DONTRELL MELVIN - 5 months - (7/2011) - / Person of interest: Father Calvin Melvin Jr - Miami, FL

Toddler who went missing 18 months ago was only reported missing this week

• Father named 'person of interest'
  
• Dontrell Melvin was five months old when he was last seen
  
• Mother just reported him missing this week
  

By Rachel Quigley

PUBLISHED: 10:53 EST, 11 January 2013 | UPDATED: 11:59 EST, 11 January 2013


A father has been named as a person of interest in the disappearance of his son, who was just five months old when he disappeared 18 months ago - but was only reported missing this week.

Dontrell Melvin, from Miami, was last seen when his father Calvin Melvin Jr took him out of the house in July 2011 and returned without him.

He told his wife that he took the boy to his parents' house so he could have a better life as the pair were having financial problems.



Missing: Dontrell Melvin, from Miami, was last seen when his father Calvin
Melvin Jr took him out of the house in July 2011 when he was five months
old and returned without him


Hallandale Beach Police Department Chief Dwayne Fluornoy said: 'The mother has
given an indication that she hasn't seen her child since July 2011, and
she has questioned the father on numerous occasions as to the
whereabouts of the child'

She did not question this account until this week when she alerted authorities that her son had vanished.


Dontrell's father Calvin Melvin Jr is a 'person of interest in the case'

When police went to the grandparents house in Pompano they said that they hadn't seen the child in more than a year either.

Child protection administrators too failed to notice Dontrell was gone, even though they received a call to their abuse hotline last year reporting concerns about Dontrell's welfare.

But the call was deemed unworthy of investigation, according to the Miami Herald.

Hallandale Beach Police Department Chief Dwayne Fluornoy said: 'The mother has given an indication that she hasn't seen her child since July 2011, and she has questioned the father on numerous occasions as to the whereabouts of the child.'

Melvin initially fled after police went to his parent's home but he was found a few hours later and changed his story to say that he dropped his son off at a Miami Gardens fire station utilizing the safe haven law.

There is no record of this.

Chief Fluornoy said he believes the child is in danger.

After Dontrell disappeared, his parents went on to have another child. The mother has a third child with a different father.

On Wednesday, police received a call to the child abuse hotline and an investigator went to the home finding only two children instead of three.

Police are appealing to the public for help in finding Dontrell, who would now be two-years-old.


cncnws.com/.../toddler-who-went-missing-18-months-ago-was-only-...

my husband didnt leave the house with our son by himself when he was this young, but if he had and come back without him, i wouldnt have waited 18 seconds before calling somebody. this is unreal! i hope they're both charged, sterilized and have the other children taken away from them.

Dontrell Melvin missing baby case: Brittney Sierra, Calvin Melvin Jr., arrested for child neglect

Posted: 01/11/2013
By: Tonya Alanez and Wayne K. Roustan, Sun Sentinel

The parents of a toddler missing since July 2011 have been arrested on charges of child neglect and human remains have been found at an address they provided to police, authorities said Friday.

Brittney Sierra, 21, and Calvin Melvin Jr., 27, are blaming each other for the disappearance of Dontrell Melvin, who would now be nearly 2, Hallandale Beach Chief of Police Dwayne Fluornoy said at a Friday morning news conference.

"They both have intimated that the child has been harmed in some way by each other," Fluornoy said. "In essence, they're blaming each other."

Human remains were found Friday afternoon buried in the backyard of the couple's former residence in the 100 block of Northwest First Avenue are human or animal, Fluronoy said.

The child's disappearance did not come to light until a routine check by a child welfare investigator on Wednesday.

Police responded to an unrelated child neglect call at Melvin's Hallandale Beach home around 8 p.m. Wednesday.

There were supposed to be three children in the home. Police found only two.

Melvin told an investigator he had taken his son, then 5 months old, to live with his grandparents in Pompano Beach 18 months ago. When the investigator went to confirm Melvin's story, the man's parents said they had no idea what the investigator was talking about, Flournoy said.

"They had not seen that particular child within the last year," he said.

When the investigator returned to Hallandale Beach to ask Melvin more questions, he was gone.

Melvin surfaced late Thursday and changed his account, claiming he dropped off the baby at a Miami Gardens fire station as part of the Safe Haven program. Flournoy said Friday that Melvin has since recanted that story.

Melvin lived with Sierra. He is father to two of her three children.

Sierra similarly told police that the child was with her parents out of state, Fluornoy said.

"We know that not to be the truth," Fluornoy said.

