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Prosecutor says boy was dead at least 3 hours

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John Ellement

Boston Globe

A 4-year-old Dorchester boy had been dead for as long as three hours when his foster mother drove him to a hospital emergency room, and one of her relatives may have tampered with evidence in the child's home, a prosecutor said yesterday.

At the foster mother's arraignment on murder charges yesterday, Assistant Suffolk District Attorney David Deakin said that doctors at Caritas Carney Hospital tried for 45 minutes to revive Dontel Jeffers, who he said had been beaten by his foster mother, Corinne N. Stephen, during an 11-day period that ended with his death March 6.

Deakin also said that Stephen's relatives may have tried to destroy evidence at the Ballou Avenue apartment in Dorchester after Stephen took the boy to the hospital.

According to Deakin, Stephen, her boyfriend, and her 19-year-old female cousin drove Jeffers to the hospital. While Stephen remained at the hospital, the cousin and boyfriend drove back to the apartment, he said. The cousin spent three hours inside the apartment, ignoring police who knocked on the door, Deakin said. Police were able to get into the apartment only after they obtained a search warrant. Deakin would not identify the boyfriend or the female cousin to a reporter after the hearing.

Once inside, Deakin said, investigators found a pail of dirty mop water in one room and a 10-foot telephone cord stuffed in a garbage bag. Deakin said that a grand jury will continue investigating the child's death over the summer and that charges against others are possible.

With her face draped in a light tan jacket, Stephen pleaded not guilty yesterday to one count of second-degree murder before Dorchester District Judge R. Peter Anderson, who set bail for the 24-year-old single mother at $100,000 cash. She has no prior criminal record.

After the arraignment, Stephen's attorney, Carl N. Donaldson, said in a telephone interview with the Globe that Stephen was a loving foster parent who was not responsible for Jeffers's death. He maintained that Jeffers was alive when Stephen arrived at the hospital.

"All of the allegations of beatings are categorically untrue," Donaldson said. "The child was not dead when the child was taken to the hospital. We question that, significantly question, that the child was dead when the child was taken and delivered to the hospital."

Donaldson said he could not confirm that the cousin was inside Stephen's apartment before police searched it.

In court, Deakin detailed what one Department of Social Services official described to investigators as a "horrific" story of abuse, a story that often reduced the estimated 20 relatives of Dontel Jeffers sitting in the courtroom to tears. His paternal grandmother, Agatha, twice had to be helped out of the courtroom crying during Deakin's account.

Deakin said the state medical examiner concluded that Dontel had been dead for at least three hours based on the child's body temperature at the hospital, 94.1 degrees, and information from hospital staff, who described the toddler as "cold to the touch."

The prosecutor said Stephen gave three different explanations for the boy's injuries, including that he had been jumping on the bed and hit his head on the radiator.

At the hospital, Deakin said, doctors discovered that the child's hands were swollen due to being bound tightly with a telephone cord, and that he had a bruised left eye, scratches on his face and back, and bruises on his arms and shoulders. Deakin said Dontel died as a result of two internal injuries that he would not describe in detail because of the ongoing investigation.

The prosecutor also for the first time suggested a motive for the alleged beating.

Stephen feared that the boy would damage property inside her apartment and was concerned for the safety of her 2-year-old son when he was with the older boy, the prosecutor said. "She was worried he would damage things," Deakin said. "She thought he was too rough with her 2-year old son." He did not elaborate further.

While insisting that Stephen is not the killer, Donaldson said she and her family are devastated by the child's death and offered their condolences to Jeffers's family.

"They are extremely sorrowful," said Donaldson, who noted Stephen's mother and sister have also been foster mothers. "They took this child into their family as one of their own, and they lost a life as well. It's a very, very sad ending to a life."

Stephen had been a foster mother to eight other children, all teenagers, according to DSS. Dontel was the first young child to be under her care. She had been hired by Massachusetts Mentor, a DSS contractor, to care for him. It's unclear if she had worked for the agency before.

In arguing for lower bail, Donaldson said Stephen has stayed in Boston knowing she was under criminal investigation. "She doesn't have anything to run from because she is innocent," he said. "She has an impeccable record. Any parent would love to have her as a daughter."

The boy was placed in the custody of the Department of Social Services last year after his father, Elary, was deported to Nevis in the Caribbean and after his mother, Christal Claiborne, was unable to care for him because of substance abuse.

DSS Deputy Commissioner Susan Getman told reporters that the Dontel Jeffers case showed "a horrific pattern of abuse." She said the agency is investigating the prior placements with Stephen, as well as the agency that hired her for the Jeffers placement.

Claiborne was in court yesterday accompanied by the father of her 2-month-old son. She declined to be interviewed, citing instructions from her lawyer, Anthony R. Ellison. Claiborne and the Jeffers family are fighting in court over the right to represent Dontel's estate.

"She misses her child dearly," Ellison said of Claiborne. "She does not wish any ill will toward" Stephen but supports the investigation into his death.

Agatha Jeffers, who was fighting DSS to get custody of her grandson when the agency put him in Stephen's care, was led through a pack of reporters after the hearing and did not talk. The lawyer for the Jeffers family, Shawn P. O'Rourke, said outside the courthouse that Deakin's description of the child's final days was overwhelming for the family.

"Dontel was a bright, happy boy who loved his family and was loved deeply by them," he said.

2005 Jul 2