The Misery Machine - The Case of Samiah Downing

Starting point is 00:00:00 Samaya Christine Cornell Downing was born on Valentine's Day of 2008. Her mother, Monica Chenaya Downing, was 17 years old when she was born. Her father, Ronald Dean Greer Jr., was 16. Samaya had a younger baby brother born to her mother and a younger sister born to her father. She was named after her paternal great-grandmother Christine Downing, who died about six years before she was born. Samaya was a sweet little girl with big brown eyes, round, dimpled cheeks, and a big heart. She was adored by her grandfather Christopher Downing, whom she called Papa.

Starting point is 00:00:37 Her Papa called her Little Peanut and other family members called her Minky and Bunny. She could be a little shy, especially when she first met someone, but she was a happy and playful little girl. Samaya loved to watch Dora the Explorer and to play at Chuck E. Cheese. She enjoyed the rides and liked running around the arcade and through the tunnels. She often went to Chuck E. Cheese with her grandfather on their papa-granddaughter dates. According to her great-aunt Lori, Samaya was the kind of little girl who said thank you after opening her presents on Christmas morning.

Starting point is 00:01:08 For the first few years of Samaya's life, she didn't see much of her father. She lived with her mother, grandmother, and great-aunt in Victorville, California. Her father, Ronald, had moved on from his relationship with her mother and started dating 16-year-old Bianca Anne May Stanch in January of 2010.

Starting point is 00:01:26 Ronald had been a 4.0 student when he was in high school. In 2010, he was arrested for felony burglary and three misdemeanor counts. Misdemeanors were receiving stolen property, escaping from a police officer, and vandalism. He and Bianca were posting frequently on their Facebook pages about weed and alcohol use. Around the same time, Ronald started referring to Bianca as the mother of his child, and she announced she was pregnant on February 8th. In 2011, Ronald pled no contest to the three years. three misdemeanors in exchange for dismissal of the felony.

Starting point is 00:01:59 He was sentenced to 120 days in county jail and 36 months probation. He and Bianca never legally got married, but on February 17th, they announced they were husband and wife on social media. Bianca changed her last name to Greer online. Ronald's mother didn't react kindly to the news of the baby or the relationship. In one of his posts about his relationship with Bianca, his mother responded, got some reality coming your way. Once a dummy, always a dummy.

Starting point is 00:02:27 You can't even take care of the one you've got. And you call yourself a man, like father, like son. Get yourself a new mom. You make the family look bad. Ronald's child with Bianca, who was also a little girl, was born in October of 2011. The pair moved into an apartment of their own in December of that same year. Monica thought that Samaya should have a relationship with her father

Starting point is 00:02:49 and her new baby sister and arranged for Samaya to visit the couple Adalanto, California, which was only eight to nine miles away. The visits seemed to go well and Bianca seemed to care about the little girl. On Samaya's fourth birthday in February of 2012, Bianca posted to Facebook, quote, Happy birthday to my other daughter, Samaya. I love you. You are the big four today. I wish me, your daddy, and your little sis could see you today. I love you, Minky, end quote. At the time of our story, Monica was working full time, as was Ronald. However, Bianca was staying home with her new baby, so having Samaya stay in Adelanto seemed like a good situation.

Starting point is 00:03:28 Samaya moved to Adalanto in early 2012. In August, she was enrolled in preschool. Bianca took her school shopping and posted about the shopping trip online. If you overlook the weed and alcohol use that both Ronald and Bianca continued to post about online, the family seemed happy and well-adjusted. However, things began changing in the home in mid-2012. Ronald stopped bringing Samaya back to her mother when he said would. The family moved twice and no one knew exactly where they were living, not even Ronald's

Starting point is 00:03:57 mother. Samaya started attending preschool late September of 2012. On October 2nd, she showed up with a black eye. When teachers asked about it, Samaya said Bianca hit her with a belt. When the teachers asked Bianca, she said Samaya was hit by her little brother. However, Samaya wasn't even living with her little brother. He lived with Monica and Victorville. Teachers became suspicious and reported the incident to child and family services of San Bernardino County. Unfortunately for Samaya, CFS of San Bernardino was operating in a state of gross negligence, according to an employee whistleblower.

Starting point is 00:04:32 Many caseworkers had quit. Some left because of cuts to pay in pensions. Others left because of a case in which CFS management allegedly turned on one of its social workers after parents threatened to sue. The case was quite shocking. Allegedly, social workers entered a home and found a nine-month-old baby dead.

