LAKE CITY -- The bruising began when Jessica Lauren Miller was just a toddler.

Thick knots covered her face and head; on her arms, legs and pelvis, purple bruises. At least three times, the 36-pound youngster was hospitalized. Someone had ripped so much hair from Jessica's scalp that an aunt worried the little girl looked like a cancer survivor.

Cousin Carisa Clark called the Florida child abuse hot line Feb. 19: "The fear is that one day [the stepfather] will hit her hard enough to kill her."

Thirty-eight days later, Jessica Lauren Miller was dead, killed by blunt force trauma to the head.

As Jessica was disconnected from life support, in the arms of her father, Clark's report to the Florida Department of Children & Families remained unresolved.

Jessica is one of dozens of Florida children who died of abuse or neglect in the last five years despite warnings to the DCF that the child was in danger, a Herald investigation has found. Among more than 37 similar death cases, Jessica's is one of the most disturbing.

"They absolutely failed us," said Rachel Parrish, a Clewiston woman who pleaded with DCF investigators to save her 6-year-old niece.

"In Jessica's case, it was so obvious," she said. "When there's that much smoke, there's got to be a flame somewhere. They just ignored it, disregarded it."

Time and again, in Jessica's case and others, child welfare workers and investigators accepted family members' explanations that their children were just clumsy or sick, although the children repeatedly were seen with everything from bite marks and black eyes to burns and bruises.

Jessica's father, Bernard Miller, who is in the Air Force based in Valdosta, Ga., and whose family also pleaded with the state to act, said: "She slipped through the cracks."

Her stepfather, Richard Nixon, and her mother, Sarah Nixon, both have been charged with first-degree murder. Assistant State Attorney Tina Johnson of Columbia County said neither she nor her boss, State Attorney Jerry Blair, would discuss Jessica's death before the Nixons' trial, for which a date has not been set.

Richard Nixon's attorney, Herb Ellis, did not return calls for comment. Clyde Taylor, Sarah Nixon's attorney, told The Herald, "if the child died because of abuse, it was not abuse inflicted by her."

DCF officials defend their handling of Jessica's case, saying they had no reason to remove Jessica because doctors from the state Child Protection Team, who examine children suspected of being abused, said they did not believe Jessica's bruises were the result of abuse.

In particular, medical records showed Jessica had a "bleeding disorder" - exacerbated by the frequent use of ibuprofen - that caused her to bleed freely, said DCF spokesman Tom Barnes.

"The family history truly was troublesome, and did call for close scrutiny," he said. "Had there been any evidence the parents were inflicting harm on the child, there ought to have been an aggressive intervention, but that evidence did not exist."

Yet, hundreds of pages of records obtained by The Herald, including abuse reports from two states, criminal and civil court records, medical reports, and police reports, suggest otherwise.

TROUBLE FROM START

Richard Nixon entered Jessica's life when she was 2-and-a-half, when he moved into the Georgia home of Jessica's mother.