ultimately equal child mistreatment. The department consistently had floods of similar phone calls during custody disputes, most of which were false alarms or non-issues. This was not the case for Robert and Cadence, however. His instincts were right and should have been taken seriously, criminal record or not.

Starting point is 00:05:42 He claimed that child welfare services told him this. Once a child is backed with their biological parent out of child's safety's care, the department's care, we are not bound by any legal law to investigate unless there is significant concerns of harm or danger to the child's well-being. A witness described seeing Tane beat Cadence on more than one occasion while Sanita watched it happen. Sanita was also known to hit Cadence with her hand. One day, this witness saw Cadence lying on the couch covered in a flower pattern sheet. She was completely still. Her breathing was labored. Cadence may have been having a seizure caused by an injury to her head. We don't know when Cadence actually died. Based on the

Starting point is 00:06:23 train ticket receipts, investigators estimated that she passed away sometime between February and May of 2017 during one of Tain's beatings with a bamboo stick. While we also don't know the cause of death, the Queensland government's best guess is abdominal trauma or a broken neck. Sanita and Tane swaddled her in garbage bags and shut her in a backyard outhouse. They threw out Cadence's belongings, buried her in the Chinchilla Weir campground, then went on with her lives. Tam gambled, drank, and shopped as if he didn't kill a little girl. Sanita was visibly pregnant while disposing of her daughter's remains and gave birth a short time later. For two years, the couple lied and collected Cadence's benefits.

Starting point is 00:07:07 Sanita told her family that Cadence was put back into foster care, but the where and with who changed. Sinida visited Cadence's grave multiple times, whereas Tane never did. In fall of 2018, Tane dragged Sinita by her hair while she was breastfeeding their child. Emergency services soon responded to a call place from the couple's home, and child safety officers came knocking on their front door not long after. Sanita lied again. She had a daughter, but she was living with an aunt in Brisbane.

Starting point is 00:07:37 Sanita called this person Aunt Jessica, but she didn't give the officers an address or any sort of contact information. If the child safety officers had looked into Cadence and Aunt Jessica, they would reach a standstill. That's assuming they even investigated it all. Instead, they stopped looking into cadence altogether. In 2024, these officers were approached by Australian news outlets. Neither gave any insight into their thought process. In 2019, Sanita was referred by her doctor to the Western Downs Mental Health Service. By this time, she and Tane were split. Sanita told the nurse that she was hiding something.

Starting point is 00:08:14 If others found out she said her children would be put into foster care. The nurse did not get any specifics from her, but Sinita admitted it involved one of her kids and her ex-boyfriend. The nurse passed this along to the relevant authorities. The Department of Child Safety filed the statement as a child concern report. This meant there was enough information to be put on the police's radar, but not enough information for a proper investigation. Robert was serving a prison sentence when Cadence was first reported missing. Detectives visited him in jail to rule him out as a suspect. Robert cooperated completely.

Starting point is 00:08:50 He turned over his phone and answered every question. This period of time was Robert's personal health. His daughter's whereabouts were unknown, as well as her safety. In December, Cadence's oldest sibling spoke to a school guidance counselor. Concerned for the children's well-being, the counselor relayed the information to authorities. It was enough for an investigation to begin in earnest. When investigators began looking for Cadence, any semblance of relationship between Tain and Sinita broke down for good.

Starting point is 00:09:19 They placed blame on each other. At first, it was thought that Cadence was buried on the property. On December 3, 2019, detectives tore up the ex-couples backyard but left empty-handed. They took the opportunity to tap Tane's phone. Sanita called Tane later that night. He was recorded saying, and I quote, I told those motherfuckers that dying little cah had a fit. Tane first told police that Cadence was given to a paternal aunt.

Starting point is 00:09:49 Then he said he came home one day from gambling and saw Caden's lying on the couch, and that Cineida said she hit her head after falling down the stairs. He claimed he told Sanita to take Cadence to the hospital, but that she wouldn't listen. He didn't end her life, according to him, but he helped Cine dispose of her corpse. Tain confessed to burying Cadence and the Chinchilla Weir. For those outside of Australia, Chinchilla Weir is a long-standing recreational spot featuring camping areas, camp kitchen, fire pits, shelters, barbecues, and more. In March of 2020, Cadence's remains were found.

Starting point is 00:10:24 It took six months of police investigation to find her. She had a skull fracture so bad that forensic experts compared it to an injury from a bad car crash. Kane and Sanita were arrested. as Nita's other children were swiftly relocated. Four months later, Sally and Nick Pearson held a memorial for their former foster daughter. They were so heartbroken by Cadence's passing, that they made the difficult decision to quit being foster parents. Their reasoning was based on the fact that they couldn't handle the possibility

Starting point is 00:10:55 that something like this could happen again. Nick told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, you feel bad for walking away, but you think about Cadence. We're talking about a person, a soul, in the most important years of their life. This is going to happen again unless something changes in child protection. Cadence's biological family held a funeral for her in September. They decorated her grave marker with flowers, pink balloons, and a peacock windmill. Robert gave a short speech.

