NORTH NEWTON, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas police chief investigating a child torture case involving three adopted Peruvian children is alleging that “somewhere, some time, the system broke down.”

North Newton police chief Randy Jordan says he’s trying to find out what happened.

Chief Jordan says state welfare officials received around a dozen reports before the adoptive parents, Jim and Paige Nachtigal, were charged last week with three counts each of child abuse. But Jordan says none were forwarded to his department for further investigation. Some of the reports were from 2014.

State welfare officials have declined to discuss the specifics of the case.

Jordan says one possible source of information in the case will be post-adoptions reports. It wasn’t immediately clear if the Nachtigals have an attorney.