Rejanie Morris: Iowa woman charged for body-slamming her 9-yr-old autistic son
DES MOINES, IOWA: A woman has been taken into custody and charged for alleged body-slamming and thrashing her autistic son aggressively at a gas station. Rejanie Morris also allegedly punched a witness, who recorded the incident as well as intervened to stop the violence.
According to reports, the alleged incident took place on September 12 at a QuikTrip when the mother not just tossed the nine-year-old child, but also punched him in the back of the head. A witness named Michael Lomax recalled, “The child is screaming for his life. I'm like, 'Unhand him! Let him go!’” Lomax’s fiancé, Arekya Quinn, captured the event. That video showed Morris scolding the special needs kid inside the convenience store.
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You can watch the video here.
The child looked terrified while his mother twitched him up underneath his arms before tossing him into the gas station’s tiles. Another clip of the same incident showed the antagonistic Morris thrashing the child in the back of the head while he looked helpless and horror-struck. “She smacked his face, and that's when I came in, and I pushed her. Like, ‘Get off of him. You don't do that to a child,’” Quinn told KCCI.
Quinn also claimed to have wrestled Morris down to the ground to keep her away from her child. She had to punch her a number of times too. Des Moines Police Sergeant Paul Parizek said when cops responded to the scene, they saw the mother “screaming, yelling, and throwing property.” Morris was then detained. “Once we were able to get her in custody and she calmed down a little bit, what we learned was that prior to our arrival - she had actually assaulted her child twice,” Parizek noted.
The sergeant also spoke about the video of the alleged incident which bolstered the criminal case against Morris. He added: “To see it on video is horrifying. And you do become concerned about if she is going to do this in a public place, what kind of things are going on at home.” Meanwhile, the kid has now been put under the custody of the Department of Human Services in Iowa while Morris has been pressed with child endangerment and assault charges.
In another unrelated incident, a man was found guilty of murdering his autistic, nonverbal toddler son in 2018. Joseph Daniels was convicted of second-degree murder, first-degree murder in perpetration of a felony, aggravated child abuse, tampering with evidence, and initiating a false report on June 12 by a Dickson County jury. The ruling came three years after the Tennessee dad dialed 911 in April of that year to report that his kid, Joe Clyde, had gone missing from home. The next two days the authorities went looking for the victim before the accused confessed to killing him.
Joseph’s wife, Krystal Daniels, also reportedly confirmed the murder. She allegedly admitted to being present at the scene when her husband beat their child to death. Krystal was also then charged with aggravated child neglect for failing to protect the toddler. She remains behind bars in lieu of a $1 million bond.