Starting point is 00:04:51 wrapped in a sheet. The baby had been placed under the kitchen table. After seeing what they described as extensive ligature marks, burns and bruises on the other four children found in the home, they asked a judge for an emergency removal to protect the safety of the children who were still alive, and the judge agreed. However, once the parents threatened to sue, members of the administration questioned the actions taken, allegedly saying, and I quote, we don't feel like the home was dirty enough. We don't feel like the kids were that unsafe. Did anyone forget that there was a dead baby found underneath the kitchen table

Starting point is 00:05:28 with no explanation of how it got there? When the case came to court, managers accused their own CFS social worker of lying, and the case ended in a mistrial. The social worker was eventually fired, and this made many caseworkers nervous and more quit. As workers fled the department, the caseloads of those who are left skyrocketed, causing even more people to quit. The average CFS employee was supposed to manage roughly 15 to 17 cases,

Starting point is 00:05:58 but during this time, a whistleblower said he was responsible for as many as 300 to 500 kids at a time. This was the state of the department when Samaya's teachers dutifully reported her black eye in October of 2012. Sometime in late November, Bianca's cousin, 26-year-old, Rashon-Laurice Stanch moved into the apartment with Ronald, Bianca, and the children. Rayshan was legally blind. He could see but only right in front of him and only in bright light. He also struggled with lifelong learning disabilities and had a history of run-ins with the law, which had landed him in jail and on probation multiple times. In March of 2005, he served 70 days in jail and 36 months probation on misdemeanor assault

Starting point is 00:06:41 with a deadly weapon charge, and he was required to take anger management classes and attend a drug rehabilitation program. He racked up additional probation for loitering and sitting or lying in a public way in February of 2006. Rayshan may have been homeless at that time because those charges are often used to deter homeless people. Then in December of 2006, he was charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon, felony willful cruelty to a child, and two other misdemeanors.

Starting point is 00:07:08 He pled guilty to assault with a deadly weapon and the other charges were dismissed. This time, he served 36 months and since then. state prison with another 36 months of probation afterward. In 2011, he was in trouble again, this time for misdemeanor battery and felony possession of narcotics. He fled no contest to the narcotics possession was given additional years of probation. By all accounts, it did not appear that Samaya's maternal family knew that Rayshan had moved in. The family also didn't know that there was an open CFS investigation regarding Samaya in December of 2012. After initial meeting with Samaya, her social worker was concerned because she saw bruises.

Starting point is 00:07:48 She consulted her supervisors who conducted a risk assessment and concluded that, based on lack of information, Samaya should remain in her father's home and social workers should check on her again. Now, this might have happened in a reasonable time frame, had the caseworker been working on a reasonable 15 to 17 cases, but she was working on over 90 cases at the time. On December 27th, 2012, San Bernardino deputies received a tip that something bad had happened to Samaya. Acting on that tip, they located Ronald's vehicle and pulled him over.

Starting point is 00:08:22 His youngest daughter was in the car, but Samaya was not. He said Samaya was with her mother, but Monica said Samaya was supposed to be with Ronald. Law enforcement accompanied Ronald to the apartment Samaya had been living in. Deputies searched the house and interviewed both Ronald and Bianca. During this search, they noticed a deadbolt on the hallway side of Samaya's bedroom door, allowing it to be locked from the outside. As police continued to interview Ronald, his story changed multiple times and he made inconsistent statement.

Starting point is 00:08:51 He said Samaya was safe with her grandfather, and he changed his story and said she was safe with another family member. Then he said she was safe with a friend he met on Instagram. But Samaya was not with any of these individuals, and she was certainly not safe. also claimed Samaya was safe with her grandfather, but then changed her statement to blame her cousin, Rayshan. If anything had happened to the little girl, Bianca told deputies Rayshan must have done it. He did have a long criminal history and he made a plausible suspect. Eventually, authorities gathered information that led them to search a remote portion of the

Starting point is 00:09:27 Mojave Desert, south of Baker and near Barso, California. There, they found Samaya's body zipped up in a child-sized princess sleeping bag. She was buried. in a shallow grave. Police arrested all three adults, Ronald, Bianca, and Rayshan, as suspects in Samaya's death. 18 days later, the CFS worker assigned to Samaya's case finally attempted to complete her follow-up visit, only to find that she was too late. The medical examiner later determined that Samaya had died on December 15th. Rayshan was the first to start talking. He told his sister and her boyfriend what he had witnessed at the apartment. The boyfriend called 911 and alerted authorities. That was the call that let them know something bad had happened

Starting point is 00:10:12 and initially led deputies to look for Samaya. After the arrest, Rayshan soon pled guilty to his part and agreed to testify about what happened in Samaya's final days. He said Bianca hated Samaya, and he witnessed daily beatings while he lived in the home. Bianca did the beating, but Ronald was there and did not stop her. He also said that both Ronald and Bianca withheld water as a form of punishment. He said they used the deadbolt found on Samaya's door to lock her in the room.

