Philadelphia's Other Unknown Child
The Boy in the Bag Mystery
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CASE SOLVED |
The Boy in the Box mystery may be Philadelphia's most famous unsolved crime, but it is not the only long-term unknown child homicide case that has been investigated by the Philadelphia police department. There have been two others since 1957.
In 1982, the decomposed remains of a young girl were found inside a steamer trunk under the Platt Memorial Bridge in southwest Philadelphia. As in the Boy in the Box case, no one came forward to identify the victim. It took investigators five years to solve the mystery. She turned out to be a five-year-old West Philadelphia girl named Aliyah Davis who had been beaten to death by her stepfather in 1981, seven months before her body was discovered.
There was another unknown child who remained unidentified for more than a decade after his battered, decomposed remains were discovered stuffed inside a nylon duffel bag in a vacant lot in 1994. This unknown child came to be known as "The Boy in the Bag." (A reconstructed image of the boy, sculpted by Frank Bender, is pictured at right.) Sadly, this case never received much attention from the media. Unlike the Boy in the Box mystery, which has gotten a great deal of publicity over the years, news stories about this brutal child homicide were few and far between. Consequently, the case itself was virtually unknown, even among those who reside in the Philadelphia area.
In March 2005, Philadelphia police department sources announced that the Boy in the Bag homicide mystery had finally been solved! Following are recent news reports about the case. (Note: This is a breaking news story. Additional information will be posted as it becomes available.)
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Philadelphia Inquirer - March 6, 2005
Mother arrested in 1994 death of 'Boy in the Bag'
Another arrest is expected. The slaying of the child, 4, found in a duffel bag in Old City, had been a mystery.
By Larry King, Inquirer Staff Writer
One of Philadelphia's saddest murder mysteries - the 1994 discovery of a 4-year-old boy, beaten to death and stuffed inside a duffel bag in Old City - has been solved, a Philadelphia homicide detective said early today.
The boy's mother has been arrested and charged with abusing his corpse, but her name has not yet been released. Another arrest, for the boy's murder, is imminent, homicide Lt. Michael Chitwood said, and might be announced tomorrow.
"As far as the mystery of who he is and who killed him, we know that," Chitwood said of the child who became known as the Boy in the Bag. "It is just a matter of the other dominoes falling into place."
Chitwood said the boy was murdered in a "neighboring jurisdiction" then strategically dumped in Philadelphia.
The child's skeletonized remains were found on May 27, 1994, in the 300 block of North Lawrence Street. An autopsy showed the boy had been beaten to death, with blunt force trauma to the head and torso. His remains were found inside a nylon bag beneath the Ben Franklin Bridge, wrapped in bedsheets and a towel.
For years, the body lay unclaimed at the city morgue. In 2001, an elderly woman from North Philadelphia arranged for the boy to have a funeral, and his ashes were buried in Juniata Park on Ash Wednesday, beneath a headstone saying "God bless this grave of this unknown boy."
Chitwood said Detective George Fetters and Sgt. Robert Kuhlmeier solved the case after an uncle of the boy contacted them last month. Using that tip, the detectives conducted numerous interviews that led them to the suspects, Chitwood said, as well as a horrific account of a brutalized child's life.
"Based on what we are told by the mother, and based on the results of the autopsy, you learn that this boy had just a horrendous life," Chitwood said. "His last day of life, his last 24 hours, would make you cry."
Chitwood said a search warrant to obtain the mother's DNA was obtained before her arrest. He said he expected additional information, including the identity of the killer, to be released as early as tomorrow.
And in time, Chitwood said, the boy's headstone will finally have a name on it.
"It will," he said, "if I have to put it there myself."
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Philadelphia Inquirer - March 7, 2005
Camden County looks into '94 death
Investigators are waiting for DNA test results to link the remains of a 4-year-old to a woman charged in Phila.
By Troy Graham, Larry King and Toni Callas - Inquirer Staff Writers
The 4-year-old boy found beaten to death and stuffed in a duffel bag in Old City in 1994 appears to have been a child from Camden.
Camden County Prosecutor Vincent P. Sarubbi said yesterday that authorities were investigating the case. He said investigators were waiting for DNA test results to conclusively link the boy's remains to his mother, a 32-year-old woman who was charged in Philadelphia with abusing the boy's corpse. Philadelphia authorities announced the arrest on Saturday but did not release the woman's name.
Sarubbi said yesterday that the case was not "just a DNA investigation."
Philadelphia homicide Lt. Michael Chitwood has said the boy was killed in a "neighboring jurisdiction" and dumped in Old City. Another arrest in connection with the boy's murder was imminent, Chitwood said.
