Felicia Brown in 2006. She is the mother of JuTyra Allen, 6, and Jermaine McNeil, 10, both of whom are believed to be the children pulled from a Delray canal on Wednesday, March 2, 2011.
A woman whose decomposed body was found in August at the county Solid Waste Authority was tentatively identified Friday as the mother of two children found in bags in a Delray Beach canal this week.
While the identities were not confirmed, Delray Beach police spokeswoman Nicole Guerriero said officials believe the dead are Jermaine McNeil, 10; his sister Ju’Tyra Allen, 6; and their mother, Felicia Brown, 25.
Guerriero said the only suspect in the killings is Clem Beauchamp, 34, who was arrested Thursday on unrelated federal charges.
The children were living in Beauchamp’s house on Southwest Seventh Avenue with Michelle Dent and her three children, two of whom are Beauchamp’s, officials said. For years, Beauchamp had on-again, off-again relationships with both Brown and Dent that led to vicious fights between the women. During one encounter in 2008, Dent threatened to kill Brown, records show.
Guerriero said Dent, 29, was not a suspect in the murders. At a court hearing on Friday, an investigator for the Florida Department of Children and Families described Dent as “a person of interest” in a double, possibly triple, homicide.
“It’s the beginning of a very intense criminal investigation,” investigator Michele Fuhrman testified.
Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Ron Alvarez stripped Dent of custody of her children — Demetrius Beauchamp, 15; Keayana Beauchamp, 10; and Karchelle Washington, 3 — until the criminal investigation is complete.
Dent’s older children denied knowing about the disappearances, Fuhrman said. But, she added, it appeared they had been coached about what to say.
Fuhrman told the judge that she believed Delray police were reviewing Walmart security tapes to determine whether weights — presumably to sink the children’s bodies, which were discovered Wednesday — may have been purchased there.
Guerriero said she had no information about any security tapes. She said that while DCF may consider Dent a “person of interest,” police did not.
In fact, police showed little interest in Dent when they responded to a call around noon Friday about a domestic dispute at a house where Dent was staying. Neighbors said they heard an argument involving children in the 600 block of Northeast Third Avenue. Police left without taking anyone into custody.
Dent also accompanied Beauchamp to the Delray Beach police station Thursday when he was first interviewed in connection with the death of the two children. She was allowed to leave.
Beauchamp was arrested by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He appeared in federal court Friday on a charge of possession of a silenced firearm and was later taken to the Palm Beach County Jail.
He has been arrested a half-dozen times on charges including robbery and possession of marijuana.
Court records paint a combative picture of his alternating girlfriends. At a hearing in 2008, when Dent and Beauchamp were fighting for custody of their two children, Brown told the judge that Dent stormed into Beauchamp’s house in 2005.
“She broke his screen out of his window, climbed through his room window, threw a garbage pail at me,” Brown said. “(She) proceeded to assault me in his house.”
That testimony enraged Dent, Brown later told police. In March 2008, Brown told Boynton Beach police that Dent pushed her way into Brown’s house, put a knife to Brown’s throat and said, “I will kill you if you don’t stay out of my business.” Brown said she escaped and left Dent outside, banging on the window and screaming, “Come out and fight!”
Brown told police she opened the door because she saw Dent and Beauchamp’s then-7-year-old daughter standing on the doorstep. Dent was charged with burglary, aggravated assault and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, records show. She also has been charged with crimes including larceny and car theft.
Court records, and those who knew her, said Brown had troubles of her own.
Her mother, Susie Flint, called West Palm Beach police in 2005 when she suspected that Brown stole her car. Flint suspected Brown was using cocaine and smoking marijuana. Brown was ultimately charged with grand theft auto, one of more than a dozen times she was arrested on charges ranging from shoplifting to battery to burglary.
“It’s not that she was a bad person,” said Judy Allen, whose son Curtis is Ju’Tyra’s father. “She never had a positive role model.”
Allen’s son, Curtis, had a contentious relationship with Brown, court records show. In 2004, when she was seven months pregnant with Ju’Tyra, Brown got a temporary restraining order against Curtis Allen, claiming he attacked her with a tire iron even though she showed no marks. He countered that she attacked him with a knife. Brown ultimately recanted and allowed the restraining order to expire.
Shortly after Ju’Tyra was born, her grandmother, Judy Allen, a teacher at Congress Middle School, was awarded custody. By then, Brown had given up her oldest daughter for adoption, Allen said. DCF also temporarily took Jermaine away from Brown, Allen said.
Allen raised Ju’Tyra for three years. DCF officials then determined Brown was ready to be a parent. While Allen objected, they allowed both Ju’Tyra and Jermaine to be reunited with Brown.
Allen said she and Curtis were devastated by Ju’Tyra’s death. Curtis said he last saw his daughter on Thanksgiving when Brown allowed his sister to pick up Ju’Tyra at Beauchamp’s house. He said he didn’t go to the house because of ongoing animosity between him and Brown. He said he used his sister as a go-between.
Allen said she last saw her granddaughter in June when Ju’Tyra went on an annual family outing to Disney World.
“I knew something bad was going to happen,” she said. “If you knew her lifestyle, (Brown) just went from man to man to man.”
But no one reported her missing for nearly seven months.
Publicly, at least, Brown loved her children. Their names were tattooed on her left calf. Those tattoos ultimately served an important purpose: They allowed police to link her to the small children found dead in the canal.
LITTLE GIRL'S ID
Confirming what police already suspected, the medical examiner positively identified the little girl found in a black duffel bag in the C-15 canal as 6-year-old Ju'Tyra Allen, a Delray Police Department spokeswoman said in a statement today.
Ju'Tyra's body was found near that of her half-brother, Jermaine McNeil, 10, whose body was identified yesterday.
Police suspect that the children's mother, Felicia Brown, is also dead; they think she is the formerly unidentified corpse found in a garbage dump in West Palm Beach in August.
Brown's former boyfriend, Clem Beauchamp, 34, has been named as a suspect in the case but not charged; he has been arrested on an unrelated federal crime.
Staff writers Michael LaForgia and Adam Playford and staff researcher Michelle Quigley contributed to this story.
~ jane_musgrave@pbpost.com
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