Tot dies one month after ACS returns him to family
BY Alison Gendar, Nicole Bode AND Jonathan Lemire
Daily News Staff Writers
Originally published by the New York Daily News, August 20, 2008
The city returned 2-year-old Jashya Brown to his troubled mother just a month ago. Now he's dead - his body covered in bruises and tiny bite marks and his death shrouded in mystery.
Jashya, who died late Monday at the Queens home he barely knew, was just a baby in 2006 when the Administration for Children's Services removed him after his mother, Sharee Brown, was charged with abuse, law enforcement sources said.
He was returned to his 20-year-old mom in July, and a foster care worker visited the Far Rockaway home last Wednesday - just days before the tragic death.
It wasn't immediately clear how Jashya died. Investigators were trying to determine if the child was murdered - the victim of his mother, her boyfriend or, stunningly, his 5-year-old brother.
The cuts, bruises and bite marks on his body were consistent with those a small child might inflict, sources said. Sharee Brown told police the toddler was wrestling with his older brother before he died. The Daily News is withholding the older boy's name.
Though initially skeptical of Brown's claims, detectives could not rule out that the older boy might have accidentally killed his brother with a pro wrestling-style body slam.
"Mom has a history with this kid, but some of the older boy's statements are disturbing," a police source said.
The external injuries appeared to be a few days old, while a hospital source said the child also suffered internal bleeding. An autopsy today should determine what killed Jashya.
The toddler's maternal grandmother, DeShawn Purrington, declared her daughter innocent of any wrongdoing and blamed Jashya's death on Brown's live-in boyfriend, Daquean Williams.
"My daughter is a good mother. She took very good care of her kids," Purrington said.
She described Williams as an unemployed freeloader. "I couldn't stand him because he beat my daughter. There always was something wrong about him," she said.
Purrington said when her daughter came home from her job as a subway cleaner about 7p.m. on Monday, Williams met her at the door and told her "the kids were asleep. So she took a shower and made dinner."
Later, she said, Brown found Jashya's cold and lifeless body in his blood-and-vomit-soiled bed. "My daughter tried to give him CPR but that man just went into the bedroom and closed the door," Purrington said, her voice rising in anger. "I want him to go to jail because in my heart, soul and every breath of my body I know he killed that child."
Williams has hired a lawyer and is refusing to cooperate with investigators.
Brown called 911 just before 9 p.m.
She and Williams were questioned for several hours at the 101st Precinct stationhouse before being released.
Jashya was only a few months old when he and his older brother were taken from Brown in 2006, sources said. Brown had claimed that her children were hurt in a household accident, a story investigators did not believe, sources said.
Her daughter, who was born a year later, was removed. In total, 16 ACS charges - 10 of which were later substantiated - have been filed against Brown's household, sources said.
Citing improvement in Brown's behavior, ACS recommended the three children be reunited with their mother earlier this year. The older boy was returned in February, the daughter in April and Jashya in July.
ACS spokeswoman Sheila Stainback said foster agency workers saw the family Aug. 13, and "no problems were found. [In] 2008, the family was seen by both foster and preventive agencies more than 30 times."
Sharee Brown completed anger management, counseling and parenting courses in 2007, and a law guardian agreed with ACS' recommendation to give the children back to their mother.
With Edgar Sandoval, Wil Cruz, Kerry Burke and Leo Standora
© Copyright 2008 NYDailyNews.com
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