Starting point is 00:11:24 He told news outlets, I took two minutes to stand up and talk on her behalf, to be her voice, and make sure she was heard. The people of Queensland turned Cadences unmarked graved at the Chinchilla Weir into a shrine. Upset, disturbed, and saddened by her story, complete strangers brought flowers and stuffed animals to the campgrounds. The couple's trial occurred from July to September of 2024. Tane pled guilty to interfering with a corpse, but maintained that he did not hurt Cadence. Sunita pled the same. They were tried together, but with different legal teams. For the trial began, Sanita's legal team requested a screening.

Starting point is 00:12:02 be placed between her and Tane. Because Tane had a record of DV, this would ensure Sinita's comfort and a smooth trial, but Tain's lawyers objected to this. However, the judge granted the request. The prosecution brought Cadence's family members to testify about the punishments

Starting point is 00:12:18 they witness. They said her bruises were almost always in a straight line. They also testified about how Tane made Cadence consume her own excrement. Tane's lawyers objected to the phone recording being entered as evidence, the one where he called Cadence a dying little. Not only did they say Tane was drunk during the call, but the audio quality was lacking.

Starting point is 00:12:41 They claimed their clients said lying, but the garble made it sound like dying. Sanita's lawyer said the recording was necessary. Not only did it show inconsistencies in Tain's series of events, but it also clearly demonstrated his hatred for the innocent little girl. The judge allowed the phone call to be admitted as evidence. He listened carefully multiple times and concluded Tane did, in fact, say the word dying. During closing submissions, the prosecution said, blind Freddie would have known through her suffering and continued maltreatment she was destined to die. Blind Freddy is a figure

Starting point is 00:13:14 of speech, meaning that the most unreliable, incompetent person could look at Cadence's living situation and recognize she was in danger. The prosecution said that Sinita had other options for Cadence and actively chose to keep Cadence in a dangerous environment. It was not logical or reasonable to allow this to go on as long as it did. They characterize the defendants as selfish, dangerous, and unfit to walk among society. Tane's lawyers took the prosecution's witnesses into question. They outright said that testimonies by Aboriginal witnesses are unreliable by nature because they are more liable to leading questions.

Starting point is 00:13:53 These witnesses in particular may have, and I quote, persuaded themselves that something had happened based on the prosecution leading them down a certain path. This is a freaking lawyer saying this. Now, in addition, Tane's defense teams said the prosecution could not prove when the extreme skull fracture occurred, before Cadence's death or after. They also couldn't prove who did it. Tane's defense said it could easily have been Senita. They said, did Ms. Deweida in one of her frustrated in moody states excessively strapped, right cadence to the back of her head with either her hand or a weapon?

Starting point is 00:14:30 Sanita's lawyer said, the evidence captures that Mr. Dasachi displayed three emotions toward Cadence, distance, disgust, and hate through association. Therefore, it was more likely that Tane killed Cadence. They argued Sanita didn't have the motive to kill her own daughter. They admitted her parenting methods were excessive, extreme, and depraved, but argued she acted out of fear. She was also a victim of Tain's violence.

Starting point is 00:14:58 The prosecution also did not prove beyond reasonable doubt that Sinita had a direct hand in Cadence's passing. The prosecution convinced the judge that Tain DeSachi intended to cause bodily harm when he'd beat Cadence to death. Tane's dislike of Cadence's biological father was enough to be considered a motive. Tane was asked if he had anything he would like to say. His face was void of emotion. The sentence was 22 years to life. His judgment read as follows. In convicting DeSachi of murder, the court rejected DeSachi's statements that he was not present when Caden suffered the injuries which led to her death.

Starting point is 00:15:33 The court drew an inference that DeSachi hitting Cadence on the head and face with the bamboo stick caused her death. In convicting DeSachi of torture, the court found that he intentionally inflicted severe pain or suffering on Cadence before she died by hitting her on the head and face with the bamboo stick. 45-year-old Tain Dasaji had sat emotionless in the court for most of the trial but was shocked when his sentence was read out earlier this afternoon. Justice Sean Cooper outlined the confronting final days of two-year-old Cadence Mills, who was beaten with a bamboo stick and forced to eat her own waist before her death in 2017. The judge said Desachi felt anger towards Cadence's biological father, which influenced his feelings and awful treatment of the toddler. He said none of that provides any excuse for your horrifying mistreatment and ultimately your killing of a vulnerable child in your care.

