Horridge was living in Texas some 1,500 miles from Fairris, a resident of Lexington Park, Maryland. Horridge says Fairris threatened him with never seeing his son again. During other calls, Fairris would hit the child with the telephone receiver, Horridge said. Horridge said he could hear his son screaming and crying over the telephone.

DISTRAUGHT, HE REPEATEDLY CALLED CASEWORKERS FOR HELP -- BUT DIDN'T GET IT.

In February, he decided to drive to Maryland to get his son. "I was going to tell her to bring him to McDonald's so I could spend the day with him. I wasn't going to bring him back," Horridge said. "Basically I was going to kidnap him." He stressed that no custody order existed between the couple, at the time.

Horridge was at the end of his rope. With two children's car seats in the trunk of his car, he was going to leave Texas on a cold Sunday night to get his children, Collin and his 5-year-old sister Erica. But Horridge had made his plans too late...on Saturday, he received a call telling him his son was dead. The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide. "My world came to an end," Horridge told United Press International (UPI).

Horridge separated from Fairris in September 1999 after she met Daniel Harold Fowkes, who took Collin and Erica to live in Lexington Park. Horridge, who runs his own architectural window shop in Carrollton, Texas, saw his children only a few times a year.

Over a three-month period, Mr. Horridge made eight reports of suspected abuse to a state social services agency, which also received a corroborative report from a neighbor of the mother. Even though an agency social worker observed bruising on Collin during a belated and perfunctory visit to the mother's residence, the agency did not remove Collin from the home, did not have him examined by a physician, did not further monitor his home environment, and did not take any other actions to protect him.

HORRIDGE MADE MORE THAN A DOZEN CALLS TO THE COUNTY'S CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES FILING COMPLAINTS AGAINST THE CHILD*S MOTHER. THE CASEWORKER FINALLY TOLD HIM TO STOP CALLING, SAYING HE WAS A DISGRUNTLED EX-HUSBAND.

EIGHT DAYS LATER, HORRIDGE'S INFANT SON COLLIN LAY DEAD IN THE EMERGENCY ROOM OF ST. MARY'S HOSPITAL. HE HAD BEEN SEVERELY BEATEN, THE OUTLINE OF A FOOTPRINT ACROSS HIS TINY CHEST.

Collin had massive internal injuries as well as over forty-four old or new wounds and bruises on his small body, according to the medical examiner's report. His nose was broken and hanging over to the side of his face. A large footprint on his abdomen resulted when the mother's friend stepped on him with his full weight of 185 lbs., for five seconds -- an attempt to "resuscitate" the baby, as he testified at trial.

Horridge said Erica, who was in the room at the time, gave a detailed account of her mother's beating of the boy on the day he died. But neither prosecutors nor the defense team wanted to put the 5-year-old on the witness stand.

Fairris and Fowkes were charged with child abuse and murder. BOTH WERE LATER AQUITTED. So far, no one has been held accountable for Collin's death, which the medical examiner ruled a homicide. Collin is just one instance of the 114 children battered, bruised, and starved EVERY HOUR at the hands of parents and caregivers.

Child-protection agencies know about many of these cases, but 1 million endangered youngsters in a nation with vast national resources raises sharp questions about the agencies' effectiveness.

Collin should have entered the child-protection system the way so many U.S. children do, through the so-called 'front door' of the system: a concerned parent, teacher, or neighbor calls a hotline or local social-service agency with an abuse or neglect complaint, sparking an investigation.

At that point, a decision is made by a child-protective services caseworker to either allow children to stay in their homes, or to remove them for temporary placement in a safer location such as a relative's home or foster care.

Within a day or two, a court determines whether it is in the child's best interest to return home, or remain under state-supervised care. But that apparently didn't happen with Collin, court documents showed. Instead, calls to county caseworkers by Collin's father went virtually unanswered.

Horridge filed a lawsuit against St. Mary's County and the social workers in his son's case. He alleges in his complaint that one case worker, DEBORAH WALSH, accused him of being a "DISGRUNTLED PARENT EMBROILED IN A CUSTODY BATTLE" and told him SHE DID NOT CARE ABOUT HIS REPORT BECAUSE THE CASE HAD BEEN CLOSED.