Kansans should be ashamed of the failures that contributed to the death of 5-year-old Zoey Felix

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5 days ago

Shawn Stauffer, 16, lights a candle at a vigil for the child victims of murder organized by his step-mother, Ali, in October 2023 in downtown Topeka. (Max McCoy/Kansas Reflector)
Now that her killer has been sentenced to life in prison, what is there left to say about the death of Zoey Felix?
We must do more.
The 5-year-old Topeka girl was raped and murdered at a Topeka homeless encampment in October 2023. Her killer was Mickel Cherry, then 25, a family acquaintance she called 'uncle.' Cherry, who confessed to police and later struck a plea deal with prosecutors to avoid the death penalty, was given 50 years in prison July 15 by a Shawnee County district judge.
From the start, the case has been gut-wrenching.
It's also been difficult for me to write about, because the suffering of children gets to me in the way other tragedies don't. When I was a young reporter I covered deaths involving children, and they always left me shaken. Some were deliberately killed, others died in house fires or car wrecks. My reaction got so bad that I couldn't pass one of those ubiquitous 'Prevent Child Abuse' billboards without shedding tears.
With the Zoey Felix case, it's not just the horrific way in which she died, but the revelations about the multiple failures by the people and agencies Zoey should have depended on for help that get to me.
There was, according to court filings, the unstable and violent family life, a home where there was no water or electricity, a mother who abused substances, and a father who eventually brought Zoey to live in a homeless encampment in a wooded area in southeast Topeka. The family had declined requests from child protective services for help, and the state did not press the issue. About the only kindness she experienced in her short life was from neighbors, who worried about her roaming the streets at all hours and sometimes provided her with food and clothing.
Perhaps most damning of all were multiple investigations by the Kansas Department for Children and Families into Zoey's welfare, none of which resulted in removing her from the environment. According to a filing by Cherry's defense counsel, DCF determined that Zoey had only a slightly higher than average risk of being hurt or suffering other lasting 'negative effects.' In September 2023, the department sent investigators out seven times, but they were unable to locate the family and the case was closed.
Zoey was killed Oct. 2.
'Had the agencies responsible for Z.F.'s safety taken action by communicating, verifying information, and pursuing protective custody, her trajectory could have been different,' wrote Peter Conley, a deputy defender in the Kansas Death Penalty Defense Unit, in a memorandum to the court asking for concurrent, instead of consecutive, 25-year sentences. 'She would not have been forced to live in a tent in the woods, nor left in the care of a traumatized person (Cherry) unfit to care for her.'
Her death, Conley argued, was avoidable.
While Cherry bears the ultimate responsibility for his actions, Conley said, he did not create the systems that failed him — and Zoey — in similar ways.
Conley described Cherry as a 'developmentally delayed' individual who grew up in a physically and emotionally abusive home and who did not receive the help he needed from Texas child services. He had been passed to 17 foster homes, been in two psychiatric hospitals, had no high school degree, and had been diagnosed as a child with retinitis pigmentosa, an incurable genetic eye disease.
'Mickel could have and should have had interventions such as physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy,' according to the court filing. 'Medicaid would have covered this expense. He should have also been receiving more regular counseling and psychiatric visits given his traumatic childhood and the number of adverse childhood events he experienced.'
Conley argued the trauma and failures experienced by both Mickel and Zoey were similar.
'Mickel has lived an extraordinarily difficult life where he was first abused by his parents and then by the system in place to protect children like him,' he said in the filing. 'The same system in Kansas allowed Z.F. to fall through the cracks to allow her to be in a position of being babysat by a developmentally delayed homeless man from Texas.'
Zoey's death resulted in a statewide conversation about child victims of violent crime. In October 2023, I attended a candlelight vigil in downtown Topeka in memory of murdered children. At that time, one-third of all homicide victims for the year — 10 in all — had been children.
There was a clamor in the wake of Zoey's murder about improving the state's child protective services, whose administrative errors resulted in the girl not getting the help she needed. Recently, I asked the Kansas Department for Children and Families whether there had been any meaningful reforms since 2023.
