Call audio: Mother reports suspected abuse to dispatcher months before 10-year-old boy’s death

DAYTON — The mother of a 10-year-old boy police said was subjected to “extreme abuse for an extended period of time” alerted authorities to her concerns of his possible abuse seven months before his death.

"I need to speak with somebody about doing a welfare check on my son, who I believe is in danger,” Robin Collins told a dispatcher in a May 14 call, available in video above.  "I don't know how you guys do things or how it works or anything, but I believe that his father is abusing him and hurting him."

In the call, which this news organization obtained through a public records request, Robin goes into detail about the red flags she said led to her call to check on her son Takoda Collins.

Takoda died at Dayton Children’s Hospital Dec. 13 after his father Al McLean called police to say he found his son unresponsive in their Kensington Drive house.

Robin told this news organization earlier this week she had been trying to bring attention to the suspected abuse.

McLean is charged with felonious assault, endangering children and rape for what prosecutors said was abuse for more than a year.

“The child had numerous injuries, indicative of being severely beaten,” the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office wrote in a prepared statement.

Robin told police she’d had issues with McLean following a court order she said required Takoda be returned to her state of Wisconsin four times a year.

This news organization has requested the court order and other documents from Wisconsin courts, however we have not yet received them.

"Our custody agreement is he's supposed to bring him back to the state four times a year,” Robin said.  "He has not abided by the court order in four years. I did not know where he was living, because he was supposed to be living in Erie, Pennsylvania."

Robin said she also was supposed to talk to Takoda on the phone once a month, according to the call.

"He won't let me talk to him. When he does let me talk to him, he stands over him on the phone and tells him what to say,” Robin told the dispatcher.

The dispatcher asked Robin is she believed McLean was actively abusing Takoda and she said, “I think he is. Yes.”

Robin also told the dispatcher of the concerns she had with what McLean was telling her about Takoda.

“I've been trying to work with him to talk to my son and he gave me a bunch of things that are very concerning,” she said.  “He locked him in his room. He tried to jump out a window. He sent him to school in a diaper. He pulled him out of school. He whips him with a belt. Just a bunch of stuff that's very concerning to me."

She told the dispatcher she would prefer if police would talk to Takoda without McLean being there.

“I don't really know if he's telling the truth or not, but even if he's not I would feel much better knowing that a police officer pulled my son to the side and talked to him one-on-one to make sure that nothing is going on,” she said.

Robin says she recorded a phone call she had with McLean that she says includes him yelling at Takoda.

"I have it recorded ma'am where he's talking about how he's so angry at Takoda and how he hates him,” she told the "He yells at him. He's screaming at him. He's telling him to get on the floor."

According to the dispatch records, police spoke to McLean and reported that Takoda was being cared for.