CASH Gernon’s alleged killer was reported to cops a month before the four-year-old’s kidnap – after he was reportedly filmed trying to steal cars and breaking a camera.
Darriynn Brown, 18, is being held on charges of kidnapping and burglary, but police said more charges are likely “pending results from a forensic analysis.”
Read our Cash Gernon live blog for the very latest news and updates…
The little boy was found by a jogger on a residential street early Saturday morning in the Mountain Creek area of Dallas, Texas.
Since the harrowing incident, neighbors have met with city leaders to beg for a better police presence in their hometown.
Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia, Councilman Casey Thomas, and City Manager TC Broadnax spoke to neighbors just five minutes away from where Gernon was discovered.
During the meeting, a neighbor allegedly shared video with WFAA that showed a man who appeared to be Brown checking on door handles in his driveway on April 19.
The man told the outlet that they picked Brown out of a lineup after the teen was arrested to further the investigation.
Further security from the same night allegedly showed Brown breaking a home surveillance camera, the local claimed.
“How do we make sure that this doesn’t happen again? We called a month ago and now a child’s dead,” the man who provided the footage said.
Following the death of Gernon, Brown was allegedly seen in surveillance footage taking the toddler from it’s bed.
Cash’s father’s girlfriend, Monica Sherrod, identified Cash and said that he was asleep when the suspect broke in and kidnapped him at 5am local time.
She also told the Daily Mail that Brown was known to the family as the brother of her older sons’ friend.
Cash’s biological mother believed that the little boy and his twin brother, Carter, were with their dad and did not know that they were left with Sherrod, a police spokesperson said.
The birth mom and grandmother were looking for the pair and both women since been reunited with Cash’s brother.
Sherrod called cops shortly before 11am to report Cash as missing – but his body had been found hours before.
She added that there is surveillance footage of the incident, which has not yet been released by police.
According to an affidavit, obtained by the Morning News, Sherrod watched the video with cops and identified the suspect.
Officers found the boy when they responded to a 911 call at about 7am Saturday, according to police spokesman Albert Martinez.
The boy had multiple wounds from “an edged weapon,” according to The Dallas Morning News.
“We are shocked, we are very angry about what has happened to this small child,” Martinez said, describing the boy’s death as “violent.”
Investigators believe the boy lived locally and are knocking on doors to locate security footage or other information to aid in the investigation.
Antwainese Square, 39, told the pubication she was jogging at about 6.30am when she saw what she thought was a dog lying in the road but when she got closer she saw the boy’s arms and legs.
“That’s when I noticed the baby had ants at the bottom of his feet so I knew he was deceased then,” Square said. “It was heart-wrenching because this baby could have been no more than five.”
Having called 911 she told the operator she could see blood on the boy’s face and the upper half of his body.
She added he wasn’t wearing shoes or a shirt.
“As a mother, this just – it breaks my heart,” she said. “It breaks my heart. And now I’m afraid. Now I’m paranoid. Because I don’t know what happened, I don’t know what’s going on.”
“I mean just knowing that someone out there is capable of killing a child, that alone is just unsettling,” she said. “So I am praying that that baby gets justice.”
”It’s a lot to take in,” said Lisa Gilbert, 18, who lives just down the road. “It’s so shocking to me that it’s a four-year-old, someone’s baby. That could’ve been my little cousin or brother or something. It’s just the point that he’s gone now. It’s just terrifying.”
”I just hope that they find whoever did this and put them behind bars because it’s not right to kill a little baby,” she said.
