Tom, who had been out of work, had just found a job selling newspaper subscriptions door to door for The Ledger. Sheryl was due to give birth in August and was having a painful, difficult pregnancy. They were low on money. And they were not getting along with each other.

"Right now, the family is at a very stressful time," Broesder wrote.

On July 25, Judge Fulmer ruled that Bradley would stay with his mother and stepfather. Fulmer says now that there were never allegations of physical abuse or excessive discipline in the home. "Everything I know about the case is in that file," she says.

Two days later, a neighbor of the Coes called the sheriff's office at 1 p.m. A little boy was unconscious, she said. Please hurry.

Sheryl and Tom Coe confessed to the killing. This is the police account of what they said:

They were having trouble potty training Bradley. When he had an accident, they made him lie in it or rubbed his face in it. Sometimes, they made him stand in a corner with one hand on top of his head and the other hand holding his privates.

Bradley "poo-poo'd" in his diaper the day of the fatal injuries. Sheryl took him into the yard and hosed him down. Tom took him to the bathroom.

There, Tom raised the toilet seat, grabbed the boy by the ankles and dunked him headfirst into the bottom of the commode.

"Plunger style," wrote Det. Paul Schaill III. Coe couldn't remember how many times.

Then, Bradley was roughly put in the shower under cold water to make him stop screaming. He staggered into the living room "with Thomas and Sheryl prodding him along," the detective wrote.

Both hit the boy repeatedly in the head with a pillow. Then Bradley, just two-feet-eight inches tall and 24 pounds, stood up straight and taut, fell stiffly backward and curled up in a fetal position, "spasming out."

Coe tried to revive the boy with CPR. It was too late.

That's when a neighbor called the sheriff. Paramedics rushed Bradley to Lakeland Regional Medical Center, where doctors put him on life support for a while.

The autopsy, performed July 29, found Bradley had multiple bruises, inflicted at different times, on his face, abdomen, buttocks and groin. He also had small abrasions on the backs of his hands and the tips of his fingers.

But it was the plunging in the toilet that killed him. "The child died of head trauma," said Associate Medical Examiner Alexander Melamud.

Sheryl and Tom Coe were arrested for the murder of their child.

"I hope he fries," said Tom's sister Tanya, 19. "He lost the right to be my brother when he killed that little boy."

Five investigators from the HRS inspector general's office are now in Polk County, reviewing the case.

Margaret Barber, the HRS caseworker, her supervisor, Judy Ross, and HRS sub-district administrator Tom McFadyen, were placed on paid leave Thursday. HRS caseworker Shirley DuBoise, who saw Bradley's injured hands at the Kirklands', resigned.

Because of the death, HRS Secretary Gregory Coler, the state's social services chief, is renewing his call for changes in Florida law. Legally, HRS' top priority is reunification of families. Coler believes protection of children must come first instead.

At 2 p.m. Thursday, Bradley Gene McGee was buried with a simple service by the foster parents who loved him.

HRS had offered to pay for the funeral. Pam Kirkland refused to take the money. "I don't want HRS having anything to do with Brad anymore," she said bitterly.

For his funeral, she bought him a white shirt, blue bow tie, red jacket and baseball cap. "Little Slugger," it said.

His small white coffin rested in front of the pulpit at Parkview Baptist Church.

Rev. Jerry Sawyers spoke. "Bradley's silent cry is being heard in this county and this state and this nation, louder than all our voices put together."