Cash Gernon murder: Monica Sherrod recounts terrifying hours from his abduction to body being found on street
DALLAS, TEXAS: Four-year-old boy Cash Gernon was kidnapped and later found dead in Dallas in a case that has shocked the country. Cash was found dead in a Dallas neighborhood in a pool of blood eight blocks from his home after he was reportedly taken from his crib as he slept on May 15 morning. He was found with multiple wounds from an edged weapon and without shirt or shoes.
As per reports, an early-morning jogger found Cash’s body in the middle of Saddleridge Drive at about 7 am on Saturday. Cash and his twin brother were reportedly living at a home on Florina Parkway in Dallas’s Mountain Creek area.
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Cash and Carter were reportedly living with a woman called Monica Sherrod, who was originally reported to be the boys’ mother. But it was later revealed that Sherrod is the boys’ father Trevor Gernon’s ex girlfriend. Trevor has not been in the home since March - he fled after getting into legal troubles.
Sherrod reportedly called police just before 11 am on May 15 to report Cash missing and showed police home security footage showing a man lift a sleeping child out of his crib. Sherrod also reportedly identified the man as Darriynn Brown, who has since been arrested and charged. Brown is being held in Dallas County jail, in lieu of $1.5 million bail.
The 35-year-old woman said to the Daily Mail, “I haven't touched a thing,” in the aftermath of the abduction and killing. “It's exactly the same as when Cash was last in here. I haven't been able to do this until now. It's breaking my heart, but I know I have to confront this.”
Cash’s brother Carter has since been sent to his biological mother, Melinda Seagroves, and grandmother, Connie Ward, who had been searching for the boys for some time. Seagroves had believed they were with their father and had no idea he had left them with Sherrod. Sherrod said, “I loved those boys. They were not even my biological boys. I brought them into my home. I had made this room for them.”
Sherrod’s version of the kidnapping: a detailed timeline
5 am, May 15: Cash was seen being taken from his bed before daybreak at around 5 am. Speaking with the tabloid about the surveillance video, she said, “It shows [Brown] taking the blanket off Cash and shows him snatching him and running with him while he is still asleep. He stares at him for a minute. I have watched it over and over again. I can't watch it anymore. I'm wondering why we didn't hear him break in.”
7:30 am, May 15: “It's on video. He came back a second time, at around 7:30 am,” Sherrod said. “He came back for Carter but was scared off by something. You can see him on the video running out, like he is startled.” In the video, after the abduction of Cash, Brown could be seen reaching down and touching Carter, before wandering around the room. Seemingly disturbed by a sound, he could be seen fleeing the room, leaving the boy sleeping peacefully.
10 am, May 15: Sherrod said of the morning, “The day that he was missing, I got up late and thought it was weird. I was like, it's 10 o'clock already, you guys. So I figured Cash was still in bed. Carter goes, ‘he went outside.’ So we believed Carter. I started screaming, ‘Cash, if you're hiding from mommy it's not funny anymore. Come out it's time for breakfast.’ He wouldn't answer.”
Soon after, Sherrod’s sons began frantically searching the local area and yelling for Cash. “He wasn't answering and I knew something was wrong. I called 911… they [asked] when did I notice he was gone. I said immediately when I got up, when Carter woke me up. I didn't even think about the surveillance system.”
When reports of the body being found came, Sherrod said she was devastated and unwilling to believe it was Cash. “I was crying and confused and in a million pieces and praying they would still find Cash and that that little boy wasn't Cash,' she said. I kept telling my daughter, that's not Cash. And she said, ‘mommy, it has to be’.”