USELESS ANKLE MONITOR DID NOT PREVENT THE KIDNAPPING AND MURDER OF 4-YEAR-OLD BOY

Police identify 18-year-old man arrested in connection with 4-year-old’s Mountain Creek slaying

 

By Charles Scudder and Nataly Keomoungkhoun

 

The Dallas Morning News

May 16, 2021

 

An 18-year-old male was arrested in connection with the death of a 4-year-old whose body was found lying on a street in the Mountain Creek area Saturday morning, Dallas police said.

Darriynn Brown was booked into the Dallas County jail early Sunday.

 

Darriynn Brown was wearing an ankle monitor at the time of his arrest late Sunday

He is being held in lieu of $750,000 bail and faces charges of kidnapping and theft. Investigators expect additional charges after a forensic analysis has been completed, police said.

Police did not provide details of what led to Brown’s arrest. It is unclear if Brown knew the child.

Cash Gernon was found shirtless and shoeless in the 7500 block of Saddleridge Drive around 7 a.m. Saturday with multiple wounds from “an edged weapon,” police said. Police said he probably died before 5 a.m.

 

                                      4-year-old Cash Gernon

 

Antwainese Square, 39, said she was jogging around the neighborhood when she saw the boy’s body. She initially thought it was a dog before seeing the toddler’s arms and legs.

“That’s when I noticed the baby had ants at the bottom of his feet. So I knew he was deceased then,” Square said. “It was heart-wrenching because this baby could have been no more than 5.”

 

Police spokesman Albert Martinez that the boy is believed to have lived in the area.

 

“We are shocked, we are very angry about what has happened to this small child,” Martinez said.

FBI agents and police on horseback searched the area for evidence throughout much of Saturday. Just before 10 p.m., police announced they had arrested a man in the toddler’s death, but they did not identify him until Sunday afternoon. Dallas police credited the Dallas FBI Evidence Response Team with the arrest.

Brown was previously arrested for a misdemeanor charge of evading arrest on April 27. That case is still pending. According to arraignment documents for that charge, he lives with his parents, who provide for him financially. His address listed on the document is just a half-mile from where the boy’s body was found.

A man who answered a phone number listed for Brown on that document said he is Brown’s stepfather, but declined to give his name. He said that he didn’t want to speak, but that he didn’t know much about the charge or the victim beyond what he had read in news reports.