Miami Herald by Carol Marbin Miller
March 26, 2019
When detectives asked Michael Beer’s young daughter to demonstrate how Beer handled the toddler state child welfare authorities placed in his care, the girl took a stuffed animal by the arm and hurled it to the floor.
The teddy bear survived. Two-year-old Trystan Eli Frank Adams, the unfortunate foster child, did not. Beer’s career as a foster parent ended when Trystan succumbed to “severe lacerations” to his liver, along with bruising to his kidney, gallbladder, pancreas and rib cage.
In 2014, the Miami Herald reported that Beer, a Palm Beach County substitute teacher, had been licensed by the state Department of Children & Families as a foster parent after workers failed to account for a 1993 investigation that concluded Beer had neglected his then-girlfriend’s daughter. Beer had told DCF the 2-year-old had a “bump” on her head. The bump turned out to be a skull fracture, a hematoma under her eye, a broken leg, bruising to her ears, as well as “several bruises and welts.”