Darriyn Brown, an 18-year-old from Dallas, has been charged with capital murder in the death of four-year-old Cash Gernon. News Onyx reported on the initial report of the murder and the subsequent release of footage showing Brown taking Cash from his crib.
Cash’s body was found in the street about a half-mile from his home, with multiple wounds, by a jogger around 5:30 a.m. on May 15. Investigators believed an “edged weapon” was used in his murder. On Wednesday, The Dallas Police Department released a statement announcing an upgrade in charges against saying, “Evidence submitted to the lab has been returned linking Darriynn Brown to Cash Gernon at the time of his death.” No further details were provided
Before Wednesday’s upgrade in charges, Brown had been charged with kidnapping and theft for the same crime.
According to a police spokesman who talked to NBC News, investigators believe Brown was familiar with the people who lived in the home Cash was taken from. While police haven’t confirmed the video, Kamron Moori, who lived in the same house with Cash, says that surveillance footage shows the suspect carrying the child “out of my house while he was asleep.”
This terrifying crime has reverberated across the community.
“Hard to believe. I don’t think he was in his right mind,” said neighbor Jose Ramirez to a local Dallas news station. According to a woman at Brown’s address, who’s identified as Mimi Brown, Brown’s mother, Brown is a patient of Metrocare Services, an institution that provides mental health care to children and adults.
Mimi maintains her son could not have committed the crime saying, “That’s not right at all. Know my son is traumatized. I know he’s scared because I’m scared.”
Brown is currently being held in the Dallas County Jail without bond on the capital murder charge. For those found guilty, capital punishment in Texas carries an automatic sentence of either life in prison or the death penalty.