Starting point is 00:10:40 Other witnesses corroborated this claim, saying that on several occasions, the two duct-taped Samaya's wrists and ankles together to keep her from getting any water to drink during the night. A family friend also testified to being told by Bianca about one occasion where Samaya was able to get to the kitchen in the night, which was so thirsty she drank the only liquid she could find, which was bleach. Rishan said that Ronald and Bianca also withheld food. On either the 13th or 14th of December, he couldn't remember which exactly. Bianca made shrimp for dinner. Samaya didn't want to eat shrimp, so she was sent to bed hungry.

Starting point is 00:11:13 Rasha never saw her offered food again. She remained hungry until she died on the night of the 15th. In December 14th, he said Bianca beat Samaya and forced her to stand in a corner for eight hours straight. In December 15th, he said Bianca used a belt and an electrical cord to beat Samaya all over her body. She then heated a pot of water to boiling and dumped it over her back. After these events, Rishan said Samaya seemed like she had no energy and seemed very sleepy. That evening, Ronald and Bianca locked her in her bedroom and went out to dinner. They returned from dinner, they found her dead.

Starting point is 00:11:50 All three admitted to taking her body to the desert and burying her in a shallow grave. December was cold in the high desert, so her body was well preserved, even though she had been there for 11 or 12 days. Medical examiners could still easily see the injuries all over Samaya's body, from her ankles to the top of her head, including defensive wounds on her hands. There were 10 to 20 U-shaped injuries found all over her body. These injuries were consistent with being beaten with an electrical hoard held looped in the hand. There were also straight injuries caused by something like a belt.

Starting point is 00:12:27 Both types of injuries were found on her back, chest, legs, thighs, arms, and face. The examiner concluded those injuries were likely inflicted between two and 24 hours of her death. There was a significant blunt force injury to her forehead. It split the skin but didn't fracture her skull. There was a large burn that started from the top of her shoulders and onto her back made by boiling water, which split the flesh causing slippage of the skin. There were also splash marks from the scalding water on her chest. Samaya was also severely malnourished.

Starting point is 00:13:05 In June of 2012, she had been in the 50th percentile for weight. But at the time of her death, her weight had decreased dramatically, and her autopsy showed that she was in the fifth percentile. Her body showed no evidence of medical attention or any treatment of her wounds. She just had to sit and suffer while her body tried to heal. After telling law enforcement several different versions of what happened that night, both Ronald and Bianca blamed Rayshan for her death. There were so many injuries on her body that they likely suspected she died from the beating she endured,

Starting point is 00:13:39 and their story blamed those injuries on Rayshan. But dehydration was the real cause of Samaya's death. Medical examiners were convinced that she would have been able to survive her horrible injuries if only Ronald and Bianca had given her enough water to stay alive. The experts believed she was either given absolutely no water for 24 to 48 hours before her death or too little water for an extended period of days or some combination of both. Additional evidence provided by witnesses indicated that deprivation of water was ongoing and had started before Rayshan ever lived at the apartment.

Starting point is 00:14:14 Death by dehydration is a cruel and painful way to die. In early stages, the body suffers extreme thirst and it starts pulling water from less essential parts in order to keep blood pressure high enough to sustain life. First, the kidneys reabsorbed water that would have been used to make urine. The hydration also causes muscle cramps and headaches as water is pulled from cells. This pain increases the longer the body goes without water. As the dehydration progresses, blood thickens in the body. This is when blood pressure starts to drop.

Starting point is 00:14:43 When blood slows down, organs get less oxygen, and eventually vital organs such as the brain, heart, kidneys, and liver begin to fail. continued lack of water causes death. On January 2nd, 2013, a dozen of Samaya's family members watched as Ronald, now 21 years old, and Bianca, now 19, were arraigned on charges of felony homicide with a special circumstance of intentional infliction of torture, felony torture, and felony cruelty to a child wilfully causing death. Then her family members were forced to wait, and wait, and wait. Bianca and Ronald switched lawyers multiple times and filed motion after motion, dragging the trial out for years. In October of 2013, Ronald filed a number of motions, including one asking to be allowed to carry a Bible into court. His motion was denied.

