CYFD could have saved 5-year-old from carbon monoxide death, lawsuit alleges

Grant County deputies had to step through so much trash to reach Xaquie Bynum in her one-room Silver City home, they couldn’t see the floor, according to a newly filed wrongful death lawsuit.

The 5-year-old girl, lying partially underneath her barely-awake parents, was unresponsive. Life-saving measures made no difference. Rigor mortis had set in — she had been dead for hours.

Her 7-year-old brother, X.B., who had been asleep in a folding chair, had to be carried out of the house because he couldn’t use his legs.

“I hope my sister doesn’t die,” he told a deputy, “because she only turned five yesterday,” stated an incident report.

Back in 2024, the New Mexico Office of Medical Investigator concluded Xaquie Bynum died of carbon monoxide toxicity — the result of coal burned inside the small home for heat. She had methamphetamine in her system, as did X.B., tests later showed. The boy was diagnosed with dehydration and pneumonia.

Their parents, Matthew Bynum, 39, and Music Adame, 34, were charged with intentional child abuse resulting in death among other offenses and were released pending trial in January.

But the lawsuit recently filed on behalf of their young son contends Xaquie’s death was entirely preventable because the state Children, Youth and Families Department had known about the “deplorable” conditions in the home. The agency allegedly investigated the safety of the home just three months before Xaquie died, specifically warning of the danger of makeshift heating. But nothing changed.

In the eight-month period before the child’s March 10, 2024, death, CYFD received at least five reports of alleged abuse and neglect by the parents, but agency caseworkers repeatedly failed to properly investigate the allegations or ameliorate the risk, states the lawsuit, filed last week in state District Court in Santa Fe.

“Xaquie died as a direct result of CYFD’s five failed investigations and (CYFD workers’) ignorance of known and obvious risks to her safety,” the lawsuit states.

Defendants “repeatedly failed to follow CYFD’s own investigative protocol, failed to consider clear evidence of neglect and abuse, failed to properly assess risk to these vulnerable five- and seven-year-old children resulting in the additional failure to take formal legal custody of them,” the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit contends CYFD is continuing to breach the young boy’s constitutional rights by removing him from his grandmother’s relative foster home, where he had been living since his sister’s death. The lawsuit states that CYFD’s actions were “in retaliation for (the grandmother) blowing the whistle on CYFD’s wrongful conduct.” The agency has been taking steps toward reunifying the boy with his mother, Music Adame.

Asked to respond to the allegations this week, Jennifer Webber, CYFD director of public affairs, told the Journal in an email, “CYFD cannot comment on pending litigation.”

The agency has faced significant criticism in recent years for its alleged failure to protect abused and neglected children from repeat maltreatment, leading the state Legislature to create a new child advocate office this year to improve accountability.

CYFD officials hope to improve child safety by offering family services, stabilizing the agency’s protective services workforce, enhancing staff training and recruiting more foster families.

But from 2022 to 2024, CYFD workers investigating alleged abuse and neglect in Xaquie’s home abdicated their professional responsibility and departed from professional standards, the lawsuit alleges.

“Upon information and belief, just months after Xaquie’s tragic death, the obvious and gross inability of the Silver City CYFD office to function according to its duties led to the mass firing of eight CYFD personnel in that office,” states the lawsuit filed by attorneys Sara Crecca and Matthew Beck of Albuquerque.

The lawsuit alleges that CYFD workers repeatedly found unsafe and unsanitary living conditions in the girl’s home, and specifically identified evidence of physical abuse in the home, including evidence of bruises on Xaquie and Adame’s bodies, a black eye suffered by X.B., “as well as admissions of drug use by the parents.”

But the caseworkers relied solely on the statements of the parents that they “were equipped to keep the children safe.” There was little to no follow up to determine whether unsafe conditions noted by CYFD were addressed by the parents, the lawsuit states.

For instance, prior to moving into the one-room trailer home, the family stayed for a time at a Quality Inn.

The Quality Inn general manager reported to a CYFD caseworker that the room they stayed in was “so filthy that debris was coming from under the door; when they left the room there was trash ankle-high from the floor covering the entire room.” The Quality Inn had to deep clean the room several times and put the family on its “do not rent list.”

One CYFD worker later checked on the family at the trailer home but didn’t go inside to see if it was safe or sanitary, despite knowing the Quality Inn’s experience.

She accepted “blindly” that they had previously had drug problems and domestic violence issues, the lawsuit stated. X.B. hadn’t gone to school, and the children hadn’t received vaccinations, a basis for a finding of medical neglect, the lawsuit states.

CYFD workers knew the property had no running water or propane, the lawsuit stated. Someone staying at the property told Grant County deputies “the heater on the side of the home was out of propane and the family would bring in hot coals in a pan to heat the home.”

The lawsuit states that Adame reported the family had issues with carbon monoxide in the past and had to open windows “after the male child got sick once.” She also admitted to smoking methamphetamine the night before deputies responded to her daughter’s death.

Bynum and Adame wrote an online obituary describing Xaquie as “beautiful & fierce & insanely strong.”

“God sure is groovy for blessing our lives with her grace,” the obituary said. “We love her so much...”