Sierra contacted authorities in October 2012 because Melvin had not allowed her to see her son during the previous 16 months, Fluornoy said.

The Florida Department of Children and Families conducted an investigation but the findings were unknown, Flournoy said.

Sierra gave birth to another son, fathered by Melvin, since the disappearance of Dontrell.

Melvin's record shows arrests in 2003 on charges of possession of stolen property and possession of marijuana.

Flournoy is asking anyone with information on the whereabouts of Dontrell Melvin to call the Police Department at 954-457-1400 or Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477

Read more: http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/state/dontrell-melvin-missing-baby-case-brittney-sierra-calvin-melvin-jr-arrested-for-child-neglect#ixzz2HjoPf7Qm

Police find remains while searching for missing child

Posted: Yesterday at 3:35 pm EST
Last Updated: Yesterday at 10:13 pm EST

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. (WSVN) -- Police have confirmed they have found remains in the backyard of a home where a baby went missing.

Hallandale Beach Police are presuming the remains are those of Dontrell Melvin, who was only about 6 months old when he was last seen alive, sometime in July or August of 2011. Police are now calling both parents the main suspects. "This is mo longer a missing person's care. We are investigating a homicide case," said Hallandale Beach Police Chief Dwayne Flournoy.

Police have not confirmed the identity of the remains or even if they are human. "The medical examiner is on his way to make a determination if it's human or animal," said Flournoy. "We are currently looking at it as an active case."

On Friday morning, police arrested the father and mother in connection to the disappearance of their missing son, who would be about two years old now.

Flournoy held a news conference that morning to announce the arrests. "We've arrested the mother, Brittney Sierra, and the father [Calvin Melvin, Jr.]," said Flournoy, "after lengthy interviews over the last 12 hours. They both have intimated that the child has been harmed in some way by each other, so they are blaming each other as it relates to the child's disappearance."

The Hallandale Beach Police Department obtained a search warrant and began searching a home where the couple once lived and the surrounding area near Third Street and First Avenue. Police said the parents lived at that home about a year and a half ago, around the time that the child was last seen.

They have been searching since 11 a.m. While digging into the ground in the home's backyard they found the remains, at around 3:30 p.m. "It's a sad situation," said a distraught family member. "It could have been dealt with better than this. That's all I can say."

"This is hurting my heart, man," said Darnell Toney, the child's godfather. "This is hurting our family altogether."

The search for this child began Wednesday when a child services investigator went into that family's home and noticed little Dontrell missing. Police spoke to the parents. Chief Flournoy said, Sierra and Melvin gave conflicting stories as to the whereabouts of their son and ultimately blamed the other for the child's disappearance. "They both have provided us an area of interest and concern that perhaps we could go and begin to look and see if the child has been harmed, where the child would possibly be," he said. "Both parents have given us an indication to look in a particular area."

Police said the parents may have spun stories about the child's whereabouts to family members over the past year and a half. "They [family members] believed that the child was possibly being taken care of by another segment of the family, where they never connected or talked," said Chief Flournoy.

That was Sierra's story, who said Dontrell was out of state, with her parents. Thursday, Melvin told authorities he dropped the child off, years earlier, at a fire station in Miami-Dade County under the Safe Harbor Law. Flournoy said he has since recanted that story. "Their conspiracy to hide the child after the child was missing is apparent," noted Flournoy.

Toney said the parents had acted suspiciously for a long time. "I asked both of them, 'Where's the baby? I want to see the baby.' But all they ever told me was, 'He's OK, he's all right, he's OK, he's all right, he doin' good, he gettin' big.' But none of it is making sense to me at all."

The Chief of Police said it could take several weeks for the DNA tests to come back and confirm that those remains belong to the child. An anthropologist will be on the scene to help the investigators with the scene on Saturday.

Sierra and Melvin have been charged with child neglect.

Read more: http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/21009563278619/police-find-remains-while-searching-for-missing-child/#ixzz2HjpjPKfW

Missing Infant Never Reported by Parents is Dead

January 11, 2013 7:09 PM By Cora Van Olson


From left: Brittney Sierra, Dontrell Melvin, Calvin Melvin

In a case all too reminiscent of that of missing Florida toddler Caylee Anthony, police in Florida have been searching for a child last seen at age 5 months in July 2011, who was never reported missing.