The child's skeletal remains were found on May 27, 1994, in the 300 block of North Lawrence Street. An autopsy showed that the boy had been beaten to death, with trauma to the head and torso. His remains were found, wrapped in bedsheets and a towel, inside a nylon bag underneath the Ben Franklin Bridge. The child became known as the Boy in the Bag.
For years, the body lay unclaimed at the city morgue. In 2001, a woman from North Philadelphia arranged for the boy to have a funeral, and his ashes were buried in Juniata Park on Ash Wednesday, beneath a headstone saying "God bless this grave of this unknown boy."
Chitwood said Detective George Fetters and Sgt. Robert Kuhlmeier solved the case after an uncle of the boy contacted them last month. Using that tip, the detectives conducted numerous interviews that led them to suspects, Chitwood said, as well as a horrific account of a brutalized child's life.
"Based on what we are told by the mother, and based on the results of the autopsy, you learn that this boy had just a horrendous life," Chitwood said. "His last day of life, his last 24 hours, would make you cry."
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Philadelphia Inquirer - March 8, 2005
Police identify mother of boy killed a decade ago
Philadelphia police yesterday released the identity of the woman believed to be the mother of a 4-year-old boy who was found dead in Old City almost 11 years ago, stuffed inside a duffel bag and dumped on a lot in the 300 block of North Lawrence Street near the Benjamin Franklin Bridge.
Alicia Robinson, 32, of the 6100 block of Reedland Street in Southwest Philadelphia, was arrested and charged last week with abuse of a corpse and hindering apprehension in the boy's death. His name has not been released. Investigators here and in Camden were waiting for DNA test results to conclusively link the boy's remains to Robinson.
Camden County Prosecutor Vincent P. Sarubbi said Sunday that New Jersey investigators also are involved in the case. Philadelphia police Homicide Unit detectives believe the boy was killed in Camden and his body then carried here, possibly on a bus, and dumped on the lot. The skeletal remains were found May 27, 1994. An autopsy later revealed that the boy had been beaten to death, with trauma to the head and torso. Investigators said they have identified a man as a second person of interest in the case.
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Philadelphia Inquirer - March 10, 2005
A real mother for ill-fated child
By Monica Yant Kinney - Inquirer Columnist
After nearly 11 years, police have identified the woman they believe is the mother of the "Boy in the Bag."
Some parent of the year she was.
So far, Alicia Robinson has been charged with abuse of a corpse and hindering apprehension in the 1994 death of her 4-year-old son.
Cops on both sides of the river are still sorting out the details but are pretty sure the boy was beaten to death in Camden, stuffed into a bag, tossed out like the trash, and left to rot in a vacant lot in Old City.
Even more baffling?
That, police suspect, Robinson and an as-yet-unnamed man "of interest" in the case used NJ Transit as an accessory in the crime.
Supposedly, they boarded a bus toting the tot's corpse, rode over the Ben Franklin Bridge, ditched the duffel, and returned home to get on with their lives in Camden.
Robinson may have given birth to the boy, but if she played even a costarring role in his death, she doesn't deserve to be called his mama.
That title should go to Mary Peck.
She was the North Philadelphia stranger so heartbroken by the story of the "Boy in the Bag" that she spent seven years begging the morgue to release his body for burial.
If the boy wasn't loved during his short life, Mary made sure he was cherished in death, for eternity.
"This little fella has no name," she told me the day we met. "At least his little body should be at peace, at rest."
In February 2001, after police exhausted all leads and took DNA tests from the body, the "Boy in the Bag" was finally cleared for cremation.
I drove Mary to the morgue, where staff members marveled at her resolve to prove to a boy no one wanted that someone really did care.
Strangers touched by her tenderness joined us for the funeral.
The archdiocese donated a spot in New Cathedral Cemetery in North Philadelphia. A bagpiper volunteered his musical services.
A woman Mary never met decorated a box with lace and a cross so the boy's ashes could be buried in something beautiful.
At the cemetery, the Rev. John McNamee said Mary had even chosen a name for her "little fella."
Tarsicius, the patron saint of altar boys. He, too, was beaten to death.
In more than a decade of doing this, I've never met a woman like Mary.
Calling it a privilege is an understatement. Calling her an unsung angel seems too schmaltzy.
Mary didn't do schmaltz. She was as humble and unassuming as her deeds were gracious and grand.
"If I didn't do it, somebody else would - wouldn't they?" she once asked me.
Mary had battled cancer before the boy's burial. She was thrilled that a grave marker - donated by another stranger - was installed before she got sick again.
If only Mary could have lived long enough to see the case cracked.
