My heart bleeds for a 2-year-old hero

[Gentle Giant]

Probably the most painful news story I've followed all year. I can't help but think that the two-year-old boy who gave such exceptional testimony to police is a real hero - one who will bear the scars of this insane tragedy all his life.

RIP Jessie and Chloe. God bless you, Blake.

And burn in hell, Officer Cutts.


Sheriff: Ohio Woman Killed in Her Home
By JOE MILICIA, Associated Press Writer

CANTON, Ohio - A police officer is accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend in her home, where furniture was found overturned, bleach spilled on the floor, and her 2-year-old son was left alone, a sheriff's complaint said.

Jessie Davis' body was found Saturday in Cuyahoga Valley National Park, still carrying her dead, nearly full-term fetus, a girl she planned to name Chloe.

Davis' boyfriend, Canton Police Officer Bobby Cutts Jr., the father of her son, was charged with two counts of murder and due in court Monday. Davis' relatives have said they believed Cutts also was the father of her fetus.

Ohio law allows a murder charge against someone accused of killing a fetus that would be able to live outside the womb.

The Stark County Sheriff's Department said in an affidavit filed Sunday that Cutts is accused of killing Davis and the fetus June 14 at Davis' home in nearby Lake Township. The document does not say how they were killed.

Davis' mother last spoke to her by phone a day before.

Davis, 26, of Lake Township near Canton, was reported missing after her mother found her grandson home alone, with bedroom furniture toppled and bleach spilled on the floor. The boy, Blake, gave investigators some of their first clues, saying: "Mommy was crying. Mommy broke the table. Mommy's in rug."

Messages left Monday for Davis' family and Cutts' attorney were not returned.

One of Cutts' former high school classmates, Myisha Ferrell, was jailed for allegedly hindering the investigation and also due in court Monday. She is accused of giving false statements to investigators, according to an inmate biography form.

Ferrell, 29, was arrested and jailed Sunday, but authorities declined to release other information, including whether she had a lawyer.

Also Monday, Davis' father, Ned Davis, thanked the thousands of volunteers who helped search for his daughter and said he was overwhelmed with grief.

"It's been, at best, it's been very, very difficult," Ned Davis said on NBC's "Today" show. "I don't believe I can really quantify what our family's feeling."

"The loss of Jessie has been overwhelming. There are no words," he said.

Sheriff's deputies and FBI agents with a search warrant broke down the door of Ferrell's apartment Saturday night, agent Scott Wilson said. She was not home during the search.

Justin Lindstrom, 27, an upstairs neighbor of Ferrell's, said officers spent two hours searching the woman's apartment Saturday night before leaving with several full, brown paper bags and bottles of bleach from the basement. Authorities would not describe what the deputies seized.

Ferrell worked at a Denny's restaurant until quitting her job Friday, Lindstrom said. A manager at Denny's confirmed that Ferrell had worked there as a dishwasher.

Lindstrom said Ferrell lived in the apartment downstairs with her 11-year-old daughter. He said she had parties every night.

Cutts also has a 9-year-old daughter with another woman, Nikki Giavasis, who now lives in Los Angeles. The two lived together for awhile, but when she began seeing another man in 1998, Cutts was accused of breaking into her home while she was inside with former NBA player Shawn Kemp of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Cutts pleaded no contest to a disorderly conduct charge and was sentenced to three years' probation. Giavasis told police she feared for her safety. The pair are involved in a custody dispute.

Giavasis told The Associated Press they were together about four months, and confrontations began after she broke off their relationship. Giavasis said the two had several physical confrontations.

Over the weekend, people placed flowers and red and yellow ribbons just below a sign identifying Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Just down the road from where the expectant mother's body was found, someone posted a sign saying, "God bless you Jessie and Chloe, forever in our hearts."

Davis' body was found in an area with a dirt road, a small dirt parking area and a couple of benches overlooking a grassy field.

"Somebody found her and for that, I'm very appreciative," her father said.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[tippy]

I think the 2 year old being witness to his mother's murder is terribly tragic but I don't know what is heroic about a baby in that position.

[tippy]

"Mommy was crying. Mommy broke the table. Mommy's in rug."

