JERMAINE McNEIL -10 yo and Ju'TYRA ALLEN -6 yo (2011) - Delray Beach FL

Officials have recovered the bodies of two dead children from a South Florida canal.Delray
Beach police say divers retrieved the body of a young black girl, stuffed into a duffel bag,
Wednesday morning from a canal that divides Delray Beach from Boca Raton.
Since the canal runs for miles in each direction, investigators say the body could
have been dumped anywhere.Later Wednesday, the body of a boy,
stuffed into a suitcase, was found in the canal.
Authorities haven't identified either child, but they are investigating
as if the cases are related.Police say the girl was wearing a
short-sleeved shirt, dark pants and blue Polo brand sneakers.
She had braided hair, with white beads on each
strand. No description was immediately available for the boy.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/02/2094232/body-of-young-girl-found-in-canal.html#ixzz1FVI4s3xX

My immediate theory:
Parental or, at the very least, non-custodial parent or guardian.
The children are brother and sister.
This was retribution against the other parent.
When they are identified, which they will be soon, we may find the perp(s)
commit suicide to avoid prosecution.
It wouldn't be the first time.

The bodies of two children — one stuffed in a suitcase, the other in a duffel bug — were found Wednesday in a South Florida canal and police
divers planned to go back to find more clues, authorities said.A resident spotted the duffel bag around 9 a.m. in Delray Beach, and
police opened it to find a girl believed to be 6 to 10 years old. Divers
found a boy later in the afternoon.
"These kids could be from anywhere," said Sgt. Nicole Guerriero, a
police spokeswoman. She noted the canal is crossed by a number of major
roadways, including Interstate 95.
The girl was described as black, weighing 70 to 90 pounds, and about 4
to 4½ feet tall. She was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, dark pants and
blue Polo brand sneakers, and wore her hair braided with beads in it,
Guerriero said.
Police said the boy was wearing blue or black shorts and no shirt,
but gave no further description. Detectives presume the two bodies are
linked, but have no definitive evidence, Guerriero said.
Authorities reported no immediate signs of injuries on the bodies,
but they were transported to the medical examiner's office for
autopsies. The bodies did not immediately match the descriptions of any
known missing children, police said.
Divers planned to return to the canal Thursday to look for more clues.
Delray Beach is a prim Oceanside city about 20 miles southeast of West Palm Beach.
http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/2-children-stuffed-in-858966.html

Police are trying to identify the bodies of two children found
stuffed into luggage and floating in a south Florida canal on Wednesday.


"We're devastated, and someone is missing these children," Sgt. Nicole
Guerriero, a Delray Beach police spokeswoman, told reporters Wednesday
evening. "Someone knows these children, and we need to know who these
kids are." The remains of two African-American children -- a girl
between 6 and 10 years old and a boy believed to be 10 to 12 -- were
found about six hours and a half-mile apart in the canal that separates
Delray Beach from Boca Raton. The girl's body was found first, after a
passerby alerted police to a duffel bag floating about midway across the
canal; the boy's body turned up in a suitcase closer in as
investigators combed the banks for evidence, Guerriero said.
Police are working on the assumption that the deaths are related and
are asking the public to get involved. "If anyone has not seen their grandchild,
their niece, their nephew, please give us a call," Guerriero said. The
bodies showed no obvious signs of trauma, Guerriero told HLN's "Nancy
Grace." The bodies had been in the water long enough to have been
affected by the immersion but were still intact, she said.
An autopsy is planned, and investigators will return to the canal for a
more extensive search on Thursday, she said. Meanwhile, she said
investigators are checking missing persons reports in an attempt to
identify the children.


http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/03/02/florida.child.deaths/

The body of a second child was found today stuffed into a suitcase and
apparently tossed into a canal on the city's south side, hours after police
discovered a dead little girl shrouded in a duffel bag floating in the water.

City police said they had yet to identify the children this evening but are
investigating the cases as related.

Delray Beach Police say that a resident near Avocet Road and Carl Bolter Drive
reported a bag floating in the C-15 canal, which divides Boca Raton and
Delray Beach, around 9 a.m. Wednesday.

When the department's dive team recovered the bag, they found that a young
black girl was packed inside.

Since finding the girl, police said investigators have checked national
missing children's notifications and found none that match the girl's
description.

Even the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is now involved in
the investigation, which is ongoing, said Sgt. Nicole Guerriero, spokeswoman
for the Delray Beach Police Department.

Sgt. Nicole Guerriero of the Delray Beach Police Department speaks to reporters

The body of the girl appears to be in the 6- to 12-year age range, weighing
70-90 pounds and about 4 to 4 1/2-feet tall, Guerriero said.

She added that the girl was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, dark pants and blue
Polo brand sneakers.

Also, Guerriero said the girl's hair was braided with 8-10 clear and white
beads in every strand.

Although she could not say whether the girl was injured in any way, she
confirmed that the child's body was not dismembered.

The girl's body was sent to the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner's Office to
determine the time and cause of death.

Jeff Strohsahl, a nearby resident who listened to the police debriefing,
called the news "terrible" and "heartbreaking."

"Seems to be the trend of things happening now," Strohsahl said. "People being
found dead."

But Strohsahl wasn't too concerned that anyone in his neighborhood could have
anything to do with the incident, stating that anyone along the canal
could've been the culprit.

The C-15 canal runs from as far west as U..S. 441 all the way into the
Intracoastal Waterway. And since the canal's current runs east or west,
depending on the tide, the girl's body could have been dropped anywhere,
Guerriero said.

"We don't have reason to believe that anybody else is in danger," Guerriero
added.

The discovery is being treated as a homicide, and police ask that anyone with
information about the girl call Delray Beach Police Homicide Det. Peter Sosa
at (561) 243-7828.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/police-second-childs-body-found-in-canal-between-1292716.html?cxntcid=breaking_news

Divers To Search Canal Where Children Found Dead


6:21 am EST March 3, 2011
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. --
Divers planned to continue scouring a South Florida canal Thursday, a
day after the gruesome discovery of two children whose bodies were
stuffed in luggage. A little girl, believed to be 6
to 10 years old, was found in a duffel bag Wednesday. Hours later, and a
half-mile away, a boy, who appeared to be 10 to 12 years old, was found
inside a suitcase. Delray Beach detectives presume the two bodies are
linked, but have no definitive evidence. The bodies didn't immediately match the descriptions of any known missing children, police said.
The wide canal where the children were found flows east to
west, stretching between U.S. 441 and the Intracoastal Waterway and
passing beneath Florida's Turnpike and Interstate 95.
"Where they were found, these kids could have been from anywhere,"
said Sgt. Nicole Guerriero, Delray Beach police spokeswoman.
An autopsy will help determine how long the children had been
in the water. Authorities told the Palm Beach Post both bodies were
intact but "had been affected" by the water. Delray Beach is a prim oceanside city about 20 miles southeast of West Palm Beach.
http://www.wftv.com/news/27060179/detail.html

Divers from the Boynton Beach and Boca Raton police department are expected to
join Delray Beach Police this morning when they resume searching a canal for
any additional clues that might lead them to the identities of two kids'
bodies found in the brackish water Wednesday.

