Sheriff: Man arrested in connections to 2018 beating death of DeLand girl
LAKE MARY, Fla. - A Volusia County man has been arrested on a charge of aggravated manslaughter connected to the death of a child back in 2018.
An arrest warrant for 31-year-old Brandon Williams was obtained Tuesday, a day after Janee Dickson was sentenced to 25 years in prison for her own role in the death of her seven-year-old daughter, Kamia Jean-Baptiste.
Dickson was arrested in Charlotte, NC last year. According to investigators, the crime happened in March 2018 in DeLand.
RELATED: Volusia County mother charged with beating her 7-year-old daughter to death
A day before her death, the child was brought to an area hospital with visible trauma, according to investigators. She had to be airlifted to another facility for advanced treatment of what authorities said were injuries from abuse.
Kamia died hours after she was taken to the hospital. An autopsy determined she died from hemorrhaging of soft tissue, which was likely a result of serious physical force. The cause of death listed in the autopsy report was blunt force trauma, and the manner of death was ruled homicide.
"Our 7-year-old victim was tortuously beaten and allowed to suffer for several hours before she was taken to the hospital for treatment – but it was too late to save her," State Attorney R.J. Larizza said. "This gut-wrenching crime demands our best efforts to seek accountability and justice."
During interviews with detectives, Dickson first said Kamia got hurt on a slide at the playground. However, Dickson’s boyfriend, Williams, was also interviewed and said Dickson beat Kamia on several occasions, according to detectives.
Brandon Williams, 31, has been arrested on a charge of aggravated manslaughter connected to the death of a child back in 2018.
Investigators said Dickson changed her story, telling detectives that Kamia had been hit, but in a "parenting" capacity, and that Williams was the one who hit her.
According to detectives, Dickson said the three of them were traveling in a car when Kamia kept asking to stop and use the bathroom. Dickson said Williams drove to a side street, pulled Kamia out of the car, and beat her for 15 to 20 minutes with a blunt object. She then said he drove to another location and beat her again for 30 minutes with the same object and a second object.
"Kamia has never been forgotten here, and the detectives assigned to this case were never going to give up on getting justice for her," Sheriff Mike Chitwood said Wednesday. "I don’t know if true justice is even possible in a case where a 7-year-old girl’s whole life was brutally stolen, but we never quit fighting for Kamia, and now that fight will continue through the courts."
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