Two days before police found Mackenzi Felmlee gasping for breath at the bottom of the stairs, her caseworker noted the foster mother told her the girl was “struggling.”
On May 11, 2024, Mackenzi, an 18-year-old foster child, died at a local hospital after she was found unresponsive in her Fairview Heights home. Shemeka Williams, Mackenzi’s foster mother, and Williams’ mother, Cornelia Reid, face first degree murder and child abuse charges.
The caseworker, identified only as S.M., was the 10th child welfare specialist in Mackenzi’s five-year-old case, according to a timeline released by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
One of those 10 caseworkers, identified as D.R., was on Mackenzi’s case for only three weeks. D.R. was assigned the case on May 17, 2023, and ended the assignment on June 5, 2023 – just under a year before Mackenzi’s death.
“That is antithetical to sound social work practices,” said Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert, a critic of DCFS. “These kinds of complicated cases need consistency and if there’s not, it’s likely that things will fall through the cracks.”
DCFS released the timeline in Mackenzi’s case on Friday afternoon, two months after Capitol News Illinois requested it. The state agency noted the information released was sourced from Lutheran Child and Family Services, which monitored Mackenzi’s case, and Caritas Family Solutions, which licensed Shemeka Williams as a foster parent, and “is subject to change as the investigation continues.”
DCFS initially resisted releasing a timeline on Mackenzi’s case, citing the wishes of local prosecutors handling the murder charges against Williams and Reid. The St. Clair County state’s attorney’s office later confirmed to Capitol News Illinois last month they did not oppose the release of the information.
Williams and Reid were arrested in June, more than a year after Mackenzi’s death. They remain in St. Clair County Jail pending trial.
Mackenzi died from a blood clot that hit her lungs, doctors have said. Her neck, shoulders, legs and face were bruised, and her dehydrated body weighed just 90 pounds.
Williams’ 15-year-old biological daughter recorded a video of Mackenzi as she struggled to breathe at the bottom of the stairs in the Fairview Heights home. Police said it took nearly an hour for someone to call 911.
A doctor who reviewed the case told police if Mackenzi had received immediate treatment, she likely would have survived the clot and made a full recovery.
Mackenzi’s tumultuous teen years
The details of Mackenzi’s tumultuous teens years included parental criminal activity, drug use, abandonment, sexual exploitation and molestation by a guardian, then bouncing between relatives and foster placements.
From May 2019 to April 2020, Mackenzi was placed in “several” foster and relative placements that were “not able to meet her needs,” according to the DCFS timeline.
In April 2020, Mackenzi was placed in Williams’ foster home after DCFS determined she needed a specialized foster home for children with medical, emotional or behavioral disorders.
Mackenzi, a former honor roll student, was diagnosed with multiple mental illnesses, including post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder and depression. She reportedly was under psychiatric care.
She was also incontinent; Williams made her wear diapers tied with plastic bags to her legs to keep the waste from leaking, prosecutors said. One doctor opined those bindings, coupled with her diminished physical condition likely caused the blood clot that went to her lungs and caused her death.
The investigation into her death also revealed videotaped evidence of Mackenzi’s abuse, including humiliation by mocking and being forced to wear feces-stained masks and underwear on her face, prosecutors said.
Video footage played during a court hearing showed Mackenzi being beaten by Williams with a belt while the teen is forced to say, “It’s not good to manipulate.”
In another video, Williams forced Mackenzi to repeat: “I am a doof. I hate myself.”
In the final year of her life, DCFS records showed LCFS caseworkers and supervisors visited Mackenzi in person 24 times.
But a search warrant application filed in court as part of the criminal investigation into Williams and Reid called into question some of the documentation made by at least one caseworker. In it, a Fairview Heights detective stated that during their investigation into Mackenzi’s death a caseworker was “copying and pasting notes for home visits, which does not appear to have correctly documented the visits.”
In addition to the reported visits with caseworkers and supervisors, she also met with an unspecified professional who was mandated by law to report allegations of child abuse or neglect. Seven of those visits were virtual and five were in-person.
Mackenzi’s juvenile case in Fayette County continued. On April 19, 2022, the parental rights of Mackenzi’s mother and father were terminated. LCFS reported that Mackenzi wanted to be adopted by Williams. Mackenzi was 16 at the time.
Mackenzi met with her court-appointed lawyer in December 2023 — six months before her death. There were also two court hearings on her case — one on Sept. 14-15, 2023, and another on March 14, 2024. At the March hearing, the DCFS timeline noted the court considered whether to change Mackenzi’s goal, from adoption, but to independence. It’s unclear whether Mackenzi attended those hearings either in person or virtually.
Requests to open Mackenzi’s juvenile case were denied.
Mackenzi attended Belleville East High School for 10th and 11th grade. Prosecutors said Mackenzi was failing and truant, missing 15 out of 55 school days. She returned for the first semester of her senior year but after turning 18 in July 2023, she stopped going to school, opting to take night classes to finish her GED. She failed most of her classes for not completing the work, prosecutors have said.
Caritas Family Solutions, the agency that licensed Williams as a foster parent, also visited the home in person eight times and conducted two virtual visits.
Timeline details other reports of abuse
Though DCFS stated in the timeline there were no reports of suspected abuse of Mackenzi until May 11 when police called the agency hotline to report Mackenzi’s death, there were reports of abuse of other children in the care of Reid and Williams:
In 2022, while Mackenzi was living with Williams, another child who was in the home alleged Williams abused them. DCFS interviewed the child at the hospital and found no evidence of physical abuse. Williams told DCFS she was trying to keep the child from jumping out of a car. The allegation was unfounded.
In 2015, Reid was accused of abuse or neglect. The allegation was unfounded and expunged. Four years later, Reid was accused of using a belt as corporal punishment. DCFS did not find sufficient evidence to support the allegation. But a 14-year-old boy told the investigator that if he was returned to Williams, he would attack her and run away, preferring to “die in the cold than stay.” The boy was removed, but the allegation again was unfounded by the agency.
In January 2015 and January 2017, Williams was the subject of two allegations related to abuse and neglect. DCFS investigated both allegations. Both were unfounded and the allegations were expunged.
A 17-year-old girl told DCFS in 2017 that Williams left town without planning for the girl’s care, according to prosecutors. Williams allegedly told the girl to “sleep outside” because no one would care for her because she wasn’t behaving. Williams later left the girl in the care of a friend, who was supposed to take her to school. The foster child missed four days of school. The teen told the worker she cried herself to sleep. The allegation was unfounded.
A 16-year-old foster child in Williams’ care took a bus to her former foster home. Williams went and dragged the child out and threw her in the car. She told medical personnel that she didn’t feel safe at Williams’ home and reported thoughts of suicide, as well as of killing Williams. This allegation, too, was unfounded.
Because DCFS investigators found no evidence of abuse, Caritas continued to license Williams’ home and LCFS continued to place children, including Mackenzi, with Williams.
In the month following Mackenzi’s death, DCFS interviewed Reid and Williams, according to the timeline. Police gave access to some of the investigatory files to a DCFS investigator, but a later request for videos and other evidence is denied by police in September 2024. Fairview Heights police inform DCFS that they are taking the lead on the investigation.
In December 2024, DCFS asked again for information from police, but the requests are denied, citing an ongoing investigation. For six months, DCFS was told the investigation was pending. In May, police informed DCFS that the case will go before a grand jury.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.