I have a different interpretation of the above testimony but no sense in arguing [but let's do anyway. ]. A hero would have saved his mother - that's closer to the definition, I believe - this baby was just there. He's a baby, remember, and aren't police famous for leading young children's statements?

[moneyp]

You're a ray of sunshine, Jason.

[Brian Olewnick]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

Now if you think it's all bullshit and the police just fed this shit to the kid, that's your right. But maybe you should first hop back on your meds and decide if this is how you want to contribute to a thread about such an awful tragedy.

Unnecessarily vicious comments, imho. I had the same reaction as Tip: the word "hero", when normally used, has psychological implications that are very likely absent in any 2-year old. Using the term just overstates and sentimentalizes the story.

[tippy]

I think romanticizing this young kid's involvement such that he is a hero and god save the police is a little perverse to be quite honest. It's a tragedy - there is nothing good here to report. The 2 year old is not a hero. He's a baby that is still picking up language skills. Don't believe everything you read. This is people waxing maudlin out of helplessness. Humans are helpless at times - this is sure one of them.

[moneyp]

File it under "terrible crap that's unfortunately all too common."

The baby wasn't heroic. The lions that saved this baby from being microwaved were heroic.

[groover]

Any mention of a motive for the killing yet? He apparently was paying child support for the son. Why would he suddenly decide to kill this woman right before the daughter was born, and leave the boy alive? Was he trying to avoid paying support for the daughter?

[tippy]

Actually the statistic that floored me related to this case was that homicide was the leading cause of death for pregnant women. Yikes!!!

[hornplayer]

...and in an article I read today about the family that was killed in Illinois by the father (who, by the way, said the dead wife had done it!) an interesting factoid blew me away... "Some fathers kill their families because they are tired of them!" Unbelievable!

[patricia]

Originally Posted by hornplayer

...and in an article I read today about the family that was killed in Illinois by the father (who, by the way, said the dead wife had done it!) an interesting factoid blew me away... "Some fathers kill their families because they are tired of them!" Unbelievable!

Shocks me too hp.
Apparently that happens often enough for the murderers to have a special catagory.
They're called "Family Annihilators"
Some get away with it and more than once.
Now, that surprised me.

[Gentle Giant]

Lost interest in my own thread. Keeping further feelings to myself.

Apologies to tip.

[GoodSpeak]

Forget it, Jason.


Your heart is in the right place and that is all what matters.

[stonemonkts]

yeah people dying, dick tip slicings, scatological filth, what else

[Gentle Giant]

How about this? Consider the rotten luck to be born into this family. Innocent children at the mercy of irresponsible parents.

Cousin seen as accidental killer of boy, 8
Police focus on gun, reject talk of attack
By Suzanne Smalley and Raja Mishra, Globe Staff | June 26, 2007

In a tragic turn for a violence-prone Boston family, 8-year-old Liquarry Jefferson was shot to death in his Roxbury apartment, and his relatives' initial account that armed intruders had gunned him down was a lie, police and city officials said last night.

Officials said a 7-year-old male cousin playing with a loaded gun accidentally shot Liquarry, a first-grader who loved basketball, pro wrestling, and pizza. His death early yesterday made him the city's youngest fatal shooting victim in five years.

Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis said last night that police have recovered the weapon used in the shooting. Earlier yesterday, two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the investigation said that detectives were testing a gun found hidden in a stairwell inside the Seaver Street apartment building. Investigators are trying to determine who brought the gun into the apartment, Davis said.

"It's hard to call anybody a suspect in this case, except for the person that brought that gun into the house," Davis said at a press conference last night at Logan International Airport, where he met Mayor Thomas M. Menino, returning a day early from a conference of mayors in Los Angeles.

Menino and Davis declined to identify the boy, other than to say he was a cousin of the victim. Under state law, Davis said, the boy is too young to be charged.

"This tragedy could have been avoided," Menino said. "This gun did not belong in that home. It was an illegal gun."

The family's original story, involving gang members forcing their way through the door sometime after 11 p.m. Sunday, started unraveling almost as soon as they began telling it, as various relatives gave detectives contradictory accounts, the officials said. In the afternoon, the family acknowledged the cousin had accidentally shot Liquarry in the stomach, one official said.

Liquarry's death prompted anguished outcry from politicians and clergy across the city. Throughout the day, the neighborhood seemed to be in mourning.