This week, I stopped by the boy's grave again, thinking as I brushed snow off the black granite marker that there's one more thing Mary would want so he can rest in peace.
Turns out Jim Travis was thinking the same thought.
"I'll replace the marker when we learn the boy's name," said Travis, who owns Travis Memorials. "Whatever it takes, I'll do it."
Mary Peck lost her fight against cancer in April 2003.
I was out of town for work at the time and couldn't attend her funeral.
Not that she would have had me.
Modest until the end, Mary insisted on a simple graveside burial.
No fuss, no crowds, nothing fancy.
"That's what she wanted," her son Harry Peck said. "How do you not honor the person you love?"
After visiting Tarsicius, I drove up Broad Street to Northwood Cemetery in West Oak Lane.
There, in Lot 74 of the Birch section, Mary lies next to her husband, Harry, a Navy veteran who passed in 1984.
I wasn't surprised by her final resting spot.
Harry's name is on the gravestone, but, per her wishes, Mary's is not.
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WPVI Channel 6 Action News
1994 Homicide Solved
CAMDEN, NJ - March 29, 2005
The mother of a 4-year-old boy whose remains were found 11 years ago in a duffel bag and her husband were charged Tuesday with murder in a death that had confounded authorities for 11 years.
For the first time, the name of the child - now buried under a marker calling him an "unknown boy" - also was made public: Jerell Willis.
Prosecutors said he was beaten to death by his mother, Alicia Willis Robinson, 32, and her husband, Lawrence Robinson, 36, in January 1994 before he was taken by bus to Philadelphia, where his decaying remains were discovered in a vacant lot near the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in May 1994.
The child's body was so beaten and decayed that details of his face were hard to make out, authorities said.
The break in the case came in the last few months, when an uncle of the boy returned to the area after several years, prosecutors said. The man, whom authorities did not identify, asked about the boy, who now would have been 15 years old. "He was given the runaround about where the child was," said Camden County prosecutor Vincent P. Sarubbi.
Eventually, the uncle visited the Web site of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Among the resources for people trying to locate missing children was a bust, made by forensic sculptor Frank Bender, of a boy whose body was found in Philadelphia.
That boy resembled Jerell. The relative called Philadelphia police, who started digging into the case again.
In January, Alicia Robinson was arrested at her home and charged with abusing a corpse and hindering arrest. Those charges were filed because it was believed she and her husband dumped her son's body in Philadelphia, Sarubbi said. The murder charges against the couple were filed in Camden, where authorities believe the fatal beating took place.
Lawrence Robinson is in Riverfront State Prison in Camden, where he is serving an eight-year sentence for a 1996 sexual assault.
Before the uncle's call to authorities, all that was known about the boy in the bag was that his remains weighed 41 pounds, and he was 38 inches tall.
His remains were in a morgue in Philadelphia for seven years, before a Philadelphia woman organized a burial for the child in 2001.
The headstone reads: "God bless this grave of this unknown boy." "This little boy in a bag who was known previously only to his maker is now known to the world," said Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham.
Sarubbi said the boy grew up in a home so prone to violence that New Jersey's child welfare agency, the Division of Youth and Family Services, had been called to the family's Camden apartment to investigate allegations of abuse against the boy.
Agency spokesman Andy Williams said the file on the family was closed before Jerell went missing. He said DYFS has begun an internal review of how it handled the case.
A spokesman for the Philadelphia Department of Human Services said Alicia Robinson has nine other children, all of whom are living in Philadelphia with the father of the two youngest children. They have not been the subject of any abuse or neglect reports, according to department spokesman Ted Qualli.
(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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Philadelphia Inquirer - March 30, 2005
"Boy in Bag" is nameless no longer
Jerell Willis, 4, of Camden, was beaten in '94 and found in a vacant Phila. lot. His mother and her husband are charged with murder.
By Sam Wood - Inquirer Staff Writer
Since 2001, he has lain under a gravestone, identified only as "unknown boy."
To law enforcement investigators, he was "the Boy in the Bag."
Yesterday, he was given a name: Jerell Willis.
He was just 4 in 1994 when, authorities said, he was beaten to death in an East Camden apartment complex, then stuffed into a duffel bag that was dumped in a trash-strewn lot in Philadelphia.
"This little boy, previously known only to his Maker, is now known to the world," Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham said.
The boy's mother, Alicia Willis Robinson, 32, and her husband, Lawrence Robinson, 36, were charged yesterday with his murder, Camden County Prosecutor Vincent P. Sarubbi said.
For more than 10 years, relatives who had asked the Robinsons about the boy's disappearance were given the runaround, Sarubbi said.