'The safety and well-being of every child under the care of the Kansas Department for Children and Families is the top priority of the agency,' Jenalea Randall, DCF's director of public and government affairs, wrote in an email. 'Unfortunately, Zoey Felix's story reflects systemic challenges and the need for resources to help families that go beyond any one agency — such as assisting the homeless population.'
After Zoey's death in 2023, the DCF undertook an internal review resulting in policy revisions to provide guidance to child protection specialists and supervisors on when to contact law enforcement in cases when the well-being of a child may be at risk and the family cannot be located.
'During the 2024 Kansas Legislative session, the agency worked to pass HB 2628, which ensures the public receives timely information about tragic cases such as this one,' the email said.
That measure, aimed to allow the release of information about individual cases where there is pressing legislative and public interest, became law in 2024.
'DCF also sponsored legislation during the session that would have made it easier for families like Zoey's to access additional services, decreasing the likelihood of this situation happening again,' she wrote. 'Unfortunately, the Kansas Legislature did not take up those measures.'
This month, Randall said, DCF began contacting families every day of the week, including weekends and holidays, when there was a report from law enforcement that a child could be a victim of abuse or neglect.
'DCF continues to look for ways to increase transparency and better support families, especially those who are homeless,' she said.
Progress had been made, she asserted, and the department remains committed to working with other agencies and partners to 'strengthen the state's safety net and ensure all Kansas families get the assistance they need.'
But is any of this meaningful reform?
It's good public relations, I suppose, but declaring goals and intent is short of providing evidence of meaningful change.
Kansas families aren't getting the assistance they need. It only takes a walk around most Kansas towns to realize the state's safety net is fraying badly. From the woman sitting on the curb outside the local Walmart panhandling to buy food to the homeless individuals, mostly men, moving their camps ever deeper into remote areas to avoid the bulldozing of tent camps too near trails and parks, there's ample evidence that people are hurting.
There were 534 individuals experiencing homelessness in Topeka as of January 2025, according to local government reports. That's an increase of more than 100 over the 2023 figures. Of the most recent count, nearly 1 in 5 were under the age of 18.
Being unhoused places children in particular immediate peril and may have lasting physical and psychological effects. The number of homeless students in Topeka and Shawnee County schools is estimated to be between 750 and 1,000, far higher than the January 2025 'Point in Time' homeless count.
There are, to be sure, services offered in Topeka and across Kansas for students and families experiencing homelessness. Some of those initiatives are new, including a 'one-stop' multi-agency resource center called 'Let's Help' at 245 S.W. MacVicar Ave.
But such initiatives require homeless individuals be amenable to help. Unfortunately for Zoey, her family could not or would not seek the help they needed, and the state's child protective services failed to act when she needed them most.
Nothing will bring Zoey back.
There is little to say about the manner of Zoey's death that has not already been documented in news reports or court filings. The public wouldn't have learned her name had she not been the victim in a capital murder case. It disturbs me now — just like looking at that billboard long ago — that her name is forever linked to collective societal failure for which she paid the ultimate price. But the dead are beyond our help. To honor Zoey's memory, we must aid the living.
Our communities — the services they provide, their appearance, the joy and the suffering that occurs in their homes and on their streets or at tent camps hidden away from public view — are ultimately expressions of our collective values. Too often our desire is to look away, to ignore the failures of compassion in our midst, to close our eyes to the unhappiness around us. If Zoey's death has moved you, then give your time and your money to those agencies in the community fighting hunger, homelessness and neglect. And the next time you encounter a situation in which a child in your presence is in need of help, do not turn away.
Be like the neighbors in Zoey's block.
Provide food or water or clothes if you can do so safely. Summon the help from any of the agencies available, including DCF. Call the police if there is reason to believe the child is in immediate danger. Do this in Zoey's memory.
The tragedy is not just the way in which Zoey Felix died, but in the years denied her. Those years will now presumably be spent in prison by Cherry, who received consecutive sentences for the rape and murder and will serve at least 50 years before he is eligible for parole.
His eye disease will, according to the memorandum filed by his defense attorneys, progress. He will probably go blind during his incarceration.
It is not justice. It is simply an unhappy fact in the jumble of unhappy facts of an unhappy life. As his defense attorneys said in their court filing, Cherry never stood a chance.
Neither did Zoey.
But the living children in need among us do.
Max McCoy is an award-winning author and journalist. Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.