After the horrific discoveries, at 9 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., detectives are also
attempting to learn how the children - both of whom are African-American -
died, and to track down who dropped them in the water.

The girl had been shoved into a black duffel bag. The boy was folded into a
suitcase.

Both had been placed in the long, wide C-15 canal that divides Boca Raton and
Delray and stayed there until Wednesday, when a passerby spotted a strange
little buoy bobbing near the city's south side.

Police divers went into the water twice, 6 1/2 hours apart, and emerged
cradling little bodies, children who had died and were cast off like old
shoes, investigators said.

The bags were found about a half-mile apart in the canal near Avocet Road and
Carl Bolter Drive. The canal stretches between U.S. 441 and the Intracoastal
Waterway and flows under almost every major north-south road in Palm Beach
County. The water flows east or west, depending on the tides.

"Where they were found, these kids could have been from anywhere,"
said Sgt. Nicole Guerriero, Delray Beach police spokeswoman said Wednesday
night.

Here's what detectives know:

They found the girl about 9 a.m. They said she appeared to be between 6 and 10
years old. She was dressed in short sleeves, dark pants and blue Polo
sneakers. Her hair was arranged in beaded braids.

They found the boy about 3:30 p.m. in a soft, black suitcase, a half-mile west
of where the girl was discovered. He appeared to be between 10 and 12 years
old. He wore dark blue or black pants but no shirt.

Neither child showed obvious injury. Neither carried any immediate clues to
his or her identity. Detectives were investigating the deaths as homicides,
and they believe, for obvious reasons, that the killings were related,
Guerriero said.

"We're devastated. Someone is missing these children," Guerriero
said. "Someone knows these children, and we need to know who these kids
are."

No children fitting their description had been reported missing in the area.
Detectives had no immediate way of telling how long they had been in the
canal. The bodies "had been affected" by the water but were
intact, Guerriero said.

As forensic investigators scoured the bodies for clues Wednesday night,
detectives were working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children and reaching out to the state Department of Children and Families
for help.

And residents of the neat, middle-class neighborhood were reacting to the news
with a collective shudder.

Juanita Brodeur, who lives near the canal with her four children, ages 8 to
19, said the discovery unsettled her family.

"This is scary," she said. "My kids were like, 'Can we sleep in
your room tonight, Mom?'"

Anyone with information about the children can call Delray Beach Detective
Peter Sosa at (561) 243-7828 or Crime Stoppers at (800) 458-TIPS (8477).

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/police-divers-renew-search-for-clues-to-identities-1294889.html

This is too far away to have anything to do with this case right? It's just that it's not too often you'd here of 2 stories both about kids being killed and dumped in suitcases.
https://justice4caylee.forumotion.net/t10939-jadon-higgenbotham-6-yo-durham-nc-colorado-springs-co#631488

Police on Thursday named a local man a suspect in the deaths of two
children whose bodies were stuffed in luggage and found in a canal a day
earlier.Detectives spent all day questioning Clem Beauchamp, 34,
one day after the bodies of a still-unidentified girl and boy were
found about a half-mile apart in the C-15 canal.


They also surrounded Beauchamp's house with yellow police tape
in the 100 block of Southwest Seventh Avenue in Delray Beach.Police
spokeswoman Sgt. Nicole Guerriero also on Thursday said the dead
children appeared to be siblings, but stopped short of explaining
Beauchamp's relationship to them.
Throughout the day, a crowd of
curious neighbors gathered along the street to speculate and trade
hypotheses about what happened to the children. At one point, two groups
started shouting at each other and police had to intervene to break
them up and calm them down."I'm just surprised. It's just crazy,"
Tameka Jackson said. "I live one street over, I can't believe it."Kenneth
Marshall, who lives across the street and knew Beauchamp since they
were 13, said he noticed strange behavior from Beauchamp a couple of
nights ago."When we saw him he was very distraught [and crying],"
Marshall said. "We saw him go [next door to the front of a] church and
pray. He cut his hair, he had dreads like we do, and he cut his hair."
Marshall said Beauchamp, who has a long criminal record, was an "excellent father.""Things
happen, and if he did anything that involves him with the missing kids
then turn himself in," Marshall said. "Speak the truth, just speak the
truth and tell the people what happened."Earlier on Thursday, an upset-looking Beauchamp walked into the Delray Beach
Police headquarters around 10 a.m. He waited in the lobby, sitting with
his head in his hands and rocking back and forth. Minutes later, he
followed detectives into another room. Detectives also questioned two
women who arrived with him.Late on Thursday,
detectives still were interviewing the Delray Beach man. Federal
agents later filed a federal complaint against him, charging him with a
weapons violation for possessing an illegal gun silencer, a charge that
could allow authorities to keep Beauchamp in custody.Beauchamp's
lengthy criminal history includes aggravated assault, armed robbery and
home-invasion robbery charges, state records show.
Investigators released few new details about the investigation.Delray Beach
Police had 15 detectives working non-stop following up on every one of
hundreds of tips being phoned into the police department, according to
Guerriero.Police and Delray Beach
Fire Rescue personnel scoured the murky waters for evidence on Thursday
using sonar to scan the 15-foot deep waters of the canal, which flows
east between U.S. 441 and the Intracoastal Waterway.Boca Raton police
used a small, remote-controlled submarine equipped with a camera to aid the search."It
was devastating finding it," police diver Joe Hart said of the
discoveries. "Any time it's kids, it's a lot harder, especially when you
have kids of your own."The girl's body was found about 9 a.m.
Wednesday, while the boy's body was found about 3 p.m., west of the
Interstate 95 overpass.An area resident called police on
Wednesday morning after spotting a black duffel bag in the canal, about
halfway between I-95 and the two-lane bridge connecting Carl Bolter
Drive and Brant Drive to the east. Around 9 a.m., police opened the bag
and pulled out the body of a girl, who appeared to be between 6 and 12
years old.Six hours later on Wednesday, police found the boy's
body, about a half-mile away, west of the I-95 overpass. They had been
looking for clues in the girl's death.The boy, about 10 to 12
years old, was "folded" into a black canvas-type suitcase, police said.
Neither was dismembered but it's not known how long they had been in the
water, Guerriero said.The girl is described as black and
weighing 70-90 pounds. She is just over 4 feet tall and her hair was
braided with white or clear beads, officials said. She was wearing a
short-sleeved shirt, dark-colored pants and blue Polo sneakers. The boy
was wearing dark blue or black shorts.The National Center for
Missing & Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va., declined to comment
on the case. Also, the state Department of Children & Families is
looking into records of runaways and children in foster care and
protective supervision to see if there are any matches."There's a
big chance these kids were not reported missing," said Dan Henry, a
retired sergeant with the West Palm Beach Police Department special
victims unit. "This was a murder. You don't throw people in bags unless
you kill them."There were 40,000 children reported missing in the Florida
in 2009, according A Child Is Missing, a Fort Lauderdale-based nonprofit organization.Florida
is ranked worst in the nation for child-abuse deaths, according to the
National Coalition to End Child Abuse Deaths, a nonprofit group based in
Washington, D.C. There were 156 child fatalities reported in 2009.
Whoever put the bodies in the water wasn't too calculating, Henry said."They
obviously may not have known it was going to show up," he said. "They
probably thought [the luggage] would sink to the bottom and no one would
ever find it. But in human body, at some point, the gases expand and it
becomes float-able."Police ask anyone with information to contact
Delray Beach police Detective Pete Sosa, 561-243-7828;
Detective Jason Jabcuga, 561-243-6220; or Crime Stoppers, 800-458-8477.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/boca-raton/fl-bodies-found-delray-folo-day-2-20110303,0,6840459,full.story

