DHS received reports before boy’s death

ALVA, Okla. (AP) – The Oklahoma Department of Human Services received nearly a dozen reports of potential child neglect in the years before the death of a 17-year-old handicapped boy.

A state medical examiner found that pneumonia and infected bed sores contributed to the 2014 death of Kalib Smart.

The reports dated from 2005 to 2014 include Kalib being alone outside in his wheelchair for hours at a time and indicators that the family’s home was filthy.

His adoptive parents, Twana and Timothy Smart, were arrested in February on complaints of neglect of a child.