Dallas toddler dies 5 weeks after being scalded; mother's boyfriend remains in custody
07:56 AM CST on Tuesday, December 14, 2010
By TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News
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The family of Jabraylon Bables should be out buying Christmas toys for the bright, talkative boy everyone called "Bam Bam."
Instead, they'll be paying for his funeral.
On Saturday, the 16-month-old toddler died from the massive injuries and the onset of infections he had suffered 36 days earlier after authorities say his mother's boyfriend dropped him into a pot of boiling water.
"From the injuries on the baby, I think he did it intentionally," one of the boy's aunts, Veronica Bables, said Monday. "I feel like he tortured him."
Carlnelus Delaney Simmons, a convicted murderer, remains in the Dallas County Jail accused of first-degree felony injury to a child. Simmons, 37, is also being held on two felony drug delivery charges. His bail totals $80,000.
Authorities say the burns that covered Jabraylon's legs, feet, hand and buttocks did not match Simmons' account. He told police that he accidentally dropped hot water on the toddler.
"It's a horrible case," said Dallas police Sgt. Brenda Nichols, supervisor of the child abuse unit. "It's heartbreaking for everybody involved."
Although brief, Jabraylon's life was tumultuous.
His father, Byron Bables, went to prison for felony forgery shortly after the child was born. He was released on parole in early September and says he spent as much time with Jabraylon as he could after his release.
"It hurts for me to believe in my heart that anybody would hurt my child," he said. "Right now, I just want to bury my son and find out what happened."
Criminal past
While Bables was in jail, authorities say Jabraylon's mother, Jasmine Thompson, started dating Simmons, a man with a violent past. In 1994, Simmons was sentenced to 15 years for killing a man during a fight outside a South Dallas bar. He was released in late 2007.
Two years later, Dallas police arrested Simmons on a charge of dealing PCP after he told them he'd been selling vials for $15 each, court records show. Records identified Simmons' apartment as a drug house. Those charges are pending.
By November, Simmons was living with Thompson in a different apartment in the same complex on Skillman Street near Royal Lane. Thompson said she knew Simmons had been convicted of murder years before but said she never pressed him for details.
"That was way before he knew me," she said Monday.
She also said she knew he dealt drugs but did not believe he would harm Jabraylon and his older brother. She said she frequently left the boys with Simmons while she worked.
"He treated [Jabraylon] like he was his," Thompson said. "I didn't have money for babysitters."
Night of the injury
In the early hours of Nov. 5, Simmons called 911 for the badly injured Jabraylon. Simmons told responding officers that he was "standing in the kitchen holding a pot of boiling water when [Jabraylon] came running up to him." Simmons told officers that he dropped the hot water on the floor and heard the boy begin to scream. He said he then noticed that the toddler's skin was falling off so he called for help.
Jabraylon's brother, who was also in the house at the time, was not injured and has been placed in foster care. In the kitchen cabinet, police found eight plastic baggies of cocaine. Police also found 95 vials of PCP in the refrigerator.
Police said Thompson was not home at the time of the incident and is not a suspect in the case. She said Simmons told her that a pot of scalding water accidentally fell on Jabraylon.
"The police told me that it looked like he was dipped in water ... and the doctors told me the same," she said. "I'm still searching for the truth."
Last days
The remaining days of Jabraylon's life were spent in a hospital room hooked up to a battery of tubes and a breathing machine. The skin had melted off his legs and feet. Burns covered his right hand up to his wrist.
Doctors removed about 60 percent of his badly damaged intestines during one surgery. They removed more during a second surgery. Infections wracked his small body. He suffered kidney failure and his body swelled to the point where he was unrecognizable.
At 8:53 p.m. Saturday, doctors at Children's Medical Center Dallas declared Jabraylon dead. The Dallas County medical examiner has ruled his death a homicide.
Looking for a sign
In a telephone interview from the funeral home Monday where she was making arrangements to bury her son, Thompson still sounded supportive of Simmons, calling him a "good person."
"It would hurt me so much if it was intentional because I gave my trust to this man," she said. "Like I said, God hasn't put anything in my heart to say, 'Jas, he did it on purpose.' "
