Terrell Peterson (March 1, 1992 – January 15, 1998) was a five-year-old boy from Atlanta, Georgia, who was tortured and beaten to death while his case was under active state supervision.

[1] Various individuals within the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services engaged in gross misconduct and violation of state-mandated protocols for handling child abuse cases.

According to protocol children taken into custody by child services should ideally be placed with blood relatives, receive at least one in-person visit with an agency caseworker per month and under no circumstances is corporal punishment to be administered by foster carers.

The case came to light when Terrell was brought to the emergency room of Hughes Spalding Children's Hospital in Atlanta in cardiac arrest, where he subsequently died.

This occurred prior to a Thanksgiving Day beating in 1996, which necessitated a trip to the emergency room where he was diagnosed with battered child syndrome.

[5] To cover her already egregious transgression, Elmore concocted a fraudulent backdated internal memo which was placed in Terrell's file; that the trial did indeed occur, no evidence of child abuse was found and the charges were dismissed as a result.

"[citation needed] This alleged finding despite the medical evidence and the results of the police investigation, along with the lack of substantiating court documents, was never questioned by her supervisors.

"[citation needed] When Terrell went back to the same Head Start class he was in prior to the assault, Bryant, his teacher, noticed he was not walking normally.

The tampering began to come to light one year later when Don Keenan received Terrell's case file by an anonymous individual within the department.

This unidentified case worker said as follows: "Ms. Peterson will cooperate with the agency and continue to show interest in the support of the child while they are at home.

The Georgia legislature passed the Terrell Peterson Act, which gives doctors the authority to take temporary custody of battered children at the hospital without department approval.