Family: CPS failed 5-year-old Ethan Belcher

Approaching the three-year anniversary of 5-year-old Ethan Belcher’s heartbreaking death, his aunt, standing beside Ethan’s surviving brother, told Local 4 there’s no doubt in her mind, that her 5-year-old nephew’s life “could have been saved” and that “CPS failed him.” “I hope he knows that we love him -- we miss him every day. It’s very hard to go on without him,” Ashley Belcher said. Belcher, the personal representative of the 5-year-old’s estate, has filed two new lawsuits accusing Michigan child welfare officials of failing to protect Ethan and his brother, Mason Belcher, after an abuse investigation in 2021.