Gov. Hochul is hiding the truth about ACS and murdered children

What did the Administration for Children’s Services know about Francis Cabello, the mentally ill mother who murdered her 5-year-old daughter last week?Because Gov.Hochul refuses to hold ACS accountable, the public may never find out why no one rescued little Fabiana, despite clear signs her mother was unstable.On Wednesday afternoon, Francis took Fabiana upstairs in their Queens home and asphyxiated her.

The 32-year-old then called 911 and told the dispatcher, “I killed my daughter.” Since Cabello’s arrest on murder charges, information has trickled out suggesting that this was yet another preventable tragedy.Cabello’s history of mental illness seems to be long and widely known.In addition to her months’ long stay in a psychiatric facility earlier this year, a neighbor whose grandchildren played with Fabiana said she noticed a significant change in the mother’s behavior.

“She used to come around to take her daughter to school — and then, from one moment to another, she stopped coming out,” he said.The neighbor noticed she was no longer leaving the house and not taking her child to school either.

Francis also told her father that she was no longer taking her medication per doctor’s orders.But he says he didn’t believe her and also thought she was acting strangeNone of this is particularly surprising.

Serious mental illness is often a factor in these tragedies.At Lives Cut Short, a joint project with UNC Chapel Hill and the American Enterprise Institute to document child maltreatment fatalities, my colleagues and I have compiled more than 5,000 records from around the country between 2022 and 2026.

These represent only a fraction of the victims in that time period.But 830 of the cases involved a parent’s mental illness.

In New York, there were 151.Anyone familiar with these cases would have questions about Cabello: Did her neighbors or her father report their concerns to the Administration for Children’s Services? And what about the s...