Most of society still shudders when a parent is arrested in connection with his own child’s death. It is almost as chilling when the other parent gives investigators misleading information meant to thwart the search for justice.

Authorities in Kootenai County have such a case in the death of 15-month-old Brandon McAdoo on Jan. 16. The toddler’s 300-pound father, Barry L. McAdoo, has been charged with first-degree murder after being located in an undisclosed hospital where he was being treated for severe frostbite. He had been missing for more than a week after Brandon’s mother, Angela Cowles, called 911 on Jan. 14 to report the injuries from which Brandon died two days later.

It’s unclear what, if any, charges will be lodged against Cowles, who initially told detectives that her son was injured when she slipped and fell on some ice while carrying him. Later, she said the boy may have been hurt when McAdoo tried to remove an object from the boy’s mouth. Neither of those explanations jibed with the nature of his injuries, which an autopsy revealed as “blunt trauma injury.”

As always, McAdoo and Cowles are entitled to the full protection of the Constitution and the criminal justice system. Yet the details that are known – the mother’s misleading explanations, the fact that the child had recently suffered a fractured arm that was never treated, a previous anonymous complaint about the household to Health and Welfare – are part of a pattern that social workers see too often.

Regardless of how the criminal case against McAdoo turns out, and regardless of whether action is taken against Cowles, our communities are full of families struggling with dysfunctional behaviors that put lives at risk. In the best of circumstances, they are identified and given the support and services that prevent their problems from escalating to the point of tragedy.

Those families don’t always fit the stereotype image we have of staggering, belligerent drunks and bloodied, black-eyed victims. Some do, but other fractured souls walk around inside mainstream exteriors. But most have limited coping skills to deal with the pressures that beset their lives. How to spot them and get them the intervention that may save a life?

How indeed. Public budgets are tight and their resources thin. Caseloads are staggering.

Jennifer Stapleton, executive director of the Domestic Violence Consortium in Spokane, says the agencies and systems designed to respond to such situations can’t be expected to identify them in the first place. She suggests that those closer to the family – schools, churches, health-care providers, friends, neighbors, family – need to be trained about spotting danger signs, giving support and alerting the appropriate agencies.

It may be out of fashion these days to say it takes a village to raise a child, let alone save one, but it’s a more attractive option than the hand-wringing that follows a pointless death.