This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on Tuesday, August 15, 2006.
By MARISSA WIDDISON
Valley Press Staff Writer

ROSAMOND - The death was originally reported as an accident, but investigators are skeptical that a 5-year-old boy was killed in a vehicular accident.
According to the initial report given to authorities about the Friday incident, Dionna Wheat was purportedly backing up her car and simply didn't see her son, Darion, in the driveway.

The story is not all that unusual. Similar circumstances have claimed the lives of more than 560 children over the past 10 years, according to one nonprofit organization, Kids in Cars.

But what started as a vehicle vs. pedestrian accident inquiry is now being investigated as a suspicious circumstance.

Darion's relatives contend that the little boy's death brings years of abuse to a tragic end.

"It appears that the original report was not correct," sheriff's Sgt. W. Leyder with the Kern County Sheriff's Department stated in a news release Monday.

The official word from the Sheriff's Department outlines the foundation of a confusing story laden with murky circumstance.

California Highway Patrol officers responded to a home in Lake Los Angeles on Friday afternoon, where they found Darion mortally injured. He was transported to Childrens Hospital Los Angeles where he was pronounced dead.

Some time during that initial response, officers were told the traffic collision actually had occurred in Rosamond earlier that day.

Because of the change in location, the case was turned over to Kern County homicide detectives.

Now coroners are working to determine the exact cause of Darion's death.

While officials are keeping quiet about details of the investigation, Darion's extended family aired its own suspicions Monday.

The child's grandmother, Annie Ray, said from her Palmdale home that she had custody of Darion and his young siblings for two years. The children apparently were returned to their mother in December.

Ray's voice became emotional as she spoke about the days leading up to Darion's death. The child had bruises on his body, she said. Ray said the last time she saw the children was June 5, when social workers looked into the situation but did not take the children out of the home.

"It's not from no car rolling on my grandchildren," Ray said.

Darion's aunt, Takako Hankins, said Friday marked, in her observation, at least the fifth instance of abuse in Darion's short life.

Although no arrests have been made, three children from the Wheat home - ages 8 months, 2 years and 4 years old - have been taken into protective custody, sheriff's officials said.

mwiddison@avpress.com

http://www.avpress.com/n/15/0815_s3.hts
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Had to laugh when I saw how they quoted the grandmother.