Then last month, Philadelphia detectives got a call from one of the boy's uncles. Doing some detective work of his own, he had come across a sculpture of a young boy's head on the Web site of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The visage was familiar.
"He said he saw the bust and recognized distinct family features," said Frank Bender, the sculptor of the forensic reconstruction.
That, investigators said, was the break they needed to reopen the case.
Alicia Robinson, arrested at her home in the 6100 block of Reedland Street this month, was being held last night without bail in a Philadelphia jail on charges of abuse of a corpse. Her extradition to New Jersey is being sought, Sarubbi said.
Lawrence Robinson, also known as Jevon Willis, is in Riverfront State Prison in Camden, serving the second year of an eight-year sentence for sexual assault.
Jerell died of multiple blunt trauma "on or about January 1994" after being severely beaten about the head, Sarubbi said.
According to a statement of probable cause, Alicia Robinson told investigators that she and her husband struck Jerell numerous times in their apartment "around the time of a major snowstorm." The boy became lethargic and then unconscious.
Neither of the Robinsons summoned medical help. According to the statement, they avoided contacting any official.
The Robinsons stuffed Jerell's 41-pound corpse into a nylon bag, traveled to Philadelphia, and disposed of his body in an abandoned lot under the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, authorities said.
"They both did it together," Sarubbi said. "They found the first empty or vacant lot, and that's where they placed the bag."
A passerby found the skeletal remains, wrapped in bedsheets and a towel, on May 27, 1994.
An autopsy determined that the child had been beaten several times before the blows that killed him. Numerous old fractures of the ribs were noted, Sarubbi said.
The New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services had been in contact with the family before the slaying because of complaints about the boy's treatment. None of the complaints could be substantiated, DYFS spokesman Andy Williams said.
"The last contact we had with them was in October 1993, when the case was closed," he said.
At least two other children were living in the Robinson apartment when a caseworker visited, Williams said.
Now, he said, DYFS is reviewing the case files.
Alicia Robinson has nine children, all in the custody of the father of the two youngest, said Ted Qualli, spokesman for the Philadelphia Department of Human Services. He said the agency was doing its best to keep the family together.
DNA tests have conclusively linked Alicia Robinson to the boy's remains, authorities said.
After the autopsy in 1994, the nameless child's body lay unclaimed at the city morgue until 2001, when Mary Peck, a North Philadelphia grandmother, arranged for a funeral. His ashes were interred in North Philadelphia on Ash Wednesday, beneath a headstone reading, "God bless this grave of this unknown boy."
"It's a real shame Mary Peck isn't around for the identification," said Bender, the forensic sculptor. Peck, who died two years ago, "really cared for that little boy."
Several lawmakers have volunteered to arrange for a new headstone. This time, it will be marked with Jerell Willis' name.
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Philadelphia Daily News - March 30, 2005
Cops: Mom, lover killed "Boy in the Bag" in '94
By CATHERINE LUCEY
The mysterious decade-old case of "The Boy in the Bag" came to a conclusion yesterday as cops revealed the child's real name and announced the arrests of his alleged killers.
Little Jerell Willis - who was four years old and weighed just 41 pounds - was beaten in the head by his mother Alicia Willis Robinson, 32, and her now-husband Lawrence Robinson, 35, officials said. Camden County authorities filed murder charges against the duo yesterday.
Police got a tip from a family member of the boy last month, which led their investigation to the couple.
According to court filings, they attacked Jerell in their East Camden apartment in January 1994, hitting him in the head and body until he became lethargic, grew unconscious and died.
They made no attempts to help or revive the child, but instead wrapped his lifeless body in old sheets and put him in a pink, blue and green duffel bag. Then they got on a bus to Philadelphia and dumped him in a vacant lot on Lawrence Street near Vine, court papers said.
By the time Jerell was found months later, on May 27, his body was so badly decomposed, investigators said he looked like "molten wax." The medical examiner found injuries to his head, as well as signs of old and new violence on his body.
The couple are both incarcerated. Alicia Robinson was locked up several weeks ago in Philadelphia for this case, on charges of abuse of a corpse and hindering an investigation. And Lawrence Robinson is imprisoned in New Jersey for a 1996 sexual assault.
Robinson is not Jerell's father, police said.
He and Alicia Robinson were not married at the time of the attack.
For years this case stumped cops. Police consulted national organizations for missing children and the case was featured on a national television show.
Cops even brought in Philadelphia forensic artist Frank Bender who created a facial reconstruction of the boy, giving him dark skin, short curly hair and hazel eyes.
Bender's work has helped identify other victims, but this time it did not aid police.
In 2001, North Philly grandma Mary Peck held a funeral for the boy at a Catholic cemetery in Juniata Park.
His ashes were buried in an unmarked grave.
