ANTWAN HOPE - 4 yo - / Suspect: Mother, Destene Simmons - Coral Springs, FL

Father Of Boy Found Dead In Coral Springs Is Angry With The Child’s Mother

June 12, 2013 12:23 AM




Antwan Hope (Source: Thomas Bryant)

South Florida Crime


CORAL SPRINGS (CBS4) – The mother of a four-year old boy found dead in a Coral Springs apartment on Monday was arrested on unrelated charges. On Tuesday, the boy’s father expressed anger with the mother of his now-deceased son.

Four year old Antwan Hope was discovered after police received several 911 calls from inside the apartment.

“I was working and I can say on some of the calls she did not speak and hung up.  We were able to track the calls and that’s when we found the four year old deceased,” said Lt. Joe McHugh of the Coral Springs Police Department.

Destene Simmons, 23, was arrested Monday and charged with driving with a suspended license. She appeared in bond court Tuesday morning and was given a $500 bond on the suspended license charge.

Simmons’s family is not commenting on the incident. Several of her family members waited anxiously outside the Broward Detention Center and were disappointed when she was not released Tuesday evening.

Investigators are waiting on autopsy report which will determine if there was foul play involved in Antwan Hope’s death. If the medical examiner’s report indicates obvious signs of trauma, the police would immediately launch a homicide investigation and obtain a search warrant for Simmons’ apartment.

The boy’s father said he is angry with the child’s mother.

“I cried in the car all the way down. Not my child,” Antwan Hope told CBS 4′s Lauren Pastrana about the moment he learned his son was dead. “I loved that boy.”

Just days after watching his son walk across the stage at his pre-school graduation, Hope is now worrying about funeral arrangements.
“I’m angry with his mom,” Hope explained. “We should have took every option there was to do what we had to do as parents.”

Hope said he did not have custody of his son, but that he visited and spoke with him often.

He said Simmons had a history with the Department of Children and Families stemming from an incident a year ago in which Hope said Simmons took the child to a motel and tried to smother him with a pillow.

“DCF, Child Protective Services came and took my son. My son from his momma,” Hope said. “I would have never thought this girl would have been like this towards him.”

Relatives have said Simmons had some sort of a breakdown. She is not charged in her son’s death but was arrested on an unrelated charge.

Hope said little Antwan was with his mother during an unsupervised visit when he died.

The boy’s relatives now wants answers from DCF.

“Why would you give a child back to someone who is harming a kid,” the child’s aunt Deborah Jackson told Pastrana. “We’re trying to reduce child abuse, not increase it.”

Jackson said she would like to see all DCF cases looked at “with a magnifying glass.”

But Antwan Hope is not so quick to point a finger at the agency.

“I don’t blame nobody else. Nobody else,” he stressed. “Guess what? If she would have protected him, or loved him, they would have never picked him up. He would have never been in DCF hands.”

On Tuesday morning, police tape sealed off the door to Simmons’ apartment which was being guarded by an officer.

Police are calling Hope’s death “suspicious.”

Barbara Brunson, four-year-old Hope’s great aunt from his father’s side, said, “When they think about it, everyone is just crying.”

According to Brunson, family members on the father’s side of the boy have been concerned about Simmons’s mental state ever since an incident that occurred a year ago when they said Simmons tried to harm the four year old.

“As far as her mental state, people don’t pay attention to that until it’s too late,” said Brunson.

According to our parnters at the Miami Herald, Simmons was committed under Florida’s involuntary commitment law, the Baker Act, to a local psychiatric hospital, and Hope was placed in foster care, and then in the home of a maternal aunt.

The Department of Children & Families was eager to return the boy to his mother’s custody. Hope’s guardian-ad-litem objected to returning him to his mother’s care. Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer agreed with DCF and allowed Simmons to have unsupervised visits with her son in preparation for full-time custody.

CBS 4 News reached out to DCF for comment. We were told the agency did not have enough information to determine whether the boy’s death was a result of neglect or abuse.

Under Florida law, DCF said it cannot release records during an open police investigation, according to a spokesperson.

