How a Connecticut guardian kept custody, and a child, while agencies looked away
The girl in the records is Jane Doe. She was born in 1995. By early 2006 she was living with Roger and Darlene Barriault under a temporary order from a local Probate Court. The court waived the usual DCF home study “for cause shown,” so there was no pre placement background check. The order stood while a prior sexual abuse case involving Barriault swirled in the background. That waiver set the terms for what followed.
In 2005, a 13 year old referred to as Mary told authorities that Roger Barriault had touched her. DCF labeled the case as neglect by Mary’s mother, not abuse by Barriault, and did not index him as a perpetrator in its system. Police offered him a polygraph, which he refused. No charges were filed. When Mary disclosed again in the summer of 2006, DCF and police acted. Mary was removed. Barriault was arrested in December 2006 for sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor. DCF opened a safety investigation on the Barriault home, where Jane was then living under the temporary guardianship. Jane denied abuse. DCF closed her piece unsubstantiated, then filed neglect petitions and moved Jane to an aunt’s home in late December 2006. Probate proceedings were put on hold while the juvenile and criminal matters were pending.
By September 2007, the criminal case collapsed after the complaining witness recanted. The State’s Attorney entered a nolle. Within weeks, Darlene Barriault petitioned Probate Court to take Jane back from the aunt. In February 2008, DCF’s internal hearing unit overturned its 2006 substantiation of sexual abuse against Roger Barriault and removed him from the Central Registry, citing the absence of a conviction. In April 2008, the Probate judge made Roger and Darlene the permanent co guardians of Jane, then 13, with a DCF report supporting return. Records indicate the 2005 allegation was not indexed to Barriault, so it did not follow him into the guardianship file. The clean search result mattered.
Jane was already pregnant. She conceived in January 2008 at age 12. She gave birth in September 2008 at 13. When DCF was told in August 2008 that a 13 year old was pregnant, Jane said the father was “another minor… met at a party.” DCF closed the pregnancy inquiry unsubstantiated. The Barriaults withdrew Jane from school after the birth so she could care for the baby. In October 2009, the Probate Court appointed the Barriaults as the temporary guardians of Jane’s infant daughter. There was no DCF assessment with that appointment. The couple became the payees for public support tied to the baby. The probate orders renewing that guardianship rolled each year through 2012.
From 2009 through 2012, the Barriaults sought guardianship of other children through the same Probate Court channel. Each petition triggered a DCF “probate guardianship study.” The Careline also kept getting reports about the home. By mid 2012, DCF had investigated the family at least 27 times, with only the 2006 case ever substantiated prior to 2023. Case notes described Roger Barriault as uncooperative and hostile with investigators. Workers recorded that he refused to allow private interviews of children and challenged DCF’s authority in the home. The pattern was set.
In April 2012, a DCF probate assessor wrote that the couple “often questioned the financial reimbursement,” then flagged something worse. The report noted suspicions that Roger Barriault might be the biological father of Jane’s now three year old daughter. DCF opened a sexual abuse investigation, asked Barriault for a paternity test, and he refused. Jane and Darlene denied. Barriault still would not allow private interviews. Despite the nature of the allegation, DCF did not notify police in 2012. The Probate Court that had requested the study was not given findings that would disqualify the guardians.
Policy required something different. When a probate assessor suspects abuse or neglect by a proposed or current guardian, the assessment is supposed to stop, a Careline report is supposed to be made, and the matter is supposed to convert to a full CPS investigation. DCF policy also says final reports to Probate Court must include a complete history. In the Barriault case, the conversion step happened on paper in 2012, then the investigation closed unsubstantiated, and the process slid back to a routine assessment. The agency’s own narrative left out critical details, including the 2005 allegation and the 2012 refusal to test. The Probate judge was not given a full safety picture.
Jane left the Barriault home in June 2015 at age 20. In September 2015, she filed in Probate Court to remove the Barriaults as guardians of her child. During DCF’s work up, investigators obtained a text from Roger Barriault to Jane that read, “look at r beautiful girl we have together,” and, “look at that beautiful girl I gave you.” DCF put the messages in its probate study and said it was concerned Barriault was the father. The guardian ad litem for the child agreed and asked the Probate Court to transfer the case to the Superior Court for Juvenile Matters so a judge could order DNA testing. Jane then withdrew her petition. According to the records, Roger Barriault had told her that fighting could hurt her child’s benefits. With the probate case closed, the court no longer had jurisdiction to transfer it.
Inside DCF, the question became whether the agency itself should file in Juvenile Court. The investigative staff and agency lawyers met. According to the OCA summary of those records, DCF concluded there was not “legal sufficiency,” even with a message reading, “look at that beautiful girl I gave you.” DCF did not file a neglect petition. Police were not notified. No paternity order issued. The child remained under the guardianship of the man DCF suspected was her father. The suspected victim of the underlying assault remained under his control.
This is not a single mistake. It is a set of routinized failures baked into how Connecticut split child safety work between Probate Court and DCF, between assessments and investigations, between civil paper files and criminal red flags. Policy required law enforcement notification within twelve hours of receiving a report alleging sexual abuse or serious physical abuse. DCF treated the 2012 and 2015 information as assessment findings, not “reports,” and never called police. The gap was created by the agency, not the law. The Office of the Child Advocate later wrote that law enforcement was not notified of sexual abuse allegations made in Probate assessments in this case. That silence protected the adult in power, not the child.
