The Colorado Department of Human Services is looking into whether county social service agencies should be required to check sex offender lists after a CALL7 investigation found that the Denver Department of Human Services failed to track a sex offender.

It is part of the department's review of 13 child fatalities in 2007.

“It seems to us that because one of the cases under review involves a sex offender … that we take a closer look at what we require counties to do around that,” said Liz McDonough, spokeswoman for the state human services agency.

A CALL7 investigation found that DDHS officials did not check Denver sex offender records after workers received two reports that Angel Ray Montoya was living with two young relatives.

Police are investigating Montoya as a suspect in the death of 3-year-old Neveah Gallegos last year, and he was under investigation for sexually assaulting the girl in 2006, records show.

Montoya has not been charged in either investigation, but he is currently in jail for failing to register his address as required by the sex offender statute.

The mother of the two children told a counselor at a halfway house that her children were staying with Montoya and Gallegos’ grandmother notified DDHS that two young children were in the same home.

DDHS workers checked state records and other Web sites but failed to go to Denver police to determine that Montoya, in 2006 and 2007, was registered at addresses where his niece and nephew had lived.

“One of the possibilities would be to require counties to check individual sex offender registries,” McDonough said. “I think the reason for the review is to identify: Are there any gaps or holes that need to be closed to protect children.”