Tyler DeLeon would have turned 8 today, Friday the 13th. But Tyler’s personal bad luck culminated a year ago, when he died of dehydration.

Many unsettling things have been learned since then about Tyler’s case, which Stevens County authorities have investigated as a possible homicide. Yet a year later, Stevens County Prosecuting Attorney Jerry Wetle has not said if he will bring charges against the two women whom investigators identified as suspects. Nor has he said that the facts don’t support such a case.

It just lingers.

At the time of his death, Tyler DeLeon weighed 28 pounds – as he had for three years. That put him well below the fifth percentile, weight-wise, for children his age.

His adoptive mother, Carole Ann DeLeon, had told teachers and administrators at Lake Spokane Elementary School that the boy had a disorder that caused him to drink from puddles and toilets. She urged them to restrict his water intake and bathroom access, and she sharply criticized them if they didn’t.

But state officials have found no substantiation for her claims.

At school, teachers saw no evidence of the alleged disorders, but they did notice a pattern of injuries and explanations that troubled them. On Jan. 4, 2005, they reported their concerns to Child Protective Services, touching off a 10-day period in which, under policies then in place, a caseworker was supposed to make a home visit. On the ninth day, Tyler’s 7th birthday, he was taken by helicopter to Sacred Heart Medical Center, where he died. It was too late for a caseworker visit then.

A Seattle pediatrician who conducted an internal review for the state Department of Social and Health Services said there was reason to believe the boy’s small size resulted from “emotional and calorie deprivation.”

Tyler reportedly grew normally until he was 9 months old, about the time he first was placed in foster care with Ms. DeLeon, who later adopted him. Records show that at least two other children placed in foster care with Ms. DeLeon had experienced slow growth or dehydration, too.

Mrs. DeLeon’s daughter, Christina Burns-DeLeon, who helped her mother care for Tyler and the foster children, is also identified as a suspect in the homicide investigation. State officials have received complaints that she has mistreated children, but determined they were unfounded.

In the meantime, a chastened state child-welfare system has re-examined its procedures, due to Tyler’s and other tragic cases. Response times have been tightened, staff reassigned. Things are said to be getting better, but they remain far from satisfactory.

A year ago today, a little boy from Stevens County died under suspicious circumstances – a little boy who was utterly dependent on the institutions of state government to protect him. After 12 months, those institutions – a plodding criminal justice system and a bureaucratically entangled social-services structure – still haven’t demonstrated the urgency that Tyler DeLeon and others like him deserve.

It’s worth noting that the call placed by Lake Spokane Elementary School on Jan. 4, 2005, was one of an average 600 such calls placed in this state every month. That number shows how much is demanded of the caseworkers at Child Protective Services. More important, it also shows how many helpless children are counting on the government to spare them Tyler DeLeon’s heart-breaking fate.