'Abused' Boy, 9, Locked Away in Bedroom' with Pneumonia Died When Lung Collapsed From Buildup of Pus: DA

The legal guardians of a 9-year-old boy in Detroit who died after becoming infected with pneumonia have been charged with murder.

Sherman Devaughn Jones, 46, and Sampaguita L. Jones, 41, are facing an array of charges including felony murder, torture and involuntary manslaughter, according to the Wayne County District Attorney’s Office.

The pair — who are licensed foster care workers — appeared in court last week to be indicted on those charges, at which time Erin Wilmoth, a lead attorney with the DA’s office, laid out the allegations against the couple.

Owen died in September 2024 after his guardians allegedly ignored the symptoms of his pneumonia for weeks and refused to seek medical treatment for the boy, Wilmoth said.

She went on to say that the medical examiner concluded Owen died because his right lung became “compressed because his entire right chest cavity was filled with pus,”  

Wilmoth said to the judge: “This child suffered and he suffered for a long time.”

A relative first voiced concern about Owen’s safety in June 2023 and contacted Child Protective Services.

Wilmoth said much of the medical evidence that prosecutors plan to present at trial will come from the autopsy report.

“Owen had scars, scratches, discoloration and bruising over the entire surfaces of his body, your honor, head to toe,” Wilmoth said.

There were allegedly so many scars on the boy’s body that that the medical examiner declined to count the number, Wilmoth explained.

“He was underweight with an extremely protruding stomach,” Wilmoth alleged, before going on to listing Owen’s many acute and healing fractures.

“Fractures of the ribs, his pelvis, his elbow, scapula, humerus, his hands, his arms — I mean the list goes on,” Wilmoth told Judge William Burton.

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In addition to the alleged abuse, the young boy “was concealed from the world,” WIlmoth alleged, “often locked away in his bedroom and not allowed to go outside” to conceal long-term abuse.

Owen was also homeschooled, avoiding any of the standard wellness checks or annual physicals that are commonplace in children his age.

These factors all combined to put Owen in a weakened state and left him with no one to turn to once he contracted pneumonia, said Wilmoth.

“Both defendants ignored his progressive symptoms and illness for weeks and never took him to receive medical care,” Wilmoth told the judge.

A lawyer for the defendants noted CPS didn’t consider threats to Owen serious enough to open an investigation. The couple were remanded to pretrial detention.

The Joneses will be back in court on July 3 for a probable cause hearing. Their lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.