Dead boy's dad grieves in disbelief

By Bruce Gerstman
November 2, 2006

CONTRA COSTA TIMES

RICHMOND - On the day prosecutors charged the mother of an 8-year-old boy with torture and child abuse in connection with his grisly death last week, the boy's father could only shake his head in disbelief, wondering why it happened the way it did.

Desmond Landers was angry that nobody informed him about the alleged abuse.

"I'd have stepped up," Landers, 26, said outside a barbershop in downtown Richmond. "There ain't no question."

Teresa Moses, 23, was charged Wednesday with one count of felony torture and one count of felony child endangerment causing great bodily injury in connection with the killing of her son, Raijon Daniels, said Deputy District Attorney Dara Cashman. Moses is set to appear in Superior Court in Richmond for arraignment this morning.

The Contra Costa District Attorney's Office is awaiting results of the coroner's toxicology report to determine whether to also file a murder charge against Moses, Cashman said.

"It's one of those situations of: Why would someone do something like this?" Cashman said. "The purported motive was to discipline a child who had behavioral problems."
Desmond Landers, the father of Raijon Daniels who
was abused and allegedly killed by his mother.

Landers, his brother and his aunt talked about Raijon on Wednesday in front of a barber shop near the corner of Carlson and Cutting boulevards, describing how Landers and Moses met in high school and how he lost touch with his son after years of Moses keeping him away.

"I had no contact with her at all," said Landers, now an Antioch resident. "There was only so much I could do, you know, because the (baby's) mama and her family didn't want me around."

A woman who identified herself as Moses' mother but declined to give her name said Wednesday that the family is struggling to make sense of what happened.

"We aren't coping too well," she said. "We're trying to piece things back together, and we're trying to bury the boy."

Landers, who changed his name from Daniels after graduating from Richmond's Kennedy High School in 1999, said he paid child support for about five years. He said he stopped sending payments when Moses told him to stop and said he was not Raijon's actual father -- an allegation that neither he nor any of his family ever believed.

"He looked like us," said Landers' brother, Sucar Daniels. "He looked like some of our boys."

Raijon's death has deeply moved the community where he lived. On Wednesday evening, an estimated 100 people attended a vigil at the Monterey Pines apartments that included a moment of prayer and comments from Mayor Irma Anderson.

"The city of Richmond is saddened tonight because we've lost a young man," she told the crowd. "I pray that all of you will continue to support each other as we are doing tonight."

Virginia Waters, a neighbor who attended the vigil, said she came into contact with Raijon last year when she found him wandering the street one morning and gave him a ride. He was shivering and soaking wet because he had wet himself, Waters said.

He got in the car and would not give directions back to his house, she recalled. "He wouldn't tell me where he lived. He kept saying, 'Can I go with you? Can I go with you?' He didn't want to go home."

Waters said Raijon impressed her when they talked in the car because he had a nice vocabulary and seemed pretty smart and well spoken for a child his age.

Richmond police arrested Moses on Friday evening after receiving a call from Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Richmond about Raijon's death. The coroner has not yet released a cause of death, but police say they suspect the boy drank a pine-scented household cleaner.

Officers found several empty bottles of cleaner around the family's South 40th Street home. Police said the aroma of the toxic vapor permeated the house, and Raijon reeked of the cleaner.

Bruises, chemical burns, rope marks and bedsores covered his body.

Officers found duct tape stretched across Raijon's sheets and blankets, fastening them to his bed, police said. His door had a lock on the outside. Moses used a camera in his room to monitor him, police said.

She told officers that she poured toxic cleaners on her son's genitals to stop him from urinating on himself.

Cashman said a full-time caretaker is also under investigation, but police have not yet determined her role, if any.

Contra Costa Children and Family Services was aware of three previous reports concerning the child's well-being last year. Social workers in each case found the reports were unworthy of further investigation.

Having been officially connected with Raijon for so long, Landers said he cannot understand why CFS never contacted him.

"You could have easily just come to my doorstep and just left him," Landers said as one of his daughters and two of his nieces ran around his legs.

Landers met Moses, whom he described as quiet and "a nerd," in high school.

"We had a small relationship," he said. "It was nothing too serious."

Landers' aunt, Suisun City resident Vanessa Mallory, lived in the same apartment complex and often took care of Raijon when the boy was 1 and 2 years old.

"It didn't seem like he was being abused," she said. "He would play all the time, smile all the time. You'd never know that anything was wrong."

But she recalled a birthday party for Raijon's sister two years ago when Moses refused to let her son eat cake or hot dogs. Once Moses left Raijon with Mallory, the 6-year-old consumed three hot dogs.

"There wasn't nothing wrong with him," Mallory said. "Why did she lock him up like an (expletive) animal?"

Raijon's death marks Landers' second recent tragedy. His mother died of cancer in June.

"Bad year," he said. "This year has not been my year."

Times staff writers Karl Fischer and Kimberly S. Wetzel contributed to this story. Reach Bruce Gerstman at 925-952-2670 or bgerstman@cctimes.com.