Dontrell Melvin, who would now be about 2, disappeared when he was in the custody of his father Calvin Melvin, 27, of Hallandale Beach. Melvin received a visit from a Department of Children & Families worker on an unrelated matter on January 9, 2013. Luckily, that person noticed that Dontrell was missing. Melvin reportedly said that he had left Dontrell with his parents, but the child’s grandparents told the caseworker they hadn’t seen him for over a year. On January 11, 2013, police searched the home where the family lived when Dontrell vanished and found his remains in the back yard. “This is no longer a missing person case,” said Police Chief Dwayne Flourney. “It is now a homicide investigation.”

Disturbingly, when Melvin was initially questioned by police, he seems to have changed his story, in a suspicious way. Melvin is reported as saying that, taking advantage of the safe harbor statute, he had abandoned the child in his stroller at a fire station. Police checked and there is no record of that ever happening. Maybe Melvin was remembering a loophole in the Nebraska Safe Harbor Act that decriminalized child abandonment for a few months in 2008. Until the Nebraska legislature closed the loophole, people from all over the country were rushing to Nebraska to abandon their kids of all ages. Florida’s Safe Harbor Act, however, specifies that only children up to a week old can be given up without repercussions. At the time Police Chief Dwayne Flournoy told reporters, “(I) don’t know what happened to this child. But the story that the child was left at a fire station, I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it at all.”

Dontrell’s mother, Brittney Sierra, 21, apparently did buy the story, believing that her child was with his grandparents living a better life than she could offer. Her reports of “custody issues” with Melvin in October 2012, when Melvin would not tell her where Dontrell was, would seem to confirm Sierra’s side of the story. Sadly the matter was passed from police to the DCF, who determined that further investigation was not warranted.

Two other children have been removed from the home. Melvin and Sierra are currently in custody in Broward County on charges of child neglect. Their families are cooperating, so it is unlikely that anyone else will be charged, though police may yet add more charges against Sierra and Melvin as the case develops.

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/blog/2013/01/11/missing-child-never-reported-by-parents-is-dead/index.html

flash0115 wrote:my husband didnt leave the house with our son by himself when he was this young, but if he had and come back without him, i wouldnt have waited 18 seconds before calling somebody. this is unreal! i hope they're both charged, sterilized and have the other children taken away from them.

This poor baby is dead, IMO. I'll bet they took him as a deduction on their tax returns and received food stamps for him as well as EIC. and the child credit.

i agree Twink! i almost mentioned that before, but figured i needed to stop; there was a whole lot more that i wanted to say.

Hallandale parents of missing baby jailed; human remains found in yard

2:46 p.m. EST, January 12, 2013

HALLANDALE BEACH—


Nobody but 5-month-old Dontrell Melvin's parents knew he'd been missing for the past 18 months. Together they conspired
to keep it a secret, but now they're blaming each other, authorities said.

Police on Friday unearthed human remains in the backyard where the couple had lived when the baby went missing in July 2011. The discovery transformed a child neglect case into a homicide investigation, authorities said.

Now in police custody, Dontrell's parents, Brittney Sierra, 21, and Calvin Melvin Jr., 27, are blaming each other for the child's
disappearance. He would be 2 in February.

Their bails Saturday were set at $150,000 for Melvin and $100,000 for Sierra.

"They both have intimated that the child has been harmed in some way by each other," Hallandale Beach Police Chief Dwayne Fluornoy said. "In essence, they're blaming each other."

Dontrell's disappearance did not come to light until child welfare investigators responded to a child neglect call on Wednesday evening and found only two children when there should have been three.

David Wilkins, secretary of the state Department of Children & Families, said via email on Friday that the agency has had a "number of instances of involvement with this family in recent years."

Melvin first told investigators that his son was living with his parents in Pompano Beach. But when the couple said they hadn't seen their grandson within the past year, Melvin changed his story, Fluornoy said.

He next said he dropped off the baby at a Miami Gardens fire station as part of the Safe Haven program. Melvin has since recanted that story, Fluornoy said.

Sierra similarly told police that the child was with her parents out of state, Fluornoy said.

During questioning by police, each parent separately directed authorities to their former residence in the 100 block of Northwest
First Avenue, Fluornoy said.

Searching with cadaver dogs, police found the remains buried in the backyard. The Medical Examiner's Office confirmed that they are "consistent with the remains of a small child," Fluornoy said.

"Their conspiracy to hide the whereabouts of the child after the child was missing is apparent, that's what we know," Fluornoy said.

"Prior to the disappearance, that's what we're not sure of."

Melvin lived with Sierra and is father to two of her three children. Sierra gave birth to another son, fathered by Melvin, after Dontrell disappeared.

Those other two children, both young boys, are now in state care.