The man being questioned in the deaths of two children found in luggage
in a South Florida canal has a record of several arrests.

Police named Clem Beauchamp, 34, a suspect in the deaths Thursday, but
Delray Beach Sgt. Nicole Guerriero said he has not been arrested or
charged in the case.

Investigators have tentatively identified the children as siblings but
have not released their names or if Beauchamp is related to them.

Beauchamp was arrested several times over the last 15 years, court
records show. The most serious was in 1995, for aggravated assault with a
firearm, and resulted in an 18-month sentence.

It was not immediately known if he has a lawyer.

Investigators said the girl, whose body was found Wednesday in a duffel
bag, was between 6 and 10 years old. The boy, whose body was discovered
later in a suitcase about a half-mile away, was between 10 and 12.

Authorities did not know how long the bodies had been in the water. Autopsy reports were not immediately released.

"We believe that this situation is domestic-related," said Guerriero, who declined to elaborate.

Throughout the day Thursday, small boats of divers and other police
combed the canal for clues. Guerriero said they found nothing.Under a tree near the canal's banks, a tiny makeshift memorial took
shape, with a teddy bear, a hippo spotted with pink hearts and two
bunches of carnations.

Neighbors said Beauchamp lives with his children from a current and past
relationship in the small peach home that was surrounded by traffic
barricades and yellow police tape Thursday night.

Margaret Gissone, 22, who said she is the sister of Beauchamp's
ex-girlfriend, said it's been terrible waiting for police to identify
the children, and wondering whether they are her niece and nephew.

The wide canal where the bodies were found flows east to west through
this Oceanside town southeast of West Palm Beach. The water is bordered
by modest homes, tiny wooden docks and small motor boats, and dotted on
either side with the lush green of palms and other trees.

Debbie Duarte, who lives along the canal, said the neighborhood is
usually quiet. Before now, she said, the most surprising thing to turn
up in the waterway was a bag of marijuana.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/04/AR2011030400656.html

Poster's Note: Could the children's Mother be a third victim?

Police are back at the home of 37-year-old Clem Beauchamp. He's
being questioned in the deaths of two children found dead in a canal
Wednesday. Police say after Delray Beach detectives were finished
speaking with Beauchamp he was taken into custody by federal agents on
unrelated federal charges. In a criminal complaint filed in U.S.
District Court a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives revealed that there was probable cause to arrest
Beauchamp "for making and possession of an unregistered silencer
without a serial number." Police say they are searching for
evidence where Beauchamp lived at 105 Southwest 7th Avenue, but would
not specify what evidence they were looking for. They denied they were
digging in his backyard. They also said they do not think there is a
third victim. A Delray Beach police spokesperson could not say if Beauchamp
was cooperating. So far authorities have not stated whether Beauchamp was
related to the victims or not. At a Friday morning news conference police say
it does appear children were living in Beauchamp's house. They
say they are still actively looking for the mother of the children. "We
haven't been able to confirm where the mother is at this point, that's
concerning us. But, we're still actively looking for the mother," said
Sgt. Nicole Guerriero, a spokesperson for Delray Beach Police.
Beauchamp does have an arrest record for domestic violence and
violating an order pertaining to custody of a child. "I
know that our detectives are very determined in building a very good
case. We always work our cases to the fullest. We want to make sure
everything we do is correct, so I know that our detectives are working
diligently to bring this case to a close and they want to do it the right way," said Sgt. Guerriero.

http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/region_s_palm_beach_county/delray_beach/canal-deaths-suspect-facing-fed-charges-

A woman whose decomposed body was found in August at the county Solid Waste
Authority was tentatively identified Friday as the mother of two children
found in bags in a Delray Beach canal this week.

While the identities were not confirmed, Delray Beach police spokeswoman
Nicole Guerriero said officials believe the dead are Jermaine McNeil, 10;
his sister Ju’Tyra Allen, 6; and their mother, Felicia Brown, 25.


Felicia Brown

Guerriero said the only suspect in the killings is Clem Beauchamp, 34, who was
arrested Thursday on unrelated federal charges.

The children were living in Beauchamp’s house on Southwest Seventh Avenue with
Michelle Dent and her three children, two of whom are Beauchamp’s, officials
said. For years, Beauchamp had on-again, off-again relationships with both
Brown and Dent that led to vicious fights between the women. During one
encounter in 2008, Dent threatened to kill Brown, records show.

Guerriero said Dent, 29, was not a suspect in the murders. At a court hearing
on Friday, an investigator for the Florida Department of Children and
Families described Dent as “a person of interest” in a double, possibly
triple, homicide.

“It’s the beginning of a very intense criminal investigation,” investigator
Michele Fuhrman testified.

Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Ron Alvarez stripped Dent of custody of her
children — Demetrius Beauchamp, 15; Keayana Beauchamp, 10; and Karchelle
Washington, 3 — until the criminal investigation is complete.

Dent’s older children denied knowing about the disappearances, Fuhrman said.
But, she added, it appeared they had been coached about what to say.

