Murder of Jada Page, 8, outraged Miami. Case remains unsolved, but new documents reveal clues.
Five years after an 8-year-old named Jada Page was mortally wounded by an errant bullet in front of her Miami home, her family keeps her memory alive.
On the recent anniversary of her death, relatives visited Jada’s grave. They also gathered on Fort Lauderdale beach on Labor Day to honor what would have been the 14th birthday of Jada, whose murder led to protests and vigils in a city that was reeling from a series of child murders. Her mother, Rosalind Brown, created a summer kids program called the Jada Club, and sells colorful book bags in her daughter’s honor.
“It’s all the stuff she loved,” Brown said. “I’m trying. My goal is to make sure everyone remembers Jada Page.”
Jada’s memory remains vivid, but something else has eluded Jada’s large extended family: justice.
No one has ever been arrested for Jada’s shooting, which also left her father, James Page, the intended target, wounded in the chest.
Now, newly revealed court documents show that police and prosecutors, after an exhaustive investigation into the August 2016 murder, long ago honed in on several suspects but have been frustratingly unable to build a strong enough case for arrests. Another possible suspect is dead — himself gunned down 11 days after Jada’s death, and the accused gunman is headed to trial in January, although the motive for that shooting remains unknown.
Miami-Dade police and prosecutors say they are still diligently working the case.
“Every unsolved homicide, but particularly the unsolved killing of a young child, rips at the heart of surviving family and at the soul of this community,” State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement. “My prosecutors and the Miami-Dade Police have been working Jada Page’s murder for the last 5 years hoping that a witness, or witnesses, will come forward with the evidence needed to charge the unfeeling shooters. This child has not, and will not, be forgotten.”
Still, the uncertainty pains Jada’s large extended family.
“They know who did it,” said Jada’s aunt, retired Miami-Dade police officer Brendolyn Spence. “They just don’t have enough.”
Jada’s murder came against the backdrop of a series of child killings — the third struck down over the course of 18 months by a bullet meant for somebody else.
A few months earlier Marlon Eason, 10, was shot and killed in front of his Overtown home while retrieving a basketball. His suspected killers are awaiting trial. Then, King Carter, 6, lost his life to a stray bullet in Northwest Miami-Dade as he made his way to a nearby store to buy candy. The three teens arrested for his murder all received prison terms.
Five years later, the shootings of children, struck down by errant bullets, have not abated. Over a recent 9-month span in 2020 and 2021, three young children were killed in similar fashion in unrelated cases.
Jada, a smiling, affectionate and curious child, was about to begin fourth grade at Miramar’s Sea Castle Elementary. Monday would have been her 14th birthday.
She died on Aug. 28, 2016.
That afternoon, she and her father were preparing to go to the movies, when a black Ford Fusion pulled up to the home on the 10100 block of Northwest 25th Avenue. At least two people were in the car, and they opened fire from inside.
James Page, who was putting items in his own car, was struck in the chest. Jada was walking toward her front porch when a bullet pierced the back of her head. With her mother and family members at her side, Jada, hung on for just days at the hospital but her injuries proved too severe to overcome.
Three weeks after the shooting, his arm in a sling, James Page called the shooters “cowards” during a press conference at Miami-Dade police headquarters. He did not address whether he knew who might have opened fire at him. He could not be reached for comment this week.
The Miami-Dade homicide bureau had long been tight-lipped about the killing.
But records show they initially honed in on at least two men: Bertram Davis, 50, and his stepson, Marvin Rogers, 24.
They were involved in another murky shooting. Rogers was arrested on allegations that he turned on Davis and shot him on Sept. 10, 2016, less than two weeks after Jada’s murder. Police officers arrived at a home on the 5300 block of Northwest 24th Place to find Davis critically wounded — a bullet entered the back of his neck and exited his mouth.
When a police officer asked who shot Davis, he replied: “my son” and named Rogers, according to an arrest warrant. Rogers was later arrested on an attempted-murder charge.
But the following year, as Rogers was awaiting trial, Davis recanted in a sworn affidavit. He said officers misunderstood what he’d said. “He was not blaming Marvin Rogers for the shooting,” according to a final prosecution memo. “He now says my son did not shoot me.”
“The investigation of the Jada Page murder had made considerable progress and there are reasons to believe that the shooting of Davis is related to the Jada Page homicide, in which Davis is the main suspect,” according to the memo explaining why the case against Rogers was dropped.
The Miami Herald obtained the “close out memo,” which was signed and finalized in July 2018, through a public records request.
Prosecutors did not reveal their suspicions about why Rogers would have shot his own stepfather. But in the memo, they said they were hesitant to subpoena Davis, because it could grant him immunity and complicate the probe into Jada’s case.
The memo does not outline what evidence might exist to implicate Davis or Rogers in Jada’s murder, or why they may have wanted to kill her father.
Rogers’ defense lawyer, Alex Michaels, said he believes “Marvin is innocent in both cases.”
“He was innocent of shooting his stepfather — and the prosecutor had to drop the case,” Michaels said. “They never charged Marvin or his stepfather with the shooting of the little girl. As far as I know, there is no evidence.”
Davis could not be reached for comment. Several listed phone numbers for him did not work, and a message left on another went unreturned.
Another man possibly involved in the feud was the dead man, Iazar Curry, a 48-year-old who was fatally shot while inside his truck in Opa-locka on Sept. 8, 2016, also less than two weeks after Jada’s death.
According to a Miami-Dade police investigative report that is part of an ongoing court case, a witness told detectives that two of Curry’s half-brothers were related to Jada’s family, and there had been “tension” between Curry and James Page “over money and drugs.”
Homicide detectives wound up arresting a man named Angelo Johnson, 28, after his DNA matched a sample taken inside a stolen car believed to have been used in the drive-by shooting, according to police report. A Miami-Dade schools detective who happened to witness the shooting also identified Johnson as the shooter, police said.
Any motive for Johnson allegedly shooting Curry remains unclear — documents in the prosecution file do not reveal any connection between Johnson and Page, or whether detectives believe the drive-by could have been some sort of retaliation.
“There’s never been motive proven and we are fighting to clear this young man’s name,” said Johnson’s attorney, Tom Cobitz.
Johnson’s trial is scheduled for January. Prosecutors do not need to prove a motive to secure a conviction for murder.
For now, Jada’s family is still trying to cope.
Her mother and father — the couple never married — had a baby boy three years ago. Jada also had a younger sister, Jazz. She is 8 years old.
Brown said she’s focused on things that made Jada happy over the past five years. She started the Jada Club summer program for children. Brown said at one point prior to the pandemic she had 80 kids paying $100 each for a nine-week session at a pre-school owned by her mother.
The children learn to read and draw and interact socially and take field trips with counselors. It’s Instagram page features pictures of dozens of children. Brown also sells colorful book bags in her daughter’s honor — which can be found at JadaPage.com.
Still, time has not dulled the grief.
“This year has been the worst. I don’t know why. I thought it was supposed to get easier,” Brown said. “I think about her all the time. But you never know what’s going to trigger the depression.”
The anniversary of Jada’s death passed late last month. A visit to her grave left her feeling as raw as the same day five years ago.
Said Brown: “It brought me back to that place.”
