Family, friends hope for return of missing child
Boy hasn’t been seen for more than two months
The last time Mariesol Gomez saw her grandnephew was Thanksgiving, when the extended family had gathered at her house for the traditional turkey dinner.
James, then 16 months old and a happy child, tried gravy for the first time. He watched football for a little while with his great-uncle, then ran outside to play with his cousins and the dogs. His teen mother, D’lanny Chairez, was her usual quiet self, listening and laughing with the adults.
“It was just like normal,” said Gomez, 43. “There was nothing off.”
Now James has been missing for more than two months, and his mother has been arrested on child abandonment/endangerment charges, refusing to tell police where her son might be.
“Her not talking is just making it harder for me to accept that he is still alive,” Gomez said sadly.
This is a family that has seen extreme domestic violence.
The boy’s father, Matthew Dempsey, is in prison for murdering his mother. He slashed her throat after he and a friend beat her with a bat when she caught them burglarizing her home two years ago. He was 18.
Chairez’s mother, Patricia Flores, also is in prison for murder, for killing her 2-year-old grandson. He was severely burned and died from his injuries in 2018. When she called 911, the child was unresponsive. Officials said it appeared he had been burned nearly a week earlier and had received no medical attention. He was the son of
Chairez’s brother.
Family violence can spread, said Patricia Castillo, the executive director and co-founder of the P.E.A.C.E Initiative, a coalition that works to end family violence.
“It’s a pretty high-risk situation,” Castillo said. “When individuals are not capable of getting the right kind of help, it can get to this level of escalation and horror.”
Chairez, now 20, was living on her own with James in a trailer, working as a waitress. She didn’t seem to be in any trouble, family members said, and she has no record.
She had suffered from depression, Gomez said, but that was well before James was born.
Once Chairez had James, Gomez said, “she was so happy.”
“She loved him,” Gomez added. “She was a very good mom.”
James was last seen with his mother Jan. 4 in security camera footage at a Walgreens on the Southwest Side. Since then, Chairez has been seen, but without her son.
Chairez went to Gomez’s house to wash clothes Feb. 19, during the winter storm, but James wasn’t with her. She told Gomez the boy was staying with a friend. When Gomez wanted to go and pick him up, she said he likely was sleeping and soon left.
Then Chairez stopped answering phone calls, and the family reported her and the boy missing Feb. 22. San Antonio police put out an alert. There were several sightings of Chairez but none of the child. On Tuesday, she was arrested on a charge of child abandonment/endangerment. She remains in Bexar County Jail with a hearing set for April 4.
Police said Chairez “refused to answer any questions” pertaining to James’ whereabouts, saying only that she wanted to give him up for adoption.
Chairez told officers she was having mental health struggles and she wasn’t ready to be a mother. She said James “deserves better” and wanted her son to be in a “better place,” court documents state.
The police recounting of Chairez’s statement is the first Gomez had heard about her niece considering adoption.
First, her niece doted on the child and on being a mother, she said. And, Gomez added, it didn’t makes sense because all the boy’s important documents — shot records and Social Security card — were still at Chairez’s trailer.
Gomez is more worried about what else was found at Chairez’s home.
There was human blood on a crib sheet, and James’ car seat, stroller, diapers and toys were still there, court documents state.
“I thought I knew who she was,” Gomez said. “Your actions are speaking louder than your words right now.”
“She’s my niece, I love her,” Gomez added. “I don’t understand why it’s so hard for her to produce that ( James’ location).”
After getting the go-ahead from officers, Gomez and other family members cleaned Chairez’s trailer.
They were stunned at what they found. Chairez is a neat freak, Gomez said, but the place was in squalor: Trash and empty soda cans littered the floor to the point it wasn’t visible. The sheet that was later determined to have blood was crumpled on the floor.
While cleaning, Gomez and other family members found a coffee can with scraps of charred paper, newspaper obituaries and pieces of lined notebook paper with Social Security numbers handwritten on them.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Gomez said.
Gomez hates the uncertainty of not knowing where her grandnephew might be. Since announcing James’ disappearance, she has received messages from scammers claiming to be human traffickers asking for money in exchange for James’ safe return.
“You feel like you’re mourning someone who was really close to you, but yet they’re alive but you just can’t see them or touch them,” Gomez said. “I have them on my mind all the time.”
James will turn 2 years old July 16, she said.
James was learning to speak before he went missing, she recalled wistfully. He could say “mama” and “papa,” and he called Gomez “tía-tía-tía.”
“Whoever has him, please return him,” Gomez pleaded. “He’s got a family that loves him and that’s missing him, and we need him back.”
Wednesday night, friends and family held a vigil for the child, hoping that if Chairez did leave him with someone, the person will return him. The vigil was organized by Jasmine Anderson, the founder of KJ’S Angels, which provides resources and services to help end child abuse. It was held at Westwood Village Park, just across the street from the Chairez home.
Hope surged momentarily at the event when a man and a woman who had stopped to find out what was going on saw a photo of James and said they’d seen the child walking with a couple in the Marbach Manor apartment complex, less than a mile away, according to Gomez’s cousin Larissa Aguilar.
When asked if they would speak to detectives, the tipsters told Aguilar they didn’t feel comfortable and drove off without giving their names. Attendees had captured photos of the license plate, however, which led family to call police.
San Antonio police came to the scene to investigate. Family members said police found and questioned the tipsters, but no report was filed and police are still looking for the child.
James has blonde-brown hair, a white complexion and brown eyes. He is 2 feet, 6 inches tall and weighs 28 pounds.
To provide information about James’ whereabouts, call the Police Department’s Special Victims Unit at 210-207-4093 or 210-2072325. Callers can remain anonymous.