‘Unfit to be parents’: Mother, father charged in their 3-week-old son’s death
When Hollywood police rushed to resuscitate a 3-week-old boy who was nonresponsive in his playpen last year, it was already too late.
But each new story the little boy’s mother and father told authorities about his death was more elaborate than the last, police say.
On Wednesday, after a months-long investigation, the parents were arrested. Authorities say the mother smothered the 3-week-old to death, then formulated a fake story with the father to try to get away with it.
Crystal Garcia, 21, and Anfernee Watts, 25, are facing charges of aggravated manslaughter of a child, neglect of a child with great bodily harm, tampering with or fabricating physical evidence, failure to report death, and giving false information to a law enforcement officer. As of Thursday, they both were detained at the Broward County Main Jail.
Latonya Watts, Anfernee’s mother, told police the baby boy was perfectly healthy in the days leading up to his death, even attending a doctor’s appointment three days prior where he was given a clean bill of health, the pair’s arrest warrant read.
She described the “two as immature and unfit to be parents,” a detective wrote.
‘Strong smell of bleach’
During the early afternoon of Aug. 1, Hollywood police and fire rescue crews raced to the home on the 6600 block of Thomas Street, shared by the parents and Garcia’s mother, after a 911 call reported that the 3-week-old was unresponsive, the arrest warrant read.
The baby, wearing a long sleeve with the phrase “hanging out with daddy” on the front, was found in a small playpen with his mouth open and white foam inside. His lips were cracked, with dry blood on them, and he was wearing a dirty diaper. A disposable changing pad looked to have blood spotting on it in a nearby playpen used for storage, police said.
Life-saving measures were tried, but the infant was pronounced dead six minutes after paramedics arrived.
Police looked around the home and noticed the bathroom had a “strong smell of bleach,” with a window inside open and a curtain moved aside to let more air in. There was also a mason jar with a cleaning agent inside, a broom, a mop and disposable wipes in an empty garbage bin — all appearing to be used recently to clean, the warrant read.
Shifting explanations
Watts told officers he left the home around 5:30 that morning on his electric scooter for a job interview. Before he left, he said Garcia fed the baby, changed his diaper, cleaned him and put him into the playpen on his stomach, wrapped in a gray blanket.
He left and Garcia went to sleep, adding that she called him to tell him about the baby’s death. When he returned around 1:30 p.m., Garcia again told him what happened. He checked the boy, and he was cold to the touch. Garcia then called 911.
Investigators later learned the pair share a cellphone, and it was left in the home while Watts was out, so he could not have received that call, the warrant read. The 10-minute interview Watts said he had at a pizza shop also allegedly never happened, as the manager told detectives that no interviews were conducted that day.
Garcia’s first retelling of events was also a lie, police said. She had said she was awake when Watts began getting ready for his supposed job interview. She fed the baby, changed him and placed him back into the playpen. He fell asleep, and she did as well soon after.
Around 10 a.m., she said she woke up and went over to her mother’s side of the home to talk before returning and noticing something was off about the baby, who wasn’t crying or making noise as he usually did. She touched his eye and said he wasn’t moving.
“[Garcia] went on to describe her observations of when she opened the baby’s eye and stated, ‘You know when you see someone when they passed, like it was like that,’” the warrant read.
She said she decided to wait for Watts to come home and clean, not telling her mother about the baby as she didn’t want to “stress her out.” Police said she told them she never tried to call 911 or try to save the baby’s life through CPR or otherwise.
When Garcia recalled the events for a second time to detectives, several details had changed. Now, Watts had woken her up and, after attending to the baby and falling asleep, she didn’t wake up again until he returned home.
They allegedly noticed together that something was amiss with the child. She said she picked him up and flipped him over, hoping it would revive him, although not performing any life-saving measures. She added for the first time that she had rubbed water on the baby, pinched his face and massaged his head to bring him back to life.
She said she did this for 10 to 15 minutes before going to her mother to call 911, something she hadn’t done in the first retelling.
Francesca Polanco, Garcia’s mother, told police she did see her daughter around 10 a.m. when she grabbed something quickly from the kitchen, the warrant read. Polanco could hear “extremely loud” baby music coming from Garcia’s room, commenting on it to her.
Garcia laughed it off and replied that the baby liked the music loud before returning to her room. Polanco said she didn’t see her daughter again until authorities arrived.
More details emerge from family, Ring camera
Detectives canvassed the neighborhood and found a Ring camera directly across from the home that showed Garcia step outside her home 33 minutes before she made the 911 call, police said.
She was holding a broom or a mop and a large white garbage bag, placing them into a blue garbage bin out front.
Three days after the child’s death, Latonya Watts called detectives and told them Garcia had confessed to her that she lied to officers. Her newest story, which authorities said was still not the whole truth, was that she had brought the baby into the bed with her to lay down after he’d been crying. She awoke to find him dead, pinned between the bed frame and the mattress.
She wrapped him and placed him into the playpen, not knowing what to do, and pretended to sleep until Watts came home, the warrant read.
Over the next four days, Garcia would repeatedly leave voicemails to the police department saying she wanted to come clean and that she “smothered the baby,” according to police.
On Aug. 8, eight days after the baby’s death, investigators said they received the most complete picture of what occurred from Garcia.
Around 4:30 on the morning of the infant’s death, she said she fed and cleaned the baby before Watts left the home. She placed her son in his playpen and tried to fall asleep, but he began to cry, the warrant read.
She said she tried to soothe him, but the wailing continued, so she put a gray pacifier in his mouth and secured it by tightly wrapping him and it in a blanket. She then strapped him in a car seat, put him inside the bathtub and commanded her Amazon Alexa to loudly play lullabies.
She closed the bathroom door and went back to bed, as he still cried, police said. When she awoke, she didn’t check on the baby until 30 minutes later at 11 a.m.
She found him “very pale.”
When Watts came home later, she revealed to him what happened and that she was “scared of going to jail,” according to police. They concocted a plan to fabricate a story to the authorities as they staged their son’s body in his playpen and tried to make it look like he died in his sleep.
She admitted to detectives, police said, that the moment she opened the bathroom door, she “knew it was dead.”
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