NEW BOSTON, Texas-A district judge in Bowie County reduced bail from $100,000 to $20,000 at a hearing Friday for a woman accused in the death of her 4-year-old son earlier this year.
Khadijah Wright, 26, appeared before 5th District Judge Bill Miller for a bond reduction hearing Friday morning with Dallas lawyer Jasmine Crockett in a second-floor courtroom of the Bowie County courthouse. Wright is charged with injury to a child by omission in the March death of young D'Money Lewis. D'Money's father, Benearl Lewis, is charged with capital murder in the death.
Wright is accused of allowing Benearl Lewis to be alone with the couple's children despite a care plan with Child Protective Services prohibiting D'Money's father to have unsupervised contact or spend the night at the rent house where Wright and the children were living in Wake Village, Texas, on Redwater Road.
Crockett called Wright's mother to testify on her behalf at Friday's hearing. Marisha Hamilton testified that Wright graduated from Arkansas High School in Texarkana, Ark., and that Wright has some type of online degree. Hamilton said Wright was working at Mayo Manufacturing in Texarkana at the time of Wright's arrest 128 days ago.
Hamilton said she lives on a disability payment of less than $1,000 monthly and denied Wright has any assets or felony convictions. Hamilton told the court she can only afford to post $2,000 for her daughter's release.
Assistant District Attorney Lauren Richards called Wake Village Police Department Detective Todd Aultman, the lead investigator into D'Money's murder. Aultman said the case was brought to his department's attention March 6 by members of the Texarkana, Texas, Police Department.
Aultman said Texarkana, Texas, police were working a traffic accident at West Seventh Street and Bishop Lane when the couple approached them about getting a police escort to the hospital for their child. Aultman said an officer who checked on D'Money found him unresponsive, not breathing and cold to the touch.
D'Money died at a Little Rock hospital two days later.
Aultman said that during his investigation, he found that Child Protective Services and its counterpart agency in Texarkana, Ark., as well as a child welfare agency in the state of Mississippi, had become involved amid allegations of child abuse. Aultman said 10 to 15 cases concerning the children have been initiated over the five years before D'Money's death. D'Money has older and younger siblings.
Also discussed was Wright's alleged lack of cooperation with investigators. Wright allegedly left her job about 2 p.m. March 6 without clocking out or telling anyone she was leaving after receiving a text from Benearl Lewis that there was an emergency, according to a probable cause affidavit. A little more than two hours later, the couple came upon the traffic accident being worked by Texarkana, Texas, police.
While in cardiac arrest, D'Money was taken by ambulance to Wadley Regional Medical Center. Aultman's report states he observed a large area of bruising on the boy's back and "strap" marks on D'Money's legs and back. Medical staff members at Wadley told Aultman the boy was suffering from a brain bleed and bruising to his back and chest, "as if he had been kicked."
After initial treatment at Wadley, D'Money was airlifted to Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock. Medical staff there told investigators the boy's injuries were inconsistent with the account allegedly provided by his parents and more likely the result of abuse.
Lewis and Wright allegedly told investigators that D'Money had "jumped or fallen from a deep freezer and that his eyes rolled back in his head," the affidavit states.
After D'Money's death March 8, his body was taken to Dallas for an autopsy. Among the damage documented to the child's body was a "space occupying subdural hematoma" that had caused the child's brain to "herniate down into his spine," the affidavit states. Also noted at autopsy were bruising to the child's legs and back and tissue damage in his kidneys.
Crockett argued that Wright's $1 million bail, the same amount set for Benearl Lewis, is too high and that allowing Wright to make bond will permit her more time to prepare a defense with her lawyer. Richards pointed out that Wright has a history of failing to comply with court orders, as evidenced by her disregard of the CPS care plan in place to protect her children from Benearl Lewis, and argued that if Wright had abided by the care plan, D'Money's death might have been avoided.
Miller agreed to reduce Wright's bond to $20,000. That means Wright will need to pay a commercial bondsman $2,000, or ten percent of the bail amount, to bond out of jail. Miller ordered that Wright will be outfitted with a GPS leg monitor and must either be working or actively seeking employment if she is freed while her case proceeds.
Wright faces five to 99 years or life if convicted of injury to a child by omission. Benearl Lewis faces death by lethal injection or life without parole if convicted of capital murder. Prosecutors have not said whether the death penalty will be sought.
Both Wright and Benearl Lewis are scheduled to appear in August before Miller for pretrial hearings. Lewis' case is set for trial in November. Wright's is scheduled for December.