DALLAS — Charles Phifer says 4-year-old Leiliana Wright was his little buddy and he would have never hurt her.
“I loved Lilly like she was my own,” says Phifer. “I miss her every day. I still can’t quite believe that this has happened.”
Phifer 34, spoke to News 8 Monday from the Dallas County Jail against the advice of his attorney. He says he did so because he wanted to tell his side of what happened the day Leiliana died last month in a case that has galvanized renewed attention on the failings of the Child Protective Services system.
Phifer and Leiliana’s mother, Jeri Quezada, are accused of first-degree felony injury to a child. If convicted, they could spend the remainder of their lives in prison.
On the day Leiliana died, court records show she was beaten with a belt and a bamboo stick after drinking her 18-month old brother's juice. She was lifted by her throat and thrown against a wall. She was bound by the wrists and thrown into a closet. The abuse lasted for hours until her little body could take no more.
Leilliana's mother, Jeri Quezada, acknowledged to Grand Prairie police she took part in some of the beating, but laid much of the blame on Phifer, her on-again off-again boyfriend.
He calls her a liar and says he was in a drug-induced stupor for much of the day.
“I didn't do it," he said. “There's no way. Anybody that knows me, knows that there's no way I could do this to a child.”
Phifer, a former oil field worker, says he got addicted to prescription painkillers several years ago after serious car accident. Eventually, he found himself addicted to heroin.
He says he came into Lieliana's life after his release from prison in September. He’d served time on drug convictions.
“She my little buddy,” he said. “She loved to play games. I couldn't play a game without her being right here.”
Leiliana was born in January of 2012 in a Galveston prison hospital, where her mother was serving time on a six-year-sentence on a burglary conviction.
At two days old, she was placed with her paternal grandparents, Alise and Craig Clakley, according to a court affidavit filed by the Clakleys.
“We treated Leiliana as if she were our own and gave her a good home and watched her grow into a great toddler,” Alise Clakley wrote in the affidavit.
At two, when her mother was released from prison in December of 2013, she was returned to her mother. Quezada was soon pregnant with another child.
“She is so happy to come visit and when she knows it’s time to go home, she melts down,” her grandmother wrote.
The affidavit was filed in November 13, 2014, when the Clakleys sought custody of Leiliana within days of Quezada’s arrested in Tarrant County on a possession of methamphetamine charge. The Clakleys say they’d been told that Quezada’s then-boyfriend, who was also a convicted felon, had a bad temper and hit Quezada, as well as his own mother.
“Leiliana’s emotional status is not good and she needs to be taken out of harm’s way,” Alise Clakley wrote. "I pray the court protects our granddaughter from what she is going through and what she is facing.”
The judge did not heed the warning.
In October of 2015, Tarrant County District Court Judge Bill Harris ordered that Leiliana remain in Quezada’s custody but that the Clakleys would have Leiliana two weekends a month.
After Phifer’s release from prison, he says he and Quezada moved into a Grand Prairie home that had belonged to Quezada’s late grandmother. He says they lived together for several months.
He says twice during that time he saw Quezada slap Leiliana. He says when he said something to her about it she told him to mind his own business.
“[Leiliana] was afraid of her,” Phifer said. “She done her best to do whatever she was told, especially if it was Jeri telling her.”
Several months ago, she moved back in with her mother. He says Quezada came over frequently so they could do drugs together.
Meanwhile, the mother was getting back on the CPS radar.
In early January, CPS referred a referral from a law enforcement agency, letting them know that the children had recently been living with someone who had been accused of sexually assaulting a different child. The case was assigned to CPS caseworker Claudell Banks.
In February, a CPS special investigator was asked to assist. He found bruises on Leiliana's face. He gave the information to Banks.
Yet no action was taken to remove Leiliana, or her brother, from the home.
Phifer says he had been in contact with the Clakleys because he was trying to help them get Leiliana back. He didn’t tell Quezada what he was doing.
“I was afraid of what she would do,” he said. “At the very least I would have lost my place to stay.”
Last month, Grand Prairie police responded to a medical emergency at a home in Grand Prairie to a report of a 4-year-old child who was having difficulty breathing. When paramedics arrived, Leiliana wasn’t breathing and had severe bruising to her face. Quezada told paramedics that Leiliana had fallen in the shower.
Later, when questioned by detectives, Quezada repeatedly changed her story.
She said she went to visit Phifer the day before, bringing along Leiliana and her 18-month-old son. She told police that she and Phifer shot heroin and then beat Leililana because she had drank her brother justice. Quezada said she left Leiliana with Phifer because she didn’t want to take her in public because of the bruising on her face.
Her version of events placed her outside of the home for much of the day. She also laid the blame on Phifer for most of the physical violence.
She says she left the children with him while she ran errands and took a nap. She says she returned to find Phifer had tied Leiliana up and put her in the closet. She says she then had a shot of heroin before they released her from the closet.
When the closet door opened, she saw the child tied up with her wrists behind her back, attached to a coat rod, preventing Leiliana from sitting down, the warrant says. She claimed that Phifer was the one who threw the child against the wall and threw her back in the closet, according to the warrant.
On that awful day, when Leiliana died, Phifer says he was in a heroin-induced stupor for much of the day.
“I woke up to her saying, ‘Lucky, help me. She's not breathing,'" Phifer said.
He says he ran into the hallway and started trying to do CPR on Leiliana.
“She had her laying on her back and that’s when I really noticed how bad her face was beat up,” Phifer said. “You shouldn’t never have to see anything like that.”
With days of Leiliana’s death, CPS caseworker Claudell Banks and his supervisor, Amber Davila, were fired.
According to the heavily redacted records related to Banks’ firing, CPS had received a law enforcement referral. The records state that Banks did not “making adequate attempts” to locate the children to ensure “child safety.” It also states that he took no action after being notified by the special investigator of what he saw.
There was no indication that Banks or his supervisor reviewed the prior CPS history, the records state.
The special investigator, Shane Fortner, resigned.
Phifer says he had no idea that Quezada had previously lost custody of other children in another state. Leiliana's 18-month-old brother is now in foster care.
Asked if the CPS system had failed Leilliana, he responded, “I believe they did. Miserably.”
He says he failed Leiliana, too.
“There were so many turning points that this could have went different and I'm not one to really talk because I was one of them,” he says. “If I hadn't have been strung out like I was then I should have been able to change something. It's heartbreaking.”