According to Hallandale Beach police, Sierra contacted authorities in October 2012 because Melvin had not allowed her to see her son during the previous 16 months. DCF conducted an investigation but the findings were unknown, Flournoy said.

DCF's Wilkins said this about the October call: "We worked with the officer at that time regarding the police department's ongoing
investigation into a custody dispute between the two parents arrested today. While we cannot discuss specifics as the current criminal investigations continue, 'missing child' cases and situations where a crime is alleged to have occurred remain under the investigatory authority of local law enforcement."

According to Sierra's Facebook page, life with Melvin was rocky but her sons meant the world to her: "i thank gd for blessing me with such great bad ass kids but they mean the world to me and woulnt trade them for anything in this world a child love is better than any love you can get from a man or a women. always put your kids first and yourself second because you cant do no wrong if you follow the right path."

Sierra's father, Victor R. Sierra Jr., of Hoboken, N.J., mourned the loss of his grandson in a post on his daughter's Facebook page Friday afternoon.

"May you rest in PEACE my Grandson never held, kissed or huged you im sorry,but we meet someday in the Glory of God LOVE YOU."

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/fl-missing-hallandale-baby-folo-20130111,0,4021634.story

Enough Remains Found for Nearly Complete Skeleton of a Child: Hallandale Beach Police
Police disclosed more details about what was buried in the backyard of the home where missing boy Dontrell Melvin once lived

By Diana Gonzalez
Tuesday, Jan 15, 2013
Updated 7:52 PM EST

Hallandale Beach Police said Tuesday that they found enough remains in the backyard of the home where Dontrell Melvin once lived to piece together a virtually complete skeleton of a child.

Police are still awaiting DNA confirmation of the remains.

Dontrell was 5 months old when he was last seen around July 2011, according to police.

“At the time we found the initial remains they were wrapped in a particular item. I really don't want to give what it was wrapped in, but it was wrapped in a particular item,” Police Chief Dwayne Flournoy said. “We had a good deal of remains that we believe that we can put together virtually a complete skeleton of that of a child.”

Parents Brittney Sierra and Calvin Melvin Jr. are being held on child neglect charges, and Flournoy has called them suspects in the possible death of their son.

Sierra is being held on $100,000 bond. Melvin, who is also charged with obstructing a criminal investigation by providing false statements to police, is being held on $150,000 bond, online jail records said.

The police chief also responded Tuesday to what the Department of Children and Families revealed the day before – that a Hallandale Beach Police officer called the Florida Abuse Hotline in October 2012 to report that the mother had not seen her baby boy since July 2011.

“She still talks on and off with the father but every time she asks about the baby he is just always making excuses and never brings the baby by,” the officer said in the phone call. “So she doesn’t even know, I mean, whether the baby is even alive or not.”

A DCF intake report showed the call was screened out – meaning no investigator was sent out.

DCF Secretary David Wilkins said in a statement Monday that his agency did not have the authority to investigate a missing child report.

But Flournoy said that police expected DCF to investigate.

“It was a child custody issue,” he said. “Wasn't a missing person case because DCF, who helped us with the missing person case on Jan. 9 – that was a missing person case, they helped us with that case. So …” Flournoy trailed off, raising his eyebrows

http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Enough-Remains-Found-for-Nearly-Complete-Skeleton-of-a-Child-Hallandale-Beach-Police-187042041.html

Calvin Melvin, Father of Baby Boy Found Buried Behind Hallandale Beach Home, Pleads Not Guilty

Friday, Apr 5, 2013

The father of a baby, whose remains were found buried behind a Hallandale Beach home, pleaded not guilty on Friday to additional charges filed against him.

Calvin Melvin, 27, faces two charges of child neglect in addition to three charges for providing false information to police during the investigation of the disappearance of his son, Dontrell Melvin.

Documents filed say Melvin is negligent for various reasons including: “by failing to make a reasonable effort to locate and check on the welfare of his minor child, DM, and in doing so caused great bodily harm, permanent disability, or permanent disfigurement ...”

Melvin’s defense attorney, Ed Hoag, says his client was not involved in the killing or burying of the baby, but due to the changes in charges, he withdrew a motion to dismiss.

Melvin is being held at the Broward County Main Jail in Fort Lauderdale on $151,000 bond.

The mother of the child, Brittney Sierra, 21, faces a charge of child neglect with bodily harm in the disappearance of her son. She is at the facility in North Broward on a $100,000 bond.

The baby, Dontrell Melvin, wasn’t discovered missing until 18 months after he was last seen, but was later identified by the skeleton remains found in backyard of their former home.