Fuhrman told the judge that she believed Delray police were reviewing Walmart
security tapes to determine whether weights — presumably to sink the
children’s bodies, which were discovered Wednesday — may have been purchased
there.

Guerriero said she had no information about any security tapes. She said that
while DCF may consider Dent a “person of interest,” police did not.

In fact, police showed little interest in Dent when they responded to a call
around noon Friday about a domestic dispute at a house where Dent was
staying. Neighbors said they heard an argument involving children in the 600
block of Northeast Third Avenue. Police left without taking anyone into
custody.

Dent also accompanied Beauchamp to the Delray Beach police station Thursday
when he was first interviewed in connection with the death of the two
children. She was allowed to leave.

Beauchamp was arrested by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives. He appeared in federal court Friday on a charge of possession of
a silenced firearm and was later taken to the Palm Beach County Jail.

He has been arrested a half-dozen times on charges including robbery and
possession of marijuana.

Court records paint a combative picture of his alternating girlfriends. At a
hearing in 2008, when Dent and Beauchamp were fighting for custody of their
two children, Brown told the judge that Dent stormed into Beauchamp’s house
in 2005.

“She broke his screen out of his window, climbed through his room window,
threw a garbage pail at me,” Brown said. “(She) proceeded to assault me in
his house.”

That testimony enraged Dent, Brown later told police. In March 2008, Brown
told Boynton Beach police that Dent pushed her way into Brown’s house, put a
knife to Brown’s throat and said, “I will kill you if you don’t stay out of
my business.” Brown said she escaped and left Dent outside, banging on the
window and screaming, “Come out and fight!”

Brown told police she opened the door because she saw Dent and Beauchamp’s
then-7-year-old daughter standing on the doorstep. Dent was charged with
burglary, aggravated assault and contributing to the delinquency of a minor,
records show. She also has been charged with crimes including larceny and
car theft.

Court records, and those who knew her, said Brown had troubles of her own.

Her mother, Susie Flint, called West Palm Beach police in 2005 when she
suspected that Brown stole her car. Flint suspected Brown was using cocaine
and smoking marijuana. Brown was ultimately charged with grand theft auto,
one of more than a dozen times she was arrested on charges ranging from
shoplifting to battery to burglary.

“It’s not that she was a bad person,” said Judy Allen, whose son Curtis is
Ju’Tyra’s father. “She never had a positive role model.”

Allen’s son, Curtis, had a contentious relationship with Brown, court records
show. In 2004, when she was seven months pregnant with Ju’Tyra, Brown got a
temporary restraining order against Curtis Allen, claiming he attacked her
with a tire iron even though she showed no marks. He countered that she
attacked him with a knife. Brown ultimately recanted and allowed the
restraining order to expire.

Shortly after Ju’Tyra was born, her grandmother, Judy Allen, a teacher at
Congress Middle School, was awarded custody. By then, Brown had given up her
oldest daughter for adoption, Allen said. DCF also temporarily took Jermaine
away from Brown, Allen said.

Allen raised Ju’Tyra for three years. DCF officials then determined Brown was
ready to be a parent. While Allen objected, they allowed both Ju’Tyra and
Jermaine to be reunited with Brown.

Allen said she and Curtis were devastated by Ju’Tyra’s death. Curtis said he
last saw his daughter on Thanksgiving when Brown allowed his sister to pick
up Ju’Tyra at Beauchamp’s house. He said he didn’t go to the house because
of ongoing animosity between him and Brown. He said he used his sister as a
go-between.

Allen said she last saw her granddaughter in June when Ju’Tyra went on an
annual family outing to Disney World.

“I knew something bad was going to happen,” she said. “If you knew her
lifestyle, (Brown) just went from man to man to man.”

But no one reported her missing for nearly seven months.

Publicly, at least, Brown loved her children. Their names were tattooed on her
left calf. Those tattoos ultimately served an important purpose: They
allowed police to link her to the small children found dead in the canal.


http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/body-found-in-west-palm-in-august-identified-1297344.html?viewAsSinglePage=true

A medical examiner's report has confirmed the identity of a little girl found in a South Florida canal.Delray Beach police said Saturday that 6-year-old Ju'tyra Allen was positively identified through dental records.She had been tentatively identified by police a day earlier.


The girl was found in a canal Wednesday about a half-mile from
where her 10-year-old brother Jermaine McNeil turned up later in the
day. Both were stuffed into luggage.The body of the mother of the two children, Felicia Brown, is believed to have been found in the trash last summer.Police
say 34-year-old Clem Beauchamp is their only suspect in the deaths,
though he hasn't been charged. He's being held on an unrelated gun
charge.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/05/2099588/id-of-girl-found-in-fla-canal.html#ixzz1FpJslFio

DCF investigated allegations of abuse regarding kids found dead in canal

In the years before two children were killed, stuffed into bags and dumped in a Delray Beach canal, state social welfare workers investigated allegations that the kids were abused or neglected, officials said Monday.

The Florida Department of Children and Families "had prior involvement" with the family of Jermaine McNeil, 10, and Ju'Tyra Allen, 6, but hasn't been called to investigate a complaint about their treatment since 2005, said Elisa Cramer, a department spokeswoman.

At that point, the children's mother, Felicia Brown, had just begun seeing Clem Beauchamp, now a suspect in the deaths of Brown and her children, according to court documents and police reports.

On Wednesday, Jermaine and Ju'Tyra were found floating in the C-15 canal between Delray Beach and Boca Raton. Although medical examiners have conducted autopsies, detectives have not made public the details about what caused the children's deaths.

Homicide detectives believe the decomposing body of Brown, 25, was found last August in a county garbage dump, but West Palm Beach investigators have yet to confirm that through science.

Brown's short life was turbulent and marked by flashes of violence, according to interviews and sheriff's reports. She had three children by the time she was 19 and gave up her middle child, Jasmine, for adoption, said Judy Allen, Ju'Tyra's grandmother.

In November 2004, DCF investigators visited Brown's apartment after marijuana was found within reach of Jermaine, who was 4 at the time, according to a Palm Beach County sheriff's report. Details about the outcome of that or other DCF investigations weren't available Monday, Cramer said. She said state officials were working to release that information "as quickly as possible."

Neighbors in Delray Beach said Brown, who was living with a 34-year-old felon, Beauchamp, disappeared last summer. They said Beauchamp was looking after her kids in her absence.

He is a suspect in the children's deaths, but detectives haven't charged him, police said. On Monday, he was in federal custody, held on a federal charge that was filed a day after the bodies were found.

On Friday, Beauchamp's on-again, off-again girlfriend, Michelle S. Dent, lost custody of her three children after a DCF investigator testified that she was a person of interest in a double or triple homicide. Police said Friday that she was not a suspect in the canal case.

