Just three months before her emaciated body was found burned in a trashcan, the Department of Family and Children Services received a report from an anonymous person worried that 10-year-old Emani Moss looked thin and seemed neglected.

But DFACS could not investigate the claim because it had no known address for the family.

The information is part of the department’s file on the Gwinnett County girl who seemingly endured years of abuse allegedly at the hands of her father and step-mother.

Eman and Tiffany Moss face a preliminary hearing Friday on charges of felony murder, cruelty to children, and concealing a body.

According to the DFACS report, the girl’s father came home to find his daughter dead on Oct. 30.  He then bought a trashcan and took the body away from the home and attempted to burn it.  When it would not burn, he brought it back to the family’s apartment. Moss called police on Nov. 2.

The report states two other children who lived in the home were taken to another location in Suwanee after police were called.  They were later picked up by DFACS workers who noticed no outward signs of abuse.

Five previous reports of abuse were made on Emani’s behalf that DFACS did investigate.  In all but one, allegations of abuse were found to be unsubstantiated.

The one report where charges were filed against Tiffany Moss came after the child’s school notified police in May 2010 when Emani told her teacher she was afraid to go home with a bad report card. At the time bruises, welts, and abrasions were found on her body.

But the case was closed by November 2010 after both parents attended parenting classes and the agency determined they had made “positive changes” and the “risk of harm had been reduced”.

The department issued a statement this week regarding the case of Emani as well as the death of a Paulding County boy, 12-year-old Eric Forbes, who allegedly died at the hands of his father last month: “The Department of Human Services Division of Family and Children Services and the Department of Human Services Office of Inspector General will continue to investigate the agency’s involvement in the lives of these two children, and DFCS’ actions after every report of abuse will be under the toughest scrutiny.”