I just can’t let this go. Yesterday, I wondered if the state’s DSS system was run as poorly as its probation system has been (at one point mishandling 80 percent of cases). Now it turns out that the probation system may have also dropped the ball in the death of Addison Lanham, 2, who wasn’t taken to the doctor after a broken leg and died of an untreated blood infection.

Now it turns out that family and friends of Shanna Lanham not only reported her for abusing her daughter to DSS six times, desperate family members even went to her probation officer.

Relatives say they warned a probation officer the little girl was in danger.

Kim Wells says she tried desperately to save two year old Addison Lanham. Wells tells NewsChannel 36 she started with calling the Department of Social Services.

“I still to this day have not heard anything back so that’s when I reached out to her probation officer,” said Wells.

She says she called a Gaston county probation officer who was supervising Shannah Lanham, the mother of the two year old toddler; Lanham is on probation for drug charges.

Wells worried Lanham’s daughter, Addison, was in danger. “I was really scared she was being hurt,” she said.

Addison died from blood poisoning, a MRSA infection and an untreated broken leg.  Wells says she was trying to prevent anything bad from happening to the toddler when she reached out to the probation officer via Facebook.

She tells NewsChannel 36, she informed the probation officer that Lanham was using drugs again.

But Wells says like DSS, the probation officer never responded to her.

“I was begging him, you’re the last chance that I have, please help,” she explained.

So she called the officer and contacted him on Facebook? With so many family members saying they contacted DSS, it’s time to bring in an independent investigator, as in one from outside the state, to find out exactly what went on here.

But as I wrote yesterday, don’t hold your breath. The state and county DSS system is protected by privacy laws that also shield the agencies from public scrutiny.

Bonus Question: Family members also claim to have reported to DSS and her probation officer that Shanna Lanham was living with a convicted sex offender who was unregistered. How did DSS resolve that?