Friends Bury Boy Who Changed System : Abuse: Jesus Castro, 11, could not walk or talk. But he made a difference.

Jesus Castro, 11, was buried Wednesday in a no-frills graveside funeral at a small Catholic cemetery in Montebello. His parents were not there; each had commited suicide years ago. His lawyer--the closest person Jesus had to a father--arranged the service and delivered a tearful eulogy.

His mourners, gathered on a grassy knoll under a pale green canopy, included county social workers, a Juvenile Court commissioner, a doctor who treated Jesus and a foster mother who hoped to care for him. Among the pallbearers was the sheriff’s deputy who rescued Jesus five years ago when his step-grandmother nearly drowned him. He was left blind and a quadriplegic, with the mental capacity of a 6-month-old.

Jesus died of pneumonia on Oct. 12. He could not walk or talk. But he nonetheless made a difference in the system that some say failed him.

Last year, when the state investigated the Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services, which is charged with protecting battered youngsters, child welfare advocates cited Jesus as one of the most egregious examples of the agency’s shortcomings. The county had placed him in his step-grandmother’s care after the death of his parents.

More recently, Jesus again shook up the system. His lawyer won a pitched court battle that will result in the creation of what would have been a new home for Jesus--a small, specially equipped house with room for six children with severe medical disabilities. The home, now being built, will allow children like Jesus to live in something akin to a family setting, instead of in the confines of an impersonal institution.

His death came just a few months before he was scheduled to move in.

In his silence, Jesus affected almost anyone who crossed his path. Robert Berke, the lawyer who represented Jesus, becomes emotional when he talks about the boy. Robert Villalobos, the sheriff’s deputy who served as a pallbearer Wednesday, says he was so moved by Jesus’ plight that over the past five years he has made anonymous donations of more than $3,000 to child abuse causes, some specifically designated for Jesus. Mary Hayes, a top Department of Children’s Services official who became involved in Jesus’ case, says she and her staff are grief-stricken over the child’s death.

“People say that in the last years of his life he never spoke, but they were wrong,” said Berke in his eulogy on Wednesday. “He spoke to each of us. Perhaps because his life was so painful, each of us was committed in some way to try not to let him down. . . . He had a way of melting people and speaking to the love that people had.”

Said Hayes: “I’ve seen developmentally disabled children and I’ve seen children with major medical problems, but here was a child who really reached out to you in his own way. . . . When you touched him on the shoulder or on his back, he would react. There would be a change in his facial expression. . . . I just thought he was a very special child.”

What saddened those who knew Jesus was not so much his condition, but the trauma--prosecutors called it “torture”--that he experienced at so young an age. Villalobos says his rescue of Jesus is etched in his mind.

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” he said. “It’s something that is very difficult talk about.”

On June 30, 1986--eight months after the county sent Jesus to live with his grandfather and step-grandmother--Villalobos went to their Norwalk home to respond to a report of a possible drowning. He said he found 6-year-old Jesus lying on his back, in a puddle of mud, near an above-ground swimming pool. He saw the step-grandmother, Frances Rodriguez, standing over the boy, spraying him with a water hose. The child, Villalobos said, had no pulse. The deputy got down in the mud and tried to breathe life into him.

At the hospital, records show, doctors said that Jesus was one of the worst cases of child abuse they had ever seen.

The battering went far beyond the near-drowning incident. Court documents show the boy had suffered apparent sexual abuse, cigarette burns on his back and genitals, slashes to his head and chest and a puncture wound in his right ear. A district attorney’s sentencing memo, used in the prosecution of Mrs. Rodriguez, described Jesus’ body as “a mass of wounds, scars, swellings and bruises from the top of his head to his knees.”

Mrs. Rodriguez was subsequently convicted of one count of child endangerment; she served 300 days in Los Angeles County Jail. After six months in a Long Beach hospital, Jesus was sent to live at Lanterman Development Center, a state institution in Pomona.

There his story might have ended, had it not been for the tenacity of Berke.

A criminal defense lawyer who has handled several high-profile cases, Berke took Jesus as a client at the urging of a public-interest lawyer he knew. He represented the boy with a vengeance.

“Jesus had nobody, so he stepped in,” recalled Juvenile Court Commissioner Stanley Genser, who presided over Jesus’ case. “He clearly felt outraged toward the system and said that he was going to take this case as far as it could go and do whatever he could, if it took him the rest of his life. . . . He was on a crusade, and he did an unbelievable job.”

First, Berke filed a civil suit against the county. The case alleged that the Department of Children’s Services failed to make routine, required visits to Jesus after placing him in his step-grandmother’s care. Had social workers made those visits, Berke claimed, the abuse could have been prevented.

In January, 1990, a Superior Court jury in Norwalk returned a verdict in favor of Jesus, and awarded him $5.4 million. The award was overturned on appeal. But the county and Berke negotiated a confidential settlement that, both sides say, provided for the boy’s care.

Next, Berke went to Juvenile Court in an effort to force the county to move Jesus from Lanterman, the state institution, into a more homelike environment. State law, Berke argued, said Jesus had the right to live in the “least restrictive” setting. He faced stiff opposition from county officials, who said such a move was not necessary and too costly.

Small and frail, with his hands and feet curled from too little use, Jesus was dependent on others for his survival. He ate through a tube in his stomach and breathed through a hole in his throat. His abilities were sharply limited. He recognized smells, showing a fondness for bananas and strawberries. He responded to music; a gentle baby’s lullaby would relax him and bring a smile; rock music made him tense. Water frightened him.

Elwood Lui, a former appeals court judge who temporarily headed the Department of Children’s Services last year, said he visited Jesus and concluded that the boy would not be able to tell the difference if he was moved.

“I sat there and I held his hand and tried to see if I could perceive any difference in emotions,” Lui said. “I felt that he couldn’t ascertain my presence. . . . But who knows? Someone locked up in that body may have some perception that we all can’t realize.”

Others took a different view. Dr. Jeanne Heyerick, a specialist in disabilities who evaluated Jesus, said the child “was so over-medicated that he was almost a zombie.” She, like Berke, believed that Jesus’ condition would improve in a smaller setting, with more individualized care.

While the court battle dragged on, Berke looked for someone who was willing to care for Jesus. He found Pat Davis, a West Hollywood foster mother and registered nurse.

Davis, however, did not have the sophisticated equipment necessary to care for the boy. So, with Berke pledging some financial help from Jesus’ trust fund, she agreed to convert a second house on her property into an “intermediary care facility”--a cross between a group home and a hospital. Work on the project has already begun.

In the interim, the Juvenile Court decided that Jesus would be moved to Cornerstone House, a home for severely disabled children in Ventura.

On Oct. 1, Jesus left Lanterman. Berke describes it as “the happiest day of my life.”

A few days later, the lawyer brought Champagne and cake to Jesus’ new home to celebrate the boy’s arrival. Kathy Kemp, associate director of Cornerstone House, said that by then, the staff had noticed changes in Jesus’ behavior.

“One of the most traumatic things for him in the course of a day was to take a bath, and he was smiling at bath time,” said Kemp. “Sometimes the night person would go in to check on him and if he was awake, he would just be laying there, smiling.”

The following week, Jesus became ill. He died several days later.

Pat Davis, meanwhile, hopes to open her intermediary care facility in December. She will name it after herself and Jesus--the Davis-Castro Home.