26759: Hermantin(News)Unusual case led to two-year delay in filing charges against pare (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Police: Unusual case led to two-year delay in filing charges against parents of 
dead baby


By Macollvie Jean-François
Staff Writer

November 30, 2005



Fort Lauderdale -- It took nearly two years to issue an arrest warrant in the 
case of two parents accused of killing their 3-month-old child using formula 
mixed with vodka.

It may have taken so long, in part, because infant deaths from alcohol 
poisoning are highly unusual, a police spokeswoman said Tuesday.

"I don't know of any cases like this in our city that I'm aware of," said 
Detective Katherine Collins, the Fort Lauderdale Police spokeswoman. "This is 
pretty bad."

Mardala Derival, 22, and Mackenson Dantus, 25, are fugitives charged with 
aggravated manslaughter in connection with the death of their child, Makeisha 
Dantus, in February 2004. A warrant for their arrest was issued Oct. 20.

Makeisha's blood-alcohol level, 0.47, was enough to kill an adult, 
toxicologists say. It would take a shot of vodka, or 35 ml, to immediately 
cause the same toxicity level in the 9.5-pound, 22-inch baby, assistant medical 
examiner Dr. Altaf Hossain said in a report.

On Tuesday, Dr. Josh Perper, the Broward County medical examiner, said the case 
is unusual.

"I don't remember a case like this in the past 11 years in Broward County," 
Perper said. "Children are very sensitive to alcohol, they can die at very low 
levels."

In April 2004, the medical examiner's office ruled the death a homicide, but it 
took prosecutors more than a year to issue the arrest warrant. Collins said 
investigators kept track of the couple until they moved in August 2005.

The FBI's Fugitive Apprehension Task Force is among the agencies searching for 
the couple, she said.

Other delaying factors came into play as investigators looked into the baby's 
death, including a language barrier, other agencies' participation and 
difficulty locating witnesses, Collins said. She declined to elaborate.

"We cannot ethically file charges unless there is adequate evidence," said 
Howard Scheinberg, a prosecutor in the Broward State Attorney's homicide 
division. "When we get a case like this, we'll continue to investigate and seek 
out more.

"Evidence continued to develop up until the time of the warrant," Scheinberg 
said. "Until Oct. 20 we felt it was more appropriate to continue 
investigating."

Andrea Moore, executive director of Florida's Children First, a statewide 
advocacy organization for children based in Coral Springs, said the Broward 
State Attorney's Office usually moves quickly on cases of suspected child 
abuse.

"This is not typical for them, so there must be a good reason," Moore said. 
"It's very unusual."

Makeisha was declared dead at her parents' apartment at 831 NE 14th Court on 
Valentine's Day 2004. The parents told police she had suffered from a fever, 
oral thrush, vomiting and diarrhea for three days, the medical examiner's 
report states.

To calm the child, the parents gave her Tylenol for the fever, sugar water 
mixed with vodka and baby formula also mixed with vodka, Hossain said in the 
medical examiner's report. The child was not seen by a physician, he stated.

In this multicultural region, inadvertent poisonings are common, but not 
deaths, said Dr. Jeffrey Bernstein, medical director of the Florida Poison 
Information Center in Miami. Some Hispanic infants have seizures, for example, 
as a result of ingesting too much star anise meant to calm their stomachs. 
Among Haitians, he said, eating ackee fruit when it is not at the proper 
ripeness has also caused problems.

"At least every week," he said, "I hear of someone poisoning themselves from 
trying to use a home remedy."

Macollvie Jean-François may be reached at mjfrancois@sun-sentinel.com or 
954-356-4694.


Copyright © 2005, South Florida Sun-Sentinel