Delray Beach baby thrown from car, then into canal
By
Stephanie Slater
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 28, 2006
DELRAY BEACH — A 20-year-old man angry about breaking up with his son's mother threw the baby out a car window early Thursday, smashed the 9-month-old's head on the car's hood and then tossed him into a canal to die, police said.
Charles Edward Tyson reportedly returned to where he had left the infant's mother, Shermaka Mosley, 17, and said: "You better go get your baby before the alligators get him."
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Tyson took Mosley back to the canal where he had discarded Charles Edward Tyson Jr., police said. Then he walked home.
When police got to his house on Southwest Second Street around 3:20 a.m., Tyson calmly walked outside, put his hands on a patrol car and said, "Take me to jail."
Police charged Tyson with first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse, child endangerment and violation of a domestic violence injunction.
"He was just a happy baby," Mosley said Thursday morning outside the Delray Beach Police Department.
Wrapped in a white hospital blanket, tears streaming down her cheeks, Mosley said Tyson was angry that she was ending the three-year relationship and accused her of infidelity.
"He figured this was the only way to hurt her," said Mosley's mother, Joanne Mosley, who obtained a restraining order in December keeping Tyson away from her daughter. The order gave Tyson two hours a week on Friday nights to see his son and prohibited him from coming close to Mosley at home, at work, at school or in her car.
Tyson's mother, Reatha Tyson, said her son adored "C.J." He took him to church, bought him a basket for Easter and worked at a Subway sandwich shop to pay child support, she said.
When Tyson called her from jail Thursday, he sounded frightened, she said.
"It's really coming to him now," Reatha Tyson said. "He's about to go crazy."
Mosley, who met Tyson at a Lantana skating rink, said she spent Wednesday playing with C.J. He was scheduled for surgery next month on his shoulder, which was broken during birth. When C.J. got diarrhea Wednesday night, she and Tyson took him to West Boca Medical Center.
On the way home, the estranged couple bickered about rumors of Mosley's infidelity. While stopped at the intersection of Linton Boulevard and Congress Avenue, Tyson grabbed his sleeping son and held him by the torso out the passenger-side window.
"He was saying he was going to kill the baby," Mosley said. "I told him he's crazy and 'give me my baby.' "
Mosley talked Tyson out of dropping C.J. and drove toward her home on Southwest 12th Avenue. She stopped the car near some warehouses in the 700 block of Southwest 17th Avenue.
Tyson threw C.J. out the window, she said. The baby landed in a pile of dirt.
"I got out and tried to get (C.J.) and we tussled," Mosley said. "He grabbed him by the legs and threw him on the hood of the car face-first. He was crying. He was still alive."
The impact left a dent on the car's hood.
Mosley said she put C.J. in the front passenger seat and Tyson sped off, leaving her behind without a cellphone.
About 2:30 a.m., Tyson stopped the car just east of a canal near the Fairway on the Greens condos on Lowson Boulevard west of Congress Avenue. He walked to the bank and threw C.J. into the water, police said.
Tyson drove back to get Mosley, showed her where he had tossed their son and left as she wailed for help.
Police received two 911 calls around 2:52 a.m. from people who heard Mosley's screams. James McNeal told police he overhead Mosley tell Tyson, "You killed my baby."
Wayne Marshall said Mosley told him, "He threw him in the water."
Her cries also awoke Frank Sutherland, 63, who initially thought the noise was coming from a college party.
"I walked over and she was screaming out of her wits, so loud that I couldn't make out what she was saying," Sutherland said. He took her cellphone and asked the person on the other end what happened. "I got my floodlight and was trying to look for the baby."
When officer Paul Shersty arrived, he searched the water with a spotlight. He found C.J. floating face-down about 100 yards south of where Tyson was said to have thrown him. Shersty pulled C.J. from the water and performed CPR until fire-rescue workers arrived. Police estimate the baby was in the water about 20 minutes.
C.J. was taken to Delray Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 4:02 a.m.
"I've seen a lot, but this is by far the most horrific incident involving any type of abuse that I've ever seen," Delray Beach Detective Gene Sapino said.
Tyson was calm and unemotional as he confessed, Sapino said.
"He thought about getting the baby out of the water but said it was too late," Sapino said. "The only time he showed remorse was when I told him the baby died. He cried a little bit, but it wasn't how you'd expect a parent to be sobbing."
Mosley's mother said Tyson was a loving, doting father, but he had an anger-management problem.
In November, Joanne Mosley applied for a restraining order against Tyson, telling a judge that he had sex with her daughter before she turned 16 and that she thought he was too old to be dating her, court records show.
On two occasions, Tyson went to her house on Southwest 12th Avenue and tried to pick a fight with her, Joanne Mosley said. She called police when Tyson's cousins showed up at her house carrying guns.
"Judge, I am try to do the right thing and stop this before someone get hurt," Joanne Mosley, 47, wrote in the petition. "This guy need to leave me and my family alone."
Tyson also sent girls to pick fights with Shermaka Mosley, who at the time was a student at Atlantic Community High School, her mother said.
A judge issued a yearlong injunction for protection against repeat violence on Dec. 8.
In 2004, there were 108 confirmed cases of children in Florida who died of abuse or neglect, according to the state's Child Abuse Death Review team. Six were in Palm Beach County. The leading cause of death was physical trauma, followed by drowning as a result of neglect or abuse.
When the team analyzed deaths reported from 1999 to 2004, it found that the children most at risk for deadly neglect and abuse were younger than 2. A third of the cases involved babies that were 1 or 2 years old; 28 percent involved infants. Shermaka Mosley supported C.J. by delivering food to the elderly at the Lake View Care Center in Delray Beach. She remembers his birth at St. Mary's. She remembers the smell of his skin, his delicious smile. Most of all, she remembers his laughter.
"I want my baby," she said.
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