Peck called the child Tarcisius, after the patron saint of altar boys, who also was beaten to death.
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Philadelphia Inquirer - March 31, 2005
Same Apartment but different story
By Monica Yant Kinney - Inquirer Columnist
The buzzers out front are broken; the main door is ajar. The hall smells faintly of urine and stale cigarettes.
But upstairs in Apartment D, Renee Vaughns and Ike Brown are watching their newborn nap.
That is, until I show up to tell them that evil once lived in the building, in the very same unit.
There isn't any way to sugarcoat it, so I get right to the point. "A child was murdered in your apartment 11 years ago," I tell Renee through the door. "I was hoping to come in and see the place for myself."
As if seeing would mean believing.
Even now, years after first writing about the "Boy in the Bag," I find it hard to believe anyone could be so cruel.
If there's any comfort to be taken in the murder charges filed in the case this week, it is that at least we finally know the little boy's name.
Eleven years after his own mother and her boyfriend allegedly beat the boy to death, stuffed his body in a gym bag, and threw him out like the trash to rot in a vacant lot.
Four years after a complete stranger, saddened by the murder, gave the boy a proper burial and a parting kiss.
The gravestone calls him Tarsicius, after another child who was beaten to death.
His real name was Jerell Willis.
Born in 1989, killed in 1994 - somewhere in this East Camden apartment, on the other side of Renee Vaughns' door.
A parent's nightmareIt's not every day a stranger shows up talking about murder.
So it's a testament to the other extreme of human nature that Renee lets me inside.
Her predecessors may have been monsters, but Renee and Ike welcome me warmly into their home.
"Please, sit down," she says, gesturing to a comfortable leather couch. "Would you like a bottle of water?"
My arrival explains why TV news trucks were driving by that afternoon. Renee and Ike were curious, but too busy to go outside and investigate.
Three weeks ago, they brought their first child home from the hospital. His name is Imere. It means "African warrior," though as he sleeps, he seems perfectly at peace.
The new parents have to sit down to hear what the old ones are accused of doing.
Investigators say Alicia Willis Robinson and her then-boyfriend, Lawrence Robinson, beat Jerell so brutally that he became lethargic, then unconscious. Then, he died.
Ike's a big guy, a roofer. But he's a dad now, and he has heard enough. "Anybody who could hurt a kid, something's really, really wrong with them," he says, scowling.
"That's crazy. That's something in my mind, in my heart, I couldn't ever think of doing."
Putting family first Looking around the apartment, I can't imagine where those fatal blows might have been delivered.Blue "Baby Boy" balloons still float around the living room, celebrating Imere's arrival. An Easter basket on the coffee table brims with sweet treats. Videos are neatly stacked around the big-screen TV. Baby bottles stand upside-down drying near the kitchen sink.
The two-bedroom apartment is safe, but small. They hope to move to a bigger place soon.
"It's not where you live, but how you live your life," Renee says. "Trouble can find you anywhere."
It's dinner time, and from the distinct scent and sound from the stove, I guess fried chicken. "It's spaghetti," Renee says, laughing. But I'm close: She uses chicken grease to cook the noodles.
Renee, who works in customer service, can't take her eyes off Imere.
She's 27 and always thought she couldn't get pregnant. Even after she met Ike at a crowded happy hour, she worried she might be too old to have a child. "He's my miracle baby," she says.
She's already so overprotective, she worried about leaving Imere with Ike to go grocery shopping.
They may be new at this parenting thing, but Renee and Ike already know something that Jerell Willis' killers obviously did not. No matter what, Renee says, "you've got to be patient with kids."
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WPVI Channel 6 Action News
Questions Surround Murdered Camden Youth
CAMDEN, NJ - March 31, 2005
How could a young Camden, New Jersey boy's disappearance from his family go undetected for more than a decade?
That's the question investigators are trying to answer.
The remains of four-year-old Jerell Willis were found in a duffel bag in Philadelphia in 1994. His mother, Alicia Willis Robinson, and her husband, Lawrence Robinson, have been charged with his murder.
But why no one noticed his disappearance remains a cause for concern.
Some of the explanations offered so far are that his growing and complicated family kept moving and that he was too young to have school officials watching out for him.
Also, New Jersey's child welfare agency closed its case on the family about three months before the boy's death. Officials are reviewing records to determine exactly why that happened.
(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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Philadelphia Inquirer - April 2, 2005
Editorial: 'The Boy in the Bag'
Failings were many
How perversely satisfying it is to be able to say, "Here lies Jerell Willis."