Neighbor Jennifer Hill, whose son played with Simmon’s son Antwon Hope, wants answers.

“He’s crying, and it impacts him, like it does a lot of little kids in the neighborhood though. A lot of these kids are very hurt. Their friend is gone and nobody knows why. Nobody is giving us answers,” said Hill.

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2013/06/12/father-of-boy-found-dead-in-coral-springs-is-angry-with-the-childs-mother/

BSO reports give chilling details of mother of dead child’s descent into mental illness

Posted on Thursday, 06.13.13

After not seeing her 2-year-old grandson for three weeks, Shonta Rivers found him lying with his mother on her bed. She asked her daughter, Destene Simmons, if she could give the little boy a kiss.

She was shocked at Simmons’ rage: No, Simmons said, you can’t touch your grandson. “I will make sure you can’t see him.”

She apparently meant forever.

A Broward Sheriff’s Office report from that June 13, 2011, evening offers chilling details of what happened next: Simmons took the youngster into another room and closed the door. From inside, Rivers could hear her grandson, Antwan Hope, screaming.

“Mommy stop! Mommy stop!”

“Rivers said she opened the door and saw Simmons holding a pillow over Antwan’s face,” the police report said. “Rivers said she wrestled with Simmons to get off of Antwan. She said that she had to call for other family members to assist her with getting Simmons off Antwan.”

Earlier this week, police believe, Simmons finished what she started exactly two years ago.

On Monday morning, Coral Springs police officers responded to “hang up” 911 calls at Simmons’ home and found Antwan dead. They have called the youngster’s death “suspicious.”

The Broward Medical Examiner’s Office completed an autopsy on the child Tuesday, but has yet to release a cause of death.

Simmons, 23, was arrested Monday on unrelated charges of driving with a suspended license. She was released from jail late Tuesday, but was committed under the Baker Act for an involuntary psychiatric examination, said Dani Moschella, a BSO spokeswoman. Simmons remained hospitalized Wednesday.

Records released to The Miami Herald Wednesday show Simmons had contact with law enforcement officers on several occasions — often involving calls about her mental state.

Records of Simmons’ descent into mental illness appear to begin in the spring of 2011. On May 24 of that year, Simmons called police herself.

When deputies arrived, they found Simmons tearful and confused. She said Antwan’s father had taken “her baby without permission,” and would not return him. “Destene could not formulate a cohesive description of what had happened,” a sergeant wrote. “All she kept saying is she wants her baby and then she would start to cry.”

Simmons’ mother told deputies she had “been acting irrational for the last three months and that she does not know what had happened. Simmons has been waking up in the middle of the night and picking up her child and walking around the neighborhood for no apparent reason.”

Antwan’s father, also named Antwan Hope, told investigators that Simmons had recently been in a Boca Raton hospital for treatment, though he did not know her psychiatric diagnosis.

One month later, deputies were called again when Rivers found Simmons trying to suffocate the child, BSO records say.

Simmons had stopped taking showers and she was not bathing her son either, a report said. Nor was she eating properly. Her mother told police Simmons “has completely turned into a different person and does not let anyone get near Antwan and that she never leaves his side. She said that in the past [Simmons] always used to let someone watch Antwan and that this behavior is completely out-of-character for her.”

On June 13, 2011, Rivers returned from work to find Antwan and his mom lying in bed. She hadn’t seen her grandson in weeks.

But Rivers’ longing for her grandson ended that day with him screaming under a pillow and a frantic call to 911.

BSO deputies arrived and took Simmons to Imperial Point Medical Center under the Baker Act. And state child protection workers took Antwan to live with his father, where he remained until the following December, when child protection investigators were called yet again to assess his welfare.

This time, Antwan’s father called BSO on Dec. 28, 2011. Though Hope had pledged to child welfare workers that he would retain custody of the boy — and to protect him from his mother — he told police that he and Simmons were sharing custody. On that day, Hope said, Simmons came to his home, confronted him, and “made verbal threats to harm the child.”

Simmons, police were told, “takes medication for mental issues,” and has been involuntarily committed “on several occasions.”

