She witnessed her sister beat Kit from the time he was a toddler, using a belt or an extension cord.

“He would tell me my sister beat on him bad. Really bad. Like how they beat kids in Haiti. Like how my mom used to beat us,” she said. “I would tell her that’s not right.”

Still, friends and family did not believe that Darrant would explode into such a spasm of violence.

“He was like a normal person. He makes people laugh. He’s sweet,” one friend told police.

On March 26, Renette Emil’s boyfriend, Eric Monestime, told police she called 911 to report that her son had taken her car.

Sometime in the next few days, Darrant got home late and his mother argued with him for 10 minutes, he told police. Afterward, he retreated to his room.

“I paced around in my room for 20 minutes thinking,” he said.

“What were you thinking?” asked Miami-Dade homicide Detective Raul Godoy.

“Suicidal thoughts.”

According to an arrest report, Darrant “came to the conclusion” to strangle his mother. He entered her bedroom. His 3-year-old brother normally slept with his mother, but it was unclear where the toddler was during the slaying.

Darrant “got behind her and put her into a chokehold. As the two struggled, both fell to the floor and continued struggling until the mother made a gurgling or snoring sound and “she went limp,” according to a medical examiner’s report.

Because she was still alive, Darrant fetched a knife from the kitchen and stabbed her in the back of the neck. She was still alive. He rolled her over and continued stabbing, the report said.

YELLS HEARD

A neighbor heard the struggle and two screams from a woman.

“She just say ‘ Anmwe! Anmwe!” the neighbor told police of Renette Emile’s screams in Creole. “That means like, ‘help! Help!’ ”

The neighbor picked up her phone to call 911, but ultimately did not.

According to the medical examiner’s report, Darrant rinsed off the blade, returned the knife to the kitchen drawer and took a bath. The next morning, he drove to school but came back within the hour, rousting his little brother from bed. He fed him and put on video games.

As Renette Emile’s body began to decompose, Darrant heaped blankets on top of it, sprinkling the corpse with Gain detergent powder.

Though he didn’t know how to drive very well, he began picking up pals in his mom’s Mercedes-Benz, his baby brother strapped in the back seat.

The fact that he had his mom’s car had friends suspicious.

“I know for a fact his mom would not leave the keys for him to drive,” one friend said.

Darrant told friends his mother had left town. He drew more suspicion when he showed off new clothes he had bought.

“He seemed calm, as usual,” said one friend who visited the apartment and commented on the smell. “He acted like he didn’t know what it was.”

His aunt and Monestime kept calling, but Darrant insisted his mother could not come to the phone and was unavailable, according to their statements.

Darrant planned a get-together, at his mother’s apartment for that Friday.

“He was like, ‘I’m going to bring so many girls,’ and stuff — like I don’t know why he would do something at a place where his dead mom is,” a friend named Michael said.