Dent often was violently at odds with Brown during Brown's relationship with Beauchamp, police and court records show.

As homicide detectives investigate, grief counselors were on hand Monday at Pine Grove Elementary School in Delray Beach, where Jermaine and Ju'Tyra were students.

The victims' family was planning a memorial at St. John's Missionary Baptist Church at 900 N. Seacrest Blvd. A public service will begin at 7 p.m. Friday, said Allen, Ju'Tyra's grandmother.

The children and their mother will be buried together.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/08/2103599/dcf-investigated-allegations-of.html#ixzz1G3OInQfa

Poster's note: Why do girls choose to be with violent men? They should have their kids taken away immediately, not after something awful happens and family members should step in to protect the children and DCF need to get their act together IMO

"Margaret Gissone, 22, who said she is the sister of Beauchamp's
ex-girlfriend, said it's been terrible waiting for police to identify
the children, and wondering whether they are her niece and nephew."

All these different last names are confusing to me. Is Margaret Gissone the sister of Felicia Brown then? She says she is wondering about her "neice and nephew" - if so, hasn't she wondered about her sister?

How sad to be so unloved that no one even notices you are missing for seven months.

Rare adoption ends with mom and kids dead

A mother, stripped of all rights to her oldest
child, later was allowed to adopt him. The two and a younger daughter
are now dead, raising questions about whether the state should have
allowed the adoptions.

• no bond for suspect in deaths of kids in Fla canal
  
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When Jermaine McNeil was 5, the Department of Children &
Families decided it best that he be raised by someone other than his mom
— a woman with more than a dozen arrests and a string of fleeting
relationships. When Jermaine was 8, DCF did an about-face:
Felicia Brown, stripped of her parental rights just three years earlier,
was now deemed capable enough to adopt her own son from foster care. The state sweetened the pot with an adoption subsidy worth hundreds of dollars a month.

The highly unusual adoption — at a time when Brown was known to
be involved in a dangerous love triangle — would have tragic
consequences. Jermaine and his younger sister Ju’tyra were
discovered dead March 2, stuffed inside luggage floating in a canal
along the Delray Beach-Boca Raton border. Their mother was dead, too,
though authorities didn’t know it at the time. A “Jane Doe’’ body
from August turned out to be Felicia Brown – identified through the
names of her three children tattooed on her body. Her body had been dumped at a West Palm Beach landfill. Felicia Brown’s off-again/on-again boyfriend, Clem Beauchamp —
two-thirds of the love triangle – has been identified as a suspect in
the killings. He’s currently jailed on a weapons offense, but has not
been charged with murder. The case has renewed questions – raised
first last month following the beating death of 10-year-old Nubia
Barahona — about whether the agency’s fast-tracking of potentially risky
adoptions has put children in harm’s way. Adoptive parents
Carmen and Jorge Barahona were approved for adoption despite concerns
raised by school officials that Nubia was petrified of Carmen, who, she
said, beat her feet with sandals. “What we seem to have here is
somewhat of a rush to judgment where we’re off and running to the races
toward adoption – let’s get the other stuff out of the way,’’ children’s
advocate David Lawrence Jr., said Monday on a panel studying Nubia’s
death for DCF. “Red flags ought to come up every step of the way instead of ‘we ought to get this adoption done.’ ’’ The Barahonas were both jailed on charges of murder and child abuse
after Nubia’s decomposed body was found in a garbage bag in Jorge
Barahona’s truck, her twin brother burned by chemicals in the truck’s
cab. DCF, which declined to release records on the Delray Beach
adoption, had been aware of the violent nature of the three-way
relationship involving Brown and Beauchamp. Six months before the
adoption was approved, Beauchamp’s former paramour, Michelle Dent, came
to the home shared by Beauchamp and Brown and held a knife to Brown’s
neck, threatening to kill her if she didn’t “stay out of my business.’’ The incident was reported to the state’s child-abuse hotline, meaning DCF had a record of it.QUESTIONS The deaths of the three children in such a short time span raise
troubling questions about a program that has been lauded in recent years
as singular evidence of Florida’s child welfare turnaround.In
the past decade, the number of Florida children adopted from foster care
has more than doubled, from 1,504 in budget year 2000 to 3,368 in 2010.
For the 12-month period ending June 30, Florida has so far reported
1,914 adoptions of foster children.
Full Story1 | 2 | 3 | Next »

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/09/2106994/rare-adoption-ends-with-mom-and.html#ixzz1GEwAQtMs

A steady stream of grieving well-wishers flowed through St. John Missionary Baptist Church in Boynton Beach on Friday evening to pay their respects to the woman and children who are the focus of a murder investigation.

The service for Felicia Brown, 25, and siblings, Ju'Tyra Allen, 6, and Jermaine McNeil, 10, began at 5 p.m. with a private family gathering led by the children's great-grandmother, Barbara Flint, 72.

Flint is the family's foundation, according to grandson Alvin Flint, 33, who's also Brown's cousin.

"It's really been rough for my grandmother because she's been through a lot," Alvin Flint said. "She's the strong one out of all of us, to keep the family together. If it weren't for her, we'd all be scattered."

The mood remained solemn in the cavernous church for several hours as other relatives, friends, neighbors and the public, many of them children, filed by the caskets.

Some lingered. Some prayed. Some cried.

Classmates at Pine Grove Elementary School in Delray Beach put together a video titled "Remembering Jermaine." It was shown at the church ceremony to showcase some of his talents.

"It's him singing, reciting a poem and just smiling and enjoying life," said Tolliver Miller, president of the Optimist Foundation of Boca Raton, which oversees Jermaine's football team, the Boca Jets.

Miller had a 2-foot-by-4-foot poster made of Jermaine in uniform, resembling a large football trading card. Miller plans to give it, and Jermaine's framed jersey, to his surviving sister, Jasmine, whom Brown gave up for adoption years ago.

Miller admits to being a little overwhelmed by how Jermaine's 10-year-old teammates are reacting to this tragedy.

"They're hurt," Miller said. "But, I'm proud because they've all dealt with this their own little way trying to create different ways to memorialize Jermaine."

He was a running back, defensive end and linebacker whose number 20 his teammates want to wear on their helmets and jerseys next season, Miller said.

They already have started a Facebook page in his honor and are coming up with fundraising events to help pay the family's funeral expenses, Miller said.

Most planned to attend Saturday's funeral.

"His little sister was a little cheer mascot who just floated from tent to tent," he said of Ju'Tyra who came to Jermaine's weekend games with mother Felicia Brown and her then-boyfriend Clem Beauchamp, the prime suspect in their murders.

