Deputies say Darell Avant Sr.,
on trial in the death of his 5-year-old son, Googled “eyes roll in back of head” and other terms before calling 911.
Darell Avant Sr. searched the web for “eyes roll in back of head” more than half an hour before a neighbor found his son unconscious and called 911, deputies said Tuesday. Avant is charged with first-degree murder in the Dec. 18, 2013, death of his son, 5-year-old Darell Avant Jr. He could face the death penalty if convicted.
His trial began Monday with testimony from the child’s mother, a teacher at his elementary school, and others.
That morning, employees at the kindergartner’s school called his mother, then his father to come pick him up from school because he was misbehaving. His father asked a neighbor named James Turner for a ride and took the boy home right before noon.
Avant stayed home with Darell Jr. and his younger child, who was 1 year old, for the rest of the evening. Hours later paramedics would find Darell Jr. with bruises all over his body, fractured ribs, and bruising on his heart. There has been no testimony about exactly what happened during those hours, but Avant’s search history and cellphone records could fill in some gaps.
Avant later told deputies he made his son do squats and pushups as punishment for misbehaving. After about 20 minutes the boy said he was getting hot and that his feet hurt, so Avant told him to go take a shower. The child showered and started getting dressed when he got dizzy and fell to the floor, unconscious, Avant told deputies.
Avant told deputies he slapped his son a few times to try and wake him up, according to video of his questioning. He picked him up, rocked him, and bounced the boy against his shoulder, but the boy was still unconscious, he told deputies.
“I don’t see how I could do anything to make him die,” Avant told deputies.
At 6:26 p.m. Avant used his phone to Google “eyes roll in back of head,” said James Montgomery, an Orange County Sheriff ’s Office digital forensics unit supervisor who inspected his phone. Then Avant searched for “what does it mean if someone’s unresponsive” and, about 20 minutes later, “how to check if someone has a pulse.”
Avant called Turner, his neighbor, at 5:58 p.m., 6:55 p.m., and 6:59 p.m. Turner was at a grocery store when he got the first call, he testified Monday. Avant didn’t say what was wrong, but when Turner got home he put his groceries in front of his house and went to Avant’s apartment to see what was happening.
That’s when he saw Darell Jr. on the floor and started doing CPR as he told Avant to call 911. That call came at 7:03 p.m., Montgomery said.
Dr. Jan Garavaglia, the nowretired chief medical examiner for Orange and Osceola counties. described counting 208 bruises on the child’s body. Some of the bruises on his arms overlapped so much that it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began, she said. She could not find an injury that could cause his death by itself. Instead she said it was all of his injuries — and loss of about 20 percent of his blood volume to internal bleeding — that killed Darell Jr.
“This child was beaten to death. I have no other explanation for this pattern of injuries other than that,” Garavaglia said. “There is no other explanation.”