Starting point is 00:16:30 That appalling conduct must be denounced. The court also heard Desachi and Cadence's mother Sanita Deweida lied together and told everyone Cadence had gone to live with her aunt. When the awful truth was they buried her body in garbage bags at the Chinchilla Weir during a family camping trip five years ago. DeSachi was sentenced to life in prison, but with time already served, he'll be eligible for parole in March 2042. Sunita Deweida was acquitted of murder on Tuesday, but was sentenced to two counts of interfering with a corpse. Sanita Doeita was acquitted of murder charges. Instead, she upheld her original guilty plea, two counts of interfering with her daughter's corpse. The judge decided that there was not enough evidence to prove Sinita agreed to mistreat her daughter without three.

Starting point is 00:17:18 threat to herself. She was given an 18-month sentence with time served already. Robert believes his daughter would still be alive if she was white or white passing. He told news outlets the following. They don't listen if a parent's got a bad record. If they make a complaint about the other parent, they just discard it because he's jealous or whatever. Drugs, what history they've got, they discriminate and now look, a little girl's dead. I think it was swept under the carpet because she's of indigenous descent. Robert's words have merit behind them. Australia, just like the U.S. and Canada, is no stranger to discrimination against its indigenous population. Child welfare has a long, turbulent history with indigenous families. Early forms of child protection allowed for the

Starting point is 00:18:04 culling of Aboriginal culture under the guise of rescuing children. In truth, much like we've seen in Canada with a 60 sweep, and we talked about this during our coverage with the Phoenix Sinclair case, Aboriginal children were forcibly snatched from their families with little to no warning. The children were told that Aboriginal people were inherently lesser than human, and that they would stay that way unless they conform to Western customs. This practice continued until the 1970s. The children taken are collectively called the stolen generations, and there are over 15,000 survivors of the system still alive today.

Starting point is 00:18:40 The result is generational disconnect and trauma among these survivors. The child welfare system has gone through many changes throughout the last two centuries, but clearly it has not been enough. In speaking about Cadence, Australian child welfare said their protocol was ignored. A spokeswoman said there were laws in place that barred official comments on individual child cases. All she could say about Cadence was, The safety and well-being of all Queensland children is a top priority, and we are continually working to ensure the state's child-prudence.

Starting point is 00:19:14 protection system is as strong as it can be. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation interviewed Vish Chandani, a former child safety officer. He was not the one assigned to Cadence's case, but he worked in the same office space with those who did. He gave his insider knowledge on the relevant procedures that were completely ignored. Protocol was there for a reason. It's a delicate and important process to ensure the well-being of a child. Skipping one step could have horrifying consequences.

Starting point is 00:19:44 If a child is not in the home during a visit, it's the safety officer's duty to find the child. If they can't, they need to make a report to the police. Mr. Chandani called this the bare minimum. He said there were individual issues with the child safety officers assigned to Cadence's case, but the failure was with the system, namely high employee turnover rates, heavy workloads, inexperience, and department secrecy. He compared Cadence's murder to another child's death. In 2016, 21-month-old Mason-Jet,

Starting point is 00:20:14 Lee died at the hands of his mother's boyfriend. News coverage spurred a response by the Australian government to fix the prominent issues in the Department of Child Safety. Evidently, these changes were not enough, and Cadence slipped through the cracks. In more recent times, Mr. Chandani asks for a fresh inquiry into the child protection system in not just Queensland, but Australia entirely. As the saying goes, the call is coming from inside the house. Until these mistakes are addressed and amended, none of Australia's children are safe. Since Cadence is passing, the Australian The Australian government invested $2.3 billion Australian dollars into child and family welfare. In 2020, Queensland formed the Child Death Review Board.

Starting point is 00:20:54 For their website, their duty is to investigate the deaths of children connected to the Department of Child Safety. This is a quote from the Queensland Family and Child Commission's website. These reviews identify opportunities to improve the child protection system and prevent future deaths. The board uses agency information, research, and data to make system-wide findings. and recommendations for systemic improvements to help prevent deaths that may have been avoidable. Unlike the previous Child Death Case Review Panel, the Child Death Review Board is an independent entity. And I quote the Queensland Family and Child Commission again. The board is not subject to direction by the responsible minister or anyone else about how it performs its functions.

Starting point is 00:21:38 The board is established Act independently and in the public interest at all times. With the funds they acquired, Queensland's Department of Child Safety could raise the starting salary for new applicants, which led to an increase of applicants for MP positions. There's still a long way to go, but it's a start. The time will tell how meaningful these changes will be. Sanita was officially acquitted of murder charges on September 17th, 2024. Her release was delayed so she could make living arrangements. She left prison six days later, on the 23rd. The day of Cadence's 10th birthday.

The Misery Machine - The Case of Kaydence Mills

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