The satisfaction does not, of course, come from the sickening 1994 murder of the 4-year-old, whom authorities say was beaten to death in an East Camden apartment. They have charged his mother and her then-boyfriend (now husband) in Jerell's murder.
Alicia Willis Robinson and Lawrence Robinson are alleged to have stuffed Jerell's corpse into a gym bag, traveled to Philadelphia, and dumped him in a vacant lot near the Benjamin Franklin Bridge.
The satisfaction in this case, meager though it may be, is that an identity finally has been attached to this child, who for years was known only as "the Boy in the Bag."
It is an indicator of how vulnerable children can be that Jerell was given a label more appropriate for an inanimate object than for a little boy.
A far worse indicator is that from January 1994, when police believe he was killed, until just recently, few in the world, save for some inquisitive relatives, seemed to care that a boy had vanished.
No one, related or not, apparently pressed the Robinsons for more than vague, diversionary responses about Jerell's whereabouts.
No one is more responsible for Jerell's painful life and death than his mother. His biological father, whose identity is either unclear or unknown, deserves some responsibility, too. But it was Lawrence Robinson who was living with Jerrell's mother when the boy was killed and is charged also with murder.
Government agencies that are supposed to look out for children who come to their attention may also have fatally failed Jerell.
The New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services needs to answer why it closed Jerell's case on Oct. 27, 1993, after four referrals on various complaints of physical abuse, "family problems," and neglect of the child and his siblings.
Was the file closed without sufficient follow-through by DYFS, such as sending Jerell to a hospital for skeletal X-rays that might have shown physical abuse?
Was DYFS involved with any of his siblings, giving caseworkers a reason to be in the house after Jerell's case was closed? Since a 1992 neglect allegation concerned multiple children in the family, the answer seems to be yes.
As part of the ongoing DYFS overhaul, a new policy requires further investigation when a family has four unsubstantiated referrals in a certain period of time, according to DYFS. That change suggests that a similar case to Jerell's would not be closed today.
That's fine. But DYFS officials better make sure that any other gaps that Jerell or his siblings fell through also are fixed.
Because the Robinsons moved across the Delaware River after Jerell's death, the Philadelphia Department of Human Services also has questions to answer.
Don't forget that not only did Alicia Willis Robinson have other children after Jerell, but that one of the neglect allegations made to DYFS concerned all of the kids.
It's hard to imagine the family did not have contact with Philadelphia social workers. If DHS was involved, then its workers should have been curious about Jerell's whereabouts.
Solving this sad mystery is not a blame game. It's a way to ensure that those who bear responsibility are held accountable - and to protect vulnerable children.
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WPVI Channel 6 Action News
Court Date for 1994 Murder
April 22, 2005
Bail is set at 500-thousand dollars for a woman charged with killing her four-year-old son in Camden in 1994, then dumping his body in Philadelphia.
Alicia Robinson was arrested at her Philadelphia home in January and charged with abusing a corpse and hindering arrest. Last month, authorities in New Jersey added a murder charge, and the 32-year-old Robinson was extradited from Pennsylvania yesterday.
Robinson had no lawyer when she appeared in court today to have the charges read to her. Her husband, Lawrence, was also charged with murder in a case that had confounded authorities for years.
Authorities say Alicia Willis Robinson's son, Jerell, was the boy found beaten to death and left in a duffel bag near the Ben Franklin Bridge in 1994.
The boy went unidentified for more than a decade. Until a donor paid to have him buried in 2001, the boy's remains were in a Philadelphia morgue.
(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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Philadelphia Inquirer - April 23, 2005
Boy's mother arraigned on murder count
By Edward Colimore - Inquirer Staff Writer
The mother of a 4-year-old boy - charged along with her husband in the child's 1994 beating death - was arraigned yesterday on a murder charge and ordered held on $500,000 bail.
Alicia Willis Robinson, 32, of Philadelphia, now awaits action by a grand jury, which will decide whether to indict her in the killing of Jerell Willis, who was known only as "the Boy in the Bag" until February.
The 4-year-old was killed in an East Camden apartment 10 years ago, stuffed into a nylon bag, and dumped on a trash-strewn lot in Philadelphia.
Robinson, who faces at least 30 years in prison if convicted, poses a "considerable risk of flight," said Superior Court Judge Linda G. Baxter as she set the bail.
Robinson's 36-year-old husband, Lawrence Robinson, also known as Jevon Willis, is to be arraigned later. He is being held in Riverfront State Prison in Camden, where he is serving the second year of an eight-year sentence for sexual assault.
Assistant Camden County Prosecutor James Conley said yesterday that Alicia Robinson told investigators that she and her husband struck Jerell numerous times in the head and body while at their East Camden apartment in January 1994. The two did not summon medical attention for the boy and avoided contacting authorities, Conley said.
