Antioch woman pleads not guilty in abuse death of niece

John Simerman

CONTRA COSTA TIMES

MARTINEZ — An Antioch woman accused of killing her 15-year-old niece after more than a year of beatings told police that she hit Jazzmin Davis with a wooden dowel and a belt within hours of her death "because she continually defies her and cut her holes in her jeans," according to an Antioch detective's statement in support of a search warrant.

Shemeeka Davis, 38, pleaded not guilty in a Martinez courtroom Friday to murder in Jazzmin's death and the suspected abuse and torture of both Jazzmin and her twin brother, Jason.

Davis, the twins' aunt, had taken them into foster care as young children. A San Francisco judge gave her custody of them a week before Jazzmin's Sept. 2 death.

An autopsy found Jazzmin suffered from continual whippings with belts and electrical cords, burns from hot irons and severe beatings. Emaciated and malnourished, she weighed 78 pounds. Jason suffered similar injuries, police said.

Deputy District Attorney Harold Jewett has said Jazzmin died from "multiple blows on multiple days with multiple instruments in the context of not being properly clothed or nourished." But the Contra Costa Coroner's office has yet to complete the final autopsy report with a cause of death.

Police said the twins lived in a nearly barren room with a bunk bed, one sheet, an empty closet and a few posters on the wall, but with few other trappings of teen life. Davis' three biological children lived normally and appeared in good health, police said.

When police arrived at the house on Killdeer Drive about 3:15 p.m., they found Jazzmin's naked body in the bedroom, partially covered with a blanket and riddled with "numerous open wounds and sores over her entire head, face, body, arms and legs," according to the search warrant statement by Detective Santiago Castillo. "All of these wounds appeared to be in various stages of healing." Three of the four bedroom walls, and the ceiling, were splattered with blood, Castillo wrote. In a cabinet outside the bedroom, police found a two-foot-long dowel with one end covered in what appeared to be blood.

Shemeeka Davis, who downed a handful of pills after Jazzmin's death, was taken by ambulance to Sutter Delta Medical Center, where she admitted beating Jazzmin that afternoon, the statement said.

"Shemeeka claims (Jazzmin) suffers from oppositional defiance and constantly picks at her wounds, rubbing blood on the walls throughout the house, urinates on the floors and at times will urinate in bottles pouring it on the other family members' food," Castillo wrote.

Castillo's statement said Jason, Jazzmin's twin brother, talked about "being hit with a brown cord, belt, wooden spoon and being burned with a clothes iron by Shemeeka constantly over the years." County officials took him into protective custody after the death.

Shemeeka Davis' boyfriend, Jackie Turner, showed police "numerous scars and marks on his body he claimed were the direct result of (her) anger and attacks," the statement said. "Turner also stated that he heard (Shemeeka) beat Jason and (Jazzmin) on numerous occasions and would hear them cry while the beatings took place." The carpet in the bedroom and a walk-in closet smelled of urine and were stained yellow.

"The remainder of the house was very clean," the statement said.

A San Francisco child welfare official told the Times early this month that a child welfare worker visited the Antioch home twice over the period in which police say Jazzmin suffered beatings. The last visit came as recently as March, and the caseworker found no cause for concern, said Trent Rohrer, executive director of the San Francisco Human Services Agency.

He also said the records indicate the case worker saw a current school report card during the March visit, though Jazzmin hadn't attended school since June 2007. Among the items police seized from the house between Sept. 3 and Sept. 6 were belts, a wooden dowel, metal rods, a clothes iron, a pad lock attached to a belt, a broken lamp base, a workout weight and a home computer.

Davis returns to court Oct. 15, when attorneys will set a date for a preliminary hearing. She remains in jail in lieu of $1.5 million bail.