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VIDEO Orlando Sentinel Orlando, Florida A judge today gave the state extra time to pull together its case against a 13-year old boy accused of beating his 8-year-old brother to death.
That means Demetrius Key will remain locked up in a juvenile detention facility for 30 days. Circuit Judge Roger McDonald also ruled that the defense was entitled to access to evidence.
The decision came during a brief hearing a day after the boys' mother was arrested on a charge of aggravated child neglect. Tangela Key was released on a $2,500 bond earlier today.
Authorities charged Tangela Key, 34, because they say Key should have known better than to leave her 8-year-old son, Levares, in the care of his older brother, investigators said Thursday.
She had punished Demetrius Key in the past after learning he had injured Levares.
"She knowingly left Levares in a circumstance that could result in his death," sheriff's Sgt. John Allen said Thursday. "She knew that Demetrius had a propensity to harm Levares."
As detectives continued investigating Saturday's brutal killing, they uncovered a family history of violence in the apartment off Texas Avenue.
"Disciplinary sessions" for Levares, they said, were a family affair.
In at least one incident, Demetrius held the 8-year-old's legs, while another sibling grabbed the boy's arms.
Together, they raised Levares off the ground for their mom to spank his bottom. Sometimes he had pants on and other times he did not, according to an arrest report.
On Saturday, Key told her oldest son to watch three younger siblings while she visited a cousin at a nearby apartment. She often told the teenager to watch the kids when she was gone.
The single mother, who is five months pregnant, told investigators that at times "she whooped Demetrius for injuring Levares in her absence."
On Saturday while his mother was gone, Levares ate a dessert he wasn't supposed to have eaten. He also picked at a scab, causing it to bleed.
Demetrius feared "Levares would blame both circumstances on him and tell his mother that he had struck him and eaten the dessert," according to the arrest report.
Detectives say Demetrius punched, kicked and choked his brother.
The brother-on-brother aggression that alledgedly resulted in the death of an 8-year-old Orlando boy last weekend may be part of a larger problem of desensitizing children to violence, a local expert on domestic abuse said today.
Carol Wick, CEO of Harbor House, said an increasing number of children at the domestic violence shelter showed disturbing signs of aggression from having lived in an abusive atmosphere -- much as Levares allegedly did.
"We see it a lot," Wick said. "The boys tend to be very violent, very aggressive because they have learned it's just something you do. It's part of life."
Orange-Osceola Public Defender Bob Wesley said Thursday he is going to represent the boy.
"This will be another tragic incident of violence begets violence," Wesley said.
He and chief assistant public defender Eileen Forrester met with the teenager Wednesday night.
"I can't put violence together with the child I met," he said. "This is a 90-pound, soft-spoken, humble, quiet child."
The State Attorney's Office has 21 days to decide how to officially charge Demetrius. If prosecutors elect to charge him with first-degree murder as an adult, they will present the case to an Orange County grand jury.
Investigators said they were dealing with conflicting accounts of the slaying.
The boys' mother initially told deputies she was home all day cleaning and reading the Bible. She said Demetrius found Levares lying on his back in the bedroom, according to the arrest report. She said she then ran to the balcony screaming for help.
However, follow-up interviews with Key, Demetrius and other witnesses revealed a different story.
While Key was at her cousin's place, Demetrius showed up and said Levares was passed out. She and others rushed back to the apartment and found him on the bedroom floor.
Neighbor Jermaine Wiley -- who arrived to see what the emergency was -- picked up the boy and spread his arms to help him breathe.
It didn't work.
Levares died hours later at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando.
Key told investigators that Levares was raised by his godmother -- to whom she gave Levares when he was a month old. Key didn't know how to contact her, according to the arrest report.
Levares had returned to Key's home a little more than a week before he died.
Orlando Sentinel Orlando, FL A 13-year-old boy allegedly choked and battered his
8-year-old brother to death because he ate a dessert, authorities said Tuesday.
Demetrius Key was arrested on a felony first-degree murder charge. The boys'
mother told police she was visiting a cousin nearby, leaving him in charge of
Levares Key and other younger siblings on Saturday.
A neighbor told investigators she heard four loud bangs, followed by 10 minutes
of quiet and then more commotion, according to a statement released by the
Orange County Sheriff's Office.
Demetrius went to the cousin's house and told his mother Levares was "passed
out." He was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.
Sgt. John Allen said Tangela Key was the boys' biological mother, but she gave
Levares up about a month after his birth. Authorities said another woman, who
was the boy's godmother, cared for him after that. Authorities said Key took
Levares back to live with her sometime recently, but aren't sure exactly when.
"It certainly appears at this point the child (Levares) has been beaten over a
long period of time," he said.
Allen said the investigation continued into who else was beating the child.
The sheriff's office said Demetrius initially said he hit his brother with a
metal shelf support. After investigators searched the house, he allegedly said
he used a broom handle instead.
He then told the detective he punched the boy, choked him and banged his head on
the floor, according to an affidavit.
"Demetrius offered that Levares upset him by eating a dessert that (he) was not
to have eaten," Detective Appling Wells wrote. "He also advised Levares upset
him by picking a scab and causing it to bleed. Demetrius said he feared Levares
would blame both circumstances on him and tell his mother he had struck him and
eaten the dessert."
Carlos Padilla, a sheriff's office spokesman, said he the detective did not say
what the dessert was.
Orange County Medical Examiner Dr. Jan Garavaglia ruled that Levares' death a
homicide from closed head injuries.
Neighbor J'Herica Gadsden told the Orlando Sentinel the boy looked thin, bruised
and cut on his face and elsewhere.
"It's very overwhelming to know that your next-door neighbor is dead, and you've
never seen him before until that day," she said.
Tangela Key does not have a listed telephone number. It could not immediately be
determined if Demetrius has an attorney.
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Another one of those "parents" when it happens to be more convenient for them. The article never did say why she gave the boy up after his birth. She is probably a crackhead and a junkie. I wonder if she beat the 13 year old. He had to learn it from somewhere.
