How can this happen?

There are a lot of things I just don't understand. But at least many of them I can wrap my head around enough to know that.

This however, I just can't grasp, at all. Not only the sheer brutality of the physical attack, but also, how anyone, nevermind a mother, could knowingly conceal from police that this was happening to another human being. And the fact that the biological father places NO blame on the mother is also unfathomable and leads me to believe there was a VERY good reason for him being barred from seeing his 3-year-old daughter, who was so disfigured, Boston Childrens' Hospital doctors could not put her back together again.

When I read the report online, I stared at the two mugshots of Bryan M. James, 34, and Jessica Silveira, 26, and imagined all the punishments that would befit a crime of this magnitude. I don't think I should go into detail about those thoughts here. What really pisses me off though, is that SOMEONE, a friend, relative, neighbor, the DSS workers who had been working with the family for months, HAD to know something wasn't right.

All I know is that someone didn't do their job - legally and morally - and now an innocent, 3-year-old girl, is suffering, and will suffer all her life for it. And that makes me extremely sad.