The Robinsons placed Jerell's 41-pound corpse into a duffel bag, traveled to Philadelphia, and disposed of it under the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, where it was discovered on May 27, 1994.
Conley said the remains were transferred to the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office, which found blunt-force injuries to the boy's head and old rib fractures.
Jerell's relatives had asked about him but were not told where he was. In February, one of his uncles found a sculpture of the 4-year-old's head on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Web site. He called Philadelphia detectives, and Alicia Robinson was arrested last month.
Yesterday, Conley told Baxter that Robinson had confirmed the details of the beating and the disposal of the body to authorities on March 2.
Baxter found probable cause to hold Robinson and outlined her rights to a trial by jury and an attorney of her choosing.
"I'm asking the court to appoint an attorney," said Robinson, who wore an orange corrections jumpsuit and was manacled about her waist.
Jerell's unidentified body had gone unclaimed in the city morgue until 2001, when a North Philadelphia grandmother arranged for a funeral.
His ashes were interred in North Philadelphia beneath a headstone reading, "God bless this grave of this unknown boy." A new headstone is to be marked with his name.
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Philadelphia Inquirer - May 3, 2005
Murder defendant says he wasn't there
Interrupting the prosecutor, Lawrence Robinson denied involvement in the "Boy in the Bag" case.
By Troy Graham - Inquirer Staff Writer
As a Camden County prosecutor described the beating death of 4-year-old Jerrel Willis in court yesterday, Lawrence Robinson shook his head slightly.
Robinson, appearing in Superior Court in Camden for his arraignment on charges that he and Willis' mother killed the boy, later began talking over the voice of the prosecutor.
The judge told Robinson to let the prosecutor finish.
"Even if what he's saying ain't true?" Robinson asked. "I wasn't even in the house when this happened. I don't know how I'm charged with murder."
Prosecutors have said Robinson, 36, and his wife, Alicia Willis Robinson, 32, beat her son in their East Camden apartment in January 1994, then dumped his body after he died.
The decomposed body was found months later in a duffel bag beneath the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia. The child could not be identified and became known as the "Boy in the Bag." A North Philadelphia woman arranged for a funeral in 2001 and had a headstone made to mark the grave of "this unknown boy."
In February, the boy's uncle called Philadelphia detectives after recognizing a reconstruction of Jerrel's head on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Web site.
Alicia Willis Robinson was arrested in March. Lawrence Robinson, the boy's stepfather, was arrested later.
Robinson is serving the second year of an eight-year sentence at Riverfront State Prison in Camden for sexual assault.
He was a fugitive for seven years on the sex-assault charge, and he used several aliases, birth dates and Social Security numbers, prosecutors said.
Becuse of that, Judge Linda Baxter set his bail at $750,000.
The case now goes to a grand jury for consideration.
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Camden Courier-Post - May 3, 2005
Bail set for boy's stepfather in killing
By Renee Winkler - Camden Courier-Post Staff
Bail was set at $750,000 on Monday for the stepfather of a 4-year-old boy whose battered body was found in a duffel bag under the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia in 1994.
Lawrence Robinson, 35, was charged with murder in the death of Jerell Willis in late March. Also charged was his wife, Alicia Willis Robinson, 32.
Until a month or two before arrest warrants were issued for the pair, the boy's identity was unknown. He was identified by a relative who searched for the child on the Web site of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. That relative found a photo of a clay bust of the boy, prepared by a forensic sculptor, and notified police to restart the investigation.
The child had lived with his mother and stepfather at Washington Park Apartments in Camden in 1994. An autopsy showed he died of multiple blows to the head. After he died, according to police, the boy's body was put inside a duffel bag and was carried to Philadelphia on a bus.
When arrested, Robinson was serving an eight-year sentence at Riverfront State Prison in Camden for aggravated sexual assault.
Robinson interrupted Camden County Prosecutor Michael Chewkanes as he read a probable cause statement into the record. "I wasn't in the house. How can I be charged with the murder?' he asked.
Robinson could be sentenced to 30 years to life in prison if convicted.
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Philadelphia Inquirer - July 31, 2005
Family in spirit, they honor 'Boy in the Bag'
By Monica Yant Kinney - Inquirer Columnist
No one from Jerell Willis' biological family attended his long-overdue grave blessing Friday morning.
His posthumous spiritual clan, however, turned out in full force.
One priest, two nuns, a generous monument man, and the proud offspring of Mary Peck, the North Philadelphia woman who believed everyone deserves to rest in peace.
Especially little boys who were beaten to death and tossed out like the trash, allegedly by their own parents.
Sixteen years after he was born Jerell Willis, he can again claim the name for eternity.
Eleven years after he became known as the "Boy in the Bag," his personal purgatory is over.
Four years after Mary Peck and a cemetery full of strangers buried a box of anonymous ashes, a custom black granite monument marks the spot where he was so tenderly laid.
In March, Jerell's mother, Alicia Willis Robinson, and her husband, Lawrence Robinson, were arrested in the long-unsolved murder.
Once again, the boy's spiritual clan rose to action.
Jerell's family may have failed him, but these strangers would not.
Especially not now, now that they finally know his name.
"I think I'll have to make up a prayer, because there's nothing in the Book for a situation like this," Father John McNamee said as we stood over Jerell's grave at the New Cathedral Cemetery in Juniata Park.
So he ad-libbed, urging God to look out for the child "who came to you on a hard road, by way of violence."
Jerell was killed in an East Camden apartment in January 1994. His mother can't recall the date, telling investigators only that her son was pummeled the day of a fierce snowstorm.
The boy's naked body was stuffed in a duffel bag, taken to Philadelphia and tossed in a vacant lot near the Ben Franklin Bridge.
Friday was not the first time that Father McNamee had stood over his grave.
The St. Malachy priest officiated at Jerell's funeral in 2001 at the behest of Mary Peck, a parishioner who spent years begging morgue officials to let her bury the boy she read about in the paper, the boy no one wanted.
Since he lacked a name, Mary chose one - Tarcisius, a patron saint of altar boys, who was beaten to death by a Roman mob.
After reading about the funeral, Jim Travis, of Travis Memorials, donated a grave marker.
This spring, when Travis read about the arrests, and the boy's true identity, he insisted on replacing the stone.
"I had to do a brand-new monument," Travis told me. "I didn't want to just squeeze in the new words. It wouldn't be right."
"The good that comes out of evil," Sister Catherine Denny said at the grave site.
If Jerell's mother hadn't been charged with his murder, we might never have known his name.
Since she was, we do. And Mary's wish - that the "little fella" experience an eternal peace he was denied in life - was finally granted.
"All graves should be marked in a world that is right," Father McNamee explained in his blessing.
"We should know one another by name, as God does."
As the priest spoke, Mary Peck's son, Harry, sniffled. So did his wife, Sonya. And his sister, Charlan.
They're still nursing their own loss. Mary died two years ago, after a long battle with cancer. She was 72.
Her family and the nuns at St. Malachy came up with the design for the new monument, which Travis carved out of South African granite.
Jerell Willis
July 1, 1989 - January 1994
Called "Tarcisius" by Mary Peck of St. Malachy Parish until his own name came to light.
Next to the words, Travis etched an image of Jesus holding a child under a dove, and the words safely home.
Mary would have loved everything about it, except the reference to her.
She never did understand why we all made such a fuss over what she did for the "little fella."
"If I didn't do it, someone else would," Mary once asked me.
"Wouldn't they?"
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CASE UPDATE - April 12, 2006
Information provided by Renee Winkler of the Camden Courier-Post.
After a delay of nearly one year, a Camden County grand jury indicted Alicia Willis Robinson and James Robinson for the 1994 murder of 4-year-old Jerell Willis.
Alicia Willis Robinson is still being held in the Camden County jail, and Lawrence Robinson is serving time in Riverfront State Prison for an aggravated sexual assault conviction.
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Camden Courier-Post - July 15, 2006
Hearings set for 2 in "boy in bag' slaying
Status conferences for Lawrence Robinson and Alicia Willis Robinson, charged with the slaying of a 4-year-old boy whose death had been an unsolved case since 1994, are set for Monday.
The boy, Jerell Willis of Camden, was beaten to death inside his South 29th Street apartment around January 1994, according to then-Camden County Prosecutor Vincent P. Sarubbi.
His body was then stuffed inside a duffel bag and transported by bus to Philadelphia, where police there found it May 27, 1994, in a vacant lot underneath the Benjamin Franklin Bridge.
Alicia Willis Robinson, 32, the boy's mother and Lawrence Robinson, 35, the boy's stepfather, are both charged with murder.
The key to cracking the so-called "boy-in-the-bag" case came in January 2005 via the Internet, authorities said.
A relative who had recently returned to the area after living elsewhere sought Jerell on the Web site of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Sarubbi said.
There he found a picture of a forensic artist's clay bust of the boy. He called Philadelphia police, restarting the investigation.
The status conferences are set for 1:30 p.m. Monday before Superior Court Judge John T. McNeill III in the Camden County Hall of Justice.
PRIOR CASE HISTORY
Click here to read prior news articles about the "Boy in the Bag" case.
