FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WOWO): In 2011, James Pippin closed a Child Services investigation into Amber Pasztor, the Fort Wayne woman currently awaiting trial for the murders of her two children last year. Now he’s in charge of Child Services for northeast Indiana.

That’s according to an investigation by our Partners in News at ABC21, who found that investigations into child abuse allegedly committed by Pasztor were shut down by Pippin, who was at the time the director of Child Services in Noble County. Pippin called the abuse reports “unsubstantiated due to a lack of contact”, despite a caseworker reportedly witnessing Pasztor slapping one of them.

Pippin says that’s just policy:

“When an assessment comes in, there are certain required people that we have to make contact with,” Pippin says. “The victim, the perpetrator, witnesses, those types of individuals.”

Ricky Green, the grandfather of the victims, just doesn’t understand how DCS could not have followed up:

“Why did he close the case?” Green asks. “We’re never going to be the same. Our lives have changed forever. I lost two grandchildren and a daughter. It could have been different. Maybe if this guy had stood up back then, it could have been different today.”

Pasztor has confessed multiple times to kidnapping 7-year-old Liliana Hernandez and 6-year-old Rene Pasztor from her Green’s home last September, then killing the children. She’s still awaiting trial, pending some mental health evaluations.