Another Susan Smith type case

[Upstate Scuba OWI]

Coroner identifies two children found dead in submerged car


Posted: Aug 16, 2010 12:02 PM EDT Updated: Aug 16, 2010 5:47 PM EDT
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Video Gallery



RAW: Two toddlers pulled from submerged car (Source: TheTandD.com)

0:32



Shakeyia Benjamin from Orangeburg puts flowers at the site (Source: Jody Barr)
Workers pull the vehicle from the river (Source: thetandD.com)
Sheriff Williams addresses the media (Source: Jody Barr)

Click image to enlarge


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ORANGEBURG COUNTY, SC (WIS) - The Orangeburg County coroner has released the names of two toddlers recovered from a car found submerged in a South Carolina river.
Orangeburg County Coroner Samuetta Marshall has identified the children as 18-month-old Ja'van T. Duley and 2-year-old Devean C. Duley, both of Orangeburg.
The South Carolina Highway Patrol was called to the Shillings Bridge boat ramp for a report of a vehicle in the water around 6 a.m. Monday. Once on the scene, troopers, believing it was more than an accident, called the Orangeburg County Sheriff's Department.
Orangeburg County dive team members discovered the bodies of a 1-year-old and 2-year old boy inside the Green Dodge Intrepid at 6:40 a.m. The toddler's bodies were still strapped in their child restraint seats when they were recovered.
Ramona Millhouse watched as rescue crews worked to recover the boys, and pull the car out of the water.
"One of them carried a little boy off to the ambulance and then there was a girl working with them and she took the other little boy off the stretcher and she carried him to the ambulance," said Millhouse.
According to Orangeburg County Sheriff Larry Williams, the boys' 29-year-old mother walked almost a mile before calling for help. Williams said she described the incident as an "accident."
Authorities said the mother has one other child and is from Orangeburg County. Her name has not been released. She is charged with leaving the scene of an accident. Williams said there's a possibility this was not an accident.
"It's a possibility, of course, with her leaving the scene of the accident, and we're going to further interview her today, and that's a possibility," said Williams.
Williams says Troopers did not find any evidence that the car was in an accident. The only explanation, according to Williams, is that the car went into the river at a nearby boat landing.
"She left the location," said Williams. "She walked away from the vehicle, maybe three-fourths of a mile away, of course, where she had contacted someone to call law enforcement to report that she had been involved in an accident."
"We definitely didn't have any evidence of a vehicle accident," added the sheriff.
A witness said she overheard investigators saying the ignition was left on when they opened the car door in the water.
Orangeburg sheriff's deputies had Shillings Bridge Road closed down for most of the morning while trying to retrieve the vehicle from the river.
An autopsy will be conducted on the bodies to determine exact cause of death.
The sheriff did not say whether the investigation is to a point where investigators can say for sure, exactly how, or who put the car in the river.
Copyright 2010 WIS. All rights reserved. AP contributed to this report.

 

[BladesRobinson]

FROM: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/18/us/18drown.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

Mother Killed 2 Children, Police Say
By ROBBIE BROWN

A financially desperate woman in South Carolina has confessed to smothering her two children with her bare hands and driving their bodies into a river, the police said on Tuesday morning.

The woman, Shaquan Duley, 29, admitted to killing her 2-year-old and 18-month-old sons after the police pulled her submerged car from a river in Orangeburg, S.C., and discovered their bodies, according to Larry Williams, the county sheriff.

"The statement was made by the mother that she had suffocated the children," Sheriff Williams said at a press conference. "She was a mother that was unemployed. She had no way of taking care of her children."

Ms. Duley will be formally charged with murder on Wednesday, the police said.

The toddlers were identified on Tuesday by the Orangeburg County coroner, Samuetta Marshall, as Ja’van T. Duley, 18 months, and Devean C. Duley, 2.

Ms. Duley also had another child, a 5-year-old, who is now with his grandmother, the police said.

The case has many parallels to the case of Susan Smith, a South Carolina woman who was convicted of drowning her two sons in a car in a lake in Union County in 1994.

Sheriff Williams said the Orangeburg County killings followed a dispute between Ms. Duley and her mother.

"She was fed up with her mother telling her that she couldn’t take care of the children or wasn’t taking care of the children," Sheriff Williams said. "She just wanted to be free."

The police received a call about a submerged car early on Monday. But they quickly grew suspicious of Ms. Duley’s accounts of the accident, which were inconsistent while she was exhibiting a wide range of emotions. The authorities said that one hint that her original story was a lie was that her clothes were dry, although she said she had gone into the river to try to save her sons.

"We felt that the story she was telling us wasn’t factual," Sheriff Williams said.