Amid the sadness, officials and court records painted a picture of a family all too familiar with violence, with Liquarry's father behind bars, his mother with a criminal past, and an older half- brother shot three years ago.

Liquarry's father, also named Liquarry Jefferson, was sentenced last fall to four years in state prison for a string of armed robberies in various parts of the city, according to court records and a spokesman for the Suffolk district attorney's office. He was convicted of manslaughter in 1998 in the stabbing death of a Boston man.

The dead boy's mother, Lakeisha Gadson, 30, has four other children. At least one of the fathers has a lengthy criminal history, officials said. Gadson has a record involving multiple assaults, court records show.

She was placed on probation after admitting to attacking a woman in March 2004. The altercation started when Gadson and others made fun of the woman's developmentally disabled son, and she came to his defense, court records indicate.

In August 2003, Gadson was arrested for allegedly attacking Boston police officers on Columbia Road during an altercation that began when officers told Gadson and others sitting on the steps of her apartment building that the property manager's rules banned anyone from sitting on the steps. Gadson pleaded guilty in 2005 and was given a suspended six-month sentence in the Suffolk County House of Correction, records show.

In September 2001, Gadson and three other women stormed into a Burger King on Washington Street and assaulted the staff with a broomstick after they were told they had to use the drive-through a second time to order more food, court records show. The outcome of that case was not available yesterday.

The dead boy's 15-year-old half-brother, Jayquan McConnico, is under supervision of the Department of Youth Services and, according to press reports, was shot in 2004.

The second law enforcement official said police were also looking at Gadson's relationship with Renardo Williams, who is the father of at least one of her children. He is a longtime Castlegate gang member acquitted last year of a double slaying.

Denise Monteiro, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Social Services, said the agency was involved with the family. "Right now, our goal is to protect and support this family, because an 8-year-old, a very young child, is dead due to violence," Monteiro said.

Criminal justice specialists said fractured families require extensive social services and ensure that children grow up close to guns and violence.

"There are some families where criminal involvement is somewhat of a tradition," said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University. "It's not biological. It's about learning and conditioning and who you hang out with it."

"These kids are not predetermined to be criminals," he added. "They just have everything going against them."

But social worker Nia-Sue Mitchum of Lena Park Community Development Corporation in Dorchester, where Liquarry attended an afterschool program, said Gadson had been heavily involved in her children's care.

"It's a beautiful family," Mitchum said. "His mother is really struggling hard to take care of all of her kids. She is working so hard to guide her kids."

"It's a shock," she said. "He's never had any behavioral problems. He's just a wonderful little boy."

Relatives and residents in the Dorchester neighborhood recalled Liquarry as a smiling, good- natured boy who was nicknamed Lapew.

Donniece, a family friend who refused to give her last name, said he liked playing basketball and enjoyed watching professional wrestling, especially WWE wrestler John Cena. "He loved pizza, but he loved mustard with sardines," Donniece said.

She said that just hours before he was shot, Liquarry spent Sunday afternoon with his mother and four siblings downtown, where they had a family portrait taken, ate a seafood dinner, and shopped.

Liquarry had just completed first grade at J.P. Holland Elementary School in Dorchester, where he earned high marks for reading and helping his classmates. He always had a hug or a smile for teachers and school administrators, school officials said, and was one of the few students who always got the teacher's jokes.

"He was a little boy who anyone would have been proud to have for a son," said principal Michele O'Connell, tears in her eyes. "I don't know anybody who didn't love him."

Outside the four-story, 16-unit tan brick apartment building where the shooting happened, television trucks lined the block and police officers stood watch.

Deborah Haskins, whose 9-year-old son Jermaine Goffigan was killed in 1994, wanted to see Liquarry's family, but was stopped by police who did not allow outsiders into the building.

"I came to pay my respects," she said. "It's so bad, because I know how she feels."

[stonemonkts]

No fun without pictures.

[tippy]

no need for apology btw. The stories that get me are the ones where the toddlers/young children are hanging out with the parent's dead body for days. You just know they are all over it trying to get a response from mommy/daddy who is decomposing. That breaks my heart. I also think it's a cowardly act of course to kill one's pregnant wife but to leave a 2 year old unattended because you have to get away with murder.