The Medical Examiner's Office ruled the boy's manner of death as a homicide and the cause of death was violence of undetermined means.

Under police questioning, Melvin and Sierra blamed each other in the boy's disappearance and each provided officers an area to search, authorities said.

http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Calvin-Melvin-Father-of-Baby-Boy-Foun-Buried-Behind-Hallandale-Beach-Home-to-be-Arraigned-201603021.html

  Murder, Fraud, And Possible Gender Discrimination
Posted on September 23, 2013 

There is so much that needs to be said about this case and I am curious as to whether anyone else believes that there is some kind of gender discrimination here. But I’m getting ahead of myself. This is just the introduction. Onto the case. Unfortunately, just as last time, this case happened in Florida as well. This case is a bit more confusing than most, but still horrific. It reminds me of the Casey Anthony case. And I don’t know if it’s gender discrimination or what, but there is definitely something wrong going on with this case. 

Dontrell K. Melvin was once a happy, healthy baby boy. Around July, 2011, he was 5 months old–almost 6 months. He disappeared that month. His mother, Brittney Sierra, claimed that she reported the child as missing immediately. She said that her boyfriend at the time, Calvin Melvin, took their son on a walk and she phoned police immediately upon his returning without Dontrell. Court documents do show that the police met with her in July, 2011, but the police officers say that they do not specifically remember why she called the police.
However, knowing her son was “missing”, Sierra applied for and received food stamps and other benefits with Dontrell’s name listed as a dependent. In one she claimed near December 2011 that was involved with getting Christmas toys for children, it was claimed that Dontrell was 9 and a half months old. this is a little bit more than suspicious. Why she didn’t continue to phone the police as her child was missing, and then why she claimed him fraudulently on some benefits programs does not per se speak of an innocent mind. 
Calvin Melvin denied the claims that Brittney Sierra had made, pointing the finger at her and saying that he didn’t do anything and that Sierra was crazy, cutting herself and saying that she didn’t “want the *darn* baby anymore”. Sierra responded telling police of how Calvin could suffocate the child. But when asked where the child could be, it was Calvin’s location that was correct. He said that the child could be in the backyard of their former home and even gave a diagram to police. It was there that little Dontrell’s skeletal remains were found buried. Both parents have been arrested for crimes such as child neglect and child cruelty. Calvin was given a harsher charge and also two charges of falsifying statements to police. 
The medical examiner confirmed that the skeletal remains were Dontrell’s, and the death was ruled a homicide by unknown violent means. Both parents plead not guilty to the charges. Recently, Sierra has not only had her charges reduced, but she has also been released on bail. Her lawyer fought hard for this because she is pregnant with her fourth child. The other two children are currently in state care. This whole incident started when there was an anonymous CPS report of Sierra smoking marijuana and verbally abusing her children. When the CPS social worker showed up to investigate, there were two children instead of three, and that’s where all of this began.
.jpg]I’m really upset that this woman is being released from jail. She not only failed to continually report her child–her baby–missing so that anyone who would hear her would take her seriously and her child would be found, but she also fraudulently received benefits because she used her dead child as a dependent when he obviously wasn’t there. Loving parents generally don’t do that. They generally care about their children”s well being to the point where they’d start asking questions and demanding answers if their child could not be found and if the child just disappeared one day while the father was allegedly out walking with the child. Loving parents don’t wait 18 months (!!!) until CPS comes along and notices a child missing, ignoring the fact. They just don’t. 
So here we have a child who is dead, a mother who did nothing about anything that happened to her child and maybe even participated in causing it and she is out with a tracker connected to her ankle because she is pregnant with her fourth child. Oh, and did I mention that she is afraid that the child will be taken by the state? Imagine that! Sorry lady, but who knows what will happen if you keep this baby. They might go “missing” too and you may not report it until God-knows-when!
Now, I know I don’t have all of the facts that the court has. I can obviously only go on the information that I am given. However, in this case, I have so many unanswered questions and am so confused by our “justice” system. These two people though will more than likely be known in the court of the people, so hopefully no matter how this case turns out, they are closely monitored for the rest of their lives. This should never have happened. Ever.
http://badbreeders.net/tag/calvin-melvin/

Unbelievable.  No matter which one murdered this poor baby both of these monsters are guilty.  It is appalling that this murdering bitch is out of jail. 

Will this be a repeat of poor Caylee Anthony murder, whose mother murdered her and walked free?

PS.  I knew they were receiving welfare benefits for this poor baby.  They were also taking him as a dependent and receiving EITC for him.  Disgusting.