A judge ruled the body of a toddler killed in an accident will be buried in Houston.
Ex-NFL player had sought son’s return to Georgia
Three weeks after 3-year-old Danny Josiah Ware was fatally run over Jan. 29 by an SUV in Kingwood, he will be laid to rest in Houston following a next-of-kin determination battle between his parents in Harris County civil court.
A judge ruled Feb. 11 that his mother, Cherylynn “Liberty” Rauls, should have the right to bury him in the Houston area, where she moved recently to start a new life away from the boy’s father, former NFL player Danny “DJ” Ware.
Ware had asked the medical examiner Jan. 30 to transfer the boy’s body to a Houston funeral home of his choice for delivery to Georgia without alerting his estranged wife, court papers said.
Rauls filed for an emergency temporary injunction and temporary restraining order Feb. 1 to have the boy’s remains stay in Houston. Those documents named Twinwood Mortuary Service, which had custody of the body and was hired by Ware.
Bike struck by vehicle
As the court dispute brewed, DJ Ware held a press conference Feb. 3 to tell his side of the story. His attorney, L. Chris Stewart, proclaimed that the exrunning back would sue if no criminal charges were brought against the driver who ran over his son.
Both parents posted photos on their Facebook pages of the bright-eyed boy with curly, cappuccino-colored hair.
A crash report from the Houston Police Department said the child “failed to yield the right of way” and “got struck.” That is an interim determination, HPD spokesman Victor Senties said Tuesday. A final report on the incident will not be available until the case is adjudicated, he said.
The fatal, early-evening incident happened in the 4300 block of Broadleaf near a home where Rauls moved with relatives. The boy nicknamed “JoJo” was riding a bicycle in the street when he was hit.
Contrary to HPD information after the incident, Rauls was not the woman speaking to the GMC Sierra driver, Brandon Goodman, immediately before the vehicle rolled over the toddler. The 38-year-old motorist was not cited, according to the crash report.
According to the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, the child died from multiple blunt-force injuries.
A 32-page motion with attachments filed Feb. 10 detailed why Rauls should be first in line to make decisions about the deceased child. The couple also has a 5-year-old son, and Rauls has a teenage daughter.
Court filings by Rauls document little financial support from Ware during the boy’s brief life. The mother and her sons qualified for food stamps in late 2014 after a car Ware bought for Rauls was repossessed that spring. The boys also were claimed on her 2012 head of household income tax return. The court file included nine letters of support touting her devotion as a mother who struggled financially and plowed through a troubled relationship and, later, marriage. Rauls and Ware wed last year.
Money collected online
Stewart, the Atlanta attorney who called the Feb. 3 press conference where Ware first spoke publicly about his son’s death, said last week he was not sure whether his client would fight the body custody ruling.
Stewart said he did not have details about money collected in an online fundraiser by Ware supporters and his fellow University of Georgia alumni to help with funeral expenses. By Tuesday morning, the twoweek effort had reached $17,504 from 322 donors.
DJ Ware appeared at the Feb. 11 hearing where Harris County Civil Court Judge Mike Miller ruled in favor of Rauls as the “priority” next of kin.
A judgment signed by Miller on Feb. 12 said Twinwood was “authorized to immediately release the body and/or remains of Danny Josiah Ware to a mortuary service and/or funeral home designated by plaintiff,” and further ordered that the funeral and burial “will occur on Saturday, February 20, 2016.”
Transportation to the mother’s preferred funeral home and embalming, which had been done by Twinwood, was provided to Rauls, 33, at no charge, according to her relatives.
DJ Ware played collegiate football for the Georgia Bulldogs from 2003 to 2006, then spent the next six years in the National Football League. The 31-year-old earned two Super Bowl rings, in 2008 and 2012, as a New York Giants running back. Ware last played in the 2012-2013 season for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Today, he’s not a “star multimillionaire,” but a car salesman at a Georgia dealership, Stewart said.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, hundreds of children younger than 5 in the United States are injured annually in so-called “backover” and “frontover” cases in which they are accidentally hit by a vehicle. Such incidents are fatal for dozens of youngsters each year.