Woman Held in Death of Foster Child : Crime: She is accused of beating toddler with paddle and leaving him unattended in tub. Social workers had regularly inspected home.

A Los Angeles foster mother is being held on suspicion of murder after a 23-month-old toddler she cared for died after he was beaten with a paddle and placed in a water-filled bathtub during a toilet training incident, authorities said Thursday.

Valerie Lacy-Walker, 28, allegedly left the child, Robert Brown, alone in the tub Monday when she left the room to get soap, said Schuyler Sprowles, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services.

Walker returned to find the child limp and “not breathing well,” Sprowles said. Walker called a hospital and dialed 911. The hospital notified child welfare workers, Sprowles said.

The child died at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center about 4 p.m., the county coroner’s office said. His death certificate lists the cause of death as “multiple injuries.” Sprowles said the youngster died of cardiac arrest due to drowning.

“This is one of those tragic cases where they met all the legal requirements for licensing,” said Donna Mandelstam, a manager with the state Department of Social Services, which on Thursday suspended the license Walker and her husband, Samuel, had been granted to care for two children.

The Walkers were licensed March 18 to care for the children in their home in the 11000 block of South Figueroa. Robert was placed with them July 23. Other children had been placed with the family while Robert was there, but he was the only one in their care at the time of his death, officials said.

There were no “red flags” indicating that the Walkers’ home would be anything other than a safe environment, Mandelstam said.

Last year, in the wake of a scandal over foster care in Los Angeles County, state officials took over the job of licensing county foster homes. The responsibility formerly rested with the county Department of Children’s Services, which had come under scrutiny for allowing allegedly abusive foster parents to continue caring for children.

While the state Department of Social Services now licenses all foster homes in the county, Children’s Services still must monitor children under its supervision. The state requires county social workers to make regular monthly visits to children in foster care.

In the case of the Walker family, social workers exceeded the requirements, Sprowles said. Robert was visited five times: once in August, three times in September and once in October, Sprowles said. The visits did not reveal any problems.

“From the professional assessments of the social workers who made these visitations, this was apparently a well-run home,” Sprowles said. “There were no outward particular signs. . . . It was a normal healthy baby, and it’s a tragic event that is simply unpredictable that has taken place.”

Children’s Services expressly prohibits corporal punishment of foster children, Sprowles said, adding that “it clearly sounds like there was some corporal punishment applied.”

“The reason for the corporal punishment was a potty training issue, and that is completely out of policy for us,” he said.

He said his office has not been able to contact the dead child’s natural mother, Bertha Moore, who has two other children in foster care.