voiceofreason
Senior News Editor since 2011
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/12/31/mom-charged-toddler-still-missing.html
Toddler’s battered body found in creek
Thursday January 1, 2015 6:09 AM
In a Downtown courtroom shortly before noon yesterday, Shawn Beckford got his 6-year-old daughter back.
Around the same time, along a creekbed on the East Side, a Columbus police officer on horseback spotted a backpack partially submerged in the frigid water.
Inside was the body of Beckford’s son, 14-month-old Cameron Beckford, a little boy with brown eyes and a curly Mohawk who police say was viciously beaten in the last few days of his short life.
Police had been searching for the boy since Monday, when Cameron’s mom called 911 and told officers that her daughter was missing.
Within an hour, those patrol officers found the 6-year-old girl safe with a family on the Hilltop. But they pushed Dainesha Stevens, who had come to Ohio from Maryland with both her children two weeks earlier, on where little Cameron was.
Her answers led police to comb Big Walnut Creek, near Livingston Avenue, on the East Side all day Tuesday. And around 11:15 a.m. yesterday, along the creek near Groves Road, her boy was found.
Shawn Beckford went home to Maryland with his daughter, but also with tremendous grief.
“He is in town to pick up his 6-year-old, and now he’s faced with the news of this,” said Sgt. Rich Weiner, a Columbus police spokesman.
Stevens, 24, appeared yesterday morning in Franklin County Municipal Court on charges of endangering children and tampering with evidence. She remained in the county jail under $150,000 bond last night. She is accused of allowing someone to “violently spank” her son, according to court papers, though authorities haven’t yet said who that person is.
Stevens was fleeing an abusive situation in Frederick, Md., said Mark Collins, her attorney. A social-service agency there reportedly gave her a bus pass to come to Columbus, but her life became worse when she arrived on Dec. 15.
“It was not what she expected when she came to town,” Collins said.
She had been staying with Kurt Flood, a friend in Columbus.
Flood, 24, is being held in the county jail on an unrelated misdemeanor and a probation violation stemming from a felony weapons charge.
Police yesterday searched Flood’s house at 5279 Kornwal Dr., where they say Cameron was beaten.
Stevens had initially told police that she abandoned Cameron on a stranger’s front porch because she couldn’t care for him. That was a lie, Collins said.
She called police on Monday afternoon from an Easton Town Center restaurant, saying her daughter was with a friend of a friend on the Hilltop and they wouldn’t give her back. She did not mention a son in the call.
Patrol officers who responded to the 911 call learned from talking to Stevens that 14-month-old Cameron also was missing.
The 911 call “was her way of asking for help,” Collins said. “That was her way of reaching out."
According to the charges against Stevens, an unidentified person violently spanked Cameron, "causing several layers of skin to be removed and causing the child’s buttocks to bleed.” The beatings occurred between Dec. 21 and Dec. 23, and Stevens did nothing to protect the boy, police said.
On Saturday, witnesses said, Cameron was “removed from the scene” on Kornwal Drive “to impair the investigation,” and Stevens allowed it to happen, leading to the charge of tampering with evidence. The police complaint doesn’t give additional details, and authorities wouldn’t say whether Cameron was alive or dead at that point.
The county coroner’s office said last night that an autopsy will be done today.
Shawn Beckford had called police in Maryland on Saturday, saying he was concerned about his kids. A Frederick police detective who called Columbus police on Monday asked officers here to check on the children at Flood’s East Side house, but no one was there.
“There have been reports that there were some pictures and texts back and forth, indicating the children have been physically abused by Mr. Flood,” the Frederick detective said. It wasn’t clear who was texting.
Columbus police and the prosecutor’s office here have been mum about what happened to Cameron.
Toddler’s battered body found in creek
Thursday January 1, 2015 6:09 AM
In a Downtown courtroom shortly before noon yesterday, Shawn Beckford got his 6-year-old daughter back.
Around the same time, along a creekbed on the East Side, a Columbus police officer on horseback spotted a backpack partially submerged in the frigid water.
Inside was the body of Beckford’s son, 14-month-old Cameron Beckford, a little boy with brown eyes and a curly Mohawk who police say was viciously beaten in the last few days of his short life.
Police had been searching for the boy since Monday, when Cameron’s mom called 911 and told officers that her daughter was missing.
Within an hour, those patrol officers found the 6-year-old girl safe with a family on the Hilltop. But they pushed Dainesha Stevens, who had come to Ohio from Maryland with both her children two weeks earlier, on where little Cameron was.
Her answers led police to comb Big Walnut Creek, near Livingston Avenue, on the East Side all day Tuesday. And around 11:15 a.m. yesterday, along the creek near Groves Road, her boy was found.
Shawn Beckford went home to Maryland with his daughter, but also with tremendous grief.
“He is in town to pick up his 6-year-old, and now he’s faced with the news of this,” said Sgt. Rich Weiner, a Columbus police spokesman.
Stevens, 24, appeared yesterday morning in Franklin County Municipal Court on charges of endangering children and tampering with evidence. She remained in the county jail under $150,000 bond last night. She is accused of allowing someone to “violently spank” her son, according to court papers, though authorities haven’t yet said who that person is.
Stevens was fleeing an abusive situation in Frederick, Md., said Mark Collins, her attorney. A social-service agency there reportedly gave her a bus pass to come to Columbus, but her life became worse when she arrived on Dec. 15.
“It was not what she expected when she came to town,” Collins said.
She had been staying with Kurt Flood, a friend in Columbus.
Flood, 24, is being held in the county jail on an unrelated misdemeanor and a probation violation stemming from a felony weapons charge.
Police yesterday searched Flood’s house at 5279 Kornwal Dr., where they say Cameron was beaten.
Stevens had initially told police that she abandoned Cameron on a stranger’s front porch because she couldn’t care for him. That was a lie, Collins said.
She called police on Monday afternoon from an Easton Town Center restaurant, saying her daughter was with a friend of a friend on the Hilltop and they wouldn’t give her back. She did not mention a son in the call.
Patrol officers who responded to the 911 call learned from talking to Stevens that 14-month-old Cameron also was missing.
The 911 call “was her way of asking for help,” Collins said. “That was her way of reaching out."
According to the charges against Stevens, an unidentified person violently spanked Cameron, "causing several layers of skin to be removed and causing the child’s buttocks to bleed.” The beatings occurred between Dec. 21 and Dec. 23, and Stevens did nothing to protect the boy, police said.
On Saturday, witnesses said, Cameron was “removed from the scene” on Kornwal Drive “to impair the investigation,” and Stevens allowed it to happen, leading to the charge of tampering with evidence. The police complaint doesn’t give additional details, and authorities wouldn’t say whether Cameron was alive or dead at that point.
The county coroner’s office said last night that an autopsy will be done today.
Shawn Beckford had called police in Maryland on Saturday, saying he was concerned about his kids. A Frederick police detective who called Columbus police on Monday asked officers here to check on the children at Flood’s East Side house, but no one was there.
“There have been reports that there were some pictures and texts back and forth, indicating the children have been physically abused by Mr. Flood,” the Frederick detective said. It wasn’t clear who was texting.
Columbus police and the prosecutor’s office here have been mum about what happened to Cameron.
He’s a good guy,” she said.
