A 2-year-old girl was killed by her father, police say, despite warnings about violence. What went wrong? (Sun Sentinel PUBLISHED: May 31, 2024 at 7:00 AM EDT)

 

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A 2-year-old girl was killed by her father, police say, despite warnings about violence. What went wrong?

The Broward County Judicial Complex in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

Mike Stocker / Sun Sentinel The Broward County Judicial Complex in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

Shira Moulten, Sun Sentinel reporter. (Photo/Amy Beth Bennett)

By Shira Moolten | smoolten@sunsentinel.com | South Florida Sun Sentinel

PUBLISHED: May 31, 2024 at 7:00 AM EDT | UPDATED: May 31, 2024 at 10:39 AM EDT

The mother had tried to keep her 2-year-old daughter safe. She told the court in a motion last year that her daughter should not be left in her father’s care unsupervised. That he had been involuntarily committed several times, reported hearing voices, chased her through their Pembroke Pines house, abused the family dog and punched inanimate objects.

But somewhere along the way, those concerns fell aside. Months after the mother raised her initial concerns, the parents’ lawyers submitted an agreed-upon timesharing plan that a Broward judge approved. The girl would stay with Jeronimo Duran, 33, unsupervised, every other weekend and one night per week. When she entered school, parenting would become 50-50.

Then, on Tuesday morning, police say, Duran cut the throat of his 2-year-old daughter inside the same Pembroke Pines home while she was visiting him as part of her parents’ timesharing plan. Even as more details come to light about what took place that morning, it remains unclear why the girl ended up alone with him despite all of the efforts to avoid that scenario. Neither the child’s mother nor attorneys for either parent have responded to requests for comment.

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“Unfortunately, in this case for a multitude of reasons, you’re looking at irreversible tragedy that I do believe is preventable,” said Michael Grieco, a defense attorney and former state congressman from Miami Beach who helped sponsor one of the earlier iterations of “Greyson’s Law,” formed in response to another child’s death at the hands of his father. “I don’t know if it was preventable legislatively. If it was preventable in the courtroom. If it was preventable among the attorneys involved. But there clearly was not enough advocacy on behalf of the little girl, and that’s the problem.”

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On Tuesday morning, about 9:30 a.m., Duran’s grandmother returned home to find him on top of his daughter. She called 911, telling the call taker in Spanish to send someone quickly. The girl was pale and not reacting, she said frantically, according to a recording of the call released by police on Thursday. Police later said she was bleeding profusely from her neck, which Duran had lacerated. Paramedics took the girl to the hospital, where she later died. Duran is now facing charges of first-degree murder while engaged in child abuse and aggravated child abuse.

Jeronimo Duran, 33, is facing charges of murder while engaged in child abuse and aggravated child abuse in the violent death of his daughter, court records show. (Broward Sheriff's Office/Courtesy)

Jeronimo Duran, 33, is facing charges of murder while engaged in child abuse and aggravated child abuse in the violent death of his daughter, court records show. (Broward Sheriff's Office/Courtesy)

A similar tragedy, also described as preventable, had unfolded in Broward almost exactly three years ago to the day in May 2021. Alison Kessler was receiving threats from the father of her 4-year-old son, Greyson. He had tracked her with a device and knew she went to the Broward courthouse seeking an injunction against him.

“You have created ginormous amount of problems for me,” he said in one message. “I was never angry before I met you.”

Another read, “you deserve to have your head separated from your body. But I am not the violent type. God will deal with you.”

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Kessler knew Greyson was in trouble. She spoke to the police and sought permission to pick up her son in an emergency court filing. But when police finally arrived at the father’s apartment, it was too late. Greyson’s father had killed his son and then himself in a murder-suicide. A day later, the judge denied her motion.

Kessler had just heard the news of the 2-year-old girl’s death days after the anniversary of Greyson’s.

“My reaction was, I can’t believe this is happening again,” she told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Wednesday. “And I can’t believe our judicial system is so flawed.”

After Greyson died, Kessler threw herself into activism, fighting for the next two years to get a bill passed that would prevent situations like hers from happening again.

A watered-down version of “Greyson’s Law” went into effect in July 2023. It requires that judges weigh more factors in determining parental custody or timesharing, particularly any reasonable fear raised by a parent that their child is or has been in “imminent danger” of domestic violence, abuse or neglect. It also broadens the definition of domestic violence, including whether someone has “engaged in a pattern of abusive, threatening, intimidating, or controlling behavior composed of a series of acts over a period of time, however short.”

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Such a definition could describe the behavior of Duran, particularly his chasing of the girl’s mother and his punching of walls, a fan, and the family dog, according to allegations the mother made in court filings last year. Police had responded to the home twice last year, records show, though it is unclear whether those calls had to do with domestic violence. Public records requests for police reports about Duran and the incidents at the home were not fulfilled Thursday.

Another red flag detailed in the court motion was Duran’s history of serious mental health issues, which some say should have given the mother’s fears more legal credence. Based on the mother’s court filing, he had been Baker Acted, or involuntarily committed, five times and reported hearing voices telling him to kill himself, including when his daughter was home. She wrote that he was not taking medication and was self-medicating with drugs instead. Duran later denied those claims but admitted he suffered from an unspecified mental illness for which he was receiving treatment.

“When you have multiple Baker Acts, now it’s memorialized that you clearly have a history of mental health issues that require involuntary hospitalization,” Grieco said. “Then the allegations in the court filings hold a lot more water than if they’re just a bunch of unprovable allegations.”

The mother had previously asked for a psychological evaluation of Duran, a guardian ad litem, full custody, and for her child not to visit him unsupervised.

“His behavior is erratic, aggressive, violent and dangerous to the mother and the minor child,” her court filing read.

But in March of this year, the parents signed a timesharing plan that looked drastically different from what the mother had previously wanted, and Broward Circuit Judge Kristin Kanner approved it. Kanner did not respond to an email late Thursday afternoon and her office redirected inquiries to the court administrator, who did not return a voicemail.

Alison Kessler in front of the tree in Plantation's Deicke Park dedicated to her son Greyson Kessler. The 4-year-old was slain by his father in a murder-suicide in 2021. Kessler has become an activist for Greyson's Law to protect children in danger of parental harm.

Rod Stafford Hagwood / South Florida Sun Sentinel

Alison Kessler in front of the tree in Plantation's Deicke Park dedicated to her son Greyson Kessler. The 4-year-old was slain by his father in a murder-suicide in 2021. Kessler has become an activist for Greyson's Law to protect children in danger of parental harm. (Rod Stafford Hagwood/South Florida Sun Sentinel file)

“I don’t know what happened, why the mother agreed to the parenting plan,” said State Sen. Lori Berman, D-Boca Raton, who sponsored the bill that became Greyson’s Law in 2022 and 2023. “I will never second-guess a parent in that situation. I will never place any blame against a parent in that situation. But I’m very sad the end result was the loss of this child’s life, and that Greyson’s Law, despite what we did, didn’t end up saving this child.”

Many parents are not educated on Greyson’s Law or other rights they may have in domestic situations. Often they are under immense pressure to resolve the dispute, both financially and legally. Kessler said that in her own custody case, she felt that she had to reach an agreement with Greyson’s father during mediation or else the judge would deem her uncooperative.

“We don’t have a choice,” she said. “Unless we want to risk our child getting taken away by the judge because we’re not cooperating. You have to reach an agreement in mediation.”

Money can also become a deciding factor. Many people do not have the resources for prolonged litigation, Grieco said. Oftentimes, victims are financially dependent on their abusers. The mother in Duran’s case, a veterinary tech at the time whose most valuable assets were her car and an $800 mattress, wrote in her court filing that he had a better ability to pay for child support and that she “definitely has a need.”

Experts agree that tragedies like this are happening far too often. In March, a 2-year-old boy and his mother were found dead in a home in Plantation, where Kessler lives. The father attempted suicide but survived and is now charged with first-degree murder.

“It’s happening at an alarming rate,” Kessler said. Every day she is contacted by parents who need help or advice. Some say that citing Greyson’s Law helped them save their own child.

Berman said further education on the law could help more parents. Grieco thinks one possible solution would be to appoint guardian ad litems in any case where a parent shows severe mental health issues. Kessler is still fighting for more police intervention and for the legal system to better understand all forms of domestic abuse in the first place.

“It’s really hard to prove domestic violence when you don’t have physical scars,” she said.

Shira Moolten can be reached at smoolten@sunsentinel.com or 754-971-0636.

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