ELKHART — A frame house surrounded by connecting mobile homes served for years as a home for dozens of the most vulnerable children in Texas foster care. But instead of being a safe haven, it was a place where young girls were repeatedly molested and the abuse long ignored.

In a case with implications that reach beyond Elkhart, a community of 1,215 about 125 miles southeast of Dallas, a criminal prosecution has revealed how the state continually ruled out allegations of child abuse at the home before many of the same charges sent the man who served as its foster father to prison last year.

Officials with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services consider the case an aberration, saying it in no way reflects how standard cases in the child services system are managed. But some foster care experts say it calls into question how the state investigates abuse in its largely privatized network of foster homes. The Anderson County district attorney says investigations should be done by an independent office.

James Vick, who operated the home for 10 years with his wife, Marilyn, was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to 18 counts of indecency with a child by contact. Marilyn Vick was not charged in the case.

Anderson County prosecutors believe as many as nine preteen girls were abused by Vick, 47, and his adopted son, Michael, over 13 years, usually under the pretense of playing games such as hide and seek. Michael Vick has pleaded not guilty to three counts of indecency with a child and is free while awaiting trial.

The number of victims makes the case one of the worst examples of foster care abuse to emerge in recent years, experts said. But as troubling for many is the back story, detailed in court records, of how state investigators ruled out allegations of sexual abuse against James Vick on at least three occasions before his arrest.

Even if the Department of Family and Protective Services couldn’t immediately prove the allegations, the mounting number should have been a sign something was seriously wrong, foster care experts said.

“This is damaging in a million ways,” said Susan Lambiase, associate director of the New-York based child welfare advocacy group, Children’s Rights.

The case raises questions about the personnel group within the Department of Family and Protective Services that oversees foster homes. That unit, Residential Child Care Licensing, allowed the Vick home to continue taking in children even as case workers removed those who alleged abuse.

Patrick Crimmins, spokesman for the Department of Family and Protective Services, acknowledged mistakes were made in the Vick case, but said they don’t point to a larger problem. He said no other case has presented similar circumstances.

“Our investigators are well trained and do good work, and the Vick case was an unfortunate exception to that,” Crimmins said.