Starting point is 00:15:38 Rishon pled guilty to cruelty to a child on November 4, 2014, and agreed to act as state's witness against Ronald and Bianca. Their case was held over several times in 2015 and 2016. mostly at the request of their defense. In 2017, the mental health of Rayshan was questioned and expert evaluation was required in order to demonstrate he was competent to testify. He was found competent in December of 2017, but there were more motions,

Starting point is 00:16:07 and the case was held over several more times, mostly at the request of the defense. Overall, the trial was rescheduled more than 20 times in over eight years. Then the pandemic shut down courthouses across the country, trial was delayed yet again. Because of all the delays, District Attorney Jason Anderson pushed to make this one of the first trials conducted once the courts were reopened. July 8th, 2020, the social distancing and face masks in place, Ronald and Bianca were tried together. At the trial,

Starting point is 00:16:37 Ronald testified that he had a severe drug habit regularly using large amounts of coke, weed, and alcohol. He claimed that because of his addiction, he knew nothing about what was happening with Samaya. But blood drawn on the day he was arrested, was tested. for drugs and produced results inconsistent with his claims. Ronald also claimed he was completely surprised by Samaya's injuries, saying he had never seen them before, not even when he buried her. He also admitted that at a certain time each day, he would stop Samaya from having water to avoid bedwetting. On October 6 of 2020, both Ronald and Bianca were found guilty of first-degree homicide, guilty of torturing Samaya, and guilty of CA with a special allegation of causing death.

Starting point is 00:17:18 On March 12th, 2021, Bianca and Ronald were sentenced to 32 years to life in prison for the death of 4-year-old Samaya. Samaya's family was relieved that the trial was finally over and glad that she finally got justice. Samaya's case was one of several featured in the 2015 Fox 11 Special Report, The Children Are Dying. As a result of the special report, a grand jury was convened to investigate San Bernardino CFS, but the results were upsetting to the anonymous whistleblowers. Terrible things that happened to these children were continuing to happen, but I don't think that they were able to rise above the corruption. To say that our sources are disappointed would be an understatement.

Starting point is 00:18:02 They are furious with the San Bernardino County grand jury. I would have liked to think that they would have made changes to prevent other children from dying. How many other kids have to die? The grand jury did find that there were serious problems, but the report didn't mention the children who were left in dangerous homes, and there was no mention of Samaya. The grand jury cited problems with documentation, communication, high employee turnover rates, too many cases per social worker, and lack of training. But nothing much changed in response to the report.

Starting point is 00:18:33 Even after the report was issued, caseworkers still had up to 90 cases instead of the recommended, which is 15 to 17. Even now, 10 years later, many of the same problems still exist. In May of 2023, the nonprofit group, A Better Childhood, filed a federal class action lawsuit alleging that San Bernardino CFS failed to protect those under its care and at times placed them in danger. According to their suit, in 2022, caseworkers still had up to 70 to 90 cases. The nonprofit group seeks court intervention to mandate lower caseloads and require the agency to create procedures to keep children safe. County officials did not respond to the allegations, but released a statement that CFS hired

Starting point is 00:19:15 115 social services practitioners in the 2021 to 22 fiscal year. 67 more in this fiscal year to help reduce caseloads. It is not enough, but it is good to know that there are still people working to hold San Bernardino CFS accountable to make the county safer for vulnerable children like Samaya who live there. Samaya was buried on January 9, 2013 at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. Her headstone reads, Mommy's Bundle of Love, Forever Missed, loved and never forgotten. More than anything, her family wanted people to know that Samaya was

Starting point is 00:19:50 greatly loved and not abandoned. In December of 2012, Samaya's family created a memorial Facebook page dedicated to the little girl. Her mother, aunt, great-aunt, grandfather, and grandmother all posted to the page. Her grandmother posted at least once a month, openly grieving the little girl, raging against CFS, counting down the time since Samaya's death. and noting delay after delay in the court proceedings. Samaya's grandmother remembered her especially on the holidays, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Fourth of July, and always on Valentine's Day, Samaya's birthday.

Starting point is 00:20:29 She wrote to Samaya as if she was talking to her, often discussing the decorations and presents she planned to bring to Samaya's grave and the candle she would light for her. This memorial page serves as a heartbreaking reminder of the pain her family suffered and is a testament to just how much they loved her. The first post was made in December of 2012, soon after Samaya's body was found.

Starting point is 00:20:53 Post continued every month until March 2021, when Ronald and Bianca were sentenced. On February 14th, 2015, her grandma wrote, You would have been seven today, but you are forever four years old. She told Samaya she would be bringing balloons to set off into the sky so they would reach her in heaven. On the same day, the family posted an image of a birthday card.

Starting point is 00:21:17 The poem on the card seems to capture the feelings expressed on Samaya's memorial site. It read, Today is full of memories, happiness and tears, of birthday celebrations we've shared throughout the years. And though I'll always miss you the endless joy you brought, warms my heart with gratitude, and fills my every thought. Wherever you are resting,

Starting point is 00:21:39 I hope that you can see, how precious and uplifting your memory is to me. I feel that you are with me in everything I do, so I'll celebrate your birthday, but I'll spend it missing you.

The Misery Machine - The Case of Samiah Downing

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