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   From: goons@freedyn.de   
      
   Less than a day after police found the decomposing bodies of a 6-   
   year-old girl and an 8-year-old boy in a Southwest Baltimore   
   apartment complex, Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison   
   said their mother will be charged with their deaths.   
      
   Harrison said charges are pending against 28-year-old Jamerria Hall   
   of Baltimore, the mother of Da’Neira Thomas, 6, and Davin Thomas   
   Jr., 8, whose bodies were found in their apartment in the 500 block   
   of Coventry Road Tuesday.   
      
   Neighbors said they regularly saw the children playing together   
   outside the complex, and Hall had written on social media often   
   about both the joys and struggles of motherhood. She even featured   
   the kids on a podcast she started called BMorE Charming.   
      
   But court documents from a 2018 arson case show Hall faced deeper   
   challenges. They detail how she erected a shrine of family photos in   
   her mother’s apartment that she attempted to set on fire before   
   briefly disappearing with the children.   
      
   At a Wednesday news conference at police headquarters downtown,   
   Harrison said officers were called to the Coventry Road apartment   
   after a resident noticed a foul smell. Officers found the children’s   
   bodies in the early stages of decomposition in two separate rooms.   
   Investigators quickly sought the mother for questioning, and on   
   Wednesday morning, during an interview with detectives, she   
   confessed to killing the children, Harrison said.   
      
   “My heart goes out to the family members,” Harrison said. “There is   
   nothing more difficult than investigating the murder of a child,   
   much less two children.”   
      
   Harrison said detectives are working with the medical examiner’s   
   office to determine when and how the children died. He said   
   investigators also are working with Child Protective Services as   
   part of the investigation.   
      
   “This is an unfathomable gut-wrenching tragedy,” Mayor Brandon Scott   
   said at Wednesday news conference. “Davin and Da’Neira, who are 6   
   and 8, should be starting school, like the rest of the kids in the   
   city.”   
      
   Scott pledged a review of the case to identify any agency lapses   
   that might have contributed to the children’s deaths.   
      
   “The tragic deaths of these two beautiful young people will be   
   carefully and very thoroughly reviewed,” he said. “We have to and we   
   will close any gap that enables tragedies like this to occur.”   
      
   No other children were found in the home, and Hall is not believed   
   to have any other children, Harrison said. Part of the police   
   investigation includes determining whether Child Protective Services   
   was providing any supervision following the 2018 criminal case   
   against Hall when she was accused of setting the fire at her   
   mother’s apartment.   
      
   “That’s all part of the investigation,” Harrison said.   
      
   City Child Protective Services did not respond to a request for   
   comment Wednesday. A spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of   
   Human Services, which includes Child Protective Services, said   
   confidentiality laws prevent her from confirming the agency’s   
   involvement in the case.   
      
   Baltimore Police had issued an alert in October 2018 after Hall and   
   her children went missing, and Hall’s parents thought the mother and   
   the children could be harmed. The three were quickly found safe in   
   Baltimore County.   
      
   According to court records from that case, Hall’s mother and father   
   reported that Hall set fire to items, including family pictures and   
   mementos, after arranging them on a couch in her mother’s home. She   
   also burned other pictures in a frying pan, according to charging   
   documents.   
      
   The three had been staying with Hall’s parents for a night, the   
   records show.   
      
   Police wrote that smoke detectors had been removed from the home,   
   and those that were hard-wired had their wiring cut and backup   
   batteries removed from the home in the 100 block of Upmanor Road.   
      
   “A frying pan was observed in the second floor bedroom that   
   contained family photographs that appeared to have been set on   
   fire,” police wrote in court papers. “On the first floor, a   
   makeshift altar or shrine had been constructed on the dining table   
   from photographs that had been removed from the home’s walls. The   
   seating area of the sofa .. had family photographs carefully   
   arranged and displayed on it.”   
      
   While seeking her, Baltimore police learned she had admitted herself   
   and the children to Northwest Hospital in Baltimore County.   
      
   Child abuse investigators were called and asked Da’Neira about “the   
   fire at grandma’s house.”   
      
   “Mommy was doing that,” Da’Neira responded, according to charging   
   documents.   
      
   Hall was charged with first degree arson as well as endangering the   
   lives of her children, and pleaded guilty and received a five-year   
   sentence with all but one year suspended. She was ordered to pay   
   $3,000 restitution for the damage to the home.   
      
      
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