That day, Hope picked the youngster up at Gentle Hugs Daycare, “causing Destene to become angry,” the report said. “She stated before she left that she would ‘hurt the boy.’”

The state Department of Children & Families was alerted and Antwan was taken from his father’s care after investigators learned he was sharing custody with Simmons.
It appears that Simmons neglected to tell her mother that investigators had removed the child and sent him to live with a maternal aunt.

On Jan. 2, 2012, Rivers called police to report that both Simmons and the boy were missing.

“Rivers has not heard from either of them and states that this is very uncharacteristic,” the report said. Rivers added: “Simmons is going through a child protective investigation and has been distraught.”

Antwan remained with his aunt until recently, when Broward’s privately run foster care agency, called ChildNet, suggested it was time to return him to his mother. In preparation for a reunification with Simmons, a Broward judge, against the objections of a court-appointed advocate, granted unsupervised visits.

Simmons’ first weekend alone with her son began Friday. It ended Monday with Antwan being transported from her home in a mortuary van.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/12/3448104_p2/bso-says-woman-whose-child-died.html

Families Disagree On Coral Springs Boy’s Death

June 13, 2013 7:47 PM

CORAL SPRINGS (CBS4) – Three days after 4 year old Antwan Hope Junior was found dead in his mother’s Coral Springs apartment, her family has issued a statement on her behalf.

The family of Destene Simmons said she is not to blame for his ‘suspicious’ death.

The statement read, in part, “We the family of Antwan Hope, Jr. and Destene Simmons are deeply grieved by the recent death of our loved one “AJ” (as he was affectionately known to everyone). At this point, we are being told by the coroner there is no apparent cause of death.  His mysterious death is inconclusive with any type of physical abuse.  We have waited until now to speak publicly because we did not know.  We did not have a report from officials or Destene.  It is our belief that Destene did not harm AJ. Destene loves AJ dearly and AJ loved his mother. Destene’s health is both personal and private, as we are sure you all respect.  However, we will assure you that Destene’s history with her only child was not of physical abuse.


Coral Springs Police responded to her apartment after receiving several 911 hangup calls.  The Broward County Medical Examiner did an autopsy on Tuesday but the results were incomplete.

Simmons was arrested on an unrelated charge of driving on a suspended license and spent Monday night in Jail.  On Tuesday, after posting bond, she was Baker Acted and taken from the North Broward Detention Center to a facility for a mental health evaluation.

But CBS 4 has learned that on two occasions, Destene Simmons tried to smother her child with a pillow.

The first incident happened a year-and-a-half ago when Simmons took the boy to a hotel and placed a pillow over his face.  A friend called authorities and Simmons was Baker Acted.

Then in June 2011 according to a Broward Sheriff’s Office event report, Simmons’ mother Shaunte Rivers called authorities during a domestic dispute. Rivers told deputies her grandson and daughter were in the bedroom and she heard ‘Antwan crying and saying, “mommy, stop.”

The report went on to read; “Rivers said she opened the door and saw Simmons holding a pilow over Antwans’ face.”

Rivers reportedly told BSO that Simmons had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and depression.  Simmons was taken to Imperial Point Medical Center and Baker Acted.

The family of Antwan Hope, Senior, the biological father of AJ, has been watching the events unfold.  They are grieving the little boy who just graduated from preschool two weeks ago.

“I can’t tell anyone my grandchild died of natural causes.   I have to tell them he was killed,” said Sharon Walker, the paternal grandmother of AJ.

CBS4 showed Walker the statement that Destene Simmons family has released on her behalf.

Walker shook her head in disbelief.

“I know she’s sick, but I believe she hurt him.  She tried to smother him before, the truth will come out,” said Walker.

She said she learned about her grandson’s death from the mother of Destene Simmons.

“Destene’s mom called me and she was crying and saying, ‘Destene had just killed AJ’”, Walker said.

Through all their grief both families have to find common ground in this tragedy.
They will both be involved in AJ’s burial.

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2013/06/13/families-disagree-on-four-year-old-coral-springs-boys-death/