Mother recalls slain boy as energetic

SANTA FE — The mother of a boy who was recently killed, apparently by his stepmother, says she remembers her son as an energetic boy who loved playing outside.

Jayden Curtis, 5, was pronounced brain-dead at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center on Saturday and was taken off life support at the University of New Mexico Hospital early Tuesday. His stepmother, 20-yearold Melynie Curtis, has been charged with child abuse resulting in death after admitting to Santa Fe police that she choked Jayden at their Airport Road apartment Saturday afternoon.

Jayden’s father, Royce

Curtis, told police that his son, a kindergartner at Cesar Chavez Elementary, was normally playful but recently had been sitting by himself and not talking to anyone for long periods.

Jayden’s biological mother, Cristina Cowboy, 22, told the Journal on Wednesday that Jayden was always on the move and that she didn’t know why he may have become more reserved recently.

“He was really energetic with me,” Cowboy said. “He wouldn’t settle down to go to sleep. When he wakes up, he’s full of energy. He always wanted to be outside and play. I don’t know how he started being quiet all of a sudden. That’s not my son.”

Cowboy said she was with Jayden when he was pulled from life support.

“I was just praying, you know,” she said. “It was really heartbreaking for me. It was just me and my son.”

Doctors at St. Vincent called the state Children, Youth and Families Department on Sept. 20 after Jayden was taken to the hospital for a broken clavicle, or collarbone.

CYFD sent a “cross-referral” to the Santa Fe Police Department via email, but the officer who receives those emails didn’t see it before Jayden was already brain-dead from the choking incident. Police never investigated the clavicle injury. Melynie Curtis has maintained that Jayden received the clavicle injury at school.

CYFD spokesman Henry Varela told the Journal on Tuesday that there was a previous CYFD investigation in which Jayden was listed as a household member, but that Melynie and Royce Curtis were not part of that investigation. He would not confirm whether Cowboy was part of the earlier investigation. Cowboy said Wednesday that she didn’t know anything about previous CYFD investigations.

Cowboy told the Journal that she left her children with Jayden’s paternal grandmother because she was having car problems but fully expected to get the kids back.

Royce Curtis told Santa Fe police that he took Jayden in about a month ago “after his mother no longer wanted to care for him,” according to a police report. It’s unclear from the report whether Curtis was talking about his own mother or Cowboy, Jayden’s mother.

Cowboy herself has a recent arrest. She was arrested around 3 a.m. Sept. 18 when a deputy found her sleeping in a car near an Aztec church with drug paraphernalia, but no drugs were found in the car.

“I discovered numerous used needles and empty plastic bags that appeared to have contained a white powdery or crystal like substance at one point in time,” the deputy’s criminal complaint says. “Additionally, I discovered a small digital scale as well as another small make up style bag that contained more empty needles and a large number of small plastic bags, from my training and experience, are used to distribute small quantities of narcotics.”

Cowboy told the Journal she never used drugs around her children.

Melynie Curtis originally told police that she found Jayden unresponsive in the bathtub Saturday, but Jayden’s clothes and skin were completely dry when medics got to the apartment and doctors could not find any signs of drowning.