Couple sent to prison for toddler’s death in cold
AKRON — An Akron mother was outraged Friday morning when she learned that she and the father of her children were both heading to prison for the death of their 2-year-old daughter who was found unresponsive in the cold last year.
“That is so f----- up!” Tierra Williams, 23, shouted as a Summit County deputy put handcuffs on her wrists.
“Stop, Tierra!” Angela Williams, Tierra’s mother, admonished from the gallery.
“I’m so f------ mad!” Tierra Williams said as a deputy led her from the courtroom.
It was a dramatic end to the emotional sentencing of Williams and Dariaun Parker, Williams’ ex-boyfriend.
Parker, 25, and Williams pleaded guilty in November to child endangering, which carries a penalty of up to three years in prison. Both were hoping for probation, though prosecutors urged for prison time.
Summit County Common Pleas Judge Alison Mccarty sentenced Parker to two years in prison and Williams to 18 months. She told both she will consider releasing them early.
Williams found her daughter, Wynter Parker, unconscious Feb. 2, 2018, outside the family’s Willow Run apartment in Akron and made a frantic call to 911.
“She’s frozen! She’s frozen!” Williams told the dispatcher.
Williams, who was pregnant at the time, told police she left Wynter with Parker for about two hours while she was out with their 4-year-old son.
Parker lost track of Wynter on a day when Akron’s temperatures never rose higher than 19 degrees.
The couple broke up after Wynter’s death. They have been splitting custody of their two other children under the supervision of Summit County Children Services.
Angela Williams, Tierra’s mother, begged Mccarty to give her daughter probation. She said her daughter is a good mother who made “one bad decision” and has suffered enough.
“We need to heal as a family and not be pulled apart with her being gone from her kids and her family,” Angela Williams said.
Assistant Prosecutor Dan Sallerson, however, pointed out that this wasn’t the first time that Akron police had been called to the couple’s apartment because of their young children being left outside unattended. He said Parker had been up all night on the morning of Wynter’s death.
“This is a dangerous situation that didn’t need to happen,” he said. “It shouldn’t have come to that. We do have a young child who died as a result. We do think prison is the appropriate sentence.”
Kani Hightower, Williams’ attorney, acknowledged that Williams made a mistake when she left Wynter alone with Parker, knowing that he hadn’t gotten any sleep, but said she did all she could to help her daughter when she found her outside. She said Williams wrapped her daughter in blankets, called 911 and cooperated with police and later prosecutors.
Hightower also said that Williams had entered into a voluntary plan with Children Services and had followed every step they asked.
Similarly, Don Malarcik, Parker’s attorney, said his client cooperated with police and prosecutors and agreed to plead guilty to avoid a trial. He said neither parent was engaged in criminal activity that contributed to Wynter’s death.
“This is a family that has been torn apart,” Malarcik said. “It’s time to heal this family and move forward.”
“It was a tragic accident,” Parker said. “I’ve learned from it.”
Mccarty agreed that the couple found themselves in a difficult situation, with Parker up all night recording music in a studio for a career for which he wasn’t yet being paid and Williams working during the day cutting clients’ hair at their homes and unable to take both children with her.
“That needed to be resolved,” the judge said. “That’s an untenable situation.”
Mccarty said when people have children, taking care of them needs to become their most important duty.
“There can be potential danger everywhere,” she said. “You two did not have eyes on. Not a lack of love, a lack of attention. Not all of the time, but some of the time, which put both of the children at risk.”
Mccarty said she was particularly bothered by how police had been called to the home by neighbors several times. She said the young girl’s death was a loss for everyone.
Both Williams and Parker were so emotional in court that they had trouble speaking.
“We’ve lost a human life and the potential that she would have had — the joy she would have brought to family and friends,” the judge said. “This is all loss. It is this loss I feel compelled calls for consequences.”