The Central Registry shows the same pattern. DCF substantiated sexual abuse against Barriault in 2006 and placed his name on the registry. In 2008, the agency’s hearing unit reversed the finding after the criminal case was nolled, then delisted him. There is no statutory requirement for a conviction to keep a name on the registry. DCF chose to erase the finding anyway. The result was predictable. Later workers ran his name and did not see the warning flag. The 2005 allegation was never indexed to him in the first place. The history that mattered most had been scrubbed where the next caseworker would look.
The oversight bodies knew pieces of this long before Jane walked into a police station. Years of audits and federal reviews criticized documentation gaps and siloed systems. None of that moved the needle where it counted, in the probate pipeline that transfers custody of children without the checks used in Juvenile Court. DCF’s own policy required that, when a current guardian is substantiated for abuse, the department must notify the Probate Court and send the investigation to the Probate Court Administrator for distribution. In late 2023, months after DCF substantiated sexual abuse against Roger Barriault and placed him back on the registry, the department sent a probate study in another child’s case that made no mention of that substantiation or the registry status. Only a revised report, issued after the arrests, corrected the omission. A report without the most important fact is a misrepresentation. It is also a pattern.
The consequences fell on the child. Jane’s daughter grew up under the guardianship of the man who fathered her. In 2019, a court ordered Jane to pay child support to the Barriaults, fifty two dollars a week. Over the next few years, she paid more than twenty three thousand dollars to her former guardians. The records call it support. In practice, the victim financed her abuser.
The money flowed because the systems do not talk. DSS pays benefits to guardians based on court papers. Probate runs confidential proceedings and collects annual reports from guardians that are self written. DCF writes assessments that can omit critical history. None of that triggers a cross notice when a guardian is arrested, or substantiated for abuse, or when a minor parent takes her child back home. OCA documented the gap and told lawmakers that lawful, targeted cross notices can and should be built so payments do not keep going to abusive guardians and so judges have the full safety record on the day they rule.
What should have happened is not complicated. When a 13 year old is pregnant, the case should be handled as potential sexual assault until proven otherwise. When a guardian refuses a paternity test tied to suspected sexual abuse, the agency should notify police and seek a court order in Juvenile Court. When an adult texts, “look at that beautiful girl I gave you,” a neglect petition with a request for DNA should go to a judge fast. When a prior substantiation is overturned because a criminal case was nolled, the investigative record should still be visible to later workers for safety screening. None of that happened for Jane in time.
The paper trail shows who had authority and who chose not to use it. Probate judges could have refused to waive DCF’s investigation in 2006. They could have demanded a full history before naming the Barriaults guardians of a newborn in 2009. DCF could have filed in Juvenile Court in 2012 and again in 2015. The Appeals Hearing Unit could have sustained the 2006 substantiation on a preponderance of the evidence despite the nolle. Any one of those steps would have forced an outside review, sworn testimony, and court orders that compel answers, including DNA. Instead, a set of avoidable choices kept the facts out of court and left a child in harm’s way.
The files also show how control works in the open. After the 2015 text surfaced, the guardian ad litem asked to move the case to Juvenile Court. DCF agreed. Jane withdrew. The docket went dark. “The police were never informed,” the summary reads. “DCF took no further action.” The record does not mince words. “Look at r beautiful girl we have together.” “Look at that beautiful girl I gave you.” That was enough inside the file to trigger a transfer request. It was not enough, inside the system, to trigger law enforcement or a court order when it mattered.
When OCA opened a review in 2024, the office used its statutory authority to pull confidential DCF files, the probate case record, and to interview Jane. OCA mapped the handoffs, the waivers, the closed loops, and the missing police notifications. The office told the legislature what the record already showed. DCF’s own policies require police notification within twelve hours after receiving a sexual abuse report. Those requirements were not embedded into probate assessment practice. The result was predictable. No police. No DNA. No Juvenile Court. The General Assembly ordered a statewide review of probate guardianships and created a working group to fix statutes and policies on judge and GAL training, registry checks in screening, and automatic law enforcement notification when sexual abuse is alleged. Implementation is still in progress. The gap that protected Roger Barriault existed for years.
Jane is now an adult. She took her daughter home in 2020. In 2023 she went to police and reported that Roger Barriault had assaulted her for years. DCF substantiated sexual abuse in July 2023 and put his name back on the registry. DNA confirmed paternity in early 2024. The arrests followed. In September 2025, Roger Barriault pleaded guilty to first degree sexual assault. Sentencing is pending. Darlene Barriault faces a risk of injury charge for failing to protect a child. The record closes that part of the story. It does not answer the rest.
Why did DCF not cross report to police in 2012 when the suspicion of rape was written into the file. Why did the Appeals Hearing Unit use a collapsed criminal case to erase its own substantiation in 2008 when no conviction is required to list someone. Why did Probate waive a DCF report in early 2006 for a man who would be charged by December. Why did Probate appoint the Barriaults as guardians of a newborn in 2009 without a DCF assessment. Why did no one carry the 2015 text messages to a Juvenile Court judge for a paternity order. These are not rhetorical questions. They are the questions the record presents, page after page.
If you handled this case, if you sat in the hearings, if you wrote the memos or were told not to, send the records. Calendars, study drafts, Careline call sheets, appeal decisions, bench notes, training rosters, anything that fills the gaps named here. fuckdcf.paul@pm.me
