Kanaiyah Ward’s death changed Maryland law. Her family’s attorneys say there’s more to uncover

In an interview with theGrio, Ward’s legal team details the unanswered questions driving a federal lawsuit.

Even after a criminal investigation and a law in her daughter’s name, the mother of a teenager who died after being held in unlicensed residences while in Maryland’s foster care system is seeking further accountability.

On Tuesday, Oct. 20, Brooke Ward filed a federal civil rights and wrongful death lawsuit against Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Marriott International, and more after her 16-year-old daughter, Kanaiyah Ward , died by suicide while living in a Baltimore Marriott hotel under the state’s care in September 2025.

“They killed my child. She was unwatched,” Ward said during a press conference the following day announcing the lawsuit.

Speaking with her legal team on Monday, theGrio learned that despite the reforms already enacted in Maryland, the family is still searching for answers about how the teen died in the custody of a system that was supposed to protect her.

“The idea of bringing together this team was literally motivated by all of us feeling a sense of tragedy and a belief that Kanaiyah should be alive,” DeMaurice Smith, a former federal prosecutor and NFL Players Association executive director, told theGrio.

The lawsuit arrives just over a year after Kanaiyah, who had a history of mental health challenges, died by suicide at 16 while living in a Baltimore hotel under the state’s care . While her death prompted an investigation, an end to Maryland’s practice of housing foster children in hotels, and the passage of a law bearing her name, her legal team—which also includes attorneys Scott Lerner, Thomas Doyle, Tara Lee, and Vincent Cohen—argues that those reforms have yet to answer critical questions about the circumstances of her death, who should be held responsible, and whether the failures that cost Kanaiyah her life are still keeping children at risk.

“Kanaiyah’s law was a laudable and positive first step, but it came too late after Kanaiyah had passed away, and there’s still a lot of unanswered questions,” Lerner told theGrio.

Some of those questions include why the teen, who had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder and had a documented history of suicide attempts, was placed in a hotel rather than a licensed facility equipped to address her mental health needs. As detailed in the 114-page complaint, the teenager was left under the supervision of a caretaker allegedly working a 53-hour shift, with unsecured medication within reach and inadequate safeguards to protect her from harming herself.

The complaint further alleges that Maryland officials continued placing foster children in hotels despite a 1988 federal consent decree that prohibited the practice. They are striving to establish how those warnings went unaddressed, who was responsible for Kanaiyah’s placement and supervision, and why the state failed to intervene before her death.

Doyle said Maryland’s investigation raised serious concerns about negligence and oversight but left significant gaps, particularly regarding the hotel and the companies responsible for operating it.

“There was no looking at Marriott. There was no looking into the hotel,” Doyle told theGrio. “And these are questions that we will get answers to. We will go through the discovery process with Marriott, Fenwick, and everybody else.”

Digging deeper, Lerner said the Residence Inn Baltimore at the Johns Hopkins Medical Campus had been through three management companies within six to eight months of her death, was facing bankruptcy and foreclosure, and had been the site of another young woman’s killing earlier that same year.

“It was in operational and financial free fall,” he said. “This hotel was not suitable for a foster child. It was hardly suitable for any child, let alone a foster child.”

Meanwhile, Smith said one of the most disturbing discoveries for him was how long its alleged Maryland officials had been aware of the problems facing the state’s foster care system. Just 12 days before Kanaiyah died, it’s alleged Gov. Wes Moore attended a meeting where officials discussed the need to eliminate unlicensed placements.

“There were five audits that talked about the problems within this system. There was testimony on September 10th about the need to get it to zero. The governor was at that meeting,” he explained.

Those warnings are central to why the lawsuit names Moore and former Maryland Department of Human Services Secretary Rafael López in their individual capacities.

“The governor is ultimately accountable for those within his administration, including Secretary Lopez and the governor himself, who were aware of a risk, had the ability to do something about it, did nothing about it until it was too late,” Lerner alleged.

Prince George’s County and its Department of Social Services, several state and county employees, Fenwick Behavioral Services and its co-owner, Marriott International, and companies associated with the hotel’s ownership and operation have also been named in the suit. The complaint further alleges that failures involving Kanaiyah’s supervision, access to medication, and the hotel’s conditions contributed to her death.

The suit is asking for compensatory and punitive damages, and the attorneys intend to use the discovery process to examine decisions made by state officials, Marriott, Fenwick Behavioral Services, and others involved in her care. Smith has also enlisted a former FBI special agent and a former Washington, D.C., police detective to conduct an independent investigation into her death, with plans to share their findings with the public and relevant authorities.

The attorneys also hope that Kanaiyah’s death forces a national conversation about how America cares for its most vulnerable children. According to a July 2026 report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General , 34 state agencies across the country reported 15,705 temporary emergency foster care stays in hotels and other settings between January 2022 and June 2023.

Additionally, a study published in April of more than 95,000 children entering foster or institutional care found that 56% received at least one psychiatric diagnosis within a year of placement, while an analysis by Child Trends found that 39% of foster youth ages 13 to 21 had a diagnosed special health care need in 2024.

It’s also worth noting just how much Black children remain disproportionately represented in the country’s foster care system. According to federal foster care data , they accounted for 23% of children entering foster care in 2024 despite representing approximately 14% of the nation’s child population. Research published in JAMA Network Open also found that among Medicaid-enrolled Black young people with mental health diagnoses, foster care involvement was associated with 81% higher adjusted odds of suicide compared with poverty-based Medicaid enrollment.

Lerner said the treatment of children housed in unlicensed settings has received attention in individual states without generating the national conversation he believes it requires.

Smith, who is related to Kanaiyah through her grandfather (his cousin), described representing his family as a potential capstone to his professional life. His hope is that Kanaiyah’s death will compel the institutions entrusted with protecting children to confront the consequences of failing them.

“The death of a young girl, any young person, is a tragedy,” he said, adding, “The death of a young girl who was placed into the care of the state because it was their job to protect her from this is a deeper and far more tough tragedy that should have never happened.”

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