"To find out that something like this could happen to one of our kids, the way it was actually done and the way they were actually disposed of hurts even worse," Miller said.

"Jermaine was a wonderful athlete and a competitor," Miller said. "He wanted to win. He got angry and he would go out and use that adrenaline to excel at his level of play and I would just like people to remember him as a happy, fun-loving kid."

People will get that chance.

The children were found stuffed in luggage on March 2 in the C-15 canal, which divides Delray Beach and Boca Raton.

Felicia Brown's body was found on Aug. 16 at the Palm Beach County Solid Waste Authority processing facility but was tentatively identified only last week when investigators matched tattoos on her leg with the names of her children.

The funeral is scheduled for 2 p.m. on Saturday at St. John Missionary Baptist Church at 900 N. Seacrest Blvd., in Boynton Beach, followed by the burial in Delray Beach.

Miller is raising money for the family through the nonprofit Optimist Foundation of Boca Raton. Donations can be made in the name of Jermaine McNeil at any Wachovia Bank using the account number 2000051864183.

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, at 188 S. Swinton Ave. in Delray Beach, also started a fund to cover funeral expenses. Those wishing to help can write checks to the church in care of the Brown/Allen family.

Wednesday 16th March 2011
VIOLENT FELON WENT UNNOTICED
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/violent-felon-went-unnoticed-in-case-involving-two-1324480.html
Four agencies were tasked in 2008 with
ensuring that Jermaine McNeil would be safe living with his troubled
mother, but none of them divined that the woman was engaged to marry a
violent felon -- a man who now is suspected of killing her, Jermaine and
his 6-year-old sister.The failure occurred even though the
relationship was made clear in numerous public records, documents that
were available at the time to case managers, attorneys and social
workers, according to interviews and a Palm Beach Post review of police
reports and court filings.If any of the four public or private
organizations that vet adoptions had learned that Felicia Brown was
intimately involved with Clem Beauchamp, who was convicted of felony
aggravated assault in 1996, the discovery would have slowed or even
scuttled Brown's adoption of Jermaine.But no one -- not a
dependency case manager from the nonprofit Children's Home Society, nor
an adoption specialist from the same organization, nor a court-appointed
guardian ad litem, nor a representative of the Foster Children's
Project -- caught on to Brown's entanglement with Beauchamp."I
don't have an answer for how four different people out there, in all
that time, never came across him," said Judith Karim, CEO of Child and
Family Connections, which contracts with the Florida Department of
Children and Families to handle community-based care in Palm Beach
County. "Nobody is more surprised than we are."As a result,
Jermaine, 10, was living with his sister, Ju'Tyra Allen, at Beauchamp's
Delray Beach home last summer, when Brown's decomposing body was found
at a county garbage dump in West Palm Beach. She was 25. Seven months
later, police found the bodies of Jermaine and Ju'Tyra floating in a
canal between Delray Beach and Boca Raton. The children had been stuffed
into bags and tossed into the water, police said.Beauchamp, 34, is the sole suspect in all three killings, police said, but he hasn't been charged.That
Brown even was considered as a candidate to adopt Jermaine was a rarity
for DCF, which had successfully pushed to strip her of her parental
rights to the boy in 2005. But after an out-of-state family tried and
failed to adopt Jermaine, and he did a turbulent stint in Florida foster
care, the Legal Aid Society's Foster Children's Project approached
Brown about adopting her son.By then it was early 2008, and Brown
appeared to have settled down. In 2005, she had completed a parenting
program, underwent individual therapy sessions, attended a domestic
violence program and got outpatient substance abuse treatment. The state
had reunited her with Ju'Tyra in late November 2006, according to a DCF
report prepared Monday for a state Senate committee. DCF made the
report public Tuesday along with about 40 pages of other records.Between
February and September of 2008, the Children's Home Society, a
subcontractor hired by Child and Family Connections, conducted two
studies of Brown's home in Boynton Beach, and concluded both times it
was a safe place for Jermaine to live.A state adoption review
committee met twice to discuss Brown's criminal record -- she had been
arrested 16 times on charges varying from burglary to grand theft auto,
but was never convicted -- and both times ruled that she was fit to
raise the boy.At a news conference on Tuesday, DCF Southeast
Regional Director Perry Borman said every child welfare official
involved in the case supported Brown's adoption of Jermaine. "We did our
job" in making sure Jermaine and Ju'Tyra were safe with their mother,
Borman said.Although Brown pushed to adopt Jermaine by herself,
Brown and Ju'Tyra lived as a family with Brown's husband, Peter Brown,
whom she had married in September 2005, state workers observed. He was a
mild-mannered man with no criminal record. The overall impression was
of a safe and caring household, officials said Tuesday.In
reality, interviews and court records show, Brown was involved with
Beauchamp since at least March 2005 -- a relationship marked by an ugly
custody battle for Beauchamp's children and violent confrontations with
his ex-girlfriend, Michelle Dent.Ju'Tyra's paternal grandmother,
Judy Allen, told The Post that Brown married Peter Brown as a kind
gesture toward a Jamaican-born man who badly needed U.S. citizenship.By
March 2008, Beauchamp was described in police reports as Brown's
"live-in" boyfriend. That June, Brown wrote in a sworn statement taken
by Delray Beach police that Beauchamp was her fiancé. During a family
court hearing in August 2008, Brown testified on Beauchamp's behalf in a
battle for custody of his children.
Case managers and attorneys saw none of these records, said Karim,
the Child and Family Connections CEO. She said the home study and
pre-adoption screening process doesn't call for a review of police calls
for service to homes or require a search of police records for the
names of prospective adoptive parents.Even records kept in DCF's
own files could have hinted at what really was going on as Brown was
working to adopt Jermaine, if only a child protective investigator had
included more information in a report. On March 18, 2008, days after
Jermaine was placed back into Brown's home, Dent threatened Brown with a
knife as Dent's children looked on, according to police and DCF
reports.Although Brown said Dent attacked her for supporting
Beauchamp, and the confrontation occurred inside Brown's house, a DCF
investigative report omitted those and other basic details. It didn't
even mention Brown by name, Karim said. No one at DCF contacted Child
and Family Connections about the incident - or even signaled that they
knew Brown's adoption proceedings were pending.On Nov. 14, 2008, a
judge, believing Jermaine was going to live with Felicia and Peter
Brown in Boynton Beach, finalized the adoption. Karim remembered that
the subcontracted case manager had been especially proud, saying it was
the type of moment that made the job worthwhile."This," the case manager had told Karim, "is one of the happiest things I've done in my career."

