LEXINGTON, VA – No wrong doing.
That's the finding of the special grand jury tasked with investigating serious allegations against the Rockbridge County Social Services Department.
An internal investigation had found that documents had been shredded and at least one child had died in foster care.
WSLS spoke with one woman in particular, Susan Lawrence, who has been advocating for change at the department ever since the results of the first investigation were made public.
She adopted her own son, Michael, through the system where he says he was abused.
Now that none of the employees at the department are being held accountable for the death and abuse that occurred on their watch, she says she's going to work toward making change on her own.
"We have children that died. We have children that were raped. We have employees that didn't do their job," said Lawrence.
Lawrence has been waiting for almost a whole year to see the people at the Rockbridge Social Services Department who shredded the documents of children in foster care brought to justice.
She says, Tuesday's ruling means that isn't going to happen.
"I am horrified. I think that locally, on a state level, we have a very low level of accountability for our social service offices," said Lawrence.
According to the release from Commonwealth's Attorney Chris Billias Tuesday, the grand jury's report is not yet being made public, so it isn't clear how the decision was reached.
Lawrence says, she doesn't expect to ever see what the Commonwealth's Attorney says is thousands of pages of transcript.
"I don't hold out a lot of hope, because I think if it was released, people would be shocked that nothing was done," said Lawrence.
Since the problems were first revealed last May, there has been change.
The department head resigned, and has since been replaced, and Delegate Ben Cline issued legislation that passed at the state level to allow the Inspector General to have more oversight over local departments, but Lawrence says, in terms of leadership from her county Board of Supervisors, she isn't hopeful.
"They are allowing the same people to be on the board again and again. In fact in Rockbridge, they re-appointed people after this incident became common knowledge," said Lawrence.
Now that the investigation is at a dead end, she says she wants to take leadership into her own hands.
"I'm going to run for Supervisor. I think in Rockbridge County that we are ready for people who are not part of the old boys club. I think we are ready for people who have not worked in the system their whole life," said Lawrence.
Lawrence has not officially filed to run for the Kerrs Creek District seat, but says she will file before the deadline.
WSLS also had a chance to speak with County Supervisor Russell Ford, to ask him why the board re-appointed several members of the social services board.
He says the board did so because the members are volunteers, qualified, and supervisors did not feel they bore any individual responsibility for the department's failures.