Mourners seek answers

Anguish, frustration prevail at funeral of boy who died in foster care

Megan Tench

Boston Globe

What began with loving tributes to a 4-year-old boy who died in foster care ended with a fiery eulogy yesterday that brought hundreds of mourners to their feet and took top officials with the state Department of Social Services to task.

While standing before the body of Dontel Jeffers, the Rev. William E. Dickerson II pointed out that DSS Commissioner Harry Spence was sitting among mourners in the church pews.

The crowd attending Dontel's funeral at The Greater Love Tabernacle Church in Dorchester stirred. Some craned their necks, while others quietly gasped.

"I told them to come," Dickerson said, his voice booming over the rising tensions inside the sanctuary. "This is God's house. And I wanted them to be here because they needed to be here to understand the sentiment of this church and the pain of this family."

If an autopsy finds that the boy was slain, Dickerson said, the community should hold the agency responsible."DSS needs to be challenged to change some of its policies as they relate to the placement of children in foster care," he said. "If there are perpetrators, the perpetrators need to be dealt with to the full extent of the law."

The words struck a chord with the crowd, which interrupted the sermon with applause and shouts of "Amen."

Frustration and anguish poured out yesterday as a divided community tried to make sense of a death they say should not have happened. On March 6, Dontel was rushed to the hospital by his foster mother, a 24-year-old Dorchester woman, who said the boy hurt himself while jumping on a bed. But his biological family believes the bruises on his face and a swollen eye mean something different. The family contends DSS placed Dontel in a foster home where he was beaten to death.

Later, outside the church, amid wails of grief-stricken family members and the quiet sobs of community leaders, Spence said he felt partly responsible for Dontel's death, and a deep sense of failure for not being able to protect him. He vowed to tighten the screening process for potential foster parents. Dontel's death, he said, was a hard lesson.

"We are constantly trying to figure out what are the ways we can reduce the harm to any child," Spence said outside the church. "So it is obviously always harder for us when it is one of our own who is suspected of doing the harm. Next time maybe we can get there earlier. Maybe we can prevent someone intent on doing the child harm from actually doing the harm."

Authorities are still investigating the circumstances surrounding Dontel's death. Dontel was placed in the foster home 11 days earlier, after state officials deemed both of his parents unfit or unable to care for him. His mother had a history of drug abuse and his father was deported to St. Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean after a domestic violence charge.

The boy was rushed to Carney Hospital in Dorchester after his foster mother said she found him unresponsive and called 911.

The state medical examiner's office completed a preliminary examination last week of Dontel's body, but as of yesterday test results had not yet been analyzed, said David Procopio, a spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley. Police are treating the death as "suspicious," he said, adding that the results of the tests will indicate whether Dontel's death was a homicide or an accident.

"There has been no ruling yet that it was a homicide," he said.

Mourners yesterday were raw with shock, anger, and sadness.

Christal Claiborne, the boy's biological mother, went weak as she approached the open coffin, where her son lay wearing a tiny white suit, a white knit cap, and a turquoise cross-shaped pin. Her hand clutched her pregnant belly as family and friends surrounded her.

The Jeffers family clung to each other. Family members tried unsuccessfully to delay the ceremony until the boy's father, Elary Jeffers, who lives in the Caribbean, could find a way to attend.

Dickerson, the Claiborne family's pastor, asked the two families to unite, while urging the crowd not to blame Dontel's biological family for the boy's death.

"They are the parents of Dontel Jeffers," he said. "They need your love. They need your support. They don't need your judgment."

For Dontel's mother, Dickerson had special words.

"Christal, you have other children, a child here and a child on the way," he said. "Pour your love into them. Tell them about their brother. You don't have to look back, or look down. All you have to do is look forward, because God has got your back."