Stepmother convicted of
starving autistic child to death

By William Kenny
Times Staff Writer

Audrey McDaniels was overwhelmed with responsibilities and ill-equipped mentally to manage on her own, the defense attorney argued.
But McDaniels’ first priority should have been the health and well-being of her children, the district attorney countered. Last week, a jury agreed with the prosecutor that McDaniels failed her autistic stepson, Brahim Dukes, as he starved to death inside a Frankford rowhouse in December 2001.
After about two hours of deliberation, the jury of 10 women and two men convicted McDaniels, 43, of third-degree murder on May 3, 34 months after a different jury acquitted the woman of the same charge in the same case.
The district attorney’s office was allowed a second shot at the trial — despite Pennsylvania’s double-jeopardy law — because of a procedural error by the judge at McDaniels’ first trial in July 2004.
When the earlier jury deadlocked on a lesser involuntary manslaughter count, Common Pleas Court Judge John Poserina declared a mistrial before receiving the jury’s verdict on the murder count. After realizing the oversight, Poserina recalled the jury — in violation of court procedure — and took a not-guilty verdict.
The district attorney’s office appealed the verdict in Superior Court and won, setting the stage for the retrial. With a new judge and a new jury, a new prosecutor won a new verdict.
According to Assistant District Attorney Bridget Kirn, no new evidence was discovered between the first and second trials.
However, she explained, "Anytime you do a second trial, the evidence is going to go (into the record) differently, and a jury is going to be different."
Common Pleas Court Judge Rene Cardwell Hughes scheduled McDaniels’ sentencing for June 15. The defendant faces a possible 20 to 40 years in prison.
Suzanne Dukes, an aunt of the victim who lives in North Philadelphia, said that her family is thankful for the verdict, though she still has many unanswered questions.
"It was justified," she said. "I always said somebody needs to pay for this, somebody needs to go to jail. So my family is very happy about the verdict."
In addition to Suzanne Dukes, the victim’s great-aunt, brother and cousin attended the trial. Suzanne Dukes said she has not been in contact with the victim’s natural mother, her sister, nor with his natural father, Dewey Gillespie.
Gillespie was on the witness list for the trial but was not called to testify, Suzanne Dukes said.
Philadelphia Fire Department medics discovered the emaciated body of the 18-year-old Brahim Dukes on Dec. 29, 2001, when they were called to McDaniels’ house on the 1500 block of Ruan St.
Dukes, a severely autistic special-education student enrolled at Frankford High School, was 5-feet-9 and weighed 94 pounds. A medic reported that Dukes was lying in a fetal position on the floor of a makeshift bedroom at the rear of the house near the kitchen. He wore little clothes. The room was windowless, dark, dirty and cold, authorities said. There was a mattress in the room, but there were no sheets or blankets.
Post-mortem photos of Dukes shown during the trial depicted a grossly thin body with dry, wrinkled skin barely shrouding his skeleton.
At the time of Dukes’ death, McDaniels was the lone adult living in the home. Her common-law husband, Dewey Gillespie, had been sent to jail two weeks earlier for defaulting on an agreement to repay thousands of dollars in delinquent traffic fines.
Dukes was Gillespie’s son with another woman. But the teen had lived with McDaniels for at least 12 years, Kirn said.
Ten other children, ages 13 and under, also lived in the house. In addition, McDaniels was expecting yet another child.
According to evidence at the second trial, which lasted about six days, McDaniels worked full time at Burlington Coat Factory in the Franklin Mills mall, leaving at least some of the children home without supervision throughout the day, while others attended school.
Dukes had stopped attending Frankford High in the weeks leading up to his death.
Despite the conditions, authorities did not charge McDaniels in Dukes’ death at the time of his discovery. In fact, Gillespie first brought the case to the public’s attention in March 2002 when, in an interview with a local newspaper, he blamed the city’s Traffic Court for his son’s death.
Gillespie identified himself as Dukes’ primary caregiver, a role he was unable to fulfill after the court sent him to jail. An investigation by the police department’s homicide unit ensued and led to the October 2002 arrest of McDaniels on a murder charge.
McDaniels, who testified in her own defense last week, and had given a statement to police during the initial investigation, claimed that she left ample food for the children in the refrigerator. But it was up to them to feed themselves.
McDaniels worked full time despite receiving about $2,200 a month in government subsidies, as well as food stamps and a Social Security check specifically for Dukes’ benefit. Defense attorney Sam Stretton described McDaniels as illiterate and of limited intellect.
Stretton argued that Dukes was physically able to feed himself, but he didn’t because he was depressed about his father’s absence.
A medical examiner determined that Dukes died of malnutrition and dehydration. His stomach contained about two teaspoons of an unknown substance, and his intestines nothing.
Though she had taken two of her other children to the hospital for other medical issues earlier in the year, McDaniels did not seek medical help for Dukes.
The oldest child in the home, who was 13 at the time, testified that she told McDaniels at one point that Dukes wasn’t eating. McDaniels denied that the conversation occurred.
"It would be hard to imagine a situation crueler than a stepmother who doesn’t feed an eighteen-year-old autistic boy or take him to a doctor," Kirn argued.
The prosecutor then asked the jury, "Is it unclear to anyone here that if you do not feed a child or do not seek medical attention (for him), he will die?"
McDaniels claimed that she attempted to contact the city’s Department of Human Services, but "they never came."
Stretton argued that the criminal charges against his client were an unfair case of second-guessing. After all, he claimed, the medics who found Dukes, the police and the medical examiner didn’t initially consider it a crime.
"It’s easy to be a Monday-morning quarterback, and that’s what Ms. Kirn is asking you to do in this case," Stretton told the jury.
"In hindsight, things could have been done a lot differently — a lot better — and I think Ms. McDaniels will be the first to tell you that."
In his same closing arguments, Stretton seemed to shift tactics, acknowledging that the post-mortem photos of Dukes revealed a dire situation that demanded McDaniels’ attention.
"It was obvious she should have done something, but there were other people at the time of death that should have done something," Stretton said.
Relatives or friends had taken in Dukes before in Gillespie’s absence and could have done so again, the defense attorney claimed.
"Where were they?" Stretton asked rhetorically.
Relatives say that McDaniels kept the true nature of Dukes’ illness from them and that she refused their offers to care for him.
Now, Suzanne Dukes wants to know why it took authorities so long after Brahim’s death to realize they had a criminal case on their hands.
Investigators did not interview the other children in the home or photograph the inside of the home until after Gillespie complained about his imprisonment some three months later, the victim’s aunt noted.
Further, she believes that DHS should open its files on the Gillespie-McDaniels case. Relatives had reported possible abuse in the home in April 1999, prompting the city agency to investigate.
Gillespie and McDaniels agreed to allow a DHS caseworker to help them, but cut off the consultations in January 2001, according to the agency’s records. ••
Reporter William Kenny can be reached at 215-354-3031 or bkenny@phillynews.com