Canal deaths suspect Clem Beauchamp pleads not guilty in unrelated gun case




The man police call their only suspect in the deaths of two children found in a South Florida canal has pleaded not guilty to unrelated gun charges.
Thirty-four-year-old Clem Beauchamp made the plea in federal court Monday morning in West Palm Beach after a judge appointed a public defender on his behalf.
Beauchamp has not been charged in the deaths of 10-year-old Jermaine McNeil and 6-year-old Ju'tyra Allen, but police say he is their only suspect. They also believe he was involved in the death of the children's mother, 25-year-old Felicia Brown, whose body was found in a landfill last August.
He is being held on federal firearms charges unrelated to those deaths.

http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/region_c_palm_beach_county/west_palm_beach/canal-deaths-suspect-clem-beauchamp-pleads-not-guilty-in-unrelated-gun-case

DCF 'did its job' in case of 2 children found dead in Delray canal, and their slain mom


DCF records detail life of abuse, neglect before mom, two kids killed

WEST PALM BEACH
Officials
with the Florida Department of Children and Families on Tuesday said
the agency "did its job" in the handling of a case involving a mother
and her two young children later found dead in Palm Beach County.

Perry
Borman, the DCF Circuit Administrator in Palm Beach County, prefaced
that statement by praising Felicia Brown, 25, for overcoming an abusive
childhood that continued through at least two of three teen pregnancies
and ultimately resulted in state-approved reunions with son Jermaine
McNeil, 10, and daughter Ju'Tyra Allen, 6.

Brown's body was found
in a West Palm Beach trash dump in August and was tentatively
identified earlier this month when the bodies of her two children were
found stuffed in luggage and floating in a Delray Beach canal on March 2. Their names were tattooed on her leg, police said.

The
abuse investigations involving Brown ended in 2005 and her child
custody cases were resolved by 2008, according to DCF files released on
Tuesday.

"Felicia Brown had demonstrated she deserved the chance
to have her children back and that's the decision that we supported,"
Borman said.

But Brown's problems began years earlier when she
was known by her maiden name, Felicia Flint, and was listed as a victim
of abuse 10 times by the age of 14, according to DCF.

When she
was 14, she gave birth to Jermaine while living with her mother in Lake
Worth. Over the next few years, Brown and Jermaine were listed as
victims of abuse and neglect in five cases.

In those reports,
Brown accused her mother, Suzanne Flint, of kicking and beating her with
a belt, according to the records. Investigators who visited their home
saw beds stained with urine and a butcher's knife on the couch. Jermaine
had dirty diapers and a swollen belly button.

Jermaine and Brown
were placed in foster care when she was 15. Two years later she gave
birth to a baby girl with the initials J.G., who was later put up for
adoption. When Brown was 19, she gave birth to Ju'Tyra, who was
immediately put in the care of the father's mother.

Eventually,
Jermaine was put up for adoption and moved out of state. The adoption
fell through after the prospective parents complained about Jermaine's
aggressive behavior.

In 2006 she was reunited with Ju'Tyra, and two years later she adopted Jermaine on National Adoption Day.

Attorney
ad litem Jennifer Gardner, choked back tears at Tuesday's DCF news
conference as she described the lengths to which Brown went to get her
children back.

"[Jermaine] wanted to go home to his mom," Gardner
said. "As soon as we notified [Felicia Brown] that it was an option,
she said 'I will do whatever I need to do to get him home.'"

Brown completed parenting classes, therapy sessions, a domestic violence program and substance abuse treatment, according to the records.

She had been caring for Ju'Tyra for two years without state help and was living in Boynton Beach, married to Peter Brown.

"The
adoption process was better vetted than your standard adoption," said
Judith Karim, CEO of Child and Family Connections, a nonprofit agency
contracted by the state to handle child placement cases.

"The
Felicia we knew would have died to protect these children," said John
Walsh, lead attorney with the Foster Children Project, who once
represented Jermaine's interests.

That's why Walsh is urging the
public not to "further victimize" Brown and her children by comparing
their case to that of Jorge and Carmen Barahona who are charged with the
death of adopted daughter Nubia and the attempted murder of her twin
brother Victor, last month.

Dozens of DCF documents outlined the
abuse and neglect that thrust Felicia Brown and her children in and out
of foster care over the years.

DCF said when it last checked on Brown in 2008, she was living at an address in Boynton Beach. Caseworkers were unaware that she had been missing from her home since August, or that Jermaine and Ju'Tyra were living in Delray Beach with their mother's ex-boyfriend.

The
ex-boyfriend, Clem Beauchamp, 34, is now a suspect in the childrens'
murders, but he has not been charged in their deaths or in the death of
Brown. He is being held in the Palm Beach County Jail on unrelated federal weapons charges.

Brown
may have been killed because she was a potential witness against
Beauchamp in the gun case, federal prosecutors said in a hearing earlier
this month. The pair had a relationship that began in 2007, according
to her relatives.

"No matter what job we do sometimes, even when we do the best job, it ends up in tragedy," Borman said.

As the prime suspect in the deaths of two children found floating in a Delray Beach
canal goes on trial Monday, new information has revealed that someone
in his home did computer searches on life insurance for kids.
Clem
Beauchamp, 34, will not be on trial for murder. Rather, he faces
federal charges of illegally possessing a handgun and homemade silencer
that could put him in prison for up to 30 years. Although the case is
unrelated to any homicides, the absence of a murdered woman will loom
large over the trial.
Beauchamp's on-and-off girlfriend, Felicia
Brown, 25, was the mother of the two dead children, and she would have
been a key witness against Beauchamp had she not turned up dead herself
at a Palm Beach County trash processing plant in August.
Federal
prosecutors said in court documents filed Friday that they can prove
Beauchamp killed Brown, if need be. She disappeared just after agreeing
to cooperate against Beauchamp in the gun case and to meet with a
federal agent, prosecutors wrote. Beauchamp also reportedly confessed to
another detainee after his arrest.


http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-07-30/news/fl-clem-beauchamp-gun-trial-20110729-21_1_clem-beauchamp-gun-trial-gun-charges

September 22nd, 2011

The lone suspect in the grisly discovery of two children found stuffed in luggage in a Delray Beach canal has been charged with their murder and that of their mother, who was found in a trash landfill.

Clem Beauchamp, 38, the mother's ex-boyfriend, was indicted on three counts of first degree
murder, State Attorney Michael McAuliffe announced Thursday afternoon at a press conference in Palm Beach County.

Prosecutors will seek the death penalty on each of the three counts, McAuliffe said.

"When a child dies in our community, we all suffer a loss," he said. "This case really struck at
the heart of sort of an emotional response in law enforcement and
prosecutors' offices. We were determined to try to solve these
homicides individually and then collectively, an d today's grand jury
indictment reflects that..dogged determination."

The bodies of 10-year-old Jermaine McNeil and his 6-year-old sister Ju'tyra Allen floated to the
surface of a Delray Beach canal March 2. The girl's body was stuffed into a duffel bag, the boy's in a suitcase.
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/130361933.html

Great-grandmother of victims speaks out on Clem Beauchamp's indictment
"No sentence can bring my granddaughter back."


Posted: 6:46 PM
Last Updated: 50 minutes ago
By: LIz Flynn
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. - News that Clem Beauchamp had been indicted brought out emotions for Felicia Brown’s family. They only learned what happened to her after police identified the bodies of her children, Ju’Tyra Allen and Jermaine McNeil, seven months after Felicia’s murder.
Felicia’s grandmother fears nothing will heal her broken heart.
"I've never seen anybody like him,” she said. “How would he like to see his (great)grandchildren in suitcases?"
Barbara Flint has three empty places in her family and her heart. In March, she found out her great-grandchildren, six year old Ju'Tyra Allen and ten year old Jermaine McNeil, had been murdered, their bodies stuffed in suitcases in a canal. It was shortly after that she learned the body of her granddaughter, the children's mother, Felicia Brown, had been discovered in a landfill. She had been missing since August. The man now facing the death penalty for their murders is Felicia’s boyfriend, Clem Beauchamp.
"I don't know how a man could be so cold blooded to do something like that,” said Flint. It hurts the family and there’s no money that can pay us for the pain that we've gone through."
Flint says Felicia was a kind woman and a hard worker, who supported Beauchamp and her children. She still remembers the last time she saw her granddaughter. Felicia was getting her hair done before a job interview.
"That's the last time I saw my baby,” she said, wiping away tears. “She kept holding my hand and she was just holding it so tight."
After she didn't see Felicia for a long time, she said Beauchamp told her Felicia was hiding from police.
“When I wanted to go see her, he told me, “No. Don’t go. You can’t go,” she said. “He knew there was no Felicia!”
Her most chilling memory is her last time seeing Ju'Tyra and Jermaine.
"The last morning he brought the two children to my house and told me he brought them here to say goodbye to me. That somebody was going to come by and pick them up. Felicia was sending somebody to pick them up," she said. "Now they're dead and gone and no money can bring them back. No sentence can bring them back."
NewsChannel 5 has also tried to reach out to Clem Beauchamp’s family. We had no response.



Read more: http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/region_s_palm_beach_county/delray_beach/great-grandmother-of-victims-speaks-out-on-clem-beauchamp's-indictment#ixzz1YjBj3Ewz

Fort Lauderdale—
The man charged with killing two children found in a Delray Beach
canal in March and the earlier murder of their mother was sentenced to
10 years in prison Tuesday on an unrelated federal gun charge.

Clem Beauchamp, 34, has been held in federal custody since the day after
the bodies of the children were found in the canal dividing Boca Raton and Delray Beach,
stuffed into luggage. He pleaded guilty in August to possessing an illegal handgun silencer.

Beauchamp received the stiffest
possible sentence from U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas, who
determined that Beauchamp bought the gun and built the silencer as part
of a plot to murder his "baby mama" — one of his girlfriends, Michelle Dent.

Moments before the sentence was handed down, Beauchamp
was given the opportunity to address the court. He declared he was not
involved in a murder conspiracy.

"I was never involved in a murder plot. I never murdered anybody. Thank
you," he told Dimitrouleas. He stood at the defense table, shackled and
handcuffed, with his head bowed as the judge handed down the prison sentence.

Now that his federal case has been resolved, Palm Beach County
prosecutors can move forward with their case involving three counts of
first-degree premeditated murder filed in state court in late September.

Beauchamp could face the death penalty if convicted of the homicides of
Jermaine McNeil, 10, and Ju'Tyra Allen, 6, who were living with
Beauchamp in his Delray Beach home since the disappearance last summer of their mother, Felicia Brown, 25.

Brown's decomposing body was found in August 2010 at a trash-processing
facility in West Palm Beach. She had been Beauchamp's on-and-off
girlfriend, and her body went unidentified until the deaths of her
children. Brown had their names tattooed on her leg, leading to her identification.

Beauchamp killed Brown by "unspecified means,"
according to the murder charges filed last month, while Jermaine was
killed by blunt force trauma and Ju'Tyra was asphyxiated.

So far, Palm Beach County
prosecutors have revealed none of the evidence they have gathered
against Beauchamp, and the grand jury indictment provided no specifics
other than listing the three homicide charges.

In court documents filed earlier this year, federal prosecutors said that they
could prove Beauchamp murdered Brown, even though that murder was not
part of their firearms case. They said she likely was eliminated because
she was a key witness against him on the gun charge.

They also alleged Beauchamp admitted to Brown's murder to another jail inmate,
and that a forensic analysis of his seized computers showed someone in
his home had searched the Internet for information about life insurance for children.

The firearms charge against Beauchamp arose through pure chance,
when Brown's car was repossessed from his Delray Beach
home in October 2009. A tow-yard employee searching the car found a
black bag in the trunk, containing a .22-caliber revolver, a homemade
silencer, 12 rounds of ammunition, a black knit cap and a cigar tube
containing fake pieces of crack cocaine.

When Brown went to collect her car, she told one of the employees that the items found in
the trunk belonged to her boyfriend, according to the federal charges against Beauchamp.

Beauchamp pleaded guilty to the gun charge
after the judge ruled that prosecutors still would be able to present
evidence against Beauchamp from Brown, in the form of a secretly
recorded conversation made by her ex-husband, Peter Brown. In that
recording, Felicia Brown said she bought the gun for Beauchamp, and that
he had fashioned the silencer.

Federal prosecutors called Peter Brown to testify at Beauchamp's sentencing,
to show that Beauchamp was involved in the plot to murder Dent.
That allowed the judge to increase Beauchamp's prison sentence by about six years.

Peter Brown said his ex-wife told him about the plan for Beauchamp to kill
Dent. He said Dent and Beauchamp were fighting over child custody and support issues.

"They got the gun so he could take care of his baby mama, get rid of his baby mama," Peter Brown testified.

Beauchamp's public defender, Robert Berube, tried to undermine Peter
Brown's credibility, but the judge said he found him believable. Berube
said he would appeal the sentence.

In the meantime, it is likely Beauchamp will be transferred to the Palm Beach County Jail to await trial on the murder charges.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/fl-beauchamp